The vulture of death circled lazily, the updrafts catching its lice riddled wings and keeping it aloft like the hopes and dreams of a malevolent sociopath. Suddenly with a croak of triumph it folds its wings and plummets earthwards filthy talons extended as it seeks its latest prey. Apparently its latest prey is South Australia.
There are a lot of things wrong with the previous statement and that's without getting into the muddled up tenses. For starters vultures don't tend to plummet earthwards to seize their prey. They just gradually descend onto somebody else's prey and start tearing at the already slaughtered carcass. They do circle lazily though, I've seen them. And I don't actually know about the lice and the filthiness of the talons but lets face it; they spend a goodly amount of their time neck deep in mutilated animals and there aren't many pedicurists on the Seregeti. What's more a number those that do exist have a strict "No Vultures" policy. I mean they don't come right out and say that of course but the hints are there if you can read between the lines.
This rather lengthy (and completely irrelevant) preamble about vultures might make you think I have nothing to put in this plague update and you would be completely wrong. I just don't have much to put in this plague update and the entire vulture sequence padded out a couple of paragraphs. As did the paragraph you have just finished reading.
So on to plague news. It has to be admitted that we were starting to get a little cocky, numbers were down and even Victoria had finally managed to get a grip on its spiraling death toll before it became a serious demographic issue. Things were looking up then suddenly dramatic news came out of South Australia. The phrase "dramatic news came out of South Australia" is not one that anybody gets to write too often to forgive me if I wallow in for a moment. Having said that it is slightly less of a surprise that when dramatic news did come out of South Australia it involved something potentially fatal.
There has been a cluster of seventeen new cases mostly centred around one family but COVID-19 is nothing if not gregarious and I'm sure it will be getting around. The South Australian government has reacted with speed, shutting down schools and reintroducing all of the various "stay the hell away from each other" regulations they had spent the last couple of months rescinding. Twenty four hours after South Australia graciously informed the surviving inhabitants of Victoria that they would have to come up with their own reasons for not visiting South Australia the government of Victoria slammed the gates from the other direction. If you want to know the definition of schadenfreude you just have to look at the expression on Daniel Andrew's face.
I don't blame Victoria, the last couple of weeks have been positive to the point whereby the rest of Australia was prepared to accept them as fellow citizens again (grubby, possibly diseased citizens but citizens nonetheless) and the last thing they need is for a stream of infectious refugees fleeing South Australia overwhelming their borders.
Personally I don't think Victoria needs to worry that much. The fact that the population of South Australia didn't flee the place decades ago is an indication that they are inured to suffering and are determined to make the best of things. The one good thing about South Australia in lockdown is that neither the population of South Australia or the rest of the country is likely to notice. Has any ever met anyone from South Australia? Neither have I.
The greatest irritation has been suffered by our Federal politicians. They had been making snarky noises about the states locking down their borders and then the second wave hit Victoria and they had to change direction pretty much in mid sentence. With Victoria apparently recovering the snark had been returning and now SA has an outbreak and another reversal has had to be implemented. If this were you or me we might stop offering suggestions at this point (well I wouldn't but I have a blog to fill and I don't expect anyone to take me seriously anyway) but I doubt if our politicians will take the hint.
In defence of our nation's politicians I will admit that when virtually your entire job description consists of talking about things you have no knowledge of it's actually very difficult to stop. I intended to finish these plague updates at #11 (ten too many for the level of knowledge I have on the subject) but I just can't help myself. I would run for parliament but thanks to the inconvenient birth location of my father that involves more faffing about than I'm prepared to go through simply to serve my fellow human beings.
In better news my Tasmanian correspondent has resurfaced and reluctantly conceded that she can't physically prevent me from coming to Tasmania for a visit. If I catch the next plane I might be in time for the goldfish funeral.
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