Blog Day 500 - Saturday 14 August 2021 - Day 9 of Covid Lockdown V6.0

Big day today, day 500 of the blog.  Although I haven't written the blog every day of the 500 I still think that it is a fair old effort on my part (even if I say so myself) to have kept it going this long.  I wonder how much longer this will all go on for, looking at the figures around the country I daresay it will be around for a while yet.

A funny thing happened on my virus approved walk yesterday.  I was walking past the shops in Centre Road and I walked past an older lady with a little black dog.  As I walked past the lady said to the dog "you are a good boy" and I said without thinking, "thankyou very much" and kept on walking.  I heard this loud guffaw of laughter behind and I could hear the lady continuing to laugh as I walked down the street.

So continues my quest to bring a little sunshine into the lives if those I meet along the way in these dark days. 

Talking about dark days it has just been announced that all of NSW is going into lockdown at 5.00pm this afternoon for seven days.  Given the current figures and the spread of the virus I very much doubt that this will be lifted in seven days.

In the last 24 hours NSW recorded 466 new local infections as a result of 129,000 tests.  NSW also reported a further 4 deaths, 378 people in hospital due to the virus with 64 in ICU and 29 on ventilators.  These numbers must really be putting some pressure on the contract tracing and health and medical systems.  I think that Sydney has already been in lockdown for 8 weeks and the virus has now spread to regional areas such as Dubbo and Walgett.  I have been to Walgett and for the life of me I can't understand why even a virus would want to go there.

Victoria is still reporting worrying numbers of daily new infections but nothing compared to NSW.  In the last 24 hours Victoria reported 21 new local infections of which 8 are from an unknown source and 10 were active in the community whilst infected.  Victoria received the results of 34,000 tests in the last 24 hours.

Vaccination numbers continue to increase, on 13/8 Victoria applied 64,000 vaccine doses, NSW 106,000 and Qld 49,000.  

The worldwide figures are interesting with a number of countries reporting significant increases in daily infection rates but the death rates are not increasing proportionally.  Take the US and UK figures below as an example.

On 13/8 the US reported 117,000 new daily infections and 614 deaths.  On 03/02 the US reported 115,000 new infections and 3,400 deaths.

Similarly on 132/8 the UK reported 33,000 new infections and 95 deaths.  On 24/01 they reported 34,000 new infections and 1,352.

The big question is; are the lower death rates as a result of a good proportion of the population in both countries being vaccinated or is it just the lag between the increase in infections and the increase in deaths, lets hope that it is the former.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – 14 August 2021 – Day 9 of Covid Lockdown V6.0

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
01/08
02/08	34,612	230	8	20,950	2	0	3,338	100	134	?
03/08
04/08
05/08
06/08	35,698	308	0	20,967	6	0	4,252	129	75	7
07/08
08/08	36,328	290	15	21,010	13	2	4,730	121	100	4
09/08
10/08	37,010	383	4	21,041	20	0	5,335	121	111	3
11/08
12/08	37,754	382	3	21,079	23	0	5,884	105	137	2
13/08
14/08	36,658	497	2	21,119	21	0	6,593	109	163	2