Blog Day 359 - Monday 22 March 2021

Apologies to all of my dear and dedicated readers for the occasional lapse in the production of the blog.  I have been a bit busy with some other engagements including attending a weekend long 40th birthday celebration at Mount Martha on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula.

One of the events held over the weekend was the wine blending demonstration and subsequent blending competition, professionally run by me ol mate Flashy.  With a bit of modesty I can admit that my team won the blending competition and with even more modesty admit that it was my blend that was the winning blend.  

View at Mt Martha

Boat

View of the city from Mt Martha

Even with my absence it would appear that nothing too dramatic has happened virus wise over the last few days.  Victoria has recorded 24 days without a local infection and the other states and territories are performing likewise.

The only ant in the jam is the glacial roll out of the vaccines, although with the local product about to be distributed thus should start to accelerate.

I think that Victoria is about to announce that this state will remain closed to ROTs until at least 30 April.  This indicates to me that nobody in authority has much confidence in our ability to manage the hotel quarantine system just yet.  In the meantime the state is incurring all the costs of running a hotel quarantine system without any actual quarantinees (I think that I made up a word there, but it is a pretty good one).  I for one am happy for Victoria not to take any ROTs but it makes the state government and various health services look pretty silly to the rest of the country.

In the last 24 hours there were 4 new infections reported Australia wide, all in Qld and all ROTs.  This was as a result of 9,400 tests in Victoria, 8,300 in NSW and 3,800 in Qld.

So, even though testing numbers are dropping off, although these results were from over weekend, no cases of community transmission are being discovered.

Currently there are 147 active cases nationally and of these 144 are ROTs.  Victoria has one active case a ROT, NSW has 57 active cases 55 of which are ROTs and Qld has 58 active cases of which 57 are ROTs.

To date, Australia wide there has been 258,760 vaccinations carried out.  55,000 in Victoria, 51,607 in NSW (estimated), 37,000 in Qld, the Feds estimate that they have done 50,000.  All in all this is nearly 1% of the Australian population, I think that we can all stand up and take a bow.  Meanwhile the UK has managed to vaccinate 43% of their population the US 37% and Israel has managed somehow to vaccinated 113% of their population.

It would appear that the worldwide infection numbers are not declining and if anything maybe increasing slightly on a daily basis.  Worldwide the deaths figures seem to be holding steady, but it would be better to see them declining.  In the last 24 hours there were 414,000 new infections worldwide and 5,785 deaths.  To date there has been nearly 124 million infections worldwide due to the pandemic and 2.727 million deaths.

At least the US and UK figures continue to decline.  The US reported 53,000 new infections in the 24 hours of 21/03 and 771 deaths in the same period.  The UK reported 5,600 new infections and 96 deaths in the same period.  The US figures seem to be flattening a bit but the UK is still showing a strong decline.

Compare these to Brazil who reported 79,000 new infections in the 24 hours of 21/03 and nearly 2,500 deaths.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – March 2021 – Covid Normal (for the time being)

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Aus ROTs Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Vic ROTS Increase	*Aus Active Infection	*Aus ROTs	Vic Active Infection	Vic ROTs
01/03	28,978	8	8	20,481	0	0	71	61	11	1
02/03	28,986	9	9	20,481	0	0	72	63	10	1
03/03	28,992	6	6	20,481	0	0	72	64	8	0
04/03	29,007	14	14	20,481	0	0	83	78	5	0
05/03	29,021	13	13	20,481	0	0	83	78	5	0
06/03	29,027	7	7	20,482	1	1	95	89	6	1
07/03	29,037	7	7	20,481	0	0	98	92	5	0
08/03	29,046	9	7	20,482	1	1	105	98	5	1
09/03	29,061	15	15	20,483	1	1	106	102	6	2
10/03	29,074	13	13	20,483	0	0	119	115	6	2
11/03	29,090	15	15	20,483	0	0	118	117	3	2
12/03	29,102	12	12	20,483	0	0	116		3	3
13/03	29,112	11	10	20,483	0	0	117		3	3
14/03	29,117	5	5	20,483	0	0	111		3	2
15/03	29,130	14	13	20,483	0	0	114	113	2	2
16/03
17/03
18/03
19/03
20/03
21/03
22/03	29,200	4	4	20,483	0	0	147	144	1	1
23/03

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
01/03/21	114,686,978	321,386	2,543,285	6,582
02/03/21	114,993,503	306,525	2,550,245	6,960
03/03/21	115,281,061	287,558	2,559,210	8,965
04/03/21	115,760,899	479,838	2,570,837	11,627
05/03/21	116,206,172	445,273	2,580,784	9,947
06/03/21	116,647,742	441,570	2,590,967	10,183
07/03/21	117,068,795	421,053	2,599,264	8,297
08/03/21	117,432,452	363,657	2,604,791	5,527
09/03/21	117,723,538	291,116	2,611,130	6,339
10/03/21	118,144,752	421,214	2,621,035	9,905
11/03/21	118,595,502	450,750	2,630,467	9,432
12/03/21
13/03/21
14/03/21
15/03/21	120,401,626	451,531	2,664,662	8,548
16/03/21
17/03/21
18/03/21
19/03/21
20/03/21	122,921,855		2,713,292
21/03/21	123,429,739	507,884	2,721,501	8,209
22/03/21	123,844,154	414,415	2,727,286	5,785
23/03/21

	US & UK Daily New Infections & Death Numbers
Date	US New Infections	US Daily Deaths	UK New Infections	UK Daily Deaths
01/03/21	51,204	1,097	6,055	144
02/03/21	57,439	1,431	5,462	104
03/03/21	56,758	1,924	6,411	343
04/03/21	65,909	2,360	6,420	487
05/03/21	65,447	1,775	6,644	242
06/03/21	66,786	1,758	6,024	236
07/03/21	57,596	1,485	6,118	159
08/03/21	40,903	669	5,260	82
09/03/21	50,237	719	4,823	65
10/03/21	55,909	1,891	5,869	231
11/03/21	57,939	1,554	6,021	190
12/03/21	62,404	1,557	6,835	181
13/03/21	61,204	1,769	6,684	176
14/03/21	52,642	1,701	5,617	122
15/03/21
16/03/21
17/03/21
18/03/21
19/03/21	60,381	1,611	6,332	95
20/03/21	61,413	1,445	4,872	100
21/03/21	52,753	771	5,639	96
22/03/21
23/03/21

Covid Normal Reminders;

Remember: not to look for naked ladies in every ink blot; to collect your Frequent Flyer points, you might be able to use them one day; don't burn your leaves in the gutter; don't air the family's dirty laundry in public; to be careful on wet & slippery staircases; cancel your holiday to Brazil.