Here we are in early January 2022 and it’s a wet day today (Sunday) in Melbourne, even though it’s summer. Which somehow seems fitting as things being out of order seems to be the way things are with Covid. We currently have mask restrictions and in the Northern Territory there is an even more draconian lockdown than we had in Victoria. When I have been asked for my opinion I have said that we will be free to have summer and then we will go back into lockdown in March. But maybe I’m wrong.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the 6th January 2022, the most recent data available, Australia has the following statistics:
- New cases in the last 24 hours: 64,747
- Cumulative Cases: 612,106
- Cumulative Deaths: 2,289
So according to these figures, more than 10% of all cases in the past two years were found in one day!
On Friday 7th January 2022, 21,728 cases were recorded in Victoria, However at 9.18am on Saturday 8th January 2022, the Victoria Department of Health twitted out that the number of new cases was 51,356. The above numbers came from the same article here.
Over at worldometers we find some different numbers:
- Coronavirus numbers: 762,500
- Deaths: 2321
- Recovered: 351,637
- Currently infected patients: 408,542
- Active Cases, mild: 408,273 (99.9%)
- Active Cases: serious or critical: 269 (0.1%)
The question is what has changed in the past few weeks to have led to this large increase in cases?
- To go on holiday, particularly interstate, people have been required to get tested.
- A new test, the ‘rapid Antigen’ test which can be done at home has become available.
- A lot of people have gotten one or more of the various vaccines.
Any one of these things could have led to the increase in numbers, together they are leading to big numbers. Which in normal times would mean nothing as Covid is not really any different from the flu. But of course we are not living in normal times, everything, including the flu, is now politicised.
All of which makes me wonder if we are heading towards a summer lockdown. Until today I had not thought that that was a serious option, now I’m reconsidering.
It may be a new year but the lies and the fight against them goes on!
Originally published at Upon Hope. You can find Mark’s Subscribestar here.
