The Victorian coronavirus position worsened noticeably over the weekend, with another 800 cases and 15 deaths reported over the two days.
Mercifully, to this point, the NSW situation has not moved the same way, with just 25 cases over the same time.
The numbers of confirmed positives are, of themselves, only part of the story.
Testing rates vary from state to state, and country to country, and whatever daily numbers are posted, they are only the absolute minimum number of cases.
As important as these figures are, it's the trend they convey that helps build a bigger picture.
The Johns Hopkins University data base collates COVID-19 figures from 186 countries and two ships.
Of those 186 countries, 35 have hit record numbers of cases in the past week.
Another 63 have worsening numbers, making 99 countries in which the trend is headed the wrong way.
This leaves 88 countries whose case numbers have either dropped or are declining to varying degrees, but a number of these are still recording thousands of new cases a day.
Russia, for example, has halved its rate of increase since case numbers peaked there on May 11, but is still returning more than 5000 positives a day.
But such figures pale beside the United States, still adding 70,000 cases a day amid the push by President Donald Trump, campaigning for re-election, to get the country moving again.
Australia is by no means alone in fighting a resurgence of cases.
Israel and Japan also had a stretch during May and June when their daily increases were measured in the dozens.
Japan was last week adding 1000 cases a day, and Israel double that number.
Worldwide, it has taken just eight days to add another two million cases to a tally that sat late yesterday at 16.1 million, with some 645,000 fatalities.
GLOBAL ROUNDUP:
- South Africa adds 12,000 new cases
- Spain targets beaches as virus rebounds
- North Korea acknowledges virus inside its borders
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Chinese cases appear to be rising, but off low numbers
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Boris Johnson the coronvirus optimist
Although not explosive, the overall rate of measured infection is accelerating, with the global total rising by more than 280,000 cases a day for three days running last week.
Such numbers are orders of magnitude larger than at the height of the great lockdown earlier this year.
The more that researchers learn about COVID-19, the more we realise the scale of the problem we face.
As the virus continues to mow down the elderly, especially, the trend is not our friend, regardless of what "reopen the economy" lobby might say.
And that applies nationally, regionally and globally.
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