No. 1 TWEET OF THE WEEK. Darren Rovell of The Action Network and formerly with ESPN tweeted on Sunday: “Australian Open will allow up to 30,000 fans per day. No mask requirements either.” 

The Australian Open begins Monday, Feb. 8, and ends Sunday, Feb. 21. How can Australia pull this off? 

Remarkably, Australia has only 14 active COVID-19 cases, according the Australian Government Department of Health. 

No. 2 According to the NY TIMES, one young security guard at a quarantine hotel in Perth tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, and the entire city of Perth, Australia’s fourth largest city with a 2 million population, snapped into a complete lockdown. Ian Mackay, a virologist at the University of Queensland who developed a multilayered, or “Swiss cheese,” model of pandemic defense that has been widely circulated was quoted in the NY TIMES article.

No. 3 Dr. Mackay said, “We have a way to save lives, open up our economies and avoid all this fear and hassle. Everyone can learn from us, but not all are willing to learn.”

No. 4 America technically has 13 times the population of Australia and 485 times more COVID-19 deaths. 

No. 5 Australia has a population of 25,687,041 and they have had 28,800 total COVID-19 cases and 909 total COVID-19 deaths, according to U.S. News and World Report. That is .004% of the total population which has died from COVID-19. That is a death rate of 4 per 100,000 Australians.

NO. 6 The USA in contrast has a 331,064,167 population and 441,296 COVID-19 deaths (according to the NY TIMES). That is a .1% death rate, or 1 per 1,000 of Americans have died from COVID-19.

NO. 7 Tennessee has a population of 6,890,000, which is about 25% the size of Australia’s population. Yet, Tennessee has 9,753 COVID-19 deaths compared to Australia’s 909. Or in other words, Tennessee has approximately one-fourth the population of Australia but has 11 times the COVID-19 deaths.

No. 8 The Second Best Tweet of the Week. Bob Ryan, sports columnist emeritus for the Boston Globe and with ESPN tweeted: “For the record, I read 5 actual honest-to-God newspapers a day, Mon-Sat, and 2 on Sunday. You should try it. It’s infinitely more satisfying than staring at a device.”