Stage 3 restrictions continue for metro Melbourne. We are now 2.5 weeks into what is going to be at least a 6 week restriction period. The government states they are not looking to progress to “stage 4” restrictions and there is no clear guide to what that might mean.

The numbers of new cases each day have still been very high, however on the positive side, the numbers have not been growing exponentially. The new cases from Monday 20th July 2020 to today Sunday 26th July 2020 for the state of Victoria were; 246, 347, 450, 386, 280, 339, 437.

On Wednesday 22nd July at 11:59 pm the wearing of face masks became mandatory when leaving your home. The few exceptions include, for medical reasons, jogging, travelling in your car alone or with family and consumption of food, drink, etc. The penalty for non compliance is currently $200.

Generally most of the population has been accepting of this requirement. As with everything there is a minority of the community resisting these changes and there have been a few people fined already.

NSW still has concerns with a few outbreaks, mostly in the South Western Sydney region, although there has been outbreaks at Port Stephens and Batemans Bay. The NSW numbers of new cases have remained low, around the teens and most of those are linked to the known outbreaks.

The rest of Australia has next to no new cases being diagnosed and as such are able to go about there business with much more freedom. In South Australia on Monday there was almost 14,000 fans at the football to watch Adelaide take on St.Kilda and that was surpassed on Saturday night as about 20,000 fans watched top of the ladder Port Adelaide get beaten by St.Kilda. There has also been crowds in WA around the 20,000 mark.

Again this week the clouds have been rather grey and unspectacular. This is what you come to expect being the middle of winter. I did manage to still get a couple of images of above so I hope you enjoy.