Tag Archives: Omicron

January 17, 2022 · 18:32

Principle of a chair

Yes, we get that. We sometimes we rely on the principle of a chair until we figure things out, we sit on the problem. We aren’t hiding it, we aren’t ignoring it yet at times we aren’t sure where we are in such a situation. We contemplate and I am no different. So when I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59970281) the article ‘Is the pandemic entering its endgame?’ I was not sure how to feel about that. So when I saw ““We’re almost there, it is now the beginning of the end, at least in the UK,” Prof Julian Hiscox, chairman in infection and global health at the University of Liverpool, tells me. “I think life in 2022 will be almost back to before the pandemic.”” I was not sure how to feel, was the man openly optimistic? There is optimism and there is folly. Until November 2021 there was no Omicron, there was no enhanced danger to the global health systems. Now we see that we are seeing less cases, but it is still almost 2 million new cases a day. And that is whilst we openly see that the numbers from India do not make sense. A setting where the US has a health system that is near collapsing and the UK is in no better state. Then there is the one thought we all ignore, what comes next? Omicron slapped us across the face and when is there a next version? Is this Prof Julian Hiscox trying to sell us genuine pink salmon? (A Barnum and Bailey joke). Yet we also get the good stuff here, because we are told “What’s changing is our immunity. The new coronavirus first emerged two years ago in Wuhan, China, and we were vulnerable. It was a completely new virus that our immune systems had not experienced before and we had no drugs or vaccines to help.” I agree with that part, I agree that the vaccines are the solution, yet the evolution of Covid is still largely unknown, or at least we are not being told. So a next version could spell a lot of havoc in many lives. And that fear is confirmed with “The only major curve ball would be a new variant that can outcompete Omicron and cause significantly more severe disease”, as such the article makes a lot of sense and I cannot disagree, but at what stage do we ignore what might come? When do we accept the endemic path? People are all about to get back to the job and income, but the danger with endemic and a new version in that endemic universe means more death and even as I applaud that (we are as overpopulated as we need to be), will you feel the same when it is your children or your parents whose lives are on the line? We see the line that less die but this time around we have a new setting, the lack of hospital beds could also fuel deaths and Omicron made that clear in the US and the UK. Even if we see causality in these cases, we cannot continue on a path where people die because all the beds are taken by Covid cases. That was why I supported the stage where unvaccinated cases are not allowed hospital beds, and if required only through fully paid services (upfront), if you feel it is unfair, too bad. It is shown several times over that vaccinated people can get seriously sick, but shorter and for the most not fatally. So whenever I see another hack piece where someone claims that the unvaccinated take only 50% of the beds, I kinda go ‘Yes, and the pope is Jewish!’ There is a clear station where vaccines are the solution, yes there are a few dangerous side effects possible, but that danger is nowhere near the station of the unvaccinated dying of covid. So how do we react to anti vaccine people like Kelly Ernby, Marcus Lamb, Glynn Steel, William Hartmann? We need not react, covid killed them all and a lot more like them. My only issue is that they talked others in refusing the vaccine, optionally killing them all. 

Some say we need to to make fun of them. I am on the fence on that. On one side it might make those who listened to these anti-vaxxers wake up and get vaccinated, on the other hand their graves should be a clear message and in all this misinformation continues on nearly all fronts. The only issue is that even doctors are spreading misinformation. Not many, but those who do are fuelling into vaccination feelings under the average person and that is a dangerous stage. You see, the stage of an endemic is fine as long as we are ALL vaccinated, when that is not the case we will see more mutations and more deaths and that is the larger stage, the next mutation might be a lot more deadly than Omicron was. In Omicron it was about spreading the disease, but if that evolves into a more deadly version the game changes by a lot and to stop that danger we all need to be vaccinated, there is no other option. This is a stage we face, we either act in fear (for kids, siblings, parents), we act in denial, we act in support or in acceptance. I get it, they are all stages that propel us, but that is equally wrong, as is sitting on the problem, but at times when there are too many unknown elements it feels like the best solution. I got vaccinated in the early days, I am a product of vaccines (60’s) I lived through the eradication of Polio, difteria, TBC, measles and so on. Some of these diseases still exist, but they are now so rare that we act in surprise when a case does show up. At some point this will be the case for covid as well, but not now, there are still too many dangers and to some degree the anti-vaxxers are making it happen. It is my personal believe that a mutation can only come from an unvaccinated person. I know, it might be completely wrong, but that is how I feel and the medical people still do not know what drove covid, what brought mutations and why Omicron was regarded as ‘mild’ when we knew so little. Too many questions and we see no answers that is in part the problem because it fuels the feelings of anti-vaxxers. 

The principle of a chair is at times not the wrong position to have when enough information comes towards us, yet that too has not been the case with covid and w get it, there are a lot of unknown elements and scientists do need the time to study and prove parts. But this is a setting that has gone on for well over a year and the people are burning out on all sides and their less accepting side is becoming visible more and more, especially now.

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January 13, 2022 · 17:22

Greed, Consumerism and safety?

There is a dangerous stance, a stance not on the safety of people, but on the revenue that they represent and there is every chance that this level of greed driven consumerism is at the core of a lot worse to come. 

Part 1
Part one is seen in the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-criticizes-china-canceling-some-flights-over-covid-19-cases-2022-01-12/) called ‘U.S. criticises China over canceled flights’. There we see ““China’s actions are inconsistent with its obligations under the U.S.-China Air Transport Agreement. We are engaging with the (Chinese government) on this and we retain the right to take regulatory measures as appropriate,” a U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) spokesperson said.” OK, we can accept that, but in that setting can that spokesperson please show us the paragraphs that deal with issues like pandemics? The greed driven will see and focus on ‘obligations’, but what of the safety of the people? The Chinese government is obliged to look after the safety of people, so where is that part? I am not taking a side whether one or the other is right and which party is wrong. Yet when I see “identify a path forward that minimises impact to travellers” I wonder who they are working for. In December, Bloomberg gave us ‘Omicron May Double Risk of Getting Infected on Planes, IATA Says’, I heard from a friend who went on vacation that the return flight was filled with people coughing and yes, two days later he had covid too. When will people learn that IF YOU ARE SICK YOU STAY AT HOME? And more important those who get sick on vacation are all about ‘safely getting home’ dangers be damned. And that is the core problem with air travel. So I cannot fault China for its position, I understand the greed driven side for getting people to travel, yet it seems to me that the greed driven do not care as long as they see the revenue, infections be damned. Those stating that they take all precautions are delusional, there will never be a safe route in this.

Part 2
The second part is given to us by SBS. There we see (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/another-53-people-have-died-from-covid-19-as-nsw-posts-record-92-264-new-cases/4809f03d-d922-4c30-bfe8-6c1251568bfa) that ‘Another 53 people have died from COVID-19 as NSW posts record 92,264 new cases’, the issue is that when we see it next to the UK (120,000 cases) all whilst the population of the UK is 300% larger, we see that things do not add up, in that same setting the US with 829,000 cases are a larger setting. The us has around 500% of the population of the UK, yet they have a lot more infections. Now this is not the proper way to vet numbers, but there should be some linearity and these numbers are all over the place. So in this India with 247,500 cases all whilst they have 4 times the population of the US does not make sense. The numbers do not add up, I get it there could be a dozen elements influencing other facts, but the numbers are wrong, and I personally believe that India has a much larger problem, so when we consider that is it really wrong for China to act the way it does? 

The entire setting of flight have to continue in an era where we live in a pandemic, someone needs to wake up. The entire need to travel all whilst a lot of issues can be resolved virtually gets to be on the centre stage. In addition to that view we see “China has all but shut its borders to travellers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels”, is it right, it is wrong? It seems to me that it is to stop a wave of infections that have close to free rule in any nation that did not lock its borders. Last November the NY Times reported “At least 13 people who arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa on Friday were infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and more cases will most likely be found, Dutch health officials said on Sunday.” We saw South Africa protesting that it was a mild issue, now we have over 3 million new cases EVERY DAY, so how is that mild? How is the drastic shortage of hospital beds a mild consideration?

Is this what happens when greed shakes hands with consumerism? I do not know, but from where I sit, the view regarding the safety of people is close to totally ignored. There is every chance that those who closed their borders stand a much better chance. That is unless you open borders for tennis players who later admit “that he released a statement with new admissions, including the fact that he sat for an interview and maskless photoshoot knowing he had Covid without disclosing his status”, so a person who knew he had covid went knowingly and willingly maskless. And China is the one that is painted as the attacked party? I reckon that our laws and our regulations are blatantly failing in these pandemic stages, I will let you ponder on why that is and before you blame China for anything, wonder why no spokesperson raised issues on pandemic obligations that should be out there. I wonder how consumerism won that side of the battle. And before you think it will be easy peasy, consider what optionally might come AFTER Omicron and when that part is less mild, what will the consequences be? 

I do not know, but more important, the scientists that should know do not know either, it is new turf for them. So when we listen to obligations and consumerism lets also wonder how safe these obligations were in the first place, especially as yesterday gave us an additional 3,201,862 new cases. I will accept that most will be mild, but 1% might not be and that means that globally for 6-8 days 32,018 new beds need to be secured for the yesterdays cases alone. So what about tomorrow and the day after that? How many beds are left then? I do not know, do you?

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January 12, 2022 · 22:43

Commencing Crazy

This all started before ‘Call for change!’ Which I wrote on October 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/25/call-for-change/), I saw the numbers and the idiocy of non-vaccination. I do not care what they call it, it is their life, but in that it is their life and they also need to accept the consequences. So as I wrote “The first port is that anti-vaxxers and those not vaccinated with a good provable reason will have to pay UPFRONT for any hospital admittance for COVID. So there are no stories about “Anti-vaxxer Kristen Lowery”, or those radio hosts and stories on how sorry they were lying in a comfortable hospital bed. They can tough it out at home and optionally die there.” I saw a station we were all heading to and today (11 hours ago) the BBC gives us ‘Quebec to impose health tax on unvaccinated Canadians’, the story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59960689) is not the first one, others have reported on similar settings, we also see some of these facts here. Singapore took my advice (seemingly) which requires Covid patients to pay for their own medical bills if they are not vaccinated. Greece imposes a fine and others will follow, when their national health care systems collapse due to those non vaccinated, this is a result and it was always heading this way. I do like the response that Premier Francois Legault gives. He states “I think right now it’s a question of fairness for the 90% of the population who made some sacrifices,” Mr Legault said. “I think we owe them this kind of measure” and I agree with him. Even as some news agencies are hiding behind positive flames like ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, I merely wonder how stupid these people are. They are (clinically speaking) telling a truth, but behind that facade we see numbers that globally went from 1.7M cases on January 1st to 2.4M cases on January 9th, All whilst the cases were 50% to 65% lower a week before. This is not going away soon or quietly. It has become a numbers game and in that game the numbers are overwhelming a stretched health care system on a global stage. All this whilst one source gave us 20 hours ago ‘Intensive care doctor reveals EVERY critically ill Covid patient being treated at his hospital is unvaccinated’, that is the reality and it is not the vaccinated people who are the larger danger, they do get sick but their symptoms are seemingly mild to really mild. And in the UK with so many unvaccinated people the dip as some might call it will not matter, a lot of them will die (which brings down housing prices), so there will always be a silver lining. Just not the one the media or anti-vaxxers rely on. And still the the issue is not as good as you think it is. The numbers from India with 1.3B people does not add up, so there will be a lot more coming all our ways. So whilst CNBC gives us ‘U.S. sets fresh records for Covid hospitalisations and cases with 1.5 million new infections’ today, we see the need to vet the journo’s who give us ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, as the data show us it was not directly a lie, yet the underlying issues we are already seeing, the people catering to that article are out of their minds. And in all this I reckon that the US and UK will soon follow the path Canada is taking and it will happen to people who cannot afford to pay, so they are denied access to hospital health care. It is one way to cull the herd, but it is not one that comes from choice, it is one grown through necessity and that is a much harder lesson to face. When the systems buckle, when the systems that gave us the protection we expected, when they collapse the real crazy starts and it will be some sight to behold, that much is an absolute given. 

So, as I personally see it. Things are about to get worse and it will come with populist claims, it will come with the blame game and when the reality pulls through and we say the unvaccinated people do not get a voice in all this, that is when matters get worse fast. People are all about complaining and not about taking responsibility of their acts and their life. It is the nanny state on steroids and now we will see just how strong the nanny state vibe will be in several nations. I reckon the next two weeks will be decently exciting ones.

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January 3, 2022 · 19:51

The virtual quarterback

We can consider me being the Monday morning quarterback, it would be fair to call me this. I have been for the longest time a champion of science, I believe that not unlike evidence in law, science is the cornerstone of all daily life decisions. So I tend to take sides with science for nearly all cases. Yet today, in opposition of a piece in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist) I take another side, the non-scientist setting. I oppose the views of Professor Mark Woolhouse. So feel free to oppose my views, which would be fair enough. But in all matters take a long hard look at some of the things we are handed here today. I believe that not unlike some wannabe journalists who wanted to cash in on Jamal Khashoggi with their fiction view of ‘Blood and Oil’ this professor might be trying to find the same rabbit in a different hat with ‘The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir’.

So where do I oppose?
It starts with “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.” In March 2020 there was a lot we never knew. Do not forget that the disease was out for only 2-3 months, and it had not spread to the degree it has now. China had no answers, and the people who were responsible for calling this a pandemic did not do so. In addition, the media gave us “This might become a pandemic” all whilst the points of calling it a pandemic had already passed. I wrote about it on February 3rd 2020 in ‘Corona?  I Never touch the stuff!’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/corona-i-never-touch-the-stuff/), a month before we see given here. I already saw the pandemic threshold passed, yet most media were in denial with “This might become a pandemic” as such, it seems to me that Professor Mark Woolhouse will have to explain a few things. Then we get to “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt” in this is resort to the blunt ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ In the first there was a lot we did not know, and for the longest time there are still questions, so the response I see with “We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence” is something I would like to refer to as bullshit marketing. You see the first peak of daily deaths did not start until April 13th 2020, with 6916 dead people (aka the non-living). 

I found a table from April 2020 from New York. In this table we see 6839 died, but the interesting part is that 5151 cases had an underlying condition and in that case the older you get the higher the chance of an underlying condition, and in that up to 44 years old 312 died. Most with an underlying condition, but there was a lot not known in that setting. More important, there was no vaccine, there was no protection. The Pfizer solution was still in clinical trials in November 2020. And when you start looking at the facts as they were known, I believe that Mark Woolhouse is trimming his own trumpet for the sake of book-sales (a speculative view, but it is my view). 

Were mistakes made?
Yes, of course mistakes were made, they were made all over the world and with the US having an idiot as president in those days did not help much. There was a large void of knowledge and there was a large void of experience, so looking at the facts after the fact does not help much (apparently it might help a certain professor with a book to sell). And in all this the professor does not take into account the anti-lockdown idiots spreading the disease, the ignorant anti-vaxxers adding fuel to the fire and then the people who were ignorant of the way the disease spread going to relative, friends and so forth needing their social moment. 

And in London that is a large powder-keg waiting to explode and now that it is doing just that we see the blame game in effect. So consider the anti-lockdown protest, it only 10 people had it at that point, at least 1000 could have it 3 days later. And everyone remains in denial, oh boo hoo hoo!

So when we get to “the country should have put far more effort into protecting the vulnerable. Well over 30,000 people died of Covid-19 in Britain’s care homes. On average, each home got an extra £250,000 from the government to protect against the virus, he calculates. “Much more should have been spent on providing protection for care homes,” says Woolhouse, who also castigates the government for offering nothing more than a letter telling those shielding elderly parents and other vulnerable individuals in their own homes to take precautions.” Where is the time line? When did we know what we know now and that is before we add the complications of Alpha, Delta and Omicron. And with the last quote “By contrast, we spent almost nothing on protecting the vulnerable in the community. We should and could have invested in both suppression and protection. We effectively chose just one.”

In the first, the government could not afford both paths (slight speculation), there were too many unknown factors and with Omicron raging now, anti-vaxxer idiots and anti-lockdown dumbo’s, how can you protect a community? You can claim you can but stupid people will do whatever they feel like, the vulnerable be damned. That is how people tend to be. 

So this is my view on the matter and it is a rare event when I oppose a scientist, especially a professor, but here I feel it was needed. And I had a few more views concerning covid over that year and last year too. I kept it low, because I am not a medici (ha ha ha), yet the larger stage is also ignored in the story. The media was fear mongering all over the place and that too resulted in negative actions. There were several factors and I believe that too many factors were unknown, or untested for the longest of times. 

So, if you decide I am the Monday morning quarterback it is fine, I gave my reasoning and my views that go back to February 2020 when it was in the earliest stage. So I am not exactly the Monday morning quarterback, but I am definitely a virtual one. Consider the facts and consider the blah blah from Professor Mark Woolhouse and draw your own conclusions.

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December 30, 2021 · 16:59

The drop-off no one saw?

Yes, that is one of the settings that could be seen. A drop off no one saw coming. Yet, is that true? I wrote about if a few times, and even as I was not in agreement on all counts, I was clear about certain dangers. So as we are given (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/30/covid-hospitals-england-asked-look-4000-emergency-beds) with the headline ‘Hospitals in England asked to look for up to 4,000 emergency Covid beds’, I merely wonder if it will be enough, there is every chance that they will need at least twice that amount before the UK is at the end of January. 

I wrote two stories ‘Cross here to die’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/11/cross-here-to-die/) on December 11th and ‘The double check’ on December 16th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/16/the-double-check/) the second one gives us “There is another side that I actually did not look at, the idea of “175,000 hospital admissions”, even over 5 months (Dec 1st – Apr 30th) that implies 1158 admissions a day, which is almost double of what is at present the case, And consider that the average length of stay in a hospital is 8-9 days for non ICU patients and 12-18 days when ICU is required. In that setting the numbers reveal that before the end of January all hospitals are beyond breaking point and no hospital in the UK will have any beds available with optional settings that London patients might have to be  be transferred to Wales, which is hilarious on a few levels”. So, basically I saw the setting we see now two weeks ago, as such well over a week ago actions would have been required, but were any taken? At present we see that the UK has “another record rise with more than 183,000 daily Covid cases”, this now gives is the speculative 1,830 speculated admissions a day, and treatment in hospitals will (if you are lucky require 8 days), as such my numbers were cautiously optimistic. So the stage of 8,000 additional beds might be short. This still does not mean that I agree with the mortality numbers, but they are not as unrealistic as they seem when I initially saw them. 

The danger is that there are still unknown parts, there is no clear stage of how dangerous Covid Omicron is and I am not debating that it could remain a mild version, the case is that the mild version replicates faster than a bunch of horny rabbits. So the smallest group that does need medical treatment in hospitals is growing too and over days we are now already where I expected the situation to be at the end of January, a month earlier and that bites (especially if you need hospital treatment). 

And this gets me to the second stage. You know that bunch of wankers (the labour party), aka the people who thought that Jeremy Corbyn was a decent human being, that group! So when the Guardian gives us ‘Johnson blamed for Covid test shortages as cases hit record 183,000’, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/29/johnson-blamed-for-covid-test-shortages-as-cases-hit-record-183000) that gives us “Labour criticises PM over ‘total shambles’ of some essential workers being unable to access test kits”, my subtle sense is wondering in what room the were tossing off their Johnson when it was clear that people needed lockdown, that people needed to keep distance, needed to keep masks on. That group that had ex-Labour members put on a show in the Daily Mail so that there would be some form of deniability. Did the tories make errors. Yes! There is no denying it, yet the clarity was that there wasn’t enough information 3 weeks ago, and even as it was more transmittable, the PEOPLE had a clear stage where they COULD avoid contact, but they thought that covid would keep the holiday spirit as well, so how did that end up? We can push for blame, or we can accept responsibility of avoiding contact. I myself was lucky, my family is either dead or on the other side of the freakin planet, so avoiding was easy. I did not take time to have a festive holiday at DisneyWorld, or HarryPotter town for that matter. There is a pandemic and it is wrecking havoc on the world. Did anyone catch that news? 

We all knew there would be more cases, but even some scientists are reeling from the 183,000 cases a day and that is not even the worst, the world is facing 1,000,000 cases a day at present, a stage it never had before and even as I was right to see the healthcare systems collapse, it is happening a lot sooner than I expected and I take no fun on that, because doctors and nurses are collapsing and that means that if you need medical assistance, you can check yourself in and lie in some corridor, the hospitals will be out of beds a per today I reckon, the fact that they needed close to 8,000 beds almost a week ago implies that the NHS will not be able to deal with the pressures for much longer and if hospital staff runs home to care for their loved ones, I will not blame them. The news as we saw it yesterday ‘Police appeal after ‘appalling’ attack on a test and trace centre by anti-vax protesters’, my point of view is simple, you can all go home and die for all I care. Hospital staff can leave you to rot wherever you fall down and the unvaccinated are (as I personally see it) not allowed covid hospital care unless these people pay privately upfront!  When I see “Video footage from the scene of the Milton Keynes Theatre showed that children were frightened while the rioters abused staff and appeared to be stealing equipment”, I am bloody well losing it. Let these wankers die of covid, let them pay for covid hospital care and let everyone know who they are. So far I have taken delight in over two dozen obituaries of anti vaxxers, they all died of covid, so I like my odds and I would like it better if you all protected the hospital workers from these idiots. 

In all, is it true? Did we never see the drop-off coming a mile away, or were we trying to avoid staring at it. I get it, and I do not lay blame if this was your position, the issues becomes larger if you avoided what was clear in sight, went through life ignoring covid, masks, vaccines and distancing, when you ignored all those factors I believe that you are in a stage where you did whatever you could to die earlier in life. Do not get me wrong, it is your right to do so, but at that point you need to accept responsibility of what you decided on and not blame all the other parties that could have seen some things coming (Boris Johnson), yet there was a scientific absence of actions, political people delaying votes. It is hard to understand that, I get it and I feel needy to blame them, but then we get those pesky scientists giving us that this is a mild version. No one did the proper number games, which is why I saw issues all over the field two weeks ago and I was also in the believe that there was a little more time than we actually have and that is on me, I take responsibilities for my choices, but I kept at least 4 out of the 5 elements in check, so I feel fine (unless I get covid, then I will feel miserable for a few days). 

There is plenty of blame to go around and politicians are not free from blame and they need to be asked serious questions, questions from serious people (aka the labour clowns are out of bounds). To be honest, if anyone told me that I would end 2021 by holding Ed Davey in higher regard than Jeremy Corbyn or Keir Starmer I would have called them bonkers, but apparently miracles to happen, and there you have it. All kinds of drop-off points, some we saw, some we saw a mile away and some creeped up on us. 

So when we see more politicians starting their blame game, we need to consider that this is a setting we have not seen in 100 years (Spanish Flu) and now there is a vaccine, those people never had one and we are all skeptical on vaccines? Really? And when the UK crosses the 200,000 cases and family members are left to die, do you still think that being an anti-vaxxer is about you living or you betting coached to die? What is the clever move? I am going with living longer, but I am an incurable optimist, and I will happily join the people wishfully thinking that a female Hollywood star is knocking on my door hoping that she can stay warm in my bed, yes at present that is a lot more realistic than the spouting of BS by anti-vaxxers, and that is saying something.

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December 16, 2021 · 19:44

The double check

This is at times essential, we need (at times) double check what we did. Not the double check before we speak (which tends to be essential), but after we spoke, we get the setting that we need to make certain that we had it right. There is no shame in getting it wrong, it is the non-adjusted view that follows that makes what we do (completely) wrong.

In this, I decided to take another look at ‘Cross here to die’ an article I wrote on December 11th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/11/cross-here-to-die/), there I wrote “And there is more we get to see “a wave of infection is projected that could lead to a peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, with 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between 1 December this year and 30 April 2022.” And it is natural that these people hide behind ‘could lead to’, Yet the stage does not match. 175,000 admissions leading to 24,700, deaths. It goes against the numbers I have so far over a lot of nations and Omicron is stated (several sources) that it is a mild version that is more easily transmitted, yet not more deadly, so the numbers do not add up”, I stand by what I wrote, yet yesterday I was given “the UK has 78,610 new cases”, which is a massive jump from the 7-day moving average of 57,000 cases. Yet (for now) the non-living rate is still 115 per 7-day average, so my view holds up, to get to the trend of 161 deaths per 7 day average, a lot more people need to stop breathing. And in the setting of the 78,610 new cases (not specific Omicron), the setting needs to be a mortality rate of a lot (too tired to do the calculation), yet if the trend continues, the numbers shift, so there is a chance it might come to fruition, but we would need to see a continuing rise of new cases of 75,000 per day for close to a month, at which case hospitals will have collapsed and those in dire need can no longer be aided in any way. So at the current rate the mortality rate will have to increase by well over 50%, which is not logical, but with 30,000 new cases the stage might not be too unrealistic, although the original article gave us ‘Omicron could cause 75,000 deaths in England by end of April, say scientists’ requires the daily death rate to increase to 496 a day, up from 115 a day? That is a massive jump and that is why I questioned the numbers given to us. On the plus side, housing prices in London will drop dramatically, so there is always an upside to be found.

There is another side that I actually did not look at, the idea of “175,000 hospital admissions”, even over 5 months (Dec 1st – Apr 30th) that implies 1158 admissions a day, which is almost double of what is at present the case, And consider that the average length of stay in a hospital is 8-9 days for non ICU patients and 12-18 days when ICU is required. In that setting the numbers reveal that before the end of January all hospitals are beyond breaking point and no hospital in the UK will have any beds available with optional settings that London patients might have to be  be transferred to Wales, which is hilarious on a few levels. In the first their UK passport might be rejected, they will not speak the local language and after all the joke the people in Cardiff will not stomach people from England, at times life gives them a handle on humour.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER DANGER

The next is speculation and presumption. There are facts, but they were facts given to us based on what was, there is too much unknown with Omicron. 

Now consider the numbers given and the fact that the numbers are from decently reliable sources, but there is still a lot we do not know on Omicron. I still have massive doubts on the numbers given to us and there will not be any decent reliability until mid January. Yet the speed at which Omicron pushes forward and the amount of people who refuse to be vaccinated, and moreover the large amount of people who refuse to wear masks are now becoming danger factors in all this. 

When you consider the image, it might not mean much, but the percentages (seen elsewhere) are 90%, 70%, 5% and 1.5%. A stage where mandatory masks lower the dangers from up to 90% to 1.5% is a massive decrease and should not be ignored. Yes, you can decide to ignore it but when your family members start dying (become non-living) do not cry like a husky, or blame Medicare, NHS or whatever. You did this (too)! I still have doubts and question marks regarding the numbers given to us, but the stage of other elements were out in the open and even as Omicron is a mild version, if the spread continues as we saw yesterday there is every chance that the hospitals will collapse before February 2022 starts , so if you do not have a relative who is a medical trained person, feel free to reserve your urn or coffin, because this will get bad soon enough (I still doubt the fear mongering 50% increased dead people). Yet the numbers if continues will also mean that the mortality rate exploded because no more medical help was available. 

As far as I can tell there is no data model for me to predict that, too many unknown factors and before you start the blame game, if hospital staff does walk out, it is because of the stupid people attacking and blaming these exhausted medical people in the street (as we can see in loads of YouTube videos). 

I believe in the double check, I believe it was essential to do so and so far my views hold up, but they are under scrutiny of the explosion of cases that were not known when I wrote this and that is why I did the double check, in other news, there is also the ‘missed’ cases of reporting as ABC (Australia) gives us 14 hours ago ‘Omicron spread leads to UK record of 78,610 COVID-19 cases in single day’, yes the 78,610 is correct, but we have no idea HOW MANY of them are Omicron, there will be a decent amount of them (speculation) but in the end we do not know and until that is known there is a larger stage that comes to mind. If a person gets Alpha, Beta or Delta now. Is there a chance they might miss Omicron? This is an important question because it takes us back to 1796. Then English doctor Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had gotten cowpox were protected from smallpox. As such people got injected with the mild version (cowpox) to avoid and be protected from smallpox. (See https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html). The event was known to me (I had history in high school), but there could speculatively a case that a similar stage exists (I am not claiming it is). And scientists have made clear statements that previous covid infections may not protect against Omicron, which I tend to believe. You see, the other speculation is done on the premise of the past where was about a very different disease. So we need to be careful and rely on SCIENTISTS to give us the goods and it would really help if the media stops being a FEAR MONGER factor here. 

We have enough problems, it would be best for the media to remember that, because after whatever this was comes to a halt the people will (hopefully) DEMAND that some media outlets lose their 0% VAT rights (as they should not be regarded as newspapers). At that point we get editors crying like little Chihuahua’s that they have a right to expression, but expression and exploitation is not the same and Justice Leveson was clear bout that, was he not?

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December 11, 2021 · 23:53

Cross here to die

Yup it happens, there is a point in our lives when someone points at a road and states that death comes to those who cross here. I (with an uncanny sense of humour) would state that you cannot cross here, but that is me.

This all started with keeping the press accountable with what the Guardian gives us. It is (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/11/omicron-covid-variant-could-cause-75000-deaths-in-england-by-end-of-april-say-scientists) and is called ‘Omicron could cause 75,000 deaths in England by end of April, say scientists’. Let’s start by setting the proper page that the Guardian has done nothing wrong (as far as I can tell). In the second part, let’s look at the non-living rates that I see. One source gives us that at present 146,255 people in the UK stopped breathing (due to COVID). Then we see that this would up the ante by 50% and so far we are told that Omicron is a mild version, so someone is lying to us and the press should be all over this. 

The full text states “prevent Omicron causing anywhere between 25,000 to 75,000 deaths in England over the next five months, according to scientists advising the government”, My issue is that the current numbers are set to Feb 2020 – Dec 2021, so how could a mild version create up to 50% more non-living? OK, we see that it is 25K-75K, but that still does not make sense. This is fear mongering, or this is fear mongering as I personally see it. 

And there is more we get to see “a wave of infection is projected that could lead to a peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, with 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between 1 December this year and 30 April 2022.” And it is natural that these people hide behind ‘could lead to’, Yet the stage does not match. 175,000 admissions leading to 24,700, deaths. It goes against the numbers I have so far over a lot of nations and Omicron is stated (several sources) that it is a mild version that is more easily transmitted, yet not more deadly, so the numbers do not add up.

Why is the Guardian not all over this, why do we merely see “More follows …” at the end? I get that more will follow, but I think there is a large gap on the numbers the UK people have and saw and what this is now telling them, someone is spiking the drinks (not vetting speculative numbers). Now, I could miss something, I will happily agree to that, but the numbers do not make sense and I have been around intelligence numbers for decades. This does not add up. 

So I get it that some ‘covering’ is needed, but the ‘could lead to’ and ’could cause’ is like me stating “Cross here to die” I did remove the Warning Mines here! sign, but that negatively impacted a lovely photographic stretch of road. And let’s be honest, that sign might have been there too long in the first place, WW2 ended in 1945, a lifetime ago, almost two lifetimes ago.

On the other side, I get it, we might not know all about Omicron, but is informing us not the duty of the newspapers?  So what gives, because this setting is too surreal for words and after we got a lecture from a Nobel winner who states to us all “when lies become facts”, I reckon the news beacons better get there A game on, especially as Al Jazeera also gives us (just now) “Pegasus, the Israeli spyware tool exposed by journalists early this year, is now in trouble with  American authorities and big tech”. In the first, I do not think that the NSO group is innocent, yet no proper evidence has been presented and some newspapers have given us facts that are debatable in the very least on a few fronts (one of those newspapers was the Guardian), And in all this, the infector is yet to be proven and the NSO group is not the only player in that town and if a pervious quote applies that 34 out of 76 might have been infected (might is the operative word), we need to see a lot more and especially a lot better from the newspapers.

Getting people to cross a mine field is relatively easy when you remove the warning signs. And that is what we almost face, we are told that there is a minefield to the left and we need to cross to the right, that sounds nice, until you realise that the signs were moved and now we all get to stride through the boom boom field. 

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December 1, 2021 · 21:37

Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

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November 30, 2021 · 22:49

Notice not given

We get that, we sometimes do not inform people. Yet in a stage where lives are in danger, where lives are on a stage where we cannot say whether they live or they will die. Is it moral, or even justified not to inform the people?

That was the setting we have seen in the last few days. I took notice to some effect, but in a stage where I have no influence, I merely set myself into some setting of a wait state. Awaiting more information before I take a larger stand against or for something. 

So the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842) 22 hours ago ‘South Africa’s president calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans’, you might want to say that is fair, but is it? Consider “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, unjustified? How about informing the people and the experts of the larger setting that omicron forms? The Dutch NOS gave us (at https://nos.nl/l/2407414) ‘Omikron is in the Netherlands, many questions on this new variant’. As such 13 of the 624 passengers have the omicron variant, so the Dutch get a plane full of the people and no one thought of making sure that these people do NOT travel? And when we see “Little is known on the omicron variant”, as such the other message on the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59463879) where we see ‘No need to panic, South African minister says’, I think he has got to be out of his fucking mind. And even as we see “The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday”, and how come the Netherlands are seemingly in the dark? The variant is seen in several nations, so it is clear that a travel ban needed to be more complete and a lot more shown across nations. It is now in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. We are told that the Ditch cases come from South Africa, I cannot tell if the other nations have the same origin. Yet the stage of a new version in this many cases and South Africa crying on lifting travel bans is just too ludicrous to consider. The larger question remains. How did this variant gets out so far and so wide? I wonder if we ever get a clear answer to this. 

And when we see “South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week” we see a larger setting. It is not sure how this version got to be, but South Africa has been instrumental to allegedly spreading it all over the globe. In addition, the NY Times reports that scientists are trying to find out whether the current vaccines can stop Omicron, it seems that they do not know. So as such the response we see in the BBC article “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, is complete BS. If anything the travel ban should have ben imposed a lot sooner then it was. 

In addition, when we see “Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks”, which now implies that several nations will be in serious trouble soon enough. In this Salim Abdool Karim is the South African government adviser and epidemiologist. And from those assessments, there wee see a government person stating that the travel ban is unjust? Go cry me a river (please).

A stage that might not be blamed South Africa, but in light of what we see, I reckon that Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be clearly considering that the rest of the planet is considering that it was unjust that he let this variant spread on such a global stage. And this is not the first time that governments are slow to react, or to impose clear restrictions. Well on the upside, if this kills off another few million people the unemployment issue will be largely solved, optionally housing issues in metropolitan areas might be solved too. 

And there is a larger stage that will be there soon enough. How many houses/apartment will not be sellable until it has been biologically cleansed? How long until COVID statistics are part of the reporting governments? These are a few of the notices not given, but governments (always eager to blame someone else) might not get a choice here. If COVID is an impediment on commerce, the reporting of COVID will be regarded as important and there will be government needs to belittle related issues soon thereafter. 

What a nice week we are heading into. 

P.S. There are no numbers from Russia, China, Egypt, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is possible that they avoided this risk, but I do feel it is too soon for them to howl hurrah! Especially as the World Cup in Qatar started this week.

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