Blog Day 692 - Wednesday 02 March 2020 - Day 05 Even More Covid Nearly Normaller

About 31 degrees here today but we are getting a few humid days again, nearly FNQ weather.  As some of you would be aware I am not overly fussed with the humidity or the heat for that matter.

The supermarkets here are showing further signs of the supply line crisis with a lot more empty shelves.  I visited Woolies yesterday and they had lots of empty shelf space and not the things that you would expect.  There was plenty of toilet paper and paper towels so the current shortages are not as a result of panic buying.

There didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to the missing products.  I noticed that there wasn't any small bottles of Schweppes mixers, including tonic water, no capers, either no or very little of some of the vitamin type products, completely empty shelves of some of the homebrand snack foods, shortages of deterergents and cleaning products, some crisps and chips not available and so on.

I popped into IGA today to get some capers and it is a similar story there, although they had capers, thank goodness I didn't know how I was going to get along without them.  And the absence of tonic water is just too terrible to bear thinking about.

Maybe as more people get back to work in their place of work these shortages will ease.

Of course these issues fade into insignificance compared to what the people of Ukraine are going through.  I have no idea of how or when this is going to finish.  It is a dreadful thing to be happening in modern Europe, although it is Eastern Europe and the rules there are a bit different.  How can one man inflict this sort of suffering on another country no matter what he thinks are the rights and wrongs are of his actions.  

Remember, it was only a few years ago in the nearby Balkans that a number of countries were undertaking their version of ethnic cleansing including massacres, concentration camps and placing cities under siege.  The veneer of civilisation does not run very deep in this part of the world.

I am preparing this blog late in the afternoon as I have been out looking at tents with the intention of buying a new one, (intention, get it).  As I mentioned the other day I want a tent that I can stand up in, the ol knees don't handle crawling in and out of tents any more.  Trouble is once I get into Anaconda or BCF or the like I find lots of things to buy, most of which I would use once a year if then most likely never.  But having watched 'Alone' on the telly I now understand the value of having a good lighting striker thingy or 300 feet of para cord, or some wire to make snares with and a good sharp knife to skin the critters caught in the snares or dead fall traps and something to scare away the bears and wolves.

 A dead fall trap is where a large rock or log is precariously suspended and when an unsuspecting mouse comes along and triggers the trap the large rock or log drops onto the mouse not only killing but quite often flattening it.

Although I would probably draw the line at skinning, cooking and eating a flattened mouse caught in a dead fall trap the outdoorsy folk on 'Alone' seem to think that flattened mouse is some sort of delicacy, which I daresay would depend on how hungry you were.

Back to the mundane, our covid figures are not looking too flash at the moment.  In Victoria we are back over 7,000 new infections in the last 24 hours up from 6,879 the day before that but up from figures in the 5,000s a few days ago.  NSW is reporting similar increase with their daily infections back up over 10,000 per day.  Let's hope that the increase in infections isn't as a result of the relaxation of the various covid restrictions and the return to schools and now workplaces.  Time will tell.

Fortunately in Victoria our covid hospital numbers continue to decline with 264 (283) covid patients in hospital, and of these 37 (42) are in ICU and 5 (7) on ventilators.  Figures for 28/2 in brackets.

Unfortunately the national and Victorian deaths figures have gone up again.  Nationally 61 people died with covid in the last 24 hours and 41 the day before that.  The last time we had 60 deaths nationally was on 23/02.  In Victoria we reported 28 deaths in the last 24 hours and 18 the day before that.  Victoria hasn't experienced these death numbers for some weeks.

        Corona Virus Daily Stats – 02 March 2022 – Day 05 Even More Covid Nearly Normaller

	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
01/03					6,879	8,874
02/03	3,261,365	29,177	96.3%	1,054,417	7,126	10,650	203,751	96,291	41,162	94.4%
04/03

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 02 March 2022 – Day 05 Even More Covid Nearly Normaller
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
01/03					6,879				41	18
02/03	29,177	1,859	121	25	7,126	264	37	5	61	28
03/03

PS: Cause I have had to prepare new tables for the new month I think that the formatting of the tables might be a bit skew whiff and as it is nearly V&T time (with hoarded and rationed tonic water) I can't be bothered fixing it today.  Maybe one day when I am not so busy.