I keep having to look at that number at the top there. Who would have believed that this would possibly go on for so long? Not me! I thought it was all going to be over in a few months.
So here I am 381 days in. Still no signs of the virus affecting us. It has hit half our family though. Living out here in a village we are less prone to it. The levels around here are very low.
I have had one jab and expecting the second in the next week or two. After that I shall be free!!!
Today I’ve been in for most of the day writing, publishing and listening to Howlin’ Wolf.
I have just published my 22nd book of poems. They are poems that I have written and put out on my blog over the last six months. Consequently they have been associated with Brexit, Trump, the environment, our lamentable clown of a PM, love, nature and wonder. The usual stuff. I enjoy writing them and it seems that they are quite popular – so if you want to own a book of them you will shortly get your chance. It’ll be up on Amazon in a few days time or you can get a signed copy directly from me. It’s called : ‘Out of the Covid and into the frying pan’.
I have just returned from my walk up my hill. I fed carrots to my adopted horse and watched a kestrel hover close by. She dived into the undergrowth but came up with nothing.
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland it’s more of the same. The big hoo-ha is about the rare blood clots in young people from the AstraZeneca jab. I can see that it’s big for those unlucky enough to get a clot but the risks are so tiny as to be not worth worrying about. They’re not even 100% sure it’s the vaccine causing it. It certainly wouldn’t stop me.
There have been 25 cases in 20 million people. Even if the vaccine is causing it that is incredibly safe. For just 1 in a million to become very ill or die is remarkable. No medicine is completely safe. Common aspirin causes stomach bleeding in 1% of cases – 1 in a 100 not 1 in 1,000,000. I’d certainly take my chances in a game of Russian Roulette with those sort of odds. T he risk of contracting the virus and dying is many times greater and that’s without factoring in the severe illness, ventilators and long-term problems.
People are remarkably silly over statistics. Those same people probably drive a car and the risk is far greater there! I’d put the risk on the same level as being hospitalised by your own fridge.
Can’t wait for my second jab!!
Anyway, the government is offering alternatives to the under thirties. That makes sense.
There is no reports of any clotting from second jabs. That too makes sense.
The vaccination programme has caused serious illness and death to plummet. It is also stopping transmission. By july, when all adults have had the jab, the virus should be well under control – even with Dido Harding and Johnson ballsing it up!
We are seeing the results of Johnson’s lies about Brexit coming home to roost. The troubles are starting up in Ireland again. Johnson assured everyone there would be no borders or checks or tariffs. What a stupid liar!! There is and was no way round it and he knew it.
In Scotland it is looking as if they will vote to leave and the union will break up.
Is the price we pay going to be worth it?
Years of disruption.
Higher prices.
Mangled economy.
Firms and businesses going bust.
Firms fleeing to Europe.
More border checks.
More red tape.
Slower movement.
Less freedom to travel.
A big hit to the economy.
The break up of the UK.
A weaker, less powerful Britain.
I hope that the Brexiteers feel that it was worth all that to put the power in the hands of a bunch of selfish, greedy, Eton Schoolboys and Bullingdon boys who have made a killing out of it!
Bring back control to Britain??? Put control into the hands of a bunch of extreme right-wingers more like!
Never mind – we’ll live through it. Stay safe!!!
Today, I walked round my local lake again. A few days ago, I saw a small goose there that looked much like a Canada goose, but had a brown neck (not the usual Canada black) and an orange beak, like the dreaded white goose. Today, I think I saw two of them! Maybe both her goslings survived after all…
But a word to the wise… Just because you think a particular risk is worth taking for you, doesn’t mean you have any right to force other people to take that risk. You need to produce, as a starter, a quantitative argument to show that, if they don’t take the risk, other people will, beyond reasonable doubt, be worse off. That is the essence of the argument of those you so snidely call “anti-vaxxers.” And you must also, of course, indemnify them so that if the risk you forced them to take goes badly for them, you will compensate them (or their heirs and assigns).
As to the Scots, well yes. To use a phrase, “the two peoples have grown estranged.” I’m sure you understand that my support for Brexit has not been because I like the UK, but because I want smaller political units. The Scots leaving the DUK (disunited kingdom) would be fine by me.
Lol Neil. Sounds like your goose has bred!
I’m not after forcing selfish people to vaccinate. There are very sound reasons – as you yourself have identified. The only way out of having our freedoms limited is to vaccinate to achieve herd immunity. The risks are incredibly small and much smaller than not vaccinating and risking the disease and severe illness or death. People who don’t, for their own good and the good of the community, are selfish, cowardly and irresponsible. Those antivaxxers are behaving antisocially in my opinion. Even so, I wouldn’t force them – just call them out for what they are.
The break up of the union is a disaster. You take it lightly but it diminishes us all. Just another outcome of Brexit that was called Project Fear.
I’ve sussed you for what you are, Opher. You’re a conservative! (small c). You like things as they are, and want to keep them that way. You claim that you want freedom, but you belie that by denying others the most important freedom of all – the freedom to make their own choices.
In other news, I’ve just a few moments ago completed my latest COVID rant. Asia, here we come! It includes the sentence: “Boris makes Xi look like a saint.” (Of course, you and I will agree that that isn’t entirely a compliment!) I’ll put it up tomorrow.
Lol Neil – conservative? Well yes in some ways. I want my internet to run the way I like it. I don’t need it to change.
I want my life back and that depends on other people being vaccinated so we can get rid of this virus. I’ve done my bit! I don’t think that’s conservative. That’s liberating!
Article here: http://www.honestcommonsense.co.uk/2021/04/covid-19-asia-report-omnibus-edition.html.
Very good – as usual Neil. Extremely thorough.
OK, in the beginning we thought the lockdown was for a few weeks. But very soon, you could see it would last a year or year and a half. Vaccines were expected to take at least a year to develop, and then distribution would also take a good while. Yet even with that knowledge we forget and are impatient. It’s hard to accept all the people who won’t get jabbed — which brings us back to politics.Say hello to the horse for me.
Hopefully the end is in sight but with imbeciles like Bolsonaro we might have more variants!
I’ll say hello to my horse but all he’s interested in are carrots.