Uncertainty

It was announced on Thursday that our state borders won’t be opening on February fifth after all. I’m not terribly surprised but there is no new goal in sight currently. My travel plans have reached some snags and they might turn out to be rather expensive. At the moment there’s not so much of an issue in traveling to the US but getting back into Western Australia is. There’s a cap of 40 arrivals per day internationally, based on hotel quarantine limits. The problem I have with this is there’s a totally different rule for people traveling from within Australia. I could return through another capital city in Australia, spend two weeks and then come home to quarantine at home instead. I’d have to change my ticket but it could be done. It’s still two months from travel so I won’t make any decisions yet as it can all change so quickly.

We now have omicron spreading locally so I am curious to see how things will play out here. Yesterday there were 24 local cases but today it was only thirteen. Today’s cases are almost all related to one cluster through close contacts and householders and I think many are already isolating. Interestingly, exposure sites have mostly been in the southern suburbs and not many are anywhere near us. Still, I think it’s unlikely we will be able to wipe this out locally like other strains. So it’s a watch-and-wait situation for the time being.

Meanwhile, my dad ended up at the ER again recently due to really high blood pressure and struggles with a bladder infection. That trip didn’t go well with his bp supposedly being normal even though it was something like 196/89 before they left home. After that, he was left waiting for hours and got agitated enough that my mom took him home, where his bp was still quite high but better than it had been earlier.