COVID Latest: VIC 'Cone Of Silence' Over Virus Spike
Monday: Biggest single-day increase in global cases; more Waleed Aly fake news
Morning! It’s Monday, June 22. Here is today’s ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’ — 5 things to know about COVID-19 today, + 5 non-corona things as well.
Latest AU stats: as of 9pm Sunday, Australia has 7461 reported cases of COVID-19 (that’s +25 since the day before), with 6896 reported as ‘recovered’, and 102 deaths, according to the latest federal Department of Health stats. More stats below.
5 CORONAVIRUS THINGS
VIC confusion over ‘silence’
Victoria is sadly going backwards in its coronavirus fight, reapplying tighter restrictions on household gatherings and delaying rule easings which were to come in, due to a recent spike in new cases. The state recorded 19 new COVID diagnoses in the latest 24-hour stats, the majority of the 25 logged nationwide (link). It’s led to the state government yesterday effectively imposing stay-home orders for many of the most populated areas of Victoria, in an attempt to quell the spread — so people living in the council areas of Hume, Brimbank, Casey, Darebin, Moreland and Cardinia are being asked to limit their movements (link).
But some of Melbourne’s biggest media sources are slamming the state government for not being more open and detailed about advice. 3AW and ABC radio stations claim officials have refused interview requests this morning, leaving Victorians in the dark as they ask questions over how they should navigate school and work arrangements. Talk show host Neil Mitchell claimed it was a “coronavirus cone of silence”.
Biggest case increase yet
Overseas, the picture is far more grim. The World Health Organisation said Sunday saw the largest ever single-day spike in cases globally, with more than 183,000 new COVID diagnoses made (link). Brazil and the USA predictably led the new caseload, accounting for 90,000 between them, but other countries like India (15,400) and South Africa (5000) also added a bulk more. Around 1000 new cases came from a single meat-packing plant in Germany alone. Brazil has just ticked over 500,000 total cases and 50,000 deaths, only the second country to hit those milestones (behind, of course, the USA).
Trump criticises testing, not response
But US President Donald Trump is not blaming his country’s world-leading COVID caseload and death toll on a bad response to the virus — he’s blaming it on testing. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said at a controversial rally in Oklahoma yesterday (more on that below). “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please’.″ (link)
Trump’s campaign team claimed he was joking with the remarks (link), but the POTUS has made similar criticisms numerous times before, appearing to say America should do less testing so the numbers would improve.
One personal thing
But now, if you’ll permit me, one personal thing pertinent to this discussion. On Sunday morning, I woke up with a minor scratchy throat. It felt like the very beginnings of a cold — late the night before, just before I went to bed, my nose was a little congested and I felt a very minor headache coming on. I was a little worried. I’ve obviously been writing about COVID for months, so I knew what could happen, and in the last few days I’d been finally letting my guard down after months of care and caution — I’d been at a gathering of friends at a home on Friday, I’d been to the gym and shops several times in the previous few days, I’d ridden on a bus, and I’d just gotten home from dinner with my family on Saturday night when I started feeling the barest of symptoms. I was worried. My mind started racing. If I had COVID, how many people had I potentially exposed in just the last two days?
I wanted to get tested ASAP, so on Saturday night, I Googled the nearest COVID clinic to me. I found one at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, just five minutes down the road. I wasn’t sure if you had to book an appointment, so I called the federal government’s coronavirus hotline (1800 020 080, open 24/7) to check. I waited about 30 seconds on hold, and got through to an operator who gave me options, directions and contacts for other nearby clinics. I rang RPA, got right through, and was told I didn’t need to book an appointment, and could walk right in.
I drove myself to the clinic, parked, and walked in. It was just after 8am on Sunday and there were two other people ahead of me in the queue. My waiting time was as long as it took to say my name, show my Medicare card, and fill in my address on a form. A doctor walked me behind a curtain, put a swab (like a cotton bud on a very long stick) down my throat and poked the back, then another swab up my nose. I won’t lie, it’s not exactly nice, but far less awful and weird than I thought — just a strange sensation with the nose swab that feels like someone is trying to poke into your brain.
It happened so quick, I had to sit back down for a minute because I didn’t have enough time to fill in my basic details form. I was allowed to go home, and even got free hospital parking. I was told to isolate at home until the results came back — it was a Sunday, they said, and they’ve been inundated with tests, so it might take a day or even two to come back. It was 8.20am, and my entire in-and-out turnaround time was less than 20 minutes, but I expected the results might take a bit longer than that.
Under 14 hours later, at 10.10pm, I got an email to say I had tested negative. Less than 14 hours, on a Sunday. Not bad. It was a bit of a boring day, sitting inside and not being able to leave my bedroom, but that was the absolute smallest complaint I could make. Moral of the story? Get tested. It’s a tiny inconvenience but very worth the peace of mind.
Today’s stats:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 9.30am AEST Monday) report 8,918,101 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 466,548 deaths.
The United States has 2,278,373 confirmed cases; Brazil is next on 1,083,341, then Russia (583,879). The U.S. has the most deaths (119,959), then Brazil (50,591) and the United Kingdom third on 42,717.
In Australia, the latest federal stats (as of 9pm Sunday) show 7461 cases, 6896 people recovered, and 102 deaths.
The latest Australian graph:
5 NON-CORONAVIRUS THINGS
Climate change. Remember that? The United Nations warned today that “global heating is accelerating”, as temperatures hit 38 degrees celsius inside the Arctic Circle. Yes, that’s right, not a typo — thirty eight degrees celsius. Australian summer temperatures. It comes as the International Energy Agency chief warns we may have as little as six months to stave off unfixable climate change from energy emissions once people come out of lockdown and begin rebuilding cratered economies (link). The IEA is urging governments to ensure their post-COVID recovery packages are sustainable and don’t further lock in climate change.
You might have seen screenshots going around on social media in recent days claiming that Waleed Aly supported a gang of men which assaulted a young woman as a Melbourne train station last week. It didn’t happen. The quotes and claims are fake. Don’t share them. It’s a hoax made up by an alt-right website that regularly perpetrates falsehoods and outright inflammatory racist content. Don’t share it. Aly’s wife, Susan Carland, called it out on Twitter overnight (link), as has The Project.
Back on Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally. You might have seen claims that one million people registered for tickers to the free event in Oklahoma, with Trump’s team crowing about how many Americans were going to be there. In the end, just 6000 turned up, according to the fire department (link).
But an even more interesting part of this story — where did those claims of one million registrations come from? There’s been a lot of talk about an organised campaign from fans of KPop and young people on social media platform Tik Tok (link) to register for tickets and then not attend, to make the arena look empty. Some people claimed to have registered for “hundreds” of tickets. Trump’s campaign blamed bad media coverage and fear-mongering around COVID, claiming that “leftists and online trolls” who registered for tickets had no impact.
Staying on U.S. politics, Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton — whose controversial book is making huge waves in political circles, as he details private conversations with POTUS — says he’s going to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden (link). He told the British Daily Telegraph newspaper “I cannot do this [vote for Trump] again. My concern is for the country, and he does not represent the Republican cause that I want to back.”
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY
Be hygienic; wash your hands properly, at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows.
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies — Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is.
World Health Organisation latest statistics here; Australian government latest statistics here.
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Signing off — stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others.
Josh