Ramadan has started a full month earlier this year than last. The reason for that is that the Islamic calendar is based on a lunar cycle and every month is typically a day shorter than the western calendar, which is based on a solar cycle. The effect of this is that over three lunar years the Islamic calendar effectively loses a month on the western calendar.
The Indonesian government is hoping to avoid a repeat of the catastrophic super spreader event which occurred this time last year when people from all over Indonesia returned home to their villages to be with family at the end of the holy month of fasting.
This year, they have issued a firm warning for people not to travel but with covid case numbers at relatively low levels, most people are simply going to ignore the government’s directive.
What could possibly go wrong?
A deadly new coronavirus strain emerged in India last October and has now spread to Europe and the US, causing case numbers there to surge once again. Despite having ramped up it’s vaccine response under the Biden administration, the US is now facing growing resistance to vaccinations, mainly from Trump supporters, who still believe the election was stolen.
These died in the wool Republicans don’t like anyone telling them what they should and shouldn’t do at the best of times and they certainly aren’t going to take a vaccine now, on the urging of an illegitimate Democrat President.
Even Donald Trump himself is booed at a rally when he tells supporters they should get the jab.
Still, India is the global epicentre of this new Delta variant. On May 7, they report a staggering 414,000 new cases and on July 10 record over 6000 deaths.
The Delta strain is said to be twice as transmissible as the strain which originated in Wuhan nearly 12 months earlier and unlike the earlier version, children are as susceptible as adults.
All the major western vaccines are fortunately still highly effective against this new strain and the vaccinated are far more likely to experience milder symptoms and are far less likely to require hospitalisation.
Australia’ vaccine rollout is still woefully behind schedule. By the end of April less than 10% of the population have received a first dose. But fortunately the country has been highly successful to date in suppressing community transmission.
The two biggest Australian states, Victoria and New South Wales, have also seen the highest number of cases. NSW has been especially successful in controlling the spread of infection without the need for lockdowns. Victoria has now gone into lockdown on three separate occasions, as cases have spread from hotel quarantine into the wider community but on each occasion they have been able to push case numbers back to zero.
On April 23, nearly 7 months after enduring one of the world’s longest lockdowns, 78,000 Melburnians attend an Australian Rules football match at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). It is the largest number of people to gather in one place anywhere in the world for the past 18 months.
At this same time in Indonesia, the first cases of Delta are starting to emerge.
Although the government has issued strict orders for people not to travel at the end of Ramadan, it seems the entire country, from political leaders to the population at large, are oblivious to the threat posed by the Delta strain.
Airline services between islands continue to operate at full capacity and are available to anyone who can show a negative PCR test.
The end of the fasting month sees millions of people mobilised around the country once again, in direct defiance of their government.
And for the second year in a row, this civil disobedience plunges the nation into chaos.
Throughout the month of Ramadan daily cases hover between three and five thousand. But by the end of June cases are surpassing 20,000 per day. By mid July there are over 54,000 cases recorded in a single day.
Java and Bali are the two islands hardest hit by the virus. Hospitals in each location are overwhelmed. There are simply not enough beds and more crucially, not enough oxygen.
Frontline workers were amongst the first people in the country to be vaccinated and at this point are about the only ones who have been. The exception is the island of Bali which has been preparing to reopen to international tourists and has already double dosed 70% of it’s population.
But the vaccine of choice in Indonesia has been Sinovac, made freely available by the Chinese government. And yet it is proving to be virtually ineffective in limiting the spread of Delta infection.
Doctors and hospital staff figure prominently amongst the numbers of sick and dying.
And despite the record numbers of infections and deaths, cases are almost certainly drastically understated.
Based on the official statistics, about one in eight people in Jakarta have contracted the virus. But a serological survey conducted across 106 districts of the capital reveals that nearly 50% of the population either have or have already had the virus. And this survey is taken a month before the Delta outbreak got underway.
Although it is difficult to get accurate information, the Delta strain appears to not have taken a firm hold yet in Lombok.
At the end of June, two people arriving from Jakarta at the Lombok International Airport are randomly tested and despite holding negative test results, are found to be covid positive.
We receive notification at the guesthouse that we are to remain closed until such time as all our staff are vaccinated.
Ian and Fajar are the first to receive their jabs and I am pleased to learn that they were able to get Astra Zeneca which has recently come from England. I was planning to wait until I returned to Australia before getting vaccinated but if I can get Astra Zeneca here, that is surely a better option.
Singapore is now closed off as a route back to Australia from Indonesia so it could be months before I am able to return.
Even so, Ian and Fajar have a three month wait for their next injection so it will be September before we can start receiving guests again.
Both Dewi and Rini are reluctant to get vaccinated, simply due to a fear of needles. Rini realises however that continuing her role in the kitchen is pointless now that we are closed and chooses to resign. She duly packs up her belongings and both she and Hani return to their old room in Harry and Lis’s house.
I take a fairly hard line with Dewi and tell her she has to get vaccinated. She insists it is her choice but ultimately relents without much protest. She, Kevin and Kezia receive Sinovac vaccines.
Rini has a surprise change of heart and gets an Astra Zeneca vaccine. Perhaps the thought of catching or possibly dying from covid is far scarier than the thought of taking a needle in the arm.
She returns to the guesthouse the following week to help Kak Ida in the garden. Dewi had taken over cooking duties for the family including Ian and Fajar she but readily steps back and lets Rini take over again once she returns.
Harrys sister, Kak Ida, who has been our resident cleaner since we opened eighteen months ago, is a concern as she is approaching 60 and has numerous health concerns. But she consults a GP and is given the all clear to receive a Sinovac jab.
By the time I received my Aztra Zeneca shot the health authorities have reduced the second shot wait time to two months. Although the health advice in Autralia originally recommended waiting three months for the vaccine to be fully effective, they too have reduced the time between doses to six weeks in an effort to get more people fully vaccinated more quickly.
My brother Graeme is confident that booster shots are soon going to become necessary and recommends that I take the earliest available shot but I decide I want the best protection I can get. I end up getting my second shot at the same time as Ian and Fajar which effectively gives me 11 weeks between jabs.
By mid August, cases numbers in Indonesia have receded from the July peak but the country is still reporting 200,000 cases a week and over 10,000 deaths.
It is not until mid September that case numbers fall back to the levels being reported in April.
By this time the Delta strain has reached Australia and is well and truly wreaking havoc in the two two largest states, NSW and Victoria.
The first cases appear in Sydney in May and spread quickly to Melbourne. While the State Government in Victoria takes a “go early, go hard” approach and calls a snap lockdown as the first cases appear, the NSW Government feels confident it can continue with it’s superior contact tracing and containment strategy.
Not against Delta it can’t.
Melbourne spends five and a half weeks in lockdown at the end of May but is once again successful in bringing case numbers under control.
NSW meanwhile, attempts to manage the outbreak by shutting down parts of the city but in late June is forced to impose a lockdown across the greater metropolitan area.
There is a general reluctance on the part of many members of the public however to follow the rules and the health advice, having enjoyed relatively minimal disruption to their day to day lives up until now and case numbers continue to rise.
Cases also continue to spill beyond the state’s borders, plunging both Melbourne and the New Zealand capital of Auckland back into lockdown. It is the first time in over a year that New Zealand has recorded any new cases.
North of NSW, the State of Queensland reports numerous cases jumping the border but they somehow manage to prevent each outbreak from spreading.
The remote Northern Territory capital of Darwin enters it’s first lockdown of the pandemic in late June after a mine worker returned a positive test result. The lockdown lasts a week but restrictions are lifted after it becomes clear there is no community transmission.
The other Australian states, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia have all set up hard borders with the eastern states and have been largely successful at keeping the Delta strain out of their jurisdictions entirely.
In mid June, the National Immunisation Advisory Group, ATAGI, recommends that Astra Zeneca only be made available to those aged 60 and over after a rare blood clotting event is found to affect a small number of people in younger age groups and has resulted in a number of deaths.
PM Scott Morrison and the Federal Government now find themselves caught off-guard as the folly of their Ill-conceived vaccination strategy is exposed. People over 60 don’t want an 85% effective vaccine like Astra Zeneca, they want a 95% effective vaccine like Pfizer or Moderna. But the problem is only a small amount of Pfizer vaccine in the country and there is no Moderna.
And now, anyone aged under 60 has to wait until there are adequate supplies of alternative vaccines in order to get vaccinated at all.
The media as well as the entire population are now calling for Scott Morrison’s head.
The Federal Government gave itself one important task and they have fucked it up completely! And almost half the are stuck in lockdown as a result. Morrison appears on the nightly news and shame-facedly attempts to spin his way beyond accountability.
The gall of the man.
What a bunch of incompetent fucking morons!
It comes down to a former PM, Kevin Rudd, to put in a call to the global head of Pfizer, Albert Boula, and see if he can get things moving.
The plan is instigated at the end of June, by a small group of Australian businessmen who are despairing of the Government’s dismal effort. Rudd is known to Bourla through his work as the head of the New York based Asia Society.
It transpires that Bourla has been gravely offended by the fact that he was never formally contacted by Scott Morrison during earlier negotiations but was instead handed off repeatedly to junior bureaucrats.
Australia has ordered 40 million doses of Pfizer which are not due for delivery until late in the year.
Kevin Rudd respectfully enquires of Bourla whether there is any chance of bringing part of the order forward.
Bourla responds that all the company’s production facilities are working at full capacity to fulfil existing orders.
But he also notes that some facilities are in fact exceeding their production quotas and that he will be happy to see if there is any way that some supplies can be bought forward.
He adds that while he makes further enquiries there will still need to be a formal request made by the Australian Government.
In mid-July and after weeks of denying culpability, Scott Morrison finally offers a half-hearted apology for “regrettable delays” in the vaccine rollout.
Not two weeks later, he is crowing about having been able to secure an extra 150,000 doses a month of Pfizer vaccine to bolster the rollout effort.
And all it took was a phone call.
Or two.
Unbelievable.
Melbourne’s fifth lockdown in mid-July lasts only 10 days and once again the city’s residents are able to stop the virus from spreading.
Unfortunately the taste of yet another victory is short lived. In early August the virus slips across the border again, this time via a pair of removalists who drive their van into regional Victoria whilst infected and continue on into South Australia where they continue to spread the virus before being apprehended and ordered back to their home state.
In a devestatingly tragic twist, their mother is one of the first people they infected and she dies in hospital as a result of the virus a short time after they return.
While South Australia is able to contain the spread of infection with a week of lockdown, case numbers in Melbourne this time, continue to rise.
The resolve of residents in a city that has by now seen over 200 days of lockdown appears to be running out of steam.
After the initial two-week lockdown is extended, anti-vaccination and anti-government protesters take to the streets. There is a palpable sense that people have simply had enough and that many are not prepared to be locked down a moment longer.
The NSW lockdown has been in place two weeks longer than in Melbourne and has also been extended. The State Premier, Gladys Berejiklian is imploring a recalcitrant public to consider the effect to family and loved ones of ignoring health orders.
But new cases are now increasing by the hundred. By late August daily case numbers in NSW surpass the record number of cases reported by Victoria in July 2020. Cases peak at 1599 in a single day on September 10.
By now, State Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has abandoned any hope of maintaining a suppression strategy and has told the public that health orders will remain in place until the adult population is at least 70% double vaccinated.
This is a big carrot being dangled on a long stick.
On August 21, the State reports having conducted a massive 206,000 covid tests in a single day. On August 22 they administer 160,000 doses of vaccine and report having given 738,000 injections in a week.
On September 2 the State reaches 70% double vaccination of the adult population and on October 11 the State comes out of lockdown as the first Australian jurisdiction to achieve an 80% double vaccination rate. Daily cases numbers have dropped from the record high to around 300 per day.
Having now learned how to use a telephone, Scott Morrison has managed to organise several shipments of vaccines from countries such as Singapore and the UK, who have already vaccinated the bulk of their populations. Under the arrangement, their excess stock will be returned once Australia receives its full allocation from Pfizer.
And suddenly the country is awash with vaccine supplies.
Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews is quick to follow Berejiklian’s lead in announcing a vaccinated pathway out of lockdown. And while the Victorian population eagerly line up to get jabbed, a small number of protesters are marching every day, refusing to be vaccinated and refusing to be locked down.
In the Melbourne suburb of Richmond a small number of well-meaning residents are trying to support local hospitality venues by buying food and drinks during their daily exercise period and posting photos and stories to social media.
They decide to take it one step further by encouraging friends to join them on a street walk one sunny weekend to visit and enjoy a beer at some of the local pubs.
My pub, which is in the suburb being supported by these residents, has quietly been doing steady trade selling booze to customers in our footpath trading area as they wait for takeaway meals.
The weekend street walk, however turns into a massive pub crawl, which is well outside the letter of the law when it comes to social distancing, mask wearing and stay at home orders.
Premier Andrews is livid and bans the removal of masks for the purpose of consuming alcohol in outdoor spaces.
I largely support the manner in which the Premier has overseen Melbourne’s six lockdowns and I fully empathise with the people of Melbourne for the gruelling restrictions they have had to endure. But this latest restriction is surely going to put a big dent in my hip pocket.
While the people of Richmond feel truly chastened, unrest continues to spill out onto the street. And the issue of mandatory vaccination is proving to be a major sore point.
A number of members of the powerful construction union, the CFMEU, storm the organisation’s head office in Melbourne, hurling abuse and beer cans at boss, John Setka for mandating vaccinations on all Victorian construction sites.
He is drowned out as he attempts to address the angry mob and needs to retreat back into the union building to avoid physical harm but he is later interviewed for the nightly news and stands firm. He is committed to mandating vaccinations in order to protect workers and their families.
The angry mob appear to have been assembled from a group of union members as well as a small group of right wing conspiracy theorists dressed in high-vis clothing. Nut jobs from both ends of the political spectrum, coming together to stir up dissent.
Case numbers in Melbourne continue to climb through August and September.
The Australian Rules Grand Final has to be played outside the state for only the second time in it’s 100 year history.
This year Perth is the host city and their impressive, 60,000-capacity stadium is equal to the event.
The people of Perth have been playing Australian Rules football almost as long as Victorians and a sense of excitement grips the whole city in the days leading up to the match.
The Grand Final is one of the most thrilling matches played in recent times. The Melbourne Football Club lead early against challengers, the Western Bulldogs but come from behind in an epic struggle to clinch an historic win.
They are one of the oldest professional sporting clubs in the world and this is their first Grand Final win in 57 years.
By late September Sydney cases numbers are coming off their peak, while Melbourne’s are continuing to rise.
Melbourne case numbers surpass Sydney’s daily tally on September 28.
Dan Andrews remains poised as he gently admonishes weary Melburnians for defying stay at home orders to host or attend parties on Grand Final Day.
He tells them that it will most certainly lead to higher case numbers and affect the mix of restrictions left in place once the 70% vaccination target is reached and reopening begins.
Two weeks later cases hit a record 2397 in a single day, the highest number ever recorded in the country.
A week later on October 21, Victoria hits it’s 70% vaccination target, meaning the sixth lockdown, 77 days long is finally over.
I put the total number of days Melburnians have spent in lockdown at 289.