How COVID-safe was Summernats?

That day saw another record-breaking number of COVID positive cases in the ACT with acting Health Minister Chris Steel offering the usual thanks to "our community for continuing to do the right thing as we try to keep those most vulnerable in our community safe".

He did not mention if and how he and various authorities had had been checking the large and highly mobile Summernats community for its compliance with COVID-safe behaviour guidelines and restrictions, both on-site and outside the EPIC gates.

While the ACT government recently indicated it will move away from a COVID case number focus on January 12 many who have been making an effort "to do the right thing" would expect to see the numbers and some detailed demographic analysis made publicly available and in a timely way for some time to come.

Such information would also help to remind others that public health measures are still needed and should be followed in order to keep the whole community, not just the vulnerable, safer and healthier, especially as a new school term approaches.

It is regrettable that so many households in Belconnen have been left without power over the last week.

Sadly this experience is likely to become increasingly common throughout Canberra, in part due to changing weather patterns.

Some people say they have been left without access to news reports. I suggest people begin to prepare for power outages as they do for bushfires.

Firstly, we should all acquire a couple of battery operated radios, at least one of which should be kept empty of batteries. Also, we need to keep a store of the appropriate-sized batteries, which should be stored unopened in their packaging. There are also printed editions of local newspapers to fall back on.

We need to keep a collection of battery operated lamps, enough for one in each room. Also a few torches, some with batteries stored separately. We do not want to squander our phone batteries by using them as torches.

There are also solar generators and batteries which can extend the operation of appliances, such as TV sets, refrigerators and mobile phones. Some cars have phone chargers.

An esky can prolong the life of perishable food. One correspondent mentioned that service stations do not all stock ice supplies. However, some supermarkets advertise packs of ice.

Washing can be done in cold water using buckets and sinks.

Those with an outdoor barbecue are lucky. Otherwise, we can keep stocks of canned and packaged foods.

We should avoid using candles wherever possible, and never use liquid fuels inside.

It is wise once a blackout happens, to make arrangements with someone outside the blackout zone to recharge our phones and possibly to store our frozen food.

While travelling around Belconnen, my sister and I saw literally hundreds of branches and trees from fallen eucalypts which lined the streets .

A huge eucalypt had fallen on the Kippax oval. Higgins, Holt and Kippax had many trees down, all eucalypts from what I could see. In fact every second lawn had either a tree and / or branches lying on it.

These eucalypts cause damage and a huge amount of work for SES and urban services.

I did not see a single deciduous tree which had fallen and for a very good reason. Their root system is much deeper and the structure more flexible.

Please, no more eucalypts. They are very dangerous trees which can fall or shed branches randomly even in perfect weather. Their roots are shallow and the trees are brittle which means that instead of bending with the wind they snap.

When I came to Canberra in 1972 from a little country town in central Victoria where the country roads were usually in poor condition I used to brag to my family that the only rough road in Canberra was the entry to the tip.

50 years later most arterial roads and some suburban streets in Canberra are riddled with pot holes and I'm not talking about small ones. When driving on Sulwood Drive last weekend, my wife and I hit a large, deep and sunken section of the road (just behind Mount Taylor) that caused our car to bottom out. We had to pull over and inspect it to see if there was any visible damage.

This was reported to Access Canberra. We haven't been back to see if the road had been fixed or not. I would assume not as this government moves slowly, unless it's raising rates.

Heaven help any motorbike rider who hits one of these pot holes. Without a doubt you would certainly come off the bike and yes, I ride a motorbike.

For years we have been putting unwanted goods and chattels on the curb. Always in good working condition and always items we would continue to use if we needed them. Not our junk and someone else's treasure but once loved treasure for someone else to use.

One recent morning all six items we had put out were gone. It made the day for us. Items we had used had now gone to another useful life. Why store it (like the springs off my dad's Ford Prefect from 70 years ago!) or have it clutter your storage when someone else can use it.

And I made a friend as we chatted about what I had put out. She did not take any but it was nice to talk face to face, not a mobile in sight!

With Sunday's NSW COVID-19 hospitalisations running at 2000 and the day's deaths at 16, it must be clear to the population that the pressure these numbers put on medical staff are outrageous and cannot be sustained.

Both federally and in NSW we are being led by people whose every decision is made in the interest of personal political capital and not community wellbeing. Every one of those sick and dying people needs the support of medical staff. All our medical staff are exhausted after two years of poor political decisions and utter social confusion.

The financial viability of sporting events is being prioritised without any thought being given to our doctors, nurses and the community cost. We are being failed by the political mania to win at all costs. There is a total lack of empathy with the voting public.

I would dispute D Zivkovic's implicit claims that the 8000 deaths from pneumonia and influenza in the 2016 and 2017 flu seasons, and associated hospital admissions, were all influenza related. A number of studies suggest influenza accounts for perhaps less than 15 per cent of influenza and pneumonia deaths in some years.

Pneumonia has many other causes, especially in the aged. According to the ABS, deaths from influenza as primary cause were 1255 in 2017 and 464 in 2016. The other factor which Zivkovic fails to take into account is the far greater rate of COVID-related admissions during the peaks of cases.

I agree that we should have spent far more on health facilities, and have been better prepared for the current emergency, but downplaying the relative effects of COVID as compared to influenza isn't helpful.

Re: "Reciprocal Access Agreement with Japan a game changer" (editorial, canberratimes.com.au, January 8).

You wrote that: "[after World War II] Japan came out ahead because its defence spending was minimal compared to its commercial competitors and trading partners". Japan was smart, and its competitors were stupid.

The editorial noted "Japan is outspending Australia by a factor of almost two to one". Japan's population is about five times that of Australia. Australia should reduce its per capita defence spending to the same as that of Japan. All rich Western nations should do the same. None is at serious risk of being attacked; the greatest risk they face is from global warming.

No rich Western nation should spend more than 1 per cent of GDP on defence. The very powerful US, which no nation intends to attack, could spend less than half of 1 per cent of its GDP on defence. The savings could be spent on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Many Western nations take direction from the US to spend up big on imaginary defence threats. Australia could take the leading role in persuading others to stop taking those ridiculous directions.

As more people get densified into our inner-north the government should ensure these areas remain liveable. Thousands of people now live in and around Civic yet, during Summernats, we are assailed day and night with ear-shattering exhausts. On Friday night it extended beyond midnight along Cooyong Street. Where do we find the online form to request police attendance?

For months, the true believers (including The Canberra Times columnists) have attacked every decision Scott Morrison and his government have made on any subject. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. I dread their reactions if - miraculously - Anthony Albanese and Labor lose again. I honestly believe the sky will fall in. The wailing and gnashing of teeth will be heard all over the country.

It's a bit rich of Djokovic's family in Serbia to compare him to Jesus with his visa plight. If Jesus arrived here by boat, with no visa, he would have been sent to Christmas Island. As our PM would say: "how good is that".

Roderick Holesgrove (Letters, January 4) asked if, assuming the police were at the OPH site when the fire was lit, why didn't they put it out? Just as our PM "does not hold a hose mate" neither does our police force. That's why we have a Fire and Rescue department .

I am visiting beautiful Canberra. Last Tuesday I walked through the Crace Grassland Nature Reserve. It was disappointing to see huge weeds and the general state of neglect. I have noticed this in other reserves and parks in our national capital. Canberra needs to look after its green areas. Using a lawn mower and pulling out weeds doesn't need a university degree.

Have we totally lost the plot? The detention of a tennis player causes a diplomatic incident while we ignore the countless people being locked up illegally and those who are sleeping rough. The only plus is ScoMo can't support the Djokovic appeal as it would go directly against his own policy. Who said there was no such thing as kismet?

Presumably the shelf-stripping citizens who pillaged the supermarkets last week had endured dreadful Christmas dilemmas such as whether to buy king, banana or green prawns, or lobster or oysters. Then, as now, they were sublimely indifferent to the plight of their 3.24 million fellow Australians living in poverty.

At first I could not believe the degree of incompetence exhibited by the way in which the Australian and Victorian governments (and Tennis Australia) mishandled Novak Djokovic's perfectly legitimate attempt to enter Australia to defend his title in accordance with the rules as they had been explained to him. And then I had a thought: "Ruby Princess".

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