Blog Day 642 - Tuesday 11 January 2022 - Day 73 of Covid Nearly Normal

 Who would have thought it, more sports stories in my blog.

The fourth cricket test in Sydney finished excitedly as a draw, what's that I hear you say "how after five days of play can a draw be exciting"?  Well, let me explain.  In very simple terms, the Australians declared near the end of play on day four leaving the poms a nearly impossible score to make on day five to win the game, so the best the poms could play for was a draw, and the Australians had to bowl them out for a win.

As the fifth day of play proceeded it was obvious that the English couldn't make the runs but could they hang on for draw?  By the third last over of the day, the English were eight wickets down but they only had to bat out the rest of the day for a draw and the Australians had to get two wickets for a win.

Second last over and the poms were complaining about the light and protested that if they had to bat against a fast bowler they would walk off due to bad light.  So the Aussies could only play their spinners.  So who bowled the second last over, a part time spinner Steve Smith, the formerly disgraced captain of the Australian team.  

Smith got a wicket in the second last over leaving Australia with one wicket to get in the last over to win the match.  Therefore until the last ball of the five day match Australia could have won or England could achieve a draw.  The crowd at the ground and those of us watching at home were on the edge of our seats for every ball bowled of the last over, one of the English players watching from the sidelines had his t-shirt over his head as he couldn't watch.

The result - England batted out the last over and achieved a draw, and who said test cricket isn't exciting!

The teams go into the fifth and final test at Hobart on Friday with a three/zero scoreline in favour of the Australians, and Australia has already retained the ashes.

And now for the second sports story.  This is of course the ongoing saga of the tennis player Novak Djokovic.  You may recall that late last week ND was locked away in hotel quarantine prior to being deported for failing to comply with Australia's covid rules for entry to the country.

ND and his legal team took this matter to court and the case was heard in the Federal Court on Monday.  For reasons that I don't really understand the court ordered that the deportation order be set aside and that ND be released from hotel quarantine immediately.

From what I can see the judge said that ND hadn't been allowed sufficient time to provide his evidence to Border Force and in my words he had been denied natural justice.

It doesn't appear that ND's claim that as he had previously been infected with the covid virus this was sufficient to allow him to enter the country was tested in the court.

The federal immigration minister can still cancel ND's visa and send him packing, if this occurs ND will banned from making a visa application to enter Australia for three years.  We are still waiting on the minister's decision on this.

I don't understand why ND didn't just get vaccinated and save everybody the trouble.

The AFLW season started over the weekend, and as interesting as it is I don't have time to report on it today.  I wonder if any team scored more goals than an average soccer score.

After the sporting round up let's get back to the really important stuff, the covid figures.

Not much movement in the vaccination figures so for something different I have copied in the table below providing details of booster shots administered.

Total Boosters Administered

STATE	BOOSTER	VAR	NET
NSW	1,230,408		-
Victoria	925,880		-
Queensland	709,133		-
SA	268,696		-
ACT	79,442		-
Tasmania	83,996		-
NT	31,847		-
WA	302,309		-
Australia	3,651,855

All the figures today are a bit erratic, the booster shot total hasn't bee updated from the figures of 10/01 although the state figures are now available.

I will post the tables below but I don't have any confidence in the new daily infection figures for Victoria.  I'm thinking that there are still issues with the recording of the RAT results resulting in an under reporting of the true infection figures.

Lets monitor this for the next couple of days and see if they start to make any sense.

Probably the most important figures to keep an eye on at the moment are the hospitalisation numbers.  Currently there are 861 patients in hospital in Victoria due to the virus this is an increase from 752 two days before.  The Victorian ICU figures have gone from 104 to 117 in the same period and ventilators from 23 to 27.  The hospital system is now under a bit of pressure particularly with staff shortages caused by staff having to isolate either as a result of testing positive or being a close contact of an infected person.

In the last 24 hours there were 13 covid related deaths in Victoria and 24 Australia wide.  

    Corona Virus Daily Stats – 11 January 2021 – Day 73 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
01/01					7,442		158,782		24,161
02/01	460,657	29,947	93.5%	191,148	7,172	18,278	187,258	124,624	31,461	90.4%
03/01					8,577	20,794
04/01					14,020	23,131
05/01	601,169	53,557	93.6%	231,126	17,636	35,054	283,792	184,413	51,317	90.5%
06/01					21,743	34,960
07/01	762,458	78,160	93.8%	274,390	21,728	38,625	392,109	234,066	69,680	90.8%
08/01					51,356	45,098
09/01	972,455	94,662	93.9%	369,362	44,155	30,062	560,023	292,237	146,863	91.0%
10/01					35,843	20,293
11/01	1,115,610	65,243	93.9%	443,787	37,994	25,870	613,502	315,785	171,369	91.0%
12/01

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 11 January 2022 – Day 73 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
01/01									14	9
02/01	29,947	1,950	145	48	7,172	472	52	22	4	3
03/01									7	3
04/01									5	2
05/01	53,557	2,904	196	56	17,636	591	53	20	19	11
06/01									12	6
07/01	78,160	2,900	274	65	21,728	644	106	24	20	6
08/01									26	9
09/01	94,662	3,304	298	73	44,155	752	104	23	21	4
10/01									22	2
11/01	65,243	3,721	334	86	37,994	861	117	27	24	13
12/01