Blog Day 546 - Wednesday 29 Sept 2021 - Day 55 of Covid Lockdown V6.0 Extended

Better late than never I s'pose, Victoria has finally kicked off "National Plan: Phase A" of the roadmap.  This was supposed to happen when Victoria achieved 80% of the eligible population having received their 1st injection and was forecast to happen last Sunday night.  This morning somebody from the government said that Victoria had reached the 80% first vaccination mark however the press reports we showing 78.7% and the DHSS website was showing 79.5%, so who is fudging the figures here.  Probably at a stretch 79.5% could be rounded up to 80% or just as easily rounded down to 79%.

One of the outcomes of the implementation of Phase A is that we can travel 15km from our home instead of 10km.  I've got a question, does this 15km zone from my home extend vertically?  Say if I had a helicopter in my backyard and I rose vertically further than 15km am I breaking the covid restrictions?  Good question I hear you all saying.

If anything could get more ridiculous in this state of ours, Worksafe Victoria is taking the Victorian Health Department to court for failing to provide a safe workplace for those employed in the hotel quarantine fiasco last year.  It would appear that the charges are against the department and not against any individuals, why is that so you say, I and I say buggered if I know.  (Although hazarding a guess I would suggest it is somewhat political - no ministers being held responsible, yet again).

As it stands any penalty will be against the department so, assuming the department is fined say $500,000 who pays it?  Certainly won't be any individual in the government or the department, so that leaves the poor old long suffering residents of Victoria.  

And while all the shenanigans are going on the the daily infection figures and death rate in this state continue to rise and nobody in charge appears to give a toss.  Just let the vaccination program take care of it sometime in the future appears to be the current attitude.

In the last 24 hours Victoria recorded 950 new infections and 7 deaths.  Last year these figures would have had the authorities running around doing Chicken Little impersonations yelling the "sky is falling, the sky is falling", currently the premier doesn't even bother turning up for the media conference.  While the infections and deaths are largely limited to the northern and western suburbs the rest of us don't have much to worry about, but that is hardly the attitude, remember "we are all in this together" and all the other platitudes that were buzzing around.

NSW has recorded 866 new infections and 15 deaths, their new infection figures appear to be declining at last.

Victoria received the results of 61,000 tests in the last 24 hours and NSW 120,000.

Australia wide 52.6% of the eligible population are fully vaccinated and 48.4% of the Victorian population are fully vaccinated.  76.7% of the eligible Australian population have received one shot and 78.8% (lets call it 80%) of the Victorian population likewise.

In the USA they recorded 185,000 new infections in the last 24 hours and 2,394 deaths, while the UK reported 38,000 new infections and 40 deaths in the same period.  Difficult to say what is happening in the US due to the daily variance in their figures but there doesn't appear to be any improvement.  The UK daily infections figures appear to be gradually increasing again but the daily death figures appear to be stable.

     Corona Virus Daily Stats – 29 September 2021 – Day 55 of Covid Lockdown V6.0 Extended

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Aus 1st Dose Vacc	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	NSW Increase	*Aus Active Infection	NSW Active Infection	Vic Active Infection	Aus 2nd Dose Vacc
01/09
02/09	56,564	1,482		22,361	176	1,288	21,481	20,148	1,029
03/09	58,288	1,660		22,570	209	1,433	22,767	21,296	1,180
04/09
05/09	61,619	1,686		22,942	183	1,487	25,590	23,903	1,417
06/09
07/09	64,641	1,487		23,433	246	1,222	28,131	26,082	1,786
08/09
09/09
10/09
11/09
12/09	73,625	1,669	66.9%	25,136	392	1,262	19,206	15,798	3,112	41.9%
13/09
14/09	76,901	1,605	68.5%	26,036	445	1,136	18,553	14,460	3,799	43.2%
15/09
16/09	80,400	1,883	69.2%	26,942	514	1,351	18,956	14,299	4,370	43.9%
17/09
18/09	84,055	1,884	70.5%	27,968	535	1,333	19,526	14,272	4,974	45.4%
19/09
20/09	87,128	1,514	71.7%	29,008	567	936	20,926	14,984	5,675	46.7%
21/09
22/09					620	1,021
23/09					745	1,043
24/09	93,942	1,796	74.1%	31,679	733	1,044	19,585	12,173	7,160	49.3%
25/09	95,807	1,887	74.8%	32,515	847	1,007	19,807	11,928	7,611	50.1%
26/09	97,583	1,768	75.4%	33,273	779	964	19,940	11,658	8,011	51%
27/09					705	788
28/09					867	866
29/09	102,723	1,839	76.7%	35,904	950	866	20,542	10,381	9,890	52.6%
30/09