Week 39 ends in Australia where taking a strict approach to containing the Virus continues to pay off

Edited BY


G P Kennedy


Simon - Perth, WA


Hi everyone,


I hope you are safe and well; here is a quick update from Perth, Western Australia.



At this time it seems we are carrying on from last year. We have no cases here in WA and are basically under no restrictions apart from a limit to large sporting venues (half capacity) and the normal distancing requirements.


We have had a few cases over East and in Queensland in the last few months. Most of these have been from people returning from abroad.


These have been dealt with very quickly and state borders have been slammed shut, contact tracing has been carried out and other requirements have been brought in as needed. These include mandatory wearing of masks and closing of non-essential businesses.




In every case, these measures seem to have worked and the number of cases has risen and then dropped off to zero.


We are lucky that we have never had big case numbers and that we have developed a system that seems to be able to contain an outbreak when it occurs.



Our International borders remain shut and this will be the same for a while I think.



Next month, hopefully, our vaccine rollout is supposed to start. It won’t be compulsory but I think most people will get it and there is talk of not being able to fly in or out of the country without a ‘vaccine passport’.




Of course the numbers in other countries are terrible and terrifying, especially in the US and UK where all the people I care about who aren’t in Oz live.



I am hoping that a change of leadership in America will kick start some sort of turn around but I guess we wait and see.


I feel it’s a different story in the UK. Much smaller country, lots of high-density living and big populations in cities.


They seem to have had such a confusing and ever-changing system of rules and requirements over there that I would be surprised if anyone knows what they can or cant do on any given day.


What they should have done is gone for a hard lockdown straight away but I guess that’s hindsight for you.



Well, I hope that wherever you are you and your loved ones are safe and that you are still finding joy and happiness in your daily routine.


They don’t call this The Lucky Country for nothing…


Cheers,


Simon.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 44 - Mixed messages lead to protests in Turkey

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul- Aegean Coast, Turkey  The weather was icy cold last week, when I said I can’t take another day, suddenly that feeling of spring was in the air.   According to the Turkish folk calendar, the first Cemre - imagine a meteor fireball passing by up in the sky, warming the air - fell on Feb 19 and 20. There are two more yet to fall, one on Feb 26 and 27 and the last two in March – also will lead to the New Year Nevruz (Nowruz, Iranian).    They say the first Cemre always falls to the air, the second to the water, and the third to the earth.  Nowadays, because of warmer weather, we are able to have coffee in our garden with our neighbors and have a chat. Otherwise, we were overwhelmed with loneliness.  POLITICAL CRAZINESS  Our ordinary lives can be boring but daily politics is the opposite, there was a controversial event almost every day this week.   This country will make all of us mentally sick. It is ...
Read more

Week 49 - Simon says, 'Count your blessings my fellow Aussies'

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, WA   Hi everyone, hope all is well wherever you are.  So here we are at the end of March in Western Australia, which means over 12 months of the Pandemic.   Across all of the country, the vaccines are being slowly rolled out but we are not hitting our intended targets.   This seems to be a combination of lack of supply and the doses being given by GP’s rather than at vaccination centers. I guess the only thing that stops this from being a real concern is the size of our case numbers.   The vast majority of our small number of cases is from returned overseas travelers who are put in quarantine anyway.   This week sees a small outbreak in Queensland with some community transmission. This has led to a snap three-day lockdown to try and contain it and perform contact tracing.  Going forward it looks like this will happen fairly frequently. We have demonstrated that these short and sharp lockdowns seem...
Read more

Week 15 - Wednesday in Milan explores the 'new normal' for Ellie

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy    “How are y'all doing?” a friend from Texas asked me recently. I am happy to report that the contagion rate in Italy have been mostly down. Daily rates of new infections have been around 150 for the country.    I have the feeling, though, that this is due not only to scared people who mostly stick to their masks and distancing, but of the possibility to do things outdoors, which is what helps with holding new infections down. There are many unwelcome signs for change, though. For example, hope for getting rid of plastics, and its dispersal in the environment, is definitely given up.    Now that all coffee shops, company cafeterias and restaurants that hope to have clients indoors are required to outfit their spaces with distancing partitions, plastic has drastically increased. But it has also started causing some awkward moments.    I met with a friend for a coffee recently, our first get together after...
Read more