Today is V day!!
It felt like a new start right from the moment I woke up. The sun was streaming from a blue sky. January had ended. February had begun.
Today, at 5.20 pm I shall be going along for my vaccination. Maybe I will have some reaction? Maybe, like a couple of friends I will feel groggy for a day or two? Maybe, like most of the people I know I will not have any reaction at all?
I shall keep you posted with full details.
If you don’t hear anything more then you know that the conspiracy theories are right!
So today I am playing Country Joe and the Fish and editing my Roy Harper book. This is the final run-through before it goes in for publication. With a bit of luck, I should be finished with it by next week. The publication date is June the 22nd. All I will have to do for that is submit 20 copyright-free photos. So if anybody has a photo or two to pass to me and would like to see your photo in a book, please send them to me.
I’m just about to have a cup of coffee and go for a walk. It’s such a nice day I may even take my camera!
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland there is some hope.
I thought it might be interesting to see the state of play. Here’s a table:
| Country | New cases | New deaths | Total deaths | Total No. of cases |
| USA | 133,914 | 2,878 | 452,000 | 26.2 million |
| UK | 21,088 | 587 | 106,000 | 3.82 million |
| Brazil | 27,756 | 559 | 225,000 | 9.2 million |
| New Zealand | 0 | 0 | 25 | 2,304 |
| Vietnam | 50 | 0 | 35 | 1,817 |
| Singapore | 29 | 0 | 29 | 59,536 |
You can see that the levels are going down nearly everywhere (although the virus does appear to be taking off in Africa and Asia due to more contagious variants).
There are a few things I would highlight.
Firstly, Vietnam is dealing with its outbreak of the new variant. It’s gone down from an explosion of a hundred new cases to just fifty. When there is an outbreak they immediately lock the area down, carry out mass testing and isolate. It works.
The other thing to note is that despite the large number of deaths in the USA, UK and Brazil it appears that only a small percentage of the population have had the disease – less than 10%. In the USA there are still 300 million people who could catch it! Things could get a whole lot worse!
When you compare how well some countries are doing with how badly other countries are it is glaringly obvious that there is a disparity of competence. Governments that act swiftly, shut borders, lockdown, test and trace, do well and rapidly get back to normal. The ones who are complacent, dithery or in denial do extremely badly.
Some people say that it is easy to be wise after the event and our clown of a bumbling PM has done alright. They are nuts. Our lazy, incompetent fool has done diabolically.
So here’s what I would do now:
- I’d change the government for one that is competent (at least change the PM)
- I’d continue with the vaccine roll out (the only thing this lot have done well)
- I’d sack Dido Harding and give Track and Trace to the NHS where it should have been all along
- I’d strictly apply restrictions at our borders with testing and quarantine (should have been done all along)
- I would get the track, trace and isolation working properly and bring it to bear with stringent lockdowns around sites of infection
- I would bring all forces to bear on any variants and eradicate them
- I would strive to eradicate the virus and not just contain it
- I would not bring in schemes such as ‘back to the office’ or ‘eat out to help out’ until the virus was controlled
What I expect to see happening in the future:
It will take until March for the number vaccinated to start to have a real effect on numbers of new cases, hospital admission and deaths, but then it should start to have a big effect.
As the season gets warmer the transmission rates will come down.
When the numbers are low, if we monitor our borders properly, we can deploy track and trace and carry out testing to mop up the virus.
If we do it properly we should soon have the virus under control and be able, with caution and close monitoring, to return to normality.
The future is looking rosy.
Of course, we do have to deal with the morons who are in charge – and they will be messing up, giving out contracts to their pals and making a pig’s ear of it all.
Now – I go off to prepare for my vaccination!
Take care!! My nigh is nearly at an end!
Wishing you well ………..
Cheers Tub – I’ve had it! I’m still alive!!!
I happened to see this post at exactly 17:20. But you’re probably still waiting in a queue?
(1) Agreed in principle. But none of the political parties are capable of governing properly, so it’s just a pipe dream.
(2) Yes, as long as they can. I suspect that vaccine supplies will dry up quite quickly. I’d guess that might have been the point of the 12 weeks between jabs wheeze; not to let people get their hopes up too soon. Of course, if 12 weeks makes the vaccine less effective, that could come back to haunt them all.
(3) I’d sack the lot of them. But at least Dildo Hard-on is an amusing name.
(4) Agreed. But strange coming from a Remainer!
(5) If you mean all lockdowns should be local, yes. I’ve found a source of new COVID case counts broken down by borough: https://electionmaps.uk/covid19-tier-map. Hover over the borough and you’ll see the last few weeks’ data! Go further down the page, and you can get data back to October 13th.
But, having gone to all that trouble to bring in the tiered lockdown system, Johnson and co now seem to want to ditch it. The “lockdown everyone for the sake of locking them down” faction seems to have won. I can foresee the national lockdown continuing for three to six months yet. Even though, by next week, I expect the new cases in my area to be back down to Tier 2 levels. I think we may have a “Spring of Discontent” coming!
(6) I don’t think there is any way to distinguish the variants until someone actually has the disease. But by then it’s too late.
(7) I thought you were the one who wants to preserve endangered species? :=)
(8) The schemes you refer to were obviously silly. Besides which, it’s up to each individual to decide.
In other news, I’ve issued another of my anti-green rants: https://misesuk.org/2021/01/31/a-dark-green-background/. You obviously won’t agree. But you might start to get an idea of how serious the problem is.
Straight in and straight out. A small prick (now – contain yourself) and out! Very efficient and well organised.
It takes a lot of incompetence to be worst in the world!
Once someone is identified with a variant they rally need to come down hard to suppress it.
I do want to save endangered species.
I’ll certainly check out your Green stuff and comment Neil!! Cheers!!