Graduated easing starts tomorrow in NSW and in other states and territories. For NSW, two people will be able to visit other people, including children, for social or care reasons. This is due to flattening of the curve. Remember, this shutdown started March 22 when state cases numbered over 500 with nearly 100 new ones overnight. Non-essential businesses were required to close. Students can resume face-to-face schooling from 11 May. We can, under social distancing rules, legitimately escape the suffocating anomie of lockdown. Today, 40 days on, only 2 extra for 3,022 cases and 42 deaths.
Other vital statistics in this last daily journal entry for Australia shows 10 more cases for a total of 6,753 and 91 deaths. Globally there have been 3,219,240 cases and 228,190 deaths. The chart for April is reproduced below to provide the sweep from day 1 (22 March) to today, day 40 (30 April). In completing the narrative of social isolation, attention is drawn to lessons learnt, an exposure to internationalism in 2020, my personal response to isolation (what were those things you missed?) and a brief list of things we have to change.
Lessons Learned:
- We need to get a wider angle on our scenario planning and make fewer assumptions.
- Elevate storage of non-perishables (strategic resources) over just-in-time logistics.
- Enhance manufacturing capability and adaptability to re-tool for alternative products.
- When working on economic policy initiatives, remember to ask “who benefits?”
- Digital access must be seen as a utility, like electricity and plumbing.
- Are we a lazy country, rather than self-reliant as we imagine ourselves to be?
- Let’s be known and respected for what we actually do, not what we don’t have to do.
- There will be a torrent of post-virus enquiries; let them be balanced and transparent.
Internationalism:
- A virus spread can be accidental or deliberate (conspiracy theory), the result is the same.
- The United States is not the only voice we should listen to.
- The China relationship is based on reciprocal needs and wants and the sources thereof, not geopolitics.
- We have witnessed an invidious comparison with the national response to climate change.
Personal Response to Isolation:
- As one whose income does not depend on attending a workplace, home detention is bearable. I could get to shops for basic needs and take my puppy for walks, lonely by design.
- It is great to be able to read books and articles and watch TV news as the COVID-19 story has unfolded. It was like I had permission to be a couch potato, no guilt about not going to gym.
- Time to devote to this intensive period of journaling and posting to a blog for the first time.
- I have enjoyed bonding times with my new Labradoodle pup, Aria.
- Time to think and the personally imposed discipline to express it.
Actions and Attitudes for Change:
- People are not adversaries and they matter.
- Putting brakes on women’s participation is just burning rubber. Release the sense and sensibility.
- Mits off the ABC.
- Use expertise wisely, use fewer weasel words, shut up sometimes and just listen more.
- The US does not care about us and, in any event, now has weakened capacity to demonstrate care in either national security or trade.
- For our national government, address climate change like you mean it.
- Wealth doesn’t trickle down, it rises up from a well-engineered floor.
- Our sustainable future is now. Let’s do something bold. Place income inequality on the agenda (give Gini the pub test). Move away from partisanship to transparency.
Welcome to the post-corona world, taking little steps first.
April Come She Will:
Confirmed Cases in Australia
| Date | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| New | 303 | 269 | 217 | 198 | 139 | 106 | 113 | 102 | 90 | 100 | 86 | 21 |
| Total | 4860 | 5108 | 5350 | 5548 | 5689 | 5795 | 5908 | 6010 | 6103 | 6204 | 6238 | 6314 |
| Deaths | 21 | 24 | 28 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 51 | 54 | 56 | 60 |
| Date | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| New | 46 | 41 | 47 | 21 | 43 | 42 | 41 | 14 | 13 | 16 | 12 | 12 |
| Total | 6359 | 6400 | 6447 | 6468 | 6523 | 6565 | 6606 | 6620 | 6633 | 6649 | 6661 | 6675 |
| Deaths | 61 | 61 | 63 | 63 | 65 | 69 | 71 | 71 | 71 | 74 | 75 | 79 |
| Date | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| New | 20 | 16 | 9 | 12 | 19 | 10 |
| Total | 6692 | 6711 | 6720 | 6731 | 6746 | 6753 |
| Deaths | 80 | 83 | 83 | 88 | 90 | 91 |
NSW Only
| Date | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| New | 150 | 116 | 91 | 104 | 87 | 57 | 49 | 48 | 39 | 49 | 35 | 7 |
| Total | 2182 | 2298 | 2389 | 2493 | 2580 | 2637 | 2686 | 2734 | 2773 | 2822 | 2857 | 2854 |
| Deaths | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| Date | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| New | 9 | 7 | 16 | 11 | 29 | 10 | 21 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Total | 2863 | 2870 | 2886 | 2,897 | 2926 | 2936 | 2957 | 2963 | 2969 | 2971 | 2976 | 2986 |
| Deaths | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 33 | 34 | 35 |
| Date | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| New | 12 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 11 | 2 |
| Total | 2994 | 3002 | 3004 | 3009 | 3020 | 3022 |
| Deaths | 35 | 36 | 36 | 41 | 42 | 42 |
Note: Discrepancies in numbers day to day occur due to different times of the day access to data becomes available.
Global
| Date | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Total | 859,000 | 937,170 | 1,016,395 | 1,118,221 | >1.2m | 1.278m | >1.3m | >1.43m | >1.5m | >1.6m |
| Deaths | 42,300 | 47,235 | 53,281 | 59,200 | >64K | 69,550 | >74,800 | >82K | >88K | >95.7K |
| Date | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Total | >1.67m | 1,777,666 | 1,853,177 | 1,920,918 | 1.97m | >2m | 2.1m | 2.2m | 2.331 | >2.4m |
| Deaths | 1.015K | 108,883 | 114,298 | 119,686 | 127,594 | 138,101 | 145K | >154K | <161K | >165K |
| Date | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| Total | 2.48m | 2.5m | 2.6m | 2.7m | 2.8m | >2.862 | 3m | >3.05m | 3.13m | 3,219,240 |
| Deaths | 170380 | 174K | 184K | 191K | 197K | >200K | >205K | >211K | >217K | 228,190 |
Awesomely Astute 