Blog Day 502 - Monday 16 August 2021 - Day 11 of Covid Lockdown V6.0

Waiting on the daily presser, scuttlebutt is that this lockdown will be extended for a further two weeks with a reintroduction of a 9.00pm in the evening to 5.00am in the morning curfew, plus a closure of kiddies playgrounds.

It seemed like some sort of mass madness took over Melbourne over the weekend, a "eat, sip and walk" function in Richmond turned into a massive pub crawl, a street party outside a pub in Northcote seemed to be breaking the rules and lots of people were out and about enjoying the springlike sunshine.

Last week a certain ethnic/national/religious group of 69 people attended an engagement party and knowing full what they were doing was breaking the covid lockdown rules joked about it.  Foolishly somebody at the party videoed the speeches and then posted it on social media.  Unfortunately for them  at least one of the people that attended the function was infectious with the virus.

This particular time it wasn't the Irish to blame, it was a Jewish engagement party.  If this had been any other ethnic/religious group there would have been deadly silence about the nationality or religion of the group, but apparently the Jewish people are fair game.  The fact that they were Jewish has been plastered all over the media, would this have happened if they were Muslim, Hindu or Calathumpian?

In no way do I support the people attending the engagement party and they should all be punished to the full extent of the law and be fined, named and shamed like the NSW removalists. 

I think the best thing we did in Victoria in the first lockdown was to book a few little old ladies for sitting on a park bench or a learner driver for breaking the rules.  The publicity that these actions generated made us all realise the seriousness of the situation and that the we weren't playing a game.  Maybe we need a few of these events this time around to emphasise this lockdown is for real as well. 

The new lockdown rules have been announced.  Victoria is to continue its lockdown for a further two weeks up until 2nd September, this will include a curfew from 9.00pm to 5.00am, starting tonight.  Playgrounds, gyms etc are closed, permits required for authorised workers, no visitors in the home.  These restrictions are as tight as any we had in the major lockdowns last year.

Readers in FNQ, this is how you do a lockdown!

In the last 24 hours NSW recorded 480 new cases from 156,000 tests, they also recorded 7 deaths bringing the death toll for this wave of the pandemic in NSW to 56.  

The ACT has recorded 19 new infections and extended their lockdown to 02/09.

In Victoria we have recorded 22 new cases in the last 24 hours from the results of 30,000 tests, with 5 cases linked to mystery sources and 8 cases active in the community whilst infectious.  

NSW does not appear to be making any inroads into their figures at the moment.  A friend of mine works in the health system in NSW and I have been informed that she is getting tested every three days, the novelty would soon wear of that.

I haven't had a look at the international figures today, they are notoriously unreliable from the weekend so I will leave those for a couple of days.  I think that there is enough to absorb with local developments today.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – 16 August 2021 – Day 11 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
15/08
16/08	39,615	524	4	21,166	22	0	7,452		205
17/08