CORONAVIRUS restrictions are being further eased across Australia this week, with the political focus on getting the country going again.
With just 11 cases reported nationwide on Saturday and only 579 cases active from our total of 7185, the situation certainly seems manageable enough.
Unfortunately, however, the global picture continues to worsen, with Saturday's total of 134,700 new infections the highest single-day figure by some distance.
The weekend also saw the total number of confirmed cases top 6 million, with the number of deaths put at 369,433 late yesterday afternoon.
STATISTICS SUMMARY:Coronavirus snapshot
After six weeks of relatively stable - if worryingly high - rates of infection, global daily case numbers have spiked noticeably since mid-May and there is nothing in a country-by-country breakdown of COVID-19 statistics to suggest a slowing of the pandemic and its mounting death toll.
The profiles of 186 nations (and two cruise ships) captured by the Johns Hopkins University global dashboard, shows the pathogen is still very much in the ascendancy.
No two countries have the same case curves, but infections are rising steeply in some 80 nations, with about 35 of these recording their largest one-day totals on Friday or Saturday.
Cases in another 45 or so nations are either plateauing or declining slightly.
This leaves about 60 countries - including, of course, Australia - who can say that their initial, and hopefully only, battle with COVID-19 is largely behind them.
Once the virus left China, the early wave of coronavirus infections took hold mainly in advanced economies, spread initially (and unwittingly) by international travellers.
Various advanced economies are still grappling with large numbers of new cases but the big percentage increases are mainly in South America, Africa and the Middle East.
Even with a global race to create a vaccine, there is no obvious sign of one being available any time soon.
Until this happens, or unless COVID-19 mutates into a less dangerous form, we may be trapped in a new era of closed or restricted borders, as "healthy" nations - again, including Australia - look to protect themselves.
While ever this lasts, all politics will be viewed and conducted though a coronavirus lens.
The police death of 46-year-old George Floyd lit the race riots and flames across America, but there are ample signs that discontent over President Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-crisis is adding plenty of fuel.
ISSUE: 39,621.
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