New Year’s Eve

As I write this it’s the last day of 2020 and what a whirlwind of a year it’s been. It’s a wonderful feeling starting a fresh new year. While a new year doesn’t mean the end to the problems brought about by the previous one (here’s looking at you, Coronavirus) it does represent a new chunk of time to group events in. Maybe the events that happen in the next chunk of time will be more positive on the whole than those in the last one. I feel like we are on the path to learning to better deal with the world’s new reality.

Things were looking good for Australia once Victoria came out of lockdown a couple of months ago (and are still looking good compared to many other places in the world). But earlier in December the virus escaped and now NSW (Greater Sydney) has gone from zero to 170 Covid cases in two weeks.

As of December 31 Victoria has six new locally transmitted Covid cases, breaking a two-month Covid-free streak. These cases are linked to the Sydney outbreak.

Sydney, which has always hung its hat on it’s world famous New Year’s Eve fireworks, cancelled the 9pm display and reduced the midnight ones to 7 minutes. People were banned from the streets and asked to stick to no more than 5 people in their homes. As one Victorian official said today, “This virus does not respect New Years eve, this virus does not respect state borders.”

Let’s hope people stick to the restrictions. As NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says, “The last thing we want is to welcome in 2021 with a super spreading event.”

New Year’s Day

NSW has woken up after a generally subdued NYE (apart from two large gatherings that police had to break up). Victoria has shut its border to NSW, with a massive traffic jam on the border as thousands of cars waited to cross.

The good news is that NSW has recorded only three new cases of COVID in Sydney since yesterday.

Last night was subdued here at The Alexcellent Life, but it was good. We sat on the couch and watched TV including half of a mockumentary called Death to 2020 on Netflix – very funny (will watch the other half tonight).

I got a message from my friend Gigi at about 1am. She wanted to check that I was watching Rage’s NYE special. Of course I was. Well, flicking between that and the old NYE standby, Can’t Stop The Music, starring the Village People, a young Bruce Jenner (before he became Caitlyn) and a lot of indoor plant eye-candy.

Anyway, out with the old chunk of time and in with a new one, that will hopefully bring with it more good than bad. And perhaps the light at the end of the COVID tunnel will become a little bit bigger and brighter.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

How did you spend your NYE?