Blog Day 677 - Tuesday 15 February 2022 - Day 108 of Covid Nearly Normal

This morning on the radio they had a caller from Rooty Hill in NSW, now this is one of my three favourite Australian place names.  The three in order of amusement are Yorkeys Knob near Cairns, Rooty Hill a Sydney Suburb and Fanny Bay in Darwin.  Of course Fanny Bay was also the site of the well known Fanny Bay gaol.

I was also always amused when travelling overseas to hear Americans refer to what we would call a bum bag as a fanny pack or fanny bag. 

Although desperately trying to avoid anything relating to the Winter Olympics (WO) it is almost impossible with the Australians doing so well.  An Australian competitor in some sort of winter competition was with all modesty telling us that she had showed the rest of the world how good she was by coming fifth, yes that's right, fifth, in her particular competition.

Has anybody else noticed that 90% of the WO sports involves sitting, standing or lying down on some sort of platform and then allowing gravity to do the rest.  Really, is that so terribly difficult?

I think that I have also discovered why we don't often do terribly well in the WO.  To do well in most of the WO sports you need two things, mountains & snow of which in international terms we don't have much of either, especially the competitors from Queensland.

A young Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) ice skater was pinged before the games with banned drugs in her system but because she is only 15 and everybody feels sorry for her she is allowed to continue to compete.

Remember, the Russian competitors have to compete under the banner of the ROC as Russia is not allowed to compete as a nation due to institutionalised drug taking of it's athletes.  Hmmmmm, well that appears to have worked well.

The other day I mentioned that I would have a look at the Tasmanian covid pandemic figures, well consider it done

Tasmania has a population of 541,071 (as at Sept 2021) which is 2.11% of the Australian population of 25,690,000.  To date Tasmania has recorded a total 35,784 infections for the pandemic which is 1.22% of the national figure.  Currently Tasmania has 3,033 active infections which is 1.86% of the national total of current infections.  Tasmania has recorded 23 covid related deaths for the entire pandemic with the most recent occurring on 10 February 2021.  Twenty three deaths is .49% of the total number of pandemic deaths nationally.

Compared to Tasmania's 23 deaths in total for the pandemic Victoria has recorded 2,306 with 22 deaths in the last 48 hours.  Compared the Tasmania's .49% of the national deaths, Victoria with 26% of the national population has recorded 49% of the deaths.

As we can see with 2.11% of the Australian population Tasmania is doing remarkably well on all measurements of the effect of the covid pandemic.  The Tasmanian percentages of total infections, current active infections and covid related deaths are well below what could be expected based on the population base.

Furthermore, Tasmania currently has only 10 patients in hospital due to covid with one in ICU and zero on ventilators.  Compare this to Victoria with 441 covid patients in hospital, 67 in ICU and 14 on ventilators.

And finally, Queenslanders take notice, greater than 99% (95.9%) of the eligible Tasmanians have had their 1st vaccine shot, 97.1% (94.0%) have had their 2nd and 50.3% (48.7%) their third (booster).   I have inserted the national vaccination figures in brackets after the Tasmanian numbers.

By any measurement the Tasmanian figures are excellent, I suppose being an island helps and being closed off to the rest of the nation and the world for the last two years has obviously had an effect.  And as the old saying goes maybe, "two heads are better than one"!😂

Also I haven't been able to calculate the economic effect of such a lengthy term of isolation for the state, particularly given it's reliance on interstate and overseas tourism.  Was it worth it?  I will leave that to others to decide.

And so that you can all see how your state is doing in the great vaccination race I have attached the very informative table below;

Doses by Age Band 16+

STATE	FIRST	SECOND	THIRD
NSW	95.6%	94.2%	48.5%
Victoria	94.5%	93.2%	50.3%
Queensland	92.4%	90.3%	43.2%
SA	94.1%	91.4%	49.5%
ACT	>99%	>99%	61.9%
Tasmania	>99%	97.1%	49.1%
NT	90.8%	87.8%	41.5%
WA	96.8%	93.7%	50.3%
Australia	95.9%	94.0%	48.7%

So, current figures as below, Vic new daily infections are gradually decreasing, hospital numbers are also declining although the daily death numbers, although inconsistent, do not appear to be declining as yet.  The decline in death numbers maybe running a couple of weeks behind the declining hospital numbers.

    Corona Virus Daily Stats – 15 February 2021 – Day 108 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
01/02					11,311	12,818
02/02	2,614,706	38,379	94.9%	877,553	14,553	11,807	293,675	129,942	73,886	92.4%
03/02					12,157	12,632
04/02	2,668,333	22,508	95.0%	900,950	11,240	10,698	253,603	102,847	65,968	92.6%
05/02					7,810	8,389
06/02	2,727,303	21,602	95.1%	915,929	7,169	7,893	227,841	89,861	60,917	92.7%
07/02					8,275	7,437
08/02	2,777,432	25,254	95.1%	933,989	9,785	9,690	205,543	76,465	58,449	92.8%
09/02					9,908	10,312
10/02					9,391	10,130
11/02	2,850,969	25,445	95.8%	961,889	8,521	8,950	185,163	64,813	55,617	93.8%
12/02					7,224	8,183
13/02	2,897,089	22,049	95.9%	976,256	7,223	6,686	176,646	58,741	54,494	93.9%
14/02					7,104	6,184
15/02	2,938,602	16,876	85.9%	991,522	8,162	8,201	163,283	50,802	50,967	94.0%
16/02

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 15 February 2022 – Day 108 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
01/02										34
02/02	38,379	4,670	348	130	14,553	768	99	31	69	25
03/02									85	34
04/02	22,508	4,465	314	133	11,240	707	79	29	67	36
05/02					7,810				83	41
06/02	21,602	4,139	291	122	7,169	652	73	28	44	6
07/02									46	7
08/02	25,254	3,803	271	97	9,785	575	72	30	51	20
09/02									63	21
10/02									65	16
11/02	25,445	3,348	261	77	8,521	553	82	23	48	13
12/02									67	19
13/02	22,049	3,018	224	87	7,223	465	62	17	45	18
14/02										2
15/02	16,876	2,977	228	84	8,162	441	67	14	36	20
16/02