Blog Day 377 - Friday 09 April 2021

This corona virus and hotel quarantine is a gift that keeps on giving.  This is the scenario, it is a condition of working in hotel quarantine that you have to be vaccinated against the virus.  Some quarantine hotel workers are refusing to be vaccinated therefore they are unable to be employed in their designated roles.  I think that under these circumstances you or I would point out the conditions of employment to these individuals and if they didn't comply there would be a parting of the ways.

But, in the workers paradise of Victoria these wayward people are sent home and kept on full pay.  

Victoria's acting Police and Emergency Services Minister, Danny Pearson, (Danny who? has anybody heard of him before?), stated "if you are not vaccinated you can't work in a quarantine hotel".  Maybe he should of stated that you can't have your snout in the public trough either!

The State of Victoria has started to accept ROTs and after two days there has not been an outbreak of the virus from hotel quarantine, this must nearly be a record for this state.

Not so good news from NZ where there has been a local infection of a hotel quarantine worker, so far there hasn't been any further community transmission.  Any danger to the Aus - NZ travel bubble here?

The following was announced in today's Age, these suburbs have show signs of the virus in the sewage as a result of poo testing.  

"People who live in or have visited Clayton, Clayton South, Dingley Village, Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Mulgrave, Notting Hill, Springvale, Springvale South and Wheelers Hill and who have even mild COVID-19 symptoms are being urged to get tested".

There doesn't seem to be much concern over this and the positive results are probably due to previously contagious people now shedding the virus and are hopefully no longer contagious or even showing symptoms.  Although I must admit some of these suburbs are a bit close to home.

I wonder what a poo tester does when there isn't a pandemic?

Victoria has now recorded 42 days without a community transmission and is still recording all the zeroes, including ROTs in hotel quarantine.  Australia wide there were 3 new infections reported, all ROTs; two in NSW and one in Qld.

Victoria received the results of 18,500 tests in the last 24 hours; NSW 14,000 tests and Qld nearly 10,000.  

Australia has administered just over a million doses of the vaccine although what this means in terms of percentage of the population fully inoculated, ie two doses, I have no idea.

Currently there are 131 active virus cases Australia wide of which 113 are ROTs.  NSW has 41 active cases including 40 ROTs and Qld has 63 active cases of which 46 are ROTs.

Worldwide the daily figures continue to look grim.  In the last 24 hours there were 557,000 new infections reported worldwide and 605,000 the day before.  In the last 24 hours there were 14,133 deaths reported worldwide and 11,801 reported the day before.  

Both the new infection and death figures are climbing again in the US.  In the last 24 hours there were 75,000 new infections reported and 62,000 the day before.  In the last 24 hours the US reported 2,797 deaths compared to 835 the day before and 596 the day before that.  There has to be a reason for such a high figure in the last 24 hours, either it is misreporting or an adjustment for previously deaths not reported accurately.  We will see if there are any adjustments in future figures.

The UK is still holding its ground with low figures in new infections and deaths.  In the last 24 hours the UK reported 2,800 new infections and 45 deaths.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for Brazil with 93,000 new infections reported in the last 24 hours and 87,000 the day before that.  Brazil also reported 3,800 deaths in the last 24 hours and 4,200 in the day before that.  To put it into some sort of perspective this is the population of Gisborne or Yarrawonga dying every day.

Turkey's woes continue with 54,800 new infections reported in the last 24 hours.  A week ago Turkey reported a daily infection figure of 39,000 and the week before that 29,000.  So far their death rate is reasonably low at 276 deaths in the last 24 hours, however I would expect this to rise when the increase in infections catches up.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – April 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
01/04	29,323	17	11	20,484	0	0	163		1	1
02/04	29,335	8	7	20,484	0	0	159	147	1	1
03/04	29,341	6	5	20,484	0	0	151	143	1	1
04/04	29,348	7	7	20,484	0	0	143		1	1
05/04	29,357	9	9	20,484	0	0	149		1	1
06/04	29,363	7	7	20,484	0	0	148	129	1	1
07/04	29,377	12	12	20,484	0	0	147	128	1	1
08/04	29,385	6	6	20,484	0	0	140		0	0
09/04	29,388	3	3	20,484	0	0	131	113	0	0
10/04

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
01/04/21	128,822,013	683,042	2,815,151	12,262
02/04/21	129,524,770	711,626	2,827,020	11,861
03/04/21	130,235,782	628,853	2,837,694	10,189
04/04/21	130,768,885	533,103	2,846,114	8,420
05/04/21	131,217,283	448,398	2,852,494	6,380
06/04/21	131,714,949	394,108	2,860,077	7,105
07/04/21	132,418,417	605,501	2,872,438	11,801
08/04/21	132,975,564	557,147	2,886,571	14,133

	US & UK Daily New Infections & Death Numbers
Date	US New Infections	US Daily Deaths	UK New Infections	UK Daily Deaths
01/04/21	66,173	1,042	4,115	43
02/04/21	78,445	1,048	4,565	51
03/04/21	69,822	967	3,422	52
04/04/21	62,154	676	3,424	10
05/04/21	34,282	222	2,405	10
06/04/21	78,279	596	2,831	28
07/04/21	61,958	835	2,404	20
08/04/21	74,628	2,563	2,797	45