Numbers don’t mean much to a lot of people (like numerically-dyslexic me), so maybe a graph will suffice to illustrate what’s happening outside my front door, right now in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
By every measure, we’ll be rocketing past 500 cases per day by the end of the month. This is American-style maladministration. Our government has not admitted gross incompetence yet, and likely never will, but the virus is out of control in this state.
The second chart (cases under investigation) proves our contact-tracing teams have been overwhelmed. It shows untraced cases, and raises the spectre of unchecked community transmission. The shape of the graph shows a virus spreading despite our best belated efforts.
The horse has bolted, and now a wolf is at our door.
When I look at these graphs I see the virus surging. There’s almost a musical tempo to it. I wonder, using their clever thinking-machines, why nobody has attributed these seemingly regular surges of infection to any specific melody yet?
I attribute it to some secret Liberal-National Party anthem that heralds the opening of trade at the ASX each day — Horst-Wessel-Lied perhaps — because if someone with sufficient analytical skills were to check, I bet the surges follow conservative political decisions.
Because while you can’t enter a hospital to see a dying parent, or your child being born, fifty guys from hotspots across Sydney can work at an ‘exempted’ worksite to build a highrise nobody’s going to buy. A thousand people on the beach at Manly every day? Don’t worry, Glady’s says “So long as you’re exercising” wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
The wolf isn’t at the door. It’s inside, and has backed our terrified Premier and Prime Minister into the same corner. To save their skins they’re hand-feeding it human sacrifices every day, prioritizing their political careers over lives.