Wednesday 31 August 2022

Another short one again this week, that pesky thing called life getting in the way of my most important duty in this my weekly blog.

I have just got home from doing an extra shift at the Shrine.  One of my Shrine tours today was for a group of year 7 to year 10 students from an English as a second language college who had mostly only been in Australia or learning English for 6 to 8 months.

Most of the students were from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan with varying levels of English comprehension.  Having been in Australia for only a short time they also weren't familiar with aspects of Australian culture such as Anzac Day that we take for granted.  A couple of the boys were a bit cheeky but in an amusing way. All in all it was an interesting tour, for all of us.  I really enjoyed and trust they did as well.

I think that I may mentioned previously that the fair state of Victoria is going to hell in a handbasket.  As I have previously noted in this blog we are treating hospital patients in tents in hospital car parks, people are dying waiting for ambulances, we have closed down that many power stations that we can't meet the state's energy needs and we are being distracted by grand announcements of huge projects that are already suffering cost blowouts before they are even started.

(Remember Victoria has more brown coal that we could burn in the foresable future, we have huge reserves of natural gas if the state government would allow gas exploration and extraction and Australia as virtually unlimited amounts of uranium and we are suffering from power shortages and increased power costs).

Well would you believe that the next great idea for relieving the worker shortage is to allow children to start work at a younger age and to work longer hours, anybody looking for a child to send down a coal mine or up a chimney?!  I kid you not, apart from the coal mine and chimney bit, possibly.

All of the covid figures continue to move in the right direction with significant improvement in most numbers since last week. Even the vaccination percentages have lifted slightly, the following are the vaccination numbers for Australians aged 16+, last week's figures in brackets;

1st Dose 98% (97.9%) 2nd Dose 96.3% (96.2%) 3rd Dose 68.9% (68.8%) 4th Dose 22.7% (22.3%).

The daily death figures are still of concern, particularly the irregularity of the reporting of covid death numbers.  In the last seven days the national daily death figures have ranged between 10 and 88 per day and the Victorian daily death figures have ranged between 3 and 39 per day.  Still too many no matter how you look at it.

The other number of interest is that nationally we have cracked the 10 million mark for the total number of covid infections, 10,031,149 to be precise.  Turn to the person sitting next to you, shake their hand tell them "well done".

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%
06/07	8,324,143	32,886	97.6%	2,156,525	10,056	13,775	280,368	124,706	50,376	95.9%
13/07	8,605813	44,183	97.6%	2,223,522	11,176	10,622	316,773	135,832	58,357	96.0%
20/07
27/07
03/08	9,517,112	41,238	97.8%	2,447,381	9,122	16,648	327,373	171,284	55,195	96.1%
10/08	9,711,780	27,058	98.7%	2,492,023	5,898	11,356	257,259	150,347	37,085	96.2%
17/08	9,843,529	13,283	97.9%	2,523,433	4,732	8,064	195,139	117,163	26,476	96.2%
24/08	9,948,913	15,092	97.9%	2,546,561	3,359	6,690	142,330	86,332	19,325	96.2%
31/08	10,031,149	13,232	98.0%	2,564,340	2,857	5,434	111,070	67,106	15,583	96.3%

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
06/07	32,886	3,757	137	N/A	10,056	523	29	5	38	23
13/07	44,183	4,477	137	N/A	11,176	739	36	5	57	20
20/07
27/07
03/08	41,238	4,861	162	N/A	9,122	743	40	8	65	6
10/08	27,058	4,416	126	N/A	5,898	610	30	8	132	52
17/08	13,283	3,944	129	N/A	4,732	518	22	7	42	15
24/08	15,092	3,309	96	N/A	3,359	402	24	5	57	10
31/08	13,232	2,933	84	N/A	2,857	333	20	5	69	26