Project COVID Skies - Part 24

October 18, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Welcome to what is hopefully the last edition of Project COVID Skies. Ok, maybe not last as in, I will probably do some future editions with a best of and also document anything of note, but hopefully the last in terms of the original project premise of continuing this project whilst in stage 3 restrictions or higher.

As this project started 2 weeks after our initial lockdown started it also signifies a total of 6 months that Melbourne has been under stage 3 or higher restrictions.

Today 18th October 2020, the Victorian government has announced the easing of a number of restrictions effective from midnight tonight. Our 5km travel restriction will be increased to 25km and the restriction of being allowed out for just 2 hours has also been removed. Thus, the criteria for my project will be no longer in place and I can get out and take photographs of something else.

These announcements have come just as the last few days have seen very low new case numbers across Victoria. The new case numbers from Monday 12th October 2020 - Sunday 18th October 2020 are; 14, 10, 6, 4, 2, 0 and 2. The total for the week was just 38 and there is a total of 137 active cases currently in Victoria. 12 people remain in hospital, the are 0 in ICU and in the last week just 6 people have sadly passed away.

In other news the New Zealand bubble has commenced with NSW and the NT. This is a one way bubble with no need to quarantine on arrival into Australia, however quarantine will be required on entry to back to NZ. This bubble has created a few feathers to be ruffled as a number of people who came in from NZ have made their way to Melbourne. The Victorian government is a bit upset by that, however the Victorian border is open to anyone within Australia who wants to enter it. Any people coming to Victoria will need to follow any restrictions that are in place. This also means leaving Victoria will be difficult and presently would mean quarantine in NSW before being allowed to fly to NZ to quarantine again. My suspicions are that these people probably live here and won’t be in a hurry to leave. The certainly won’t be tourists looking for site seeing in a largely deserted city.

THANK YOU to everyone who has been following along with my weekly blog and keep an eye out for future random editions of Project COVID Skies. Hopefully I will be blogging about something else soon but in the meantime I might enjoy a few weekends off and hope that there will be no need to return to Project COVID skies under the lockdown premise. Time will tell……

Project COVID Skies - Part 23

October 11, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Here we are another week and welcome to the disappointment edition of project COVID skies. The Victorian state government had set a goal of a rolling average of 5 cases per day over 14 days to enable some of our restrictions to be relaxed. We looked like we were heading in the right direction and then found stubbornly there were daily new case numbers at twice that and above, so no soup for you!!!! We now must wait longer. As the weather gets warmer and the rest of Australia is able to move about, being stuck in a circle of just 5km is becoming very tiresome.

The new case numbers from Monday 5th October 2020 to Sunday 11th October 2020 were; 11, 13, 4, 10, 10, 12 and 12 with 4 deaths in Victoria. These cases are mostly contained in a few clusters including the Chadstone shopping centre, Kilmore and Box Hill hospital. On the plus side we have had 4 days now with no community transmission.

Everywhere else is plodding along with very low case numbers and are able to enjoy a mostly free life with football semi finals taking place over the weekend drawing solid crowds, albeit restricted in numbers.

The weather was mostly grey and wet so not many shots this week as it was a struggle to find much worth taking a photo of. Here’s hoping next week is a better week for photos and with case numbers.

Project COVID Skies - Part 22

October 4, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

In Melbourne we are getting closer to freedom. The numbers are coming down nicely and diving in further to the numbers there is very little new cases in the community, in fact there was no cases of community transmission in the last week. We are now at a point where contact tracers are able to act quickly and get hopefully get us on top of managing the virus inline with the other states.

The numbers of new cases for the week Monday 28th September to Sunday 4th October in Victoria were; 4, 9, 11, 14, 8, 6 and 12 for a total of 64 new cases. Total deaths for the week was 12. There was an outbreak at Chadstone shopping centre related to a family outbreak in Frankston, which has attributed to many of those new cases.

As the weather really warmed up at the end of the week many people went out to St Kilda beach and were not following social distancing and many did not have masks. It is really frustrating and disappointing to be so close to officially having restrictions eased that a number of selfish people would put that at risk. Is the idea of a relatively free summer worth a few nights of stupidity?

The biggest COVID related news of the week by far was the president of the Unites States of America, Donald Trump testing positive. With a month to go before the election it is crazy news. The implications of what could happen are mind boggling and who knows what effect it might have on the results. If Trump does recover well from the virus he will be able to use it to his advantage inline with his rhetoric on the virus just being the flu and the USA should re-open and just get on with it.

Not many great photos this week, the skies were either mostly grey or clear with not many clouds of good definition. One interesting capture was a helicopter which just looked like a black helicopter when I took the photo with closer inspection revealing it was a police helicopter.

Project COVID Skies - Part 21

September 27, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

A most interesting week in the state of Victoria. Case numbers have been decreasing nicely and and as such we will be rewarded with a little bit more relaxation of restrictions outside of the previously announced roadmap. The state government has been fronting up to an enquiry about the hotel quarantine which has looked more like an episode of Hogan’s Heroes where every character is Sergeant Schultz, “I know nothing! Nothing!!” and in the end resulted in the health minister resigning after being thrown under the bus by the state premier Daniel Andrews.

The new case numbers for the week from Monday 21st to Sunday 27th September were; 9, 25, 24, 5, 13, 11, 16 this in comparison to NSW who had 4, 2, 6, 1, 2, 1, 0. The reason for the comparison to NSW is that during the week they had their border opened to SA and some of the northern municipalities were also opened to Queensland, although there were some curious exceptions including one bordering area that has not recorded any cases. Queensland are a month away from a state election and the move to include some northern NSW communities has come as the premier’s popularity was declining over numerous heartless incidents where compassionate entry to Queensland had been denied.

The weather this week has been mostly cold, windy and rainy. Not the ideal weather for getting outside. This will persist for a few day yet so hopefully brings me some more interesting cloud formations.

Project COVID Skies - Part 20

September 20, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Spring is well and truly here and the week has provided a number of warm days. Footy is this weekend up to the final round of the home and away season and the days are getting longer. Perfect time to get out the bbq and have everyone…oh that’s right, bugger. Still in lockdown.

The new case numbers are getting lower and the 14 day average has dropped below 50 new cases per day. Today has been the best result in a long time with just 14 cases. There was an outbreak in the Casey Local Government Area (my LGA) with 34 cases attributed to 5 linked families who were actively breaching the rules of stage 4 restrictions. With that outbreak included the new case numbers from Monday 14th September 2020 to Sunday 20th September in Victoria were; 37, 39, 32, 27, 42, 22 and 14. Regional Victoria have had their restrictions eased and there has been a fine introduced of about $5000 for people caught travelling from Melbourne Metro are to regional Victoria.

Case numbers everywhere else remain low and Queensland is finally opening their border to residents of the ACT. For my opinion there needs to be constructive work done between the states to open up travel to more areas that are safe to travel from. The stubbornness shown by state premiers is not helping Australia at all.

In other news, people’s desire to travel and in particular fly was perfectly demonstrated when Qantas sold out a flight in 10 minutes that is to fly from Sydney to Sydney. It is a sightseeing journey taking approximately 7 hours that will head up the coast as far as Airlie Beach in Queensland and then fly to Uluru before returning to Sydney.

Project COVID Skies - Part 19

September 13, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Another weekend stuck inside, at least the weather has been conducive to not feeling like I am missing out on anything. Plenty of rainfall is perfect for these restrictions noting it will be harder as the weather improves and we are not able to go anywhere. There are some small improvements in the conditions kicking in from midnight tonight. In Melbourne we will be able to exercise an additional hour each day and our curfew will from 9 pm rather than 8 pm.

The new case numbers in Victoria have been decreasing and the regional areas are doing well enough that they look like skipping a few stages on the way to COVID-normal. The numbers for this week from Monday 7th September 2020 to Sunday 13th September are; 36, 41, 73, 40, 39, 33, 35. The numbers of deaths for the week has reduced as well with a total of 57 recorded for the week. All in all the trends have been going in the right direction.

The discussion points around the week have been that of protests, the road map to ease restrictions and heavy handed police action including their treatment of media covering the protest. The road map has escalated into conversations where it has been discovered that some of the course of actions have been at odds to advice including the curfew which neither the Chief Health Officer or the Police had advised or asked for, leaving questions to be asked of the premier of why we have a curfew in place.

In Queensland, with an election looming there has been pressure placed on the premier to ease their border restrictions. It has come to light that many compassionate requests to cross the border have been denied yet professional footballers can come and go as they need. One such case was a family with 4 young children who were denied access across the border to visit their terminally ill father, and then told only one of them could cross and would have to quarantine. This was changed that the 4 children could cross and would still have to quarantine at a cost of $16000. A go fund me page was set up and more than enough funds were raised including a donation of $1000 from the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The Queensland chief health officer admitted that money talked for entry into Queensland, which is why footballers can come in a overseas movie crews including Tom Hanks, who had caught corona virus in Queensland back in March whilst filming the Elvis biopic. Another ridiculous example of lack of compassion was entry being denied to a nurse from the ACT again for palliative reasons. Her father passed away whilst in quarantine and now she can’t stay for the funeral and has to go home as the reason for entry has changed. Noteworthy is that the ACT has not had a new case in 59 days at the time.

Spring is here and even when the not so nice weather is here the difference in warmth from a month ago is appreciated.

7th September 2020 11:14 am POL-AIR on its rounds making sure we are good little Vegemites.

Project COVID Skies - Part 17

August 30, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

17 weeks down, this project has covered almost a third of a year. This means that in Melbourne we have had stage 3 restrictions or higher for more than a third of a year. You can understand why many people are tired, especially with uncertainty with employment and not being able to be close to loved ones.

This week in Melbourne has been better and the trend is heading in the right direction. The new cases finally dipped below 100 for one day and have hovered around totals not far over 100 for multiple days. The new case numbers from Monday 24th August to Sunday 30th August were; 104, 134, 144, 106, 108, 81 and 114.

The deaths have been high and is to be expected based on the new case numbers a couple of weeks ago. The deaths for the week were 109 in Victoria.

The other states have things in control with NSW and Queensland keeping close watch on a couple of outbreaks. For a comparison of interest, in the last week Victoria had 306 (784) new cases with an unknown source (new cases), New South Wales had 6 (55) and Queensland 0 (16). The cases with an unknown source, otherwise known as community transmission, will be revised down for Victoria as the authorities get on top of their contract tracing. There would still be a very high number of community transmissions and this is a number that will have to reduce to virtually 0 before we can return to a COVID-safe sense of freedom in daily activities.

After four weeks of stage 4 restrictions including a nightly curfew and restrictions on proximity from home, there is civil unrest growing. The state premier Daniel Andrews has sought to extend the state of emergency in Victoria by 12 months as the maximum period of 6 months is about to expire. This has been considered a step to far by most. There are people looking to organise a protest about these lock downs, the premise being if it was OK for 10,000 people to protest BLM then we can have 10,000 people protest these restrictions. There have also been protests within the rules. In Dandenong, it was organised that everyone take their one hour permitted walk at the same time so as to flood the streets with people.

Winter hasn’t let go of us yet and there has been some wild weather in Melbourne during the week. Sadly 3 people died including a 5 year old child from storms that came through Melbourne on Thursday night. The storms also caused water supply to be contaminated for initially 88 suburbs and has now increased to 104 suburbs. Who had water contamination on their bingo card for 2020?

Who knows what next week will bring, the way 2020 is going, maybe alien invasion? Although they might take a quick look at Earth right now and go, “No Thanks!”