Covid-19

Yesterday it was reported how a young girl who entered SA from Victoria tested positive and consequently returned home to Victoria with her family. Everyone involved did the right thing and most likely it was all under control. However it could have been different. If any one of a number of events was slightly different it could have unknowingly seeded the Delta strain of Covid in SA. While the family was en route they received an SMS from the Vic Health to say that the girl was a close contact of a known Covid case. Consequently she was promptly tested and the result came back quickly. If Vic Health had not sent the SMS. Things may have been different if the phone had not been checked or was out of power. Things may have different if other people had been too close at a toilet stop. There were reports in the newspaper of so many cars crossing the border on the first day it was impossible to check them all. It has become much clearer to me why the borders have been opened up. First

Thursday November 24 A quick look at the ABC News website showed that there are now 60,000 people who have been approved to enter SA from the Covid states of NSW, Vic and ACT. That is a hell of a lot of people. The population of Adelaide, the capital of SA is about 1.3 million. 60,000 represents nearly 5% of this. It would be interesting to know the demographics of the 60,000. What states are they from? What age groups are there? How many are children under 12? Children under 12 are not eligible to be vaccinated. I have heard quite a number of planes arriving today. Planes have been few and far between over the last 2 years. How many people arrived today. A wild guess is at least 1000. 2 people who arrived today tested positive for Delta. One was a man who had it a few months ago and apparently not infectious. Maybe he had long Covid. The other was a young girl who was sent back to Victoria with her parents. Her South Australian grandparents are isolating. Hopefuly they will reco

On November 23 2021 South Australia opened its borders. SA borders have been closed to most residents from the COVID states of NSW, VIC and ACT for some months. From midnight this morning, residents from NSW, VIC and ACT were allowed entry to SA. Not all people were eligible, so people wanting to come to SA were required to apply via an online form on an SA Government website. The number of applicants was remarkable. So many applied that the system crashed when a total of 25,000 applicants was reached. The number reached 30,000 soon after the system was restored. At the end of the day 43,000 people had successfully applied to enter SA. These are phenomenal numbers, especially considering that Adelaide has a population of 1.3 million people. 43,000 is about 3% of the population of Adelaide. While many arrived today, it may take some time before they all arrive. No doubt many more people will apply over the coming days and weeks. I plan to do an interesting analysis of the plusses,

The pandemic is this case is Covid-19 in 2020, though the pandemic could be SARS, MERS, Ebola etc. To deny a pandemic is easy. Anyone can do it. No knowledge or understanding is required. In fact, the less the better. However there are some dos and don’ts. Under no circumstance suggest that easily transmissable diseases might increase geometrically. For example, if cases double every week the numbers would look 2,4,8,16,32,64,128 etc. Or that if numbers doubled every week for a year everyone in the could be exposed. Instead make it out has a kind of linear increase, like 1,2,3,4,5 etc. Do compare COVID with something that is relatively constant. For example you could compare it with car accidents which is roughly the same number every year. Ignore the enormous steps taken to improve road safety. Do not suggest that geometrically increasing cases could eventually overtake what was initially a much larger number. Do compare COVID with seasonal influenza. Say flu is worse without know