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 18

September 6, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Spring is here, the days are getting longer and the weather warmer. Stage 4 restrictions are still here and just announced by Daniel Andrews, the Victorian premier, is that we will see at least two more weeks of the same, albeit with a later curfew of 9 pm and an increase to two hours of exercise.

The numbers have been coming down still, but not as fast as would be liked, hence the continuation beyond the initial expectations. This for some has created frustrations and the week was punctuated with anti lock down protests yesterday where a few hundred people marched in defiance of the current rules.

The case numbers for the week were; 65, 58, 86, 112, 79, 64 and 59. The death count was very high during the week although the spikes were attributed to a catch up of numbers previously not reported. The numbers were 41, 5, 6, 15, 59, 11 and 5.

Numbers around the country seem to be in control and the contact tracers in NSW and QLD are on top of their situations. An interesting note is that the virus has been found in the sewage systems of a couple of locations in SA including Adelaide CBD.

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!”

Project COVID Skies - Part 16

August 23, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Yet another week has passed by, one week blurring into another of continual monotony. Don’t ask me what I have been doing because nothing has changed for a while. Still the time goes quick. The weather has been particularly wet and cold, winter is giving us one last blast (hopefully) with colder than average temperatures heading all the way up into NSW.

The new case numbers have been better this week and for the first time since mid July we have had consecutive days with under 200. The numbers for the week are; 263, 211, 208, 237, 169, 177 and 202. On the deaths, Monday was the worst day with 25. The other days have been around the teens. These numbers were to be expected following on from the new cases in the last couple of weeks. Aged care has been hit particularly hard as has medical staff. There has also been a large outbreak linked to Frankston hospital.

NSW remains in control and New Zealand is working through resolving their cases. Life goes on in those areas under modest restrictions.

Project COVID Skies - Part 15

August 16, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Another week has passed under stage 4 restrictions. Melbourne has had its highest death count due to the corona virus, which is to be expected as the follow on from previous infection counts. The new cases count has started to see a decline, however the numbers are still high and there is still a large amount of community infection. The new case numbers from 10th August 2020 to 16th August 2020 are; 298, 294, 395, 217, 371, 283 and 279. The death in the same period are; 18, 19, 21, 8, 14, 4 and 16.

Meanwhile over the ditch in New Zealand, on 11th August, after 102 days with no new infections, a family of 4 in Auckland had been diagnosed with COVID-19. These cases were not from hotel quarantine or close contact with a returned traveller. As the source was unknown, Auckland was placed under stage 3 restrictions for 3 days from 12th August, whilst the rest of New Zealand returned to stage 2 restrictions. These restrictions have been extended for 12 further days to 11:59pm on the 26th of August to give health authorities the best chance to get on top of any community transmission.

NSW has also been keeping its new case numbers low and the authorities have been working hard at keeping on top of contact tracing. The continued low numbers in NSW is encouraging for that state and the rest of Australia.

The weather this week has been typical Melbourne providing a bit of everything. Winter is giving us one last blast and there are signs that spring will be with us shortly.

Project COVID Skies - Part 14

August 9, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

Since my last update we have been under what is known as stage 4 restrictions. This was applied immediately from the time of my last post in part and other parts came into effect on Wednesday and Friday. Those parts were mostly employment related. The immediate new restrictions from last Sunday was a ban on travelling more than 5 km from home and the placement of a curfew from 8 pm to 5 am. We were also limited to only being able to exercise for an hour, once per day and to go shopping just once per day.

This caught me out a little when I did my shopping on Wednesday. I had forgotten an item and since I had already been to the shops I couldn’t go back for that item or for takeaway really. The solution was to have dinner delivered that night.

Cases have remained high which was still to be expected through the week. Hopefully this coming week we start to see a downward trend. The amounts of new cases from Monday 3rd August to Sunday 9th August were; 380, 398, 700, 434, 398, 416, 376. At least the case numbers have not grown exponentially which means the implementation of mandatory mask wearing has slowed the rate of increase of cases.

NSW keeps having new cases pop up, most are associated to known outbreaks. There has been some spread with cases been found in the Newcastle area. The track and trace in NSW is solid, but scarily it shows how much someone can get out and about and spread the virus. NSW had been able to issue alerts for multiple locations based on someone having a few days out. QLD in response has now closed their border to residents of NSW and ACT, joining those from Victoria already excluded.

Project COVID Skies - Part 13

August 2, 2020 Geoffrey O'Hearn

We are now what could have been the half way point of our return to stage 3 restrictions in Victoria. The premise of this round being just 6 weeks seems incredibly unlikely now and after a horror week with rising case numbers it is very likely that further restrictions will be placed and the 6 week period will be extended.

The cases numbers for this week are 515, 353, 255, 694, 579, 354, 671. Further restrictions now apply for regional Victoria with masks mandatory across the whole state and also restrictions on guests in your home now applying to the municipalities surrounding and including Geelong.

The points of discussion for the week have been the “Karens of Bunnings,” the talk her way past a checkpoint girl and the 3 girls who lied their way back into Queensland and creating havoc after testing positive to the virus. The Karen’s of Bunnings were women who deliberately walked into Bunnings, not wearing a mask, and seeking out confrontations with the staff. This was repeated at other retail locations all citing some human rights law which they were incorrect about. The checkpoint girl had her window smashed in by police when they caught up with her as she refused to comply with directions, spouting the same human rights stuff. YouTube uni does not make you a constitutional lawyer. The worst was these girls who travelled from Melbourne to Brisbane but used Sydney as a stop over, so they could say they came from Sydney, and then lied on entry to Queensland to avoid quarantine. As one of them became very sick from corona virus their deceit had been discovered and they have created a world of havoc for people in the Brisbane area. Thousands have had to go for testing, many have had to isolate and some businesses have had to close. Time will tell if they manage to see any jail time for what is essentially a criminal act involving fraud.

NSW has remained steady picking up a dozen or so new cases each day and the authorities are still tracking the numerous outbreaks across the Sydney area.

BREAKING: As I complete this blog there has been a big announcement. The state of Victoria is now moving to a state of disaster and stage 4 restrictions for metro Melbourne from a state of emergency and stage 3 restrictions. The new restrictions that will now apply including a curfew from 8pm to 5am and a restriction of being able to travel no more than 5 KM from home.

Not much in the way to weather so only a few pictures this week. It has been quite warm for the middle of winter with lots of clear skies and sun.

31st July 2020 9:58 pm 22° Halo of the moon