Signs of Spring. Another year is going by far too fast, another year of wasted opportunities under the yoke of covid 19. With only half a month left to go until winter ends, we are beginning to see blooms on the Azalea bushes. Since it's a beautiful, clear, warm, sunny day, I decided to grab some backlit lunchtime shots with the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens.

Elsewhere things are not quite so sunny. As of last weekend, the entire state of New South Wales is under lockdown. People in the greater Sydney area cannot go to any other part of the state without a permit. There are still 400 to 500 new cases per day, but... who cares? That number isn't the important one. If you have a thousand asymptomatic cases, or 10,000, it's not important. What matters is the number of people AFFECTED by the virus, not the number who HAVE it. To get to the important number you have to wait for the endlessly blathering and repetitive politicians to naff off. ("Please, can I just say, this is very serious and Please. Get. Vaccinated." Which is a fair point, or would be had we not heard it for 60 days straight - same words, same expression, same clichés - which makes it less like imparting important information and more like the whine of a mosquito.) Eventually deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Jeremy McAnulty will make an appearance and give us the numbers that matter. Unfortunately... his numbers DO leave something to be desired. As of today there are about 7,409 active cases, give or take. (That number will never be static.) Of those 447 are in hospital, 69 in ICU, 24 on ventilators. That means that the number of cases which are hospitalised is running at about 6%, which is a smidge concerning. Admittedly, though, this is probably pushed up by older people who also make up the greater part of the pool of people who have died from it. But even then, our numbers are tiny compared to those of, say, Italia.

The vaccination rate is finally picking up (I had my second shot last Saturday), but it's still disturbingly low. It will not stop people contracting or passing on the virus, merely how bad it can get. When I went to Wollongong to get my shot in a former department store in the main shopping mall, I walked past ghostly, shuttered stores and cafes which would normally be full of shoppers, diners and so on. The time will have to come, when everyone who wants vaccination has received one, when we just say "screw it, no more" and let the cards fall where they may. We are not at that point yet, but this simply cannot go on forever. There will never again be zero cases, and we need to live with that. Ideally before I do my next winter shots, please.