Blog Day 616 - Tuesday 14 December 2021 - Day 45 of Covid Nearly Normal

After a couple of weeks of socialising and living life on the edge things are nearly back to normal here for a little while.

Activities have included the musical Moulin Rouge at the Regent Theatre, the Van Gough immersive exhibition thing, a visit to the movies to see the new James Bond movie, thanksgiving lunch/day, various lunches and dinners and visits to wineries for tastings and lunch.

I have the Shrine volunteer lunch at the Melbourne City town hall tomorrow so that will be a bit of a 'knees up' and possibly a couple of ales at Y & J afterwards.

So I will squeeze in a quick blog update whilst I can.

The Moulin Rouge musical was excellent, incredible production, and well worth the money. It was great to see folk out and about even if nobody was sure whether they had to wear their masks or not.  I will pop in a couple of photos of the inside of the theatre before the show started that will give you an idea of the the extravagance of the set.

The music was interesting, none of the music was written for the show and it was all reasonably contemporary stuff of which I didn't recognise much of.  It was funny that when a song was sung probably originally sung by Taylor Swift or sumsuch three quarters of the audience went "aaahhhh" in recognition of the music.  However when they sang a Nat King Cole song (Nature Boy if you are interested) I think that I was the only one in the audience that went "aaahhhhh".

And of course in my absence the covid keeps rolling along.  Now that they have made the booster available at five months I can line up for my third shot which I intend doing shortly.

Good to see the various state borders opening up, apart from WA of course and they are just pissed off because they didn't get the 5th cricket test, and good luck to Tassie who got the cricket test instead of WA.

As you will see from the table below Victoria's daily infection rate is not dropping with 1,189 new cases reported in the last 24 hours from 54,000 test results received.  These figures are now translating into an increase in covid hospitalisations, ICU patients and patients on ventilators.  Currently there are 364 patients in hospital with the virus an increase from 310 a week ago.  Currently there are 80 patients in ICU an increase from 45 a week ago and 44 on ventilators up from 19 a week ago.

NSW's daily infection rates have also jumped rather alarmingly from 400 last week to 804 in the last 24 hours.

Six people have died in Victoria in the last 24 hours due to the virus.

Current vaccination rates as per below, by the looks of it in Victoria and NSW it would appear that we have reached the peak of of 'easy' vaccinations, there rest is going to be a bit of a slog.

    State                    1st Dose                2nd Dose

    Vic                        93.6%                    91.8%

    NSW                    94.8%                    93.2%

    Qld                       88.6%                    82.0%

    Aus                        93.4%                    89.5%

I am wondering what infection, hospitalisation, death rate is acceptable under the minimisation program as oppose to elimination.  Is there a point where somebody says that minimisation isn't working as expected and we have to go in hard again to get things back under control?

Corona Virus Daily Stats – 14 December 2021 – Day 45 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
01/12					1,179	251
02/12					1,419	271
03/12	214,881	1,538	92.6%	125,474	1,189	337	15,999	2,851	12,913	87.4%
04/12					1,349	323
05/12					966	281
06/12	219,123	1,281	92.8%	128,862	1,073	208	20,006	3,251	16,503	88.0%
07/12
08/12					1,312	403
09/12					1,232	420
10/12
11/12					1,193	560
12/12
13/12					1,240	536
14/12	232,766	2,015	93.4%	138,409	1,189	804	16,743	5,179	11,051	89.5%
15/12

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 14 December 2021 – Day 45 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
01/12						299	43	18		5
02/12						288	41	20		10
03/12	1,538	509	71	32	1,189	289	43	22	11	11
04/12					1,349					8
05/12					966					7
06/12	1,281	556	72	24	1,073	310	45	19	4	6
07/12
08/12
09/12
10/12
11/12
12/12
13/12
14/12	2,015	612	102	53	1,189	364	80	44	7	6
15/12