The usual technology issues it seems with the counting. No surprise there! https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19...ed-with-it-system-failing-constantly-12164829
What's getting on my nerves is the amount of studies done by so called 'experts' dressed in white which come to scientific conclusions which common sense would tell you were obvious ! Apparently they have 'found out' that the distance we should stand apart from each other is dependent on the environment - as if that wasn't bloody obvious. Apparently if the walls inside are 6 metres away from each other it is less dangerous than if they are closer The same experts have also 'found out' that these droplets which you sneeze out are also subject to the laws of gravity - apparently they become most heavily concentrated at hip height Which means that your little kiddy gets the full blast. As if all that wasn't obvious to begin with - surely they could spend their time better coming to conclusions which tell us something more than the man on the Clapham Omnibus would know anyway. Logic tells you that height is important - a person who is 6 foot 6 inches has an advantage here, because he is above all those flying germs. And when you are in the bus or the train - for heavens sake don't sit down, and only grasp the rail which nobody else can reach ! A new study has shown that smokers are less likely to catch the disease in the first place - without of course mentioning that social distancing is easier for them/us. In fact if you walk around on stilts (or are over 6 foot anyway) smoke in public, maybe chew a couple of garlic cloves daily then the necessary social distancing will come easily - if you want to cap it all then being accompanied by two fully grown alsatians just adds that final missing touch which keeps you out of harms way.
Nothing to do with Corona virus, but had to fit this in somewhere... Boris Johnson's Russian oligarch friend has taken his seat in the House of Lords. I really don't know what to say about this - other than it stinks. https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/br...news/evgeny-lebedev-in-house-of-lords-6855550
What is on trial here is not individual governments but rather the free market itself. Thinking back to World War 2 - at that time countries were able to harness all of their resources, and munition factories were built in as little as 3 months and were in full production by that time. So countries like Germany, the USA and the Soviet Union were able to produce war materials from scratch at an unparalleled rate. But our free market World of today cannot do that. So, the only real solution, ie. universal testing remains unfeasible - or at least many have claimed it as being so. Because we do not have the testing ability or the infrastructure for such a thing. Yet without universal testing we are shooting in the dark - and cannot do what we need to do ie. to separate the healthy from the sick - because we do not know where the 'sick' are. All of this talk of vaccines is dangerous - it leads to people relaxing their guard and thinking they can 'party again' because we are close to the finishing line. So what happens is that they give vaccines to the old and the frail so that the young can go out and lead normal lives again - the virus then explodes amongst the non vaccinated population. The only way to bring this to an end is through universal testing done systematically, region for region, zero tolerance over quarantine, and possibly the erection of internal borders during the testing period. Some countries are aiming to test their entire populations - planned to be as simultaneous as possible - examples are Denmark, Luxembourg and Slovakia. Fine for them, but for a larger country such as Germany or the UK, apparently it is not feasible. Yet Germany has the industrial infrastructure to produce millions of cars per day, and the organizational capacity to get everybody to polling booths on the same day. Yes, Germany does have the capacity for this, and so does the UK. but we have moved so far down the 'free market economy' road that we are incapable of organizing our resources in such a way. Governments should be able to bring whole segments of the economy under direct control at times of national emergency - as was possible in the past. Ok. rant over
Interesting text on that here Toby - probably a bit old now, do you have any later info. on this ? https://www.academie-medecine.fr/do...rs-cov-2-represent-a-risk-for-humans/?lang=en
As of this week - seems mainly to be cats & dogs, presumably pets, with the wild variety made up of mink, with a lion, tiger and puma thrown in for good measure. https://www.oie.int/en/scientific-e...s-on-2019novel-coronavirus/events-in-animals/
I actually believe that although free market economies are not helping matters, the greater problem lies with the choices made by government. It is well documented that New Zealand chose to put the population first, and the economy would be sorted out another day. Lockdowns, people who did arrive put into what was called managed isolation, and a virtual cutting itself off from the outside world. Fairly easy to do being an island with a small population, but the government acted promptly and decisively. Compare that with another island that dithered about for weeks before taking some half-hearted measures as the economy, which was already in a bad shape, had to be put first. It was only realized that the experts who had seen the results from abroad and suggested following similar lines of action could be right, but the experts messaging needed to be watered down as the government didn't want to be seen as unpopular. The government chose to encourage the population to go out and have a cheap meal on them as an economic measure, something that produced another wave of infections. It was suggested that people would be able to have a near normal Christmas with plenty of spending, and when that was shown up to be ridiculous they came out with a new suggestion that it would be the fault of the population, and nothing to do with them. Firm leadership has paid off in NZ, with the death toll marginal compared to the UK. The economy that was put on the back burner has shown remarkable growth, and although it is still being watched closely the country is almost free of the virus. The UK today is reporting that the current wave of hospital cases has exceeded that of the Spring, and they are running out of beds and ventilators again. A choice was made to go for the photo op of temporary hospitals, but with no idea how to staff them. Testing obviously has a big part to play, but the less people who are in contact with others should result in less tests required. The choice was made to set up a completely new and untried system of tracking and testing which by whatever means you measure it has been a total failure. There was an existing system that had been pared down to the bone, that could have been the framework to carry out such operations, but no the choice was made to avoid control by an arm of government. Now we see that the schools are the greatest spreaders of the virus, yet the choice has been made to keep them open, even if it requires a court injunction. So although the state has little control over many aspects of a countries business life, it can if it so chooses shut the economy down, stop free movement of the population, prevent people entering the country who might carry the virus, and put the expert advice ahead of their own popularity for once.
I don't think it's fair to compare New Zealand with the UK Frenchie. London is two hours away from Brussels by train - it is much easier for NZ to control its borders. There is also the question of population density - England has one of the highest in Europe, along with the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany - and all of these countries have had major problems. Social distancing is much easier in a place like NZ. The point about testing is that it needs to be universal ie. the aim is to test everyone in as short a time as possible. If you only test people who think they might have the disease then too much time has been lost. Maybe it took a few days for symptoms to develop, another few days to get an appointment, and a further couple of days to get the result. The time lapse between initial infection and receipt of a positive test result can be up to 10 days - in which time the damage has been mostly done. In addition we have an unknown percentage of people who had it, gave it to others, but never realized. Uniform testing does not actually need to test everyone - one from each household in an area is quite sufficient. If one in a family has tested positive and the others start coming down with sore throats there is no point in testing them as well if we know the results already.
I do not believe for one moment that England even tried to control its borders. There were daily reports of flights arriving at airports and no one there to check if people would go into isolation for the recommended 14 days. I could have taken the ferry to England without any problems, but would not have been allowed back into France. Why was it necessary to keep these routes into the country open when experience showed that stopping incoming passengers helped to slow the virus spreading, which is why I was quoting the actions in NZ. When it comes down to testing why is England using one testing system that many reports say only picks up less than 50% of cases? The people who are tested with this fast system who are supposedly clear are a greater danger as they wander off blissfully unaware that they can spread the virus to anyone they meet. To be using this system is a choice that was taken as it helped the figures to look better than they actually are.
I agree that the UK was far too slow to close its borders Frenchie and failed to use the natural advantage of being an island. For Germany it was, of course, harder to do this but, but in the end, it was neighbouring countries who forced the issue - beginning with the Czech Republic and Austria but, eventually, other countries followed suit. The initiative to do this was not a German one. I am wary of making comparisons because after Germany emerged from the first wave with fewer deaths than other large countries the back slapping here was as if they had won the World Cup. This complacency has now hit back in as much as they have made a pig's ear of the second wave and are now one of Europe's hardest hit countries. It appears that the countries which were hardest hit in the first wave were, mentally, better prepared for the second. Britain being the exception !
I think that what I was trying to say, not terribly well, is that England is currently ruled by a populist government, to which image and populism is more important than saving lives. An example that seems clear to me. In the summer after the first wave had died down a bit, but was still a very real threat, there was an opportunity for the government to have asked that the Brexit talks be put on hold while they dealt with the pandemic. This was being suggested in many EU countries, but the choice was not to, despite the fact that it would have be granted. Must stay popular even if people pay the price. We should not forget either that it was only when France threatened to close the border with the UK that the government was stung into action. My belief is that because the UK economy is so reliant on overseas companies that it has no control over, it is totally reliant on buying in, whatever the cost. While a country such as Germany has manufacturing as its base, it also had the labs that could process samples. The UK was desperately short of such facilities, and as a fact sent samples to Germany. Badly prepared and with a group of politicians who thought they could just buy their way out of it. Every country in Europe has problems, but you can start from making saving lives your priority, or hoping that you can salvage an already ailing economy.
Some information. I don't know if it is publicly available - it probably is somewhere. The NZ government has a number of strategies/plans in place in the event of national emergencies. Some of these are for natural disasters, others are for those created by people. For twenty years I have been teaching that in the event of a pandemic NZ would close. I have not seen those plans, I'm not involved in civil defence, but I knew they were in place. If you are prepared it is easy to act decisively. Over the centuries there have been a number of pandemics. The view of successive NZ governments was that it was only a matter of time before there was another one. This century the view from the virologists has been that the next pandemic would be zoonotic. Before Covid19 here have been seven zoonotic diseases since 2002 that have seriously worried health experts. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS (2002); Avian Influenza or bird flu (2004); H1N1 or Swine Flu (2009); Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS (2012); Ebola (2014– 2015); Zika virus (2015–2016); West Nile virus (2019). Obviously it helps being a group of islands a long way from other countries.
There were plans in the UK to deal with national emergencies. In my council days I received a document from the government marked sensitive that asked us to have a whole series of prepared actions to deal with different situations, both medical and civil defence. This dealt with the assumption that all of the towns and villages would be locked down, and it would be the job of councils to ensure that life could continue no matter what. We did prepare a document that would available to those who would have a strategic role in keeping people fed, getting medical assistance, etc. and as far as I know it still sits in the records somewhere. We did have to discuss and form our policy behind closed doors which all seemed rather odd at the time as there was no obvious emergency about to unfold. Once we started to consider the details we did realize that in certain situations the problems could be quite severe. The only upside was that I would be empowered to take over the village pub as a HQ in the case of all out war.
They seem to be in a real panic about this new strain which its suggested is worse than the original virus!
I'm not a preachy vegetarian, never have been, but if our species didn't destroy wildlife for fun and insist on our right to kill and eat other animals then the last few mass disease outbreaks would not have happened. I've given up hope that people will ever change their ways. Toxic culture of 'I like it so tough' and a warped sense of importance of our species means that the planet is doomed.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...fected-danish-mink-could-spread-covid-in-wild The poor minks seem to be taking the brunt of it
I agree absolutely Toby. However, we need to go a step further in that way of thinking. We know that such things as factory farming are evil, and also dangerous but they are in inbuilt part of our capitalist system in as much as that the role of agriculture within capitalism is to keep the price of food low, so as not to have a negative effect upon spending power. As a percentage of income spent upon food the average in 1900 was about 50% - this dropped to about 30% in the 1950S and 60s, and is currently about 10% in most Western countries. It's only through this development that 'real 'spending power' has been created for other consumer goods, such as your car, house, tourism, computer etc. etc. We all want healthy food, and a return to mixed farming but the consequence of that would be an increase in food prices which would cut into spending power in other areas. In order to get back to the agriculture of the past we would need to transform our entire system. I can only agree completely with the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau that the fruits of the Earth belong to all, and the Earth itself to nobody. The World does not belong to us - we can have stewardship of a piece of ground etc. but we cannot have 'ownership' of it. Going back to Rousseau - he also said that the root of our problem started when a man fenced off a piece of land and called it his property and others were naive enough to believe his claim.
