Wednesday 29 June 2022

Winter has hit early and with a vengeance, forecast daily highs of 13 degrees for the next few days and then zooming up to 14 for a few days.  And plenty of rain to go with it.

I am going to Cairns for a few days in July, it is currently 27 - 28 degrees there which is something to look forward to.  As I will be staying with my friends Flashy and Lady P there will possibly be a fair amount of eating and drinking which will probably play havoc with my diet, but these are the sacrifices that we have to make.

Our new prime minister, Albo, hasn't wasted any time in racking up the frequent flyer points since his elevation to the top job.  He is currently in somewhere in Europe telling NATO what they should be doing about all manner of things.  Now the strange thing is, last time I looked, although Australia is surrounded by a number of oceans not one of them is the North Atlantic which is the NA part of NATO.  

This is a bit like Australians appearing in the Eurovision song competition.  Again, the last time I looked Australia doesn't seem to have a strong geographical connection to Europe, although continental drift may have brought us closer and I haven't noticed.  The best thing about Australia contesting Eurovision is that it gives winners of "The Voice" a gig which they can look back on fondly when they are back working at Maccas.

Now here is something interesting.  I was having a look at a table of international covid figures and guess which country has the highest number of covid cases expressed as "cases per million of population".  I guarantee that no matter how many guesses you had you did not guess the Faeroe Islands.  I kid you not, with 703,987 covid cases per million of population the Faeroe Islands has this dubious distinction.  

With a population of only 49,000 and 35,000 cases of covid this converts to 704,000 cases per million of population.  By way of comparison Australia had 8,000,000 covid cases out of a population of 26,000,000 and this converts to 309,000 cases per million, less than half of what the poor old Faeroe Islanders suffered.

With the exception of Peru at number one and San Marino at number thirteen the top fifteen countries by "deaths per million of population" are all Central or Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Bosnia, Hungary and Slovakia to name a few.  Peru has recorded 6,300 deaths per million of population and Latvia at number fifteen has recorded 3,175 deaths per million.

By way of comparison the USA comes in at number 17 with 3,110 deaths per million of population, the UK at number 29 with 2,626 deaths and Australia at number 139 with 376 deaths per million.

Victoria is still recording daily covid infections, with some exceptions, around the 10,000 to 11,000 mark with 10,777 reported in the last 24 hours.  We are also reporting approximately 100 covid deaths a week with 23 reported in the last 24 hours.  

The daily new infection numbers in Victoria fell to around 5,000 per day in February 2022 but have been creeping up again since then.  Hospital numbers are rising again in Victoria with 468 patients in hospital due to covid and of these 35 are in ICU and 9 are on ventilators.

Twelve months ago these figures would have had a very serious premier giving a daily media conference and telling us all how naughty we had been and he was going to have to impose even more stringent restrictions on the Victorian populace, for our own good of course.  What are we getting now - easing of restriction until they are nearly non existent except for the wearing of masks in certain very specific situations.

I will leave the discussion around the issues in the health system and ambulance service for another time.  And what about four of the government's most senior ministers announcing their retirement at the forthcoming state election.  More on that at a later date as well.

Corona Virus Weekly Stats – From 22 March 2022 – Week 9 Reasonably Covid Normal

D	Aus Infected	Aus Increase Daily	Aus 1st Dose Vacc	Vic Infected	Vic Increase Daily	NSW Increase Daily	*Aus Active Infection	NSW Active Infection	Vic Active Infection	Aus 2nd Dose Vacc
22/03	3,975,559	32,379	96.7%	1,195,239	9,594	9,594	387,622	211,527	52,983	94.9%
30/03	4,436,572	50,082	96.8%	1,271,494	11,749	25,235	479,116	258,112	58,488	95.1%
04/04	4,715,763	35,015	96.8%	1,320,678	10,011	15,572	500,914	266,110	63,545	95.2%
13/04	5,207,650	54,185	96.9%	1,410,828	10,907	18,265	443,901	234,081	60,756	95.3%
20/04	5,494,804	36,856	97.0%	1,471,567	10,628	15,414	311,570	188,676	53,518	95.4%
27/04	5,780,569	24,135	97.0%	1,532,685	10,734	12,188	340,481	157,589	51,835	95.4%
04/05	6,072394	42,725	97.1%	1,597,464	10,779	11,939	317,353	139,572	57,154	95.5%
11/05	6,387,747	53,338	97.2%	1,673533	13,973	12,265	350,262	137,336	67,608	95.5%
17/05	6,683,581	33,281	97.2%	1,747,794	13,694	10,972	382,835	135,280	77,809	95.6%
25/05
15/06					8,687
22/06	7,885,040	30,303	97.5%	2,049,802	7,769	9,472	214,105	88,746	41,690	95.8%
29/06	8,078,931	24,986	97.5%	2,091,140	10,777	11,067	234,276	104,191	43,174	95.9%

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – From 22 March 2022 – Week 9 Reasonably Covid Normal
Date	Aus New Infection Daily	Aus Hospital	Aus ICU	Aus Ventilate	Vic New Infection Daily	Vic Hospital	Vic ICU	Vic Ventilate	AUS Daily Deaths	Vic Daily Deaths
22/03	32,379	2,090	93	21	9,594	256	24	5	26	7
30/03	50,082	2,446	100	21	11,749	280	18	5	28	7
04/04	35,015	2,645	108	21	10,011	305	17	3	7	1
13/04	54,185	3,147	126	29	10,907	391	19	2	39	14
20/04	36,856	3,325	155	39	10,628	437	34	12	35	14
27/04	24,135	3,385	144	N/A	10,734	456	32	8	33	13
04/05	42,725	3,111	148	N/A	10,779	473	25	6	44	11
11/05	53,338	3,102	114	N/A	13,973	533	33	5	40	17
17/05	35,281	3,154	129	N/A	13,694	516	31	3	49	20
15/06		2,887	104	N/A	8,687	476	35	8	57	18
22/06	30,303	3,029	110	N/A	9,472	402	29	10	59	24
29/06	24,986	3,237	115	N/A	10,777	468	35	9	36	23