Greg and Deb's Travel Blog

We treated ourselves for a few short breaks away from home over the month. The State Government gave away vouchers to be used at hotels in the state to encourage people (locals and inter-staters) to spend time and their money in SA and to help the tourist industry. We did our bit.

We were lucky enough to get vouchers in all 3 releases and used them this month for stays in Adelaide at the Mayfair Hotel and the new Crown Plaza Hotel, and at the Grand Hotel Glenelg.

We love staying at hotels in our city, it gives you more incentive to be a tourist in your hometown.

We also had a visit from Kerry, an “old” friend who was down here visiting her daughter and grandchildren. She spent a night with us at our apartment and we showed her around town. It was great to catch up with her.

I wish I had good news on the Covid-19 front, but it looks very much like it that the world is going into a third wave of infections. The graph below says it all.

Our March Covid-19 Blog can be found here.

#15 March 2021 Vaccinations in Australia begin and so does the Global Third Wave.

#12 December 2020 Covid-19  The End of 2020 – We have vaccines and the hope of a brighter 2021

Well, that’s the end of a very forgettable year, like no other experienced for a century.

In a year plagued by the first true global pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 we have also witnessed many other firsts.

The Republican Government led by President Donald Trump was soundly beaten in the November USA Election, but Trump is yet to concede defeat and is still pinning hopes to the US Congress reversing the election results in January before President elect Biden is sworn in.

China has taken to punishing Australia for what it sees as anti-Chinese sentiment of our government, implementing many trade sanctions against our exports, everything from wine to seafood has been affected. It seems this will continue for years to come.

On a brighter note,

We had a grandson born in September. We are yet to have met him due to travel restrictions within Australia.

There seems to have been a drop in the amount of armed conflict around the world, or was it just a drop in the amount of reporting of it?

Due to the economic impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the worlds environment improved, with carbon emissions dropping to unprecedented levels.

Ben and Carly’s businesses have flourished in the new environment, with them both making the most of new opportunities that the pandemic restrictions presented to them (and a lot of very hard work by both of them).

The world has a new vocabulary all due to the Pandemic, new words and phrases seemed to spring up frequently over the year. The most common being “new normal”, “Covid normal”, “Social distancing” and so many more. My favourite of them all is “COVIDIOT” a term used to describe people who despite all the information and advice around during the year just went ahead and did absolutely stupid things,  that put the wider community in unnecessary danger.

I started this blog way back in March and I never imagined I would still be going with it now. I haven’t missed a day and sadly the news hasn’t really got any better. But new hope is around with three vaccines approved by “The West: and another two approved by Russia and China.

You can find my December blog here.

#12 December 2020 Covid-19 The End of 2020 – We have vaccines and the hope of a brighter 2021

Well it’s been another crazy month,

The USA Presidential election was held and there is still np “Official” winner, but it looks like Joe Biden has beaten Donald Trump. Trump has also been defeated in many lawsuits brought about to discredit/lay aside the election results.

The relationship between China and Australia is sinking to new lows

South Australia was placed into a 6 day shut down and got it done in 3 days!

We had planned a few “breaks”.

A couple of days in a brand new CBD hotel, that we postponed after a fresh Covid-19 outbreak.

A week in Perth WA to see our new grandson (and his parents) was cancelled for us when WA closed its borders to SA just 1.5 days after they opened them!

I guess this is the “New Normal” that gets talked about, don’t make plans too far in advance, things move quickly.

My November edition of my Covid-19 Diary can be found via this link, it continues to be grim reading.

I am just so glad we live in Australia and not anywhere in the northern hemisphere, the virus seems to be running unstoppable there.

I have posted my October 2020 Covid-19 Diary, you can find it via this link. https://gregndeb.com/zero-hr-covid-19/10-october-2020-covid-19-the-pandemic-takes-hold-globally/

The pandemic has hit the world hard, particularly the northern hemisphere. The chart below shows the number of new infections from July 2020 to the end of October 2020. As you can see, the number of new Covid-19 cases is steadily increasing with no signs of it slowing down. The good news is that the death rate for those that develop Covid-19 seems to have plateaued, I assume because globally we are getting better at treating the disease.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to look into how our global experience with Coronavirus/Covid-19 compared to the 1918-20 global experience with the Spanish Flu.

To be short, and to quote the 1970’s band Bachman–Turner Overdrive, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”. The Spanish Flu was in its time orders of magnitude worse that what we are experiencing.

To find out more have a look here, https://gregndeb.com/zero-hr-covid-19/9-september-2020-covid-19-globally-its-getting-worse-victoria-is-back-on-track/

Anyone interested in how this pandemic is going, I have just updated my “diary” with my August monthly summary.

You can find it all here, https://gregndeb.com/zero-hr-covid-19/

It is grim reading, but as factual as I can make it.