*Season's Greetings From North Coast Voices, December 2020*

North Coast Voices

Wishes all its readers

A  very happy holiday season

This blog is now going into its annual break and will be back on 1 January 2021.

How the NSW Covid-19 infection numbers stand early Christmas Eve morning 2020

 

UPDATE:

24 December 2020

18 new cases as of 8pm last night:

 

* 9 new locally acquired cases 

* 7 of which have been confirmed to belong to the Avalon cluster and 2 are under investigation as reside in the Northern Beaches

* Avalon cluster now numbers 104 cases

* 9 new overseas acquired cases.

NSW Health archives its media releases covering the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic at https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/2020-nsw-health.aspx.

These media releases show that in the nine days encompassed by 14 to 22 December 2020 the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in New South Wales grew by 155 people. However, there were no additional deaths.

23 December 2020

The total number of cases in NSW is now 4,616 since the beginning of the pandemic….. [with 55 deaths recorded]

Of the 16 new cases to 8pm last night:

• Eight cases are locally acquired, and of these

• Seven cases are linked to the Avalon cluster

• One is a close contact of a known case whose source is under investigation

• Eight cases were acquired overseas and are in hotel quarantine.

22 December 2020

Of the 18 new cases to 8pm last night:

• Eight cases are locally acquired, and of these

• Seven cases are linked to the Avalon cluster

• One case remains under investigation

• Ten cases were acquired overseas and are in hotel quarantine.

21 December 2029

Of the 23 new cases to 8pm last night:

• 15 cases are locally acquired and linked to the Avalon cluster

• Eight were acquired overseas and are in hotel quarantine.

20 December 2020

Of the [36] new cases to 8pm last night:

• 28 cases are locally acquired and linked to the Avalon cluster

• Investigations are ongoing into the source of the remaining two cases, both of whom live on the Northern Beaches

• Six were acquired overseas and are in hotel quarantine.

19 December 2020

Of the [30] new cases to 8pm last night:

• 21 cases are locally acquired and linked to a known case or cluster (Avalon)

• Two cases are local acquired with their source under investigation

• Seven were acquired overseas and are in hotel quarantine.

18 December 2020

Of the [16] new cases to 8pm last night:

• 15 were locally acquired, and the source of their infections are under investigation.

• One was acquired overseas and is in hotel quarantine

All 15 of the local cases to 8pm last night are Northern Beaches residents announced yesterday, and NSW Health is undertaking urgent investigation and contact tracing to identify potential links and the sources of the infections.

17 December 2020

[9 news cases to 8 pm last night]

NSW recorded three locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

Two additional new locally acquired cases were notified this morning in the Northern Beaches area in a man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s.

The source of these two new infections, which will be included in tomorrow’s case numbers, is under investigation and further updates will be provided throughout the day as information becomes available.

NSW Health is now investigating five locally acquired cases. Four are in the Northern Beaches, and one case is a resident of south Sydney.

Six cases were also reported in returned travellers in hotel quarantine in the 24 hours to 8pm last night….

16 December 2020

[7 news cases to 8pm last night]

NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night…..

Seven cases were reported in overseas travellers. NSW Health has been notified this afternoon of two new cases of COVID-19 in people who live in the Northern Beaches area.

The source of these new infections is under investigation. At this stage, no links have been identified to other known cases.

15 December 2020

[5 new cases up to 8pm last night]

NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

Five cases were reported in overseas travellers. This brings the total number of cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic to 4,461 [with 55 deaths recorded].

And as annus horribilis 2020 nears its end.......

 

 

And on that note, battered by the political, economic, social and public health winds of 2020, I have no more f*cks to give.

Australia ends 2020 as it began - with Scott Morrison refusing to act on mental health policy and program reform

The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December 2020:

At the end of one of the most challenging years we have ever faced in Australia in terms of our collective mental health, and following Prime Minister Morrison’s impassioned release of the long-awaited Productivity Commission report, many have asked what’s the government’s plan of actions for 2021?

Well, it turns out that the answer is yet another inquiry! The terms of reference for this new “Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention” were tabled quietly in the Federal Parliament last Thursday, just before it closed. They state that an interim report is required by April 15, and a final report by November 1, 2021. The Labor spokesperson, Chris Bowen, made it clear the Opposition was not consulted.

No, this is not a repeat episode of Yes, Minister or its sequel Yes, Prime Minister. This committee’s deliberations will sit alongside a range of other reports still being prepared by the National Mental Health Commission (Vision 2030) and the Prime Minister’s special advisor on suicide prevention, Christine Morgan.

At this point, I’d suggest that Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot may now be essential Christmas reading for those who as a consequence of where they live, their family income or the severity of their illness are locked out of essential mental health services. For many others, only limited primary care responses were available pre-COVID-19. 

 

The mental health sector is often criticised by political leaders, and other social commentators, for not being more united in its advocacy or focused in its key "asks" of government. Consequently, it is easy for governments to argue that it is still necessary to hold more stakeholder consultations, parliamentary enquiries, inter-governmental meetings, royal commissions or human rights investigations. 

Frankly, in 2020, these delaying tactics are no longer acceptable. In late October, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its annual cause of death data for 2019 . In terms of productive years of life lost, suicide dwarfed all other causes. It accounted for 115,000 years lost annually, with heart disease a distant second (78,000 years lost prematurely). In the COVID-19 era, many expect a worsening mental health toll, particularly among younger people. 

Prior to the October 2020 budget, a broad cross section of the mental health sector presented the Morrison government with a four-year $3.7 billion proposal to implement immediately a range of widely agreed priorities. The sector assumes that the states and territories will also commit funds, workforces and infrastructure to deliver a regionally focused program of work..... [my yellow highlighting]

Australian Society 2020: and the annual female death by violence count grows

 

Destroy The Joint

 

There are 52 weeks in every year. As of 22 December 2020 the Counting Dead Women project has recorded a a total of 54 women who have died violent deaths in Australia, predominately at the hands of their partners, family members or people they knew socially.

A satirical comment on Australian politics and society in 2020

 

‘QAnon Anonymous’: a support group for people addicted to insane conspiracy theories, including … wait for it … #WarOn2020 pic.twitter.com/OE5Hlz8tlH

— The Shovel (@TheShovel) December 17, 2020

Australia's unique plant species declining in population numbers faster than mammals and birds

The Conversation, excerpt, 16 December 2020:

Plants, such as WA’s Endangered Foote’s grevillea, make our landscape unique.
 Andrew Crawford / WA Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions

Australia’s plant species are special - 84% are found nowhere else in the world. The index shows that over about 20 years up to 2017, Australia’s threatened plant populations declined by 72%. This is faster than mammals (which declined by about a third), and birds (which declined by about half). Populations of trees, shrubs, herbs and orchids all suffered roughly similar average declines (65-75%) over the two decades.

Of the 112 species in the index, 68% are critically endangered or endangered and at risk of extinction if left unmanaged. Some 37 plant species have gone extinct since records began, though many others are likely to have been lost before scientists even knew they existed. Land clearing, changed fire regimes, grazing by livestock and feral animals, plant diseases, weeds and climate change are common causes of decline.

Vulnerable plant populations reduced to small areas can also face unique threats. For example, by the early 2000s Foote’s grevillea (Grevillea calliantha) had dwindled to just 27 wild plants on road reserves. Road maintenance activities such as mowing and weed spraying became a major threat to its survival. For other species, like the button wrinklewort, small populations can lead to inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity.... 

Threatened plant conservation in fire-prone landscapes is challenging if a species’ relationship with fire is not known. Many Australian plant species require particular intensities or frequencies of burns for seed to be released or germinate. But since European settlement, fire patterns have been interrupted, causing many plant populations to decline. 

Three threatened native pomaderris shrubs on the NSW South Coast are a case in point. Each of them – Pomaderris adnata, P. bodalla and P. walshii – have failed to reproduce for several years and are now found only in a few locations, each with a small number of plants. 

Experimental trials recently revealed that to germinate, the seeds of these pomaderris species need exposure to hot-burning fires (or a hot oven). However they are now largely located in areas that seldom burn. This is important knowledge for conservation managers aiming to help wild populations persist.... 

A quarter of the species in the threatened plant index are orchids. Orchids make up 17% of plant species listed nationally as threatened, despite comprising just 6% of Australia’s total plant species. 

The endangered coloured spider-orchid (Caladenia colorata) is pollinated only by a single thynnine wasp, and relies on a single species of mycorrhizal fungi to germinate in the wild. 

Yet even for such a seemingly difficult species, conservation success is possible. In one project, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, aided by volunteers, identified sites where the wasp was still naturally present. More than 800 spider orchid plants were then propagated in a lab using the correct symbiotic fungus, then planted at four sites. These populations are now considered to be self-sustaining. 

In the case of Foote’s grevillea, a plant translocation program has established 500 plants at three new sites, dramatically improving the species’ long-term prospects.

The coloured spider orchid, found in South Australia and Victoria, is endangered. 
Noushka Reiter/Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria