Covid 19 - Updates from your zones

[Yastreb]

A melancholy update; the total deaths in Australia passed 10,000 a few days ago. 80% were recorded in the last six months.

I recall posting how Victoria had managed to achieve zero-zero... that seems foolish fantasy now.

[midwestmutt]

My chiropractor's office is closed for a week due to exposure to covid, a timely reminder for me. My state of Illinois has passed 34,000 deaths since this whole thing began. While masks are still recommended for crowded indoor places hardly anyone wears them anymore. I still do since I am in a high risk group. Most infections are in the 40-49 and over 60 age groups.

[wavewright62]

I'm back from several days away at the NZ national brass band championships in Wellington.  Since my band didn't enter and I wouldn't be playing, I signed up for a leisurely schedule of a little volunteering at the contest and doing some urban sketching or such in my down time.  However, Covid has been ripping through NZ, and not only were most bands affected, most of the volunteer crew were out with it as well. It was too late to cancel the whole durn thing, as they had done the previous year (they'd delayed the host city's turn to this year). 
One band was down 10 players, another one 9, out of a maximum of 31 allowed on stage. The rules about how many players from other bands you were allowed to co-opt were stretched to their limits and dispensations freely handed out. More participants went down as the competition went on.  One band took the stage with their top 5 cornets all out - nos. 6 & 8 played the unfamiliar top two spots (including the principal's solos), they got someone from another band to take the no. 3 seat, and they rewrote parts to get the 2 players left to cover the 3 bottom parts, which were normally handled by 5-6 players.
I ended up practically stapling a mask onto my face and taking up full duties for 3 of the 4 days, allowing myself a morning off before going out to the airport.  I saw EVERYBODY, in the course of my functions, which was fun, but didn't really got a chance to sit and eat or socialise with anybody.  I'm also seeing many anecdotes of people who caught it while down there. 
I had a negative RAT test today, so I seem to have somehow missed getting it?  How?  I will continue monitoring.

[Róisín]

Good luck Wavewright! My brass band friend whom I told you about was playing at a festival in Tasmania recently, where several players were infected. She did her last RAT test the day before coming up here to work with me last weekend, and was clear then, so hopefully she should be okay. Unfortunately the government here is going to suspend giving out free RAT tests to vulnerable people who need them, which I think will turn out to be a damnfool idea and definitely a false economy if we get another bad wave of covid, which seems all too likely!

[Róisín]

The friend with whom I do the Farmers Market has caught Covid, mercifully not too bad and expects to be okay, but we definitely will not be doing the market next weekend. I don’t want to catch it either, because even though I am vaxed, boosted and generally cautious about things like distancing, mask wearing and washing hands, I know that it is still possible to be infected and I would prefer to avoid that. Both Star and I are older immunocompromised people, and I would prefer not to bring an infection home to him. I may be tough and lucky, but I would rather avoid a danger if I can. That tendency to caution is why I am still alive despite having lived a long and sometimes far too interesting life, and I prefer to remain alive for the present.

Yastreb is right about the recent death tolls in Australia. I think the mask mandates and travel restrictions were lifted far too early, but you can’t tell people who are desperate for work just to pay for rent and food, or who just want to get out and party, or governments that are more interested in keeping people happy so their votes stay high than in keeping the people safe, and care more about the economy than about the survival of the individual workers who produce the profits…..there will always be more people desperate enough to work in unsafe conditions while workers are kept poor.

[wavewright62]

I had the bad luck to be in a hospital emergency room last night (let's just say it will be another 50 years before I try to ice skate again) and looking back on it today, only the orderlies who wheeled me aound had masks on?  Reception staff were behind barriers, but the triage staff (I was there for what turned out to be a badly sprained wrist, but my blood sugar tanked right as I rocked up), duty doctor, and radiology nurses were not masked.  I had my mask on, as I had been wearing it on the ice and never took it off.  Come to think of it, most of the people skating were also maskless?

[Róisín]

Wavewright, I hope you heal quickly and well! And for all that masks are ‘advised’ in medical environments, I seem to be one of the few who still bother. My advice is to keep on masking up where you can. I reckon we are about due for another and worse wave of infections.

And isn’t it so tempting to forget that you are old? I was showing a kid how to use a quarterstaff recently, and forgot that I am in my eighties for a moment. It felt good to extend myself and use old skills, but the shoulders and forearms certainly felt it afterwards!

[Yastreb]

I fear Róisín is right (not that it's unusual, mind). We've had 214 deaths in the last three days, and scarcely a ripple in the news from what I've seen.

Masks here are supposedly compulsory on public transport, though this is never enforced to my knowledge, and elsewhere it's purely voluntary.

[Yastreb]

135 deaths recorded today.
It's been the worst month for Australia since the pandemic began.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-30/victoria-covid-19-deaths-hospitalisations-cases-winter-omicron/101277326

According to the article, infections may have peaked.
We can but wait and see.

[Jitter]

I just tested positive. No surprise, I’ve been terribly ill for days (feeling like a bad case of flu, not like I was actually about to die). This is the first in out family, which is a bit of a feat considering how both boys have been to school and the elder worked as a security guard for a hypermarket over the summer. So anyways I feel like crab.

Finland’s approach to the pandemic is (again?) a mess. Some of officials are calling for downgrading Covid into a normal infectious disease (as opposed to specific pandemic / public threat status) while others are demanding fourth shots for everyone asap. Finland is currently giving fourth vaccines to the very elderly, but no decisions as to when everyone else will be getting it have been made.

Incidentally (or probably there is a connection, hmmm 🤔) emergency care is in shambles in many areas of the country. There is a shortage of nurses in particular, and ward closures over the summer have resulted in emergency rooms choking with patients coming in but not getting to actual wards for further care. So let’s hope I don’t get so badly that I would need to go in, because sitting around for 10 hours with other sick people is likely to cause more harm than good for anyone.

[dmeck7755]

I just tested positive. No surprise, I’ve been terribly ill for days (feeling like a bad case of flu, not like I was actually about to die). This is the first in out family, which is a bit of a feat considering how both boys have been to school and the elder worked as a security guard for a hypermarket over the summer. So anyways I feel like crab.

Oh no!!  I know you will take care...I hope it passes quickly with no ill effects...

Finland’s approach to the pandemic is (again?) a mess. Some of officials are calling for downgrading Covid into a normal infectious disease (as opposed to specific pandemic / public threat status) while others are demanding fourth shots for everyone asap. Finland is currently giving fourth vaccines to the very elderly, but no decisions as to when everyone else will be getting it have been made.

I think Finland is not alone.  In the US (my state) they do not even talk about it much any longer.  They are pretty much treating it as endemic.  (Only to mention a new variant, and the Ads to get vaxxed) Though it is/was back in the news when the president tested positive... People are still getting sick.  My work requires people to be vaxxed and boostered.  Quite a few co-workers still got very sick.  So it is still a very frightening thing.

Incidentally (or probably there is a connection, hmmm 🤔) emergency care is in shambles in many areas of the country. There is a shortage of nurses in particular, and ward closures over the summer have resulted in emergency rooms choking with patients coming in but not getting to actual wards for further care. So let’s hope I don’t get so badly that I would need to go in, because sitting around for 10 hours with other sick people is likely to cause more harm than good for anyone.

Yeah, I think nurses are in short supply everywhere. Hopefully you will recover and not need to go anywhere. 

I am rooting for you!!!

[Yastreb]

Over the last three days there have been almost 10,000 new cases, with 29 deaths, bringing Australia's total number of cases to almost 10.5 million, with 15,899 deaths.
Damn it.

[Yastreb]

Not from the Zones, as such, but today I looked at the Wikipedia page on the pandemic, thence to the WHO page, to learn that the confirmed global toll is over seven million as of 31 January. The actual toll may be two or three times higher. I also learned that over the last 28 days there have been 190 deaths from COVID-19 in Australia. This has not been reported.

[Keep Looking]

Yes, it's really concerning - particularly as new strains are going round and we HAVE vaccines for them that can help prevent people dying and etc, but governments haven't been doing much at all to promote uptake.

[Róisín]

Yeah, it’s a worry. I’m glad that I live out in the country where transmission rates tend to be a bit lower than in the cities. At present I am concerned about my beloved, who is in hospital in Adelaide, the big city nearest to where we live, with a different medical problem. Because Covid does tend to spread in hospitals - at least Star is vaccinated. Also concerned about my friend Liz who lives in one of the inner suburbs of Adelaide, and our friend Yastreb, who lives in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria which is the next state east of South Australia where I live. Yastreb is coming over to stay with us in a few weeks, so I hope he will be safer out here in the country, with cleaner air and fresh food.