It is still very mild and the sun is shining!! That’s good.
I went for my usual five mile walk up my hill. That was the 321st consecutive 5 mile+ walk!! I was peering at myself in the mirror yesterday at my ripped body – like a Greek Adonis. Which reminds me of two things – I mist make that appointment with specsavers and I need to check with the doctors if they do dementia checks.
I’ve been playing Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Moanin’ In The Moonlight’. It is an album I was introduced to by Dick Brunning way back in 1964. Happy days!!
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, our bumbling government (yes those who have the worst record in the world for coronavirus deaths and also the worst record for damage to the economy) have suddenly discovered an extra 1.7 million people who are highly vulnerable and should have been shielding. Gosh, it is so easy to misplace a million or two people. Isn’t it surprising that they should discover all these 1.7 million people right at the time that they are about to be vaccinated? There’s no financial aspect to that, is there?
I think we have got used to looking at the effect of this Covid pandemic in terms of new cases, deaths and hospital admissions. This is because that is what the media is focusing on. But there is a more insidious effect that is not reported on – Long Covid.
It seems that a large number of people who have caught Covid-19 go on to have serious symptoms that last for longer than six weeks, longer than twelve or perhaps for life. This is given the name of ‘Long Covid’.
The symptoms include shortness of breath, loss of energy, fever, brain fog, palpitations, chest pains, loss of sense of smell, muscle aches and damage to internal organs.
A large number of people suffer with this, including young people.
This disease doesn’t just effect lungs and old people. It affects every organ in the body and can cripple young people too.
As for how many people suffer from Long Covid – we don’t know. There are no reliable statistics. We just know it’s a lot.
Out in India the number of covid cases has fallen dramatically and nobody seems to know why??? Something is at work?
In New Zealand there has been a complete tragedy – someone has died of covid! They are probably holding a state funeral and inquest. In the UK and USA the levels continue to come down. It just goes to show how accustomed we are to the high numbers – only having 1707 deaths in the USA and 799 deaths in the UK yesterday now seems like low figures!!
Vietnam is struggling to contain their outbreak with another 42 cases recorded yesterday (what would we give to only have 42 cases!!)
The vaccine has now been administered to over a fifth of the population and the effects are becoming apparent. There is even talk of a staged lifting of lockdown restrictions.
Stay safe. Life as we know it is about to end!!
Opher, in the last three days I’ve done the spadework for a “monster” report on COVID throughout Europe. My “magic spreadsheets” can now work on several different groups of countries at once! Today, Europe; tomorrow, the world! (Well, realistically, next week or the week after).
India is well down my list of priorities for this exercise. But it’s not unlikely that, just as the “UK strain” (which, I think, may have started in Spain) is more transmissible than its predecessor, so in India a less transmissible strain may have taken over. I’ll look into it when I get to the Indian data!
Look forward to that Neil – though being colourblind I do find it difficult to follow some of your lines.
It would be very unusual for a less transmissible strain to take over, wouldn’t it? That seems to defy logic and biological laws. A virus mutation that made it less transmissible would sure be selected out?
More transmissible and less lethal would be my guess at a decent virus strategy.
Yes. But it’s not a strategy as such. Viruses, like all life, do not choose or plan a strategy. They mutate and the changes which are beneficial get selected. The traits that would be better at creating more offspring (the only criteria for success) would be to be more transmissible and not to kill your host.