So update time from Australia.
Apparently some poor fellah set fire to himself over the mandates. Not being reported on by our local press in the People's Republic. Keeping the mandates at this point in time is outright vindictive and is probably costing lives due to the massive staff shortages in hospitals and nursing homes.
The old Parliament building was set on fire by some Aboriginal protesters holding a smoking ceremony. At first the left ran cover for them but then it turned out they were also anti vaxx so now they're all literal Nazis. On the ABC a middle aged white woman, who claims to be part Abo and an "Auntie", explained that being anti vaxx was contrary to Indigenous culture and the pure blacks who were protesting were not in fact real Aboriginals. No I'm not making this up.
Cases are down a little in New South Wales, but that's because only symptomatic people are being allowed PCR's. Positive rate for the tests are over 20% so the actual case numbers will be multiple times higher. Hospital admissions have jumped to 1000. If experience from overseas is a guide at least half of those people will be incidental cases, i.e. people who have gone into hospital for some other problem but tested positive for it after admission. A good chunk of the rest will be the usual bed wetters who run into Emergency when they find out they have it. Numbers in ICU and death counts remain incredibly low given that it's likely over 100,000 people a day are catching the coof in that state.
Here in Victoria over 7000 positive cases today, a doubling over 3 days. ICU admissions continue to fall and only a slight uptick in hospitalisations. Same pattern for the rest of the country except Western Australia.
Police allege the bar locked its doors, blacked windows, removed check-in posters and hosted several hundred people for a New Year's Eve party, despite ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.
www.abc.net.au
Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said officers had to climb walls to gain entry to the venue in Perth's CBD, with doors and windows locked shut.
"I am very disappointed at what I've been briefed at," he said.
"I have seen some vision that police took of what was taking place there."
Body-worn camera footage released by WA Police showed officers unsuccessfully trying to gain access to the venue through the locked front doors, with black curtains covering the glass windows.
All of the party goers face heavy fines and the organisers prison time. There were 2 cases in the whole state yesterday.
The overwhelming problem in the country at the moment is the massive labor shortage and the sick leave pandemic. The place is grinding to a halt. The changes to the testing requirements will help, but positive cases still need to be cleared with a PCR test on day 6 and results are taking up to a week. I think pretty soon, as in the next couple of days, all testing requirements will be dropped and the mass testing will finish. If you have symptoms take a rapid antigen test if it makes you feel better otherwise get on with it. The Covidians here are absolutely losing their shit and it's glorious to witness. They should be dropping the mandates and definitely need to put a halt to the vaccination program, I mean seriously what's the point of either if everybody is going to catch it? But one step at a time I guess. Who would have thought that Australia would be the one to let it rip?
