Top

The Corona Crucible – Wed 4th September

World 25.8 million    Russia 1 million        Turkey 270K+

One month ago there were 17 million recorded cases of COVID-19, 6 million active cases and 666,000 fatalities worldwide. Now there are almost 26 million cases, nearly seven million of them active, and over 860,000 fatalities.

India will soon overtake Brazil and jump to second place on the infection list. Both countries are heading towards four million infections. Of the 26 million cases worldwide, the USA, Brazil and India account for more than half.

Russia is now the fourth country to record over one million infections. Australia has recorded almost 26,000 cases of COVID-19 and is 70th on this list. We need to remember that we are doing so much better than so many other places in the world.

Stage Four lockdown has been tough in Melbourne, but clearly it has worked to get this second wave under control. The Upper House passed a six month extension to the state of emergency powers last night, by 20-19. Thank god that got through, otherwise there would be no way to keep this second wave from becoming a third wave.

With a little over one week to go, New Salad Diner (Daniel Andrews) announced 90 new cases of coronavirus were detected in Victoria overnight. Wednesday’s figures tend to be the highest owing to the increase in the number of tests processed after the weekend.

Victoria’s Chief health Officer (CHO) Brett Sutton is concerned about the number of tests going down, 10,153 recorded yesterday and 13,912 today. One leading epidemiologist is calling for people without symptoms to be tested which sounds like a sensible idea, given there is more capacity now in the system and less overall urgency.

The Premier will announce the road map out of Stage Four this coming Sunday. I’m looking forward to getting back to golf in the spring sunshine and shedding some lockdown kilos.