Blog Day 506 - Friday 20 August 2021 - Day 15 of Covid Lockdown V6.0

Anybody longing for the days of the Trump presidency yet?  Poor old Sleepy Joe (SJ) has just shown the rest of the world how out of his depth he is.  I knew there was going to be a problem a few weeks ago when SJ got a bit confused about the difference between Syria and Libya, I reckon he now thinks that he has pulled the troops out of Albania not Afghanistan.

In one of his speeches yesterday he started to refer to the collapse of the Taliban until he corrected himself and changed it to the collapse of the Afghani National Army.

SJ has said that he is surprised by how quickly the Afghani government and military collapsed after the American withdrawal.  I wonder what he was expecting would happen.

And in a first the North America correspondent for The Age, Matthew Knott, has been critical of a Democrat office holder.  Knott usually finds excuses for the failings of the Democrats in the USA but he has been quite scathing of SJ's handling of this matter and of SJ's public appearances attempting to defend his position.  Following is an extract from a recent article by Knott in The Age;

"Even by Biden’s standards, his answers were notably inarticulate and disjointed. Any viewers questioning his leadership would only have come out with their doubts strengthened".

Our own literati, intelligensia, media and advice offering reality "stars" seem to have gone vewy vewy quiet (as the great philosopher Elmer Fudd once said).

And really does SJ have to wear his carpet slippers everywhere?

Back to the good ol Covid.  A worker at a Glenroy kindergarten has refused to be tested even though the site has been declared a tier one exposure site and a primary school at the same location has been linked to 45 active infection cases.

Apparently it is not illegal to refuse a test and nothing can be done to make this person undertake a test.  Because this person has refused to be tested all close contacts of the person, meaning children who attend the kinder and their families all have to do another 14 days of isolation on top of the 14 days already served.

Whilst not in any way encouraging vigilante activity I reckon this person will need to be careful where they go when allowed out of iso.

In the last 24 hours Victoria reported 57 new infections, of these 49 are from known sources, 6 are mystery cases and worryingly 30 were not isolated during their infectious period.  One case has been discovered in Shepparton and raises the possibility of reinstated regional lockdowns.  

NSW is still fighting the good fight but not getting very far with 646 new cases reported in the last 24 hours and four more deaths.

Australia wide there were 716 new cases reported bringing the total number of active cases nationally to 9,496 of which NSW accounts for 8,978, Victoria has 349 and Qld 68.

In the last 24 hours Victoria received the results of 48,000 tests, NSW 128,000 and Qld 14,000.

New Zealand has reported 10 new cases in the last 24 hours bringing their current total to 31, and they have reported that they have 3 cases in Wellington.  Up until now the active cases were restricted to Auckland.  Both Auckland & Wellington have been placed into limited lockdowns.

Worldwide the infection rates and death rates are continuing to climb, I daresay as a result of the spread of the Delta variant of the virus.  There were 667,000 new infections reported worldwide in the last 24 hours and 10,210 deaths.  June and July the daily infection rates got down to the 300,000 and 400,000 although the death rate has remained reasonably constant.

In the US the daily infection rate for the most recent 24 hour period was 138,000 and 1,145 deaths; India reported 35,000 new infections and 440 deaths; the UK 34,000 new infections and 111 deaths; Brazil 40,000 new infections and 1,064 deaths.

Apart from India and the UK the reporting of the daily figures remains inconsistent but it appears to be a bit of a pattern of increasing infection rates but the death rates whilst increasing do not appear to be increasing proportionally to the infection rates.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – 20 August 2021 – Day 15 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 ROT
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						NSW Increase		NSW Active Infection
16/08	39,615	524	4	21,166	22	0	7,452		205
17/08
18/08	40,774	684	5	21,215	24	0	8,455		246
19/08
20/08	42,228	716	4	21,328	57	646	9,496	8,978	349
21/08