Blog Day 596 - Tuesday 23 November 2021 - Day 25 0f Covid Nearly Normal

 Isn't it great when the karma bus comes along and people get to reap a little of what they sow.  As I briefly mentioned last week the state government and principally the premier have been trying to railroad through some draconian pandemic legislation to replace the existing legislation that the pandemic restrictions have been operating under.

This legislation if passed will enshrine the premier as Dear Leader for Life (DLfL) and probably his son and his son's son and so on.

So, what has happened?  As the government has the majority in the lower house of the state parliament the bill proposing the new legislation was passed immediately without a hiccough, however then the bill had to get through the upper house and that is when the fun and games began.

You see the government doesn't have a majority in the upper house and depends on the votes of some of the independents to pass their legislation.  There are something like 11 independents in the upper house and the government has to get three of these to vote with them to achieve a majority.

As you could imagine these independents come from all sorts of ragtag single issue groups and trying to deal with them would be like herding cats.  Anyway, the government managed to get three independents on side so it looked like the legislation was going to be passed.

And then what happened? I hear you say.  Well, a certain disgraced ex Labour member of parliament by the name of Adam Somuyrek (AS) who had been sacked from his ministerial post and sacked from the Labor party because of a branch stacking scandal has decided to turn up and take his seat in the upper house of parliament after an absence of 12 or so months.

Do you think he is going to support his old party in this critical vote, I don't think so.  So, AS has well and truly upset the apple cart, cause no longer does the government have the necessary majority to pass the legislation.  I would love to have been in the premier's office when his cunning plan started to unravel, I reckon their would have been a bit of choice language not suited to being repeated to my dear and gentle readers.

The only option left to the premier and his cronies was to convert another independent to their cause.  The problem here was that the premier and his cronies have tended to treat the independents rather poorly, not giving them any respect you could say.  When the premier had the three independents on side and looked like the vote was going through the rest were ignored, nobody in the government would even talk them, they didn't receive any information or briefings and generally were treated like crap.  So now the shoe was on the other foot, were any of these good folk going to support the government legislation, no sireeeeee.  Did somebody say "pride commeth before a fall".

Now, the premier is a proud man and having to go cap in hand to the independents would have hurt him greatly, he doesn't negotiate, not even with people in his own party, it is his way or the highway.  He may not achieve DLfL status, may not even be seen as Churchillian, starting to look a bit Whitlamish if you ask me.  (And I don't mean Whitlamish in a good way).

Some of the independents have said that there is no way they will support the legislation in any form, a couple have said that they may support it with significant amendments.

To make it even more interesting the current legislation that supports things like mandatory vaccinations etc expires on 16th December.  

Watch this space.

Victoria is still grinding slowly towards the 90% vaccinated figure, at the moment 89.2% of the eligible population (including +12 year olds) have been double vaxxed and 96.4% single vaxxed.  Nationally 85.1% of the eligible population have been double vaxxed and 91.5% single vaxxed.

The figures in Victoria have been a bit topsy turvy over the last week, in the last 24 hours we recorded 827 new infections.  This was down from 1,029 new infections the previous day and 1,275 the day before.

Although daily new infections don't appear to be declining as quick as we would like the hospital figures are continuing to come down.  Currently there are 303 Victorians in hospital due to the virus, with 44 in ICU and 23 on ventilators.  A week ago these figures were 394, 72 and 44 respectively.

After a few days of deaths being reported in the 3's, 4's and 5's we had 18 covid related deaths in the last 24 hours.  Hopefully this is more of an aberration than a predictor of things to come.

        Corona Virus Daily Stats – 23 November 2021 – Day 25 of Covid Nearly Normal

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
30/10	169,379	1,601	87.9%	87,918	1,355	237	25,314	3,972	21,095	76.2%
31/10					930	166
01/11					1,437	129
02/11					956	171
03/11					909	187
04/11	175,830	1,556	88.7%	93,373	1,247	309	20,971	3,144	17,674	78.5%
05/11					1,343
06/11	178,927	1,559	89%	95,917	1,268	271	19,984	3,168	16,662	79.6%
07/11		1,433			1,126
08/11		1,326			1,087
09/11	182,870	1,313	89.4%	99,183	1,069	224	18,607	2,831	15,607	80.6%
10/11					1,003
11/11	185,627	1,589	89.7%	101,451	1,313	264	18,498	2,799	15,675	81.5%
12/11					1,115
13/11					1,221
14/11	189,407	1,116	90.3%	104,665	905	196	20,423	2,928	17,302	82.8%
15/11					838
16/11	191,623	1,021	90.5%	106,281	797	212	17,204	2,864	14,131	83.2%
17/11					996
18/11					1,007
19/11					1,273
20/11					1,166
21/11					1,275
22/11					1,029
23/11	200,650	1,020	91.5%	113,755	827	173	12,294	2,632	9,420	85.1%

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 23 November 2021 – Day 25 of Covid Nearly Normal
Date	Aus New Infection	Aus Hospital	Aus ICU	Aus Ventilate	Vic New Infection	Vic Hospital	Vic ICU	Vic Ventilate	AUS Daily Deaths	Vic Daily Deaths
30/10	1,601	1,113	222	121	1,355	747	135	83	14	11
31/10										11
01/11										3
02/11										9
03/11					909					8
04/11	1,556	979	180	110	1,247	660	114	78	13	9
05/11					1,343				14	10
06/11	1,559	932	162	98	1,268	651	106	70	10	7
07/11									10	9
08/11									12	5
09/11	1,313	849	133	76	1,069	579	90	55	14	10
10/11									17	14
11/11	1,589	703	119	64	1,313	457	79	48	4	3
12/11						426	82	50	11	9
13/11						405	77	51	4	4
14/11	1,116	639	107	62	905	394	75	46	5	4
15/11						378	78	48	6	5
16/11	1,021	625	105	61	797	394	72	44	10	8
17/11										9
18/11										12
19/11										8
20/11										5
21/11										4
22/11										3
23/11	1,020	548	80	38	827	303	44	23	1,968	18