Vocal Voices

Revised figures now show that 104,000 have died with Covid. It is a shockingly large number in its own right yet it is only 0.15% of us. We need to keep both figures in mind in order to gain a true perspective.

In an average year since 2000 deaths have been about 590,000 or 0.9%. Figures for 2020 are not yet available but estimates are in the region of 655,000 or just under 1%.

I don't really know where I am going with this except to say that despite everything we do not look to be doing too badly. Yes, we could have done better and every death is a tragedy, but with the vaccines coming along the numbers will drop so long of the vast majority of us continue to be sensible.

I am actually looking forward to late spring and summer.

Mrs S and I were planning on a holiday in October with #1 daughter and grandson. We've decided to delay it to 2022. We just don't see it as sensible right now. That might change come the summer, but then we're talking peak prices too as everyone rushes to get away.

At the millennium we had more than 40,000 additional deaths due to the flu epidemic that winter. Nobody really blinked an eye, it was, after all, just the flu. Judging by "normal" figures, the total was somewhere around 50,000 dead that winter of flu. Not in a year, but in the winter.

So I recon you are part way there WM. It could have been a lot worse. Time will now tell, vaccines will be a bumpy start but will expand rapidly anyway.

Plenty to look forward to. Just not guaranteed in the next 6 months.

Now ex-CPS person Nazir Afzal has "instructed his lawyers" to see if Boris Johnson could be charged with misconduct in public office.
What possible use is this?
This decision is blatantly political and there is something very distasteful about some jumped up lawyer trying to score political points on the back of dead people.

I couldn't agree more with you Cromwell. We appeared to be slowly coming out of the first wave of the virus, then the mutated form of the virus surfaced with a vengeance.. We have got to blame someone for that, so why not blame Boris Johnson! Yes there will be an enquiry as to what mistakes have been made in dealing with something none of us have ever experienced before and which nearly put paid to a sitting Prime Minister, but right now I despise the blame game and finger pointing to score political points. The Chinese regime and whether it delayed informing the WHO needs to be held accountable.

It has been 100 years since we had to deal with a global pandemic of this scale.

When we get to court, perhaps we could compare the responses of the two PM's at the time?

Meanwhile UK tests jumped over 69 million. That means tests per million population are 1 million and 18 thousand.

Contrast Germany, 446k, France, 646k and Italy 518k. Of the countries with over 10m population, only the US is close to the UK with 907k.

Remember when we were a testing joke? Not any more. Heard anything about it in the press?