Ideas 24-4...Coronavirus Pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19

April 9th, 2021...The consort of Queen Elizabeth II, HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh died aged 99 years. It did not come as a surprise, as they were both very elderly. I read the 63 page obituary on BBC News teletext and an article on Microsoft news on his nationality. The baby Phil the Greek, who fled Corfu in a Royal Navy warship in an orange box, only to end up serving in the RN. He had Danish, German and Russian blood in him, and by some act of parliament dated around 1705 I think it was, he was officially English. The funeral would be a quiet affair apparently. Three days later there was subdued relief when the nation's public houses and bars finally opened outdoors. Also opening were hairdressers, beauty salons, gyms, libraries, theme parks and drive in cinemas. Funerals are restricted to 30 people, wakes to fifteen. Unfortunately this didn't restrict people from complaining to the BBC about the change in television schedule. BBC 1 & 2 were devoted entirely to his death, whilst BBC 4 was shut down for the day. No less than 109,741 complained about the loss of the soap Eastenders and Masterchef. Was this a symptom of cabin fever? The end of the beginning was certainly in sight, as inoculation numbers broke all records, in the UK at least.

April 17th, 2021...The funeral of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh took place today at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Due to Covid-19 restrictions there were no more than thirty people present, including just four members of the choir. There were now three million dead from Covid-19 with governments studying the situation in India. The Indian variant caused so much concern that the UK's prime minister cancelled his visit there two days later. In the United States it was noticed that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was also causing some blood clots. Meanwhile in the UK the Moderna vaccine was available and could be mixed with the previous Oxford-Astrazenica or Pfizer jab. The asthma drug budesonide was now available to treat Covid-19. There were now 4.7 million people waiting for NHS treatment, with 388,000 having waited for more than one year. There is a growing fear that these people may never see the inside of a hospital. The reason is that the Covid-19 coronavirus is mutating very quickly. The world's pharmaceutical industry cannot produce enough vaccine in order to put a stop to all these mutations. In addition to India and Brazil we now have possibly the most lethal variant coming out of Africa. Tanzania to be exact. Whilst the UK variant has 17 mutations with 8 on the spike, with Brazil having 18 mutations and 10 on the spike, the Tanzanian variant has 34 mutations with 14 on the spike, and has the ability to evade antibodies with the E484K variant on the spike protein. Due to selection pressure, new variants are evolving due to herd immunity or increased use of vaccines. This implies that this pandemic could last for decades. Seemingly never ending, unless medical science can bio-engineer the human race?

May 1st, 2021...There are now over 200,000 dead in India from Covid-19 out of a population of 1.3 billion. Much of this is caused by thousands attending religious festivals and queuing at polling stations. HMG sent ventilators and oxygen equipment, but it's just a drop in the ocean. There are so many dead in the capital Delhi, that makeshift crematories have been set up in public parks. India was not put on HMG's red list of countries not to travel to until April 23rd, whilst many people felt that it should have been earlier, on April 5th, which is when the number of infected people reached 100,000. Meanwhile Turkey is preparing for lockdown whilst HMG buys another 60 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, making a total of 100 million for booster jabs in the autumn and winter. The only good news came from the Oxford Research Group who announced that they had developed a vaccine for the main strain of malaria, which has proven 77% efficacy in initial trials. Malaria kills 400,000 people each year around the world. In a UK study by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, data from December 8th to March 10th 2021 revealed that 526 people were admitted to hospital after contracting Covid-19 at least three weeks after having their vaccination. 113 of them died. Even so there will be no limit to mourners at funerals, provided social distancing is maintained, from May 17th, with social distancing ending on June 21st, providing mutations do not influence this decision.

May 13th, 2021...There are now over 258,000 dead in India from Covid-19. Hundreds of bodies have been sighted floating down the River Ganges, put there by distraught relatives who cannot find the necessary wood for cremations. In the UK, the NHS has announced that those travelling abroad will be able to use a double vaccination software application as a Covid-19 passport from Monday, May 17th, 2021 by phoning 119. Those that return from a country that HMG has not given a clean bill of health, will still need to go into quarantine. Due to the Indian variant becoming a global cause for concern, British troops were called in to assist the NHS. Blackburn, Bolton, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire were areas infected with the B.1.617.2 mutation. Laboratory examination of effluent helped to pinpoint the search for infected areas. The UK's national laboratory is located in Exeter and receives samples from two thirds of the country. Evidence shows that the Astra Zeneca jab could defeat these variants, which is why HM is proceeding with lifting all Covid-19 restrictions on June 21st. HMG has announced that the public enquiry into the government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic will commence in the spring of 2022. Whether this will only be the start of preparations for the enquiry, is still to be determined. The Labour Party opposition are not pleased by the delay nor are the relatives of the deceased.

Possibly the next coronavirus has come to light. detected in Sarawak, Malaysia in 2018 amongst patients suffering from pneumonia. It is thought to have been caught from pets. It is called CCoV-HuPn-2018. There are four others that cause flu, the common cold. These are HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1, plus the more lethal SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV-1 and SADS (Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome). Thus far this new variant is not transmissible. Meanwhile medical experts take legal proceedings against the CDC, WHO & the Davos Group for crimes against humanity, over the way the Covid-19 pandemic has been handled.

There is growing concern in HMG about the transmissibility of the India virus in UK schools, since it was announced that the wearing of face masks in schools was no longer necessary. Singapore has closed schools because of such high transmission. Whilst present vaccines can handle such outbreaks, if the subject has had two vaccinations, the more people that become infected as time goes by, then the greater the likelihood that a far more dangerous variant will emerge. The death toll in India has now reached 300,000.

May 25th, 2021...On the 21st HMG announces that people should not travel into or out of areas infected with Covid-19 having the variant of concern. This suspiciously looked like a new lockdown by stealth to many people. HMG quickly watered it down, but it didn't remove the huge concern HMG felt about lifting all lockdown measures on June 21st. The hot spots were Kirklees, Bedford, Burnley, Leicester, Hounslow, and North Tyneside. A final decision would be made on June 14th. Another variant of concern for HMG lay with the Health & Social Care, and the Science & Technology Committee who were investigating jointly the lessons to be learnt from HMG's response so far. And that including interrogating the PM's former chief adviser Dominic Cummings. His statements were generally not favourable to the PM, nor the Health Secretary Matt Hancock. As with the Eurovision Song Contest there were nil points from Dominic Cummings for the PM. There was now five million people on the NHS waiting list. Staff were calling for surgery hubs to be set up to cope. Three days later HMG bought 20 million doses of the single use jab vaccine by Janssen. Believed to have 85% efficacy, it is ideal for those coming to inoculation centres late in the day. There is a large group of people who still haven't had a jab, who could hold up the ending of lockdown. Janssen is the fourth Covid-19 vaccine bought by HMG.

In early May I received a letter purporting to come from the NHS, Imperial College and IPSOS Mori, asking me to take a Covid-19 test. Since I thus far hadn't had a test, I naturally replied yes and was sent a test kit. Part of the test included a questionnaire on the internet. I accessed the website, entered my personal code that was included in the kit, only to end up on eBay. Sensing a scam I disconnected and discarded the kit. Scam or IT security failure, I am not in a good mood.

June 1st, 2021...There is growing evidence that the AstraZeneca vaccine promotes blood clots. Very rare blood clots with low platelets have been detected in patients. Meanwhile the WHO has decided to use the Greek alphabet to identify Covid-19 variants, rather than link them to any one country of origin. The UK variant is now called Alpha, South Africa - Beta, India - Delta, and Australia's B.1.617.1 - Kappa. I hope that's clearer to you than it is to me. You can blame it on some irate politician in India. It was the first day that HMG announced zero deaths from Covid-19. The WHO finally gives approval to the Chinese vaccine Synovac. Whilst the UK was doing great, Indo China and southern PRC were experiencing a third wave. There were now 3.6 million dead worldwide, with a total of 171.2 million hospitalized. On the good side, it was anticipated that the total vaccines produced will have reached ten billion by Christmas.

June 7th, 2021...Many dating apps agree to let clients add Covid-19 vaccination badges to their profiles, although there is no way of checking the accuracy. As for me I quit 'Amour Feel' after spending £120 in just a couple of days. Inundated by over 30 spam emails and 25 letters supposedly from desperate east European women, none of whom would use the free email address on this website. They couldn't all be agency employees or prostitutes looking for a free holiday, could they? After what I went through I can only say that these time wasters don't deserve a Covid-19 inoculation. The fast flow of contacts descending down the screen every ten seconds, plus the emails, messages and hairy fairy letters, is in my opinion a typical psychological way of putting people under stress, thereby preventing them from thinking clearly. Is it a con? It took about five minutes to get my membership cancelled, after turning down a free offer, only to receive a letter on the subject the next day. Unfortunately I still can't get my file details erased. Are emotionally disturbed members still looking at it? Like gambling websites, these love island sites should be regulated. Let this be a warning to you all. Having trashed UK society with women's lib and gay rights, HMG has an honorable duty to complete the task of social engineering and run a national dating agency. Their access to our data should ensure a rewarding match for us all, based upon beliefs, financial management, intelligence, good looks, etc., especially in these hard times of lockdown, cabin fever and the like. Has it ever occurred to anyone in politics that the stabler the family, the more productive it's likely to be? And from a health point of view, loneliness leads to depression, coupled with loss of the will to live, amongst many people. Owe by the way, on May 29th, the prime minister got married. She should have gone to the national dating agency. Will HMG let the NHS run it?

June 17th, 2021...National leaders at the G7 meeting in Cornwall, England agree to supply one billion vaccine doses to poor nations. It's revealed from Civil Aviation Authority statistics that people have travelled 74 million times through UK airports in 2020. The opposition in parliament are still complaining of HMG's lackluster policing on our borders, but it appears to fall on deaf ears, as excursions abroad get prominence over holidays in the UK. HMG announces that due to the growth of the delta variant of Covid-19, the end of lockdown will not be until July 19th. It will hopefully ensure that all over eighteens have been vaccinated by then. Meanwhile complaints from the leisure industry persist. It's highly likely that many of these venues will close, due to bankruptcy, in the twelve months after lockdown has lifted, when it is realised that many people simply have little zest for life, having been cooped up for so long. The number of people dead from Covid-19 has now reached 3.8 million worldwide, with the overall rate descending. That day voters in the Chesham & Amersham constituency voted in a Lib Dem Party MP. It was the first time they had rejected the Conservative Party since the general election. The Labour Party recorded its lowest ever vote and lost their deposit. Was it all to do with compulsory land purchases for the HS2 railway line, or had the electorate finally realised that our constitution was long overdue for a technocracy? At the next general election will the electorate realise that a vote for the Conservatives will be a vote for serial killers? Which political party does support a technocracy? There were now half a million recorded deaths from Covid-19 in Brazil.

June 25th, 2021...Airlines and tour agencies are complaining of the lack of urgency and realism in HMG, regarding opening up the tourist industry to holidays abroad. The continent is preparing for another wave of Covid-19 based upon the delta variant, whilst in the UK thousands of people across the union are queuing up for their first inoculation. In most of the EU the gates are closed to UK tourists. The feeling is that the EU is trying to make things difficult for the British. For Britons retired in Spain the new residency regulations make it clear that unless you have about half a million pounds, or a well paid job waiting for you, then you cannot settle in the country. Some retirees will have to sell up and return to the UK, whilst the Spanish construction industry will also be hard hit. Because of Brexit and restrictions on movement caused by Covid-19, British companies are desperate for staff. Tesco and Amazon have taken on thousands due to internet based consumerism, whilst farms, food processing, packaging and haulage are desperate for workers. Before Brexit and the pandemic many lorry drivers were from eastern Europe. Many went back to their home country, whilst the huge cost of training has put off many people in the UK from becoming HGV drivers. The Royal Haulage Association reckons the industry is now short of 85,000 drivers. Due to this shortage, farms are getting weekly instead of daily visits by lorries. Farm produce with a short shelf life is rotting away as a result. 48 tonnes of food per week is now rotting away at Tesco, as the sell-by date runs out. The situation is now so grave that six organisations have now written to the prime minister requesting special and urgent treatment. Getting the economy back to normal is likely to take the rest of the year, the European Commission permitting. There is a great deal of friction regarding the Northern Ireland agreement with a border in the Irish Sea, which the protestants oppose, whilst it is regarded by the EC that HMG is not playing fair over the new fisheries agreement. Meanwhile Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been spotted kissing a colleague, Gina Coladangelo, 43. Both are married. The press criticised him for not maintaining the necessary two metre separation. The prime minister quickly said the matter was closed, but since the health secretary was instrumental in getting someone else fired for equally lax behaviour, the media continued their call for his resignation. On June 26th he finally resigned, just days after ditching his wife Martha. One down, at least one more to go.

There have now been nine trials of mass events involving 58,000 people, including the Football Association's Cup Final and the celebrity Brit Awards. No Covid-19 outbreaks have resulted from these events. Although the delta variant advances the infection rate, the grab-a-jab offer to all over 18s, even those without an invitation, appears likely to succeed in stopping the pandemic at least in the UK, assuming nothing more virulent comes along. Meanwhile NHS statistics reveal that it performed 33% less operations in 2020 due to the general public not coming forward with fractures, appendicitis and heart problems. It would appear that the closure of GP's surgeries and loss of jobs had resulted in a severe onset of cabin fever.

July 1st, 2021...The UK national debt is now at £2.55 trillion, increasing at the rate of £5,170 per second. Allowing for pensions, the full amount is £4.8 trillion. According to www.nationaldebt.co.uk that's £78,000 per person. And with all these highly dangerous amateurs running the country, you know and I know that it'll never be paid off. There is therefore a great need from just about everyone, to get the nation's economy moving again. Furlough payments will start to wind down from today for the 1.5 million workers presently laid off due to the pandemic. Talk of improving PPE standards still persist, with many recommending a face mask to FFP3 standards, which can offer near 100% protection says Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. There does not appear to be a face mask for pets however. Utrecht University has stated that Covid-19 has been found in 6 cats and 7 dogs with 54 others having antibodies from a total of 310 pets in 196 households. Just how people with cabin fever stay away from their pets, I simply can't figure out. On July 5th, the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the National Health Service, Queen Elizabeth II awarded it the George Medal for its "courage, compassion and dedication." It stood in sharp contrast to HMG's offer of a one per cent pay rise for nurses.

July 19th, 2021...Magic Monday. The UK's lockdown finally came to an end, at least in England. HMG decided that some NHS staff could work even though test and trace software had told them to self-isolate after coming close to someone who was later shown to be infected with Covid-19. Where absence would result in significant risk of harm, they would be required to pass regular PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) and lateral flow tests daily. Both tests require a nasal swab. PCR test results take twenty-four hours, from a laboratory, to arrive via email. A lateral flow test can be done on the spot and takes less than an hour. The NHS were desperate for staff, whilst other organisations were worried that they would be brought to a standstill if too many workers were told to self-isolate. This was particularly so in the food industry, police, fire brigade, utilities, lorry drivers, border staff and hospitality sectors. The hospitality sector was already finding it difficult to recruit new staff after lockdown, since many had moved to other sectors of the economy, or relocated back to their homeland after Brexit. Like the NHS staff, most would all come under the same rules. Monday also saw the arrival of 430 illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel in inflatable craft during the incessant heat wave, which the meteorological office had labeled with an extreme heat warning, the first ever. Did our border force deserve special treatment? Face coverings would still be recommended on public transport, but in reality most people had given up using them weeks before. Table service in pubs and restaurants was finally stopped, but there was still an air of uncertainty. The infection and death rates from Covid-19 in the UK had increased considerably during the previous four weeks due to the delta variant. Since HMG wanted to get the economy moving, now was as good a time as any, but there was a feeling that all these bodies mixing together at night clubs and disco bars would simply create an even worse variant. Unfortunately the inoculations against Covid-19 didn't kill the coronavirus inside you completely. It lingered, it evolved and waited for its moment. The global death toll from Covid-19 had now reached four million. The spectre of this organism evolving to a lethality of 20 to 30 per cent like SARS 1 and MERS 1 was ever present in my mind. Should it happen, it would amount to so much sacrifice for nothing. Would the human race still be determined enough to fight on, or would civilisation collapse? Night clubs opened at midnight on a Monday morning. It proved very popular with young people. Lambs to the slaughter?

HMG statistics revealed that 39,000 patients had died in care homes in the UK due to the pandemic. Deaths from Covid-19 in the UK were averaging about 75 per day. In the Far East Indonesia was suffering greatly, partly due to a shortage of oxygen to assist breathing. For the first time, South Korea was feeling inundated by casualties, due to the delta variant.

July 26th, 2021...On the 23rd I went to a couple of disco bars in Birmingham, but there were relatively few people out for a Friday night. I only saw four people from the old crowd. Clearly many were avoiding Covid-19 like the plague. Covid deaths in the UK were now coming down, but they could easily go up in the next few weeks. Restarting the economy was going to be far more difficult than just making an announcement. The pinging fiasco, where people were told by HMG's all seeing app on their mobile phone that they had probably become infected and that they must therefore self quarantine for ten days, was being tackled with grudging efficiency by the government, who now added prison and waste management staff to the exclusion list. HMG then set up 1200 additional daily testing centres for members of these professions. Test and trace was likely to cost far more than the original estimate of 37 billion pounds. It was the ultimate gamble.

August 7th, 2021...Went out last night to a disco bar, but there were not many people there. Retail businesses are realizing that shutting down for sixteen months can result in their customers changing their lifestyle, possibly for good. It will probably be a year before many of these businesses get back to normal trading. Many will throw in the towel. In my opinion the PM and other ministers should go about the country opening pubs, bars, cinemas, theatres, restaurants and concert halls. Hopefully such a blaze of publicity will get the couch potatoes out of their take-away eating habits whilst glued to their goggle box. The number of people on furlough had now dropped from 5.1 million in January to 2 million. There were now 4.25 million deaths from Covid-19 from 200 million officially infected worldwide. Ninety per cent of the UK population now had Covid-19 antibodies, whilst 88% had had an inoculation. Herd immunity had finally emerged. FFP3 (Filtering Face Piece 3) face masks were now being manufactured by the NHS at Queen Elizabeth Facilities, a subsidiary of Gateshead Health NHS Trust. It has four layers including one that's antiviral. Due to a shortage of staff in the NHS, HMG has removed restrictions on how many students can study for a degree in medicine. Approximately nine thousand will do the course at a cost of £180,000 each. Covid-19 cases are rising again in the PRC. The city where it all started, Wuhan, is in lockdown. Officially, 600 people are infected across the country with seven deaths. I have spent my days pruning my plants, as many were damaged in the high winds and rain storms. I've also corrected most of the external hyperlinks on this website. I should finish the task in the next three days.

August 10th, 2021...According to statistics released by HMG, there were 138 dead from Covid-19 yesterday, whilst the total dead in the UK now stands at 130,503. Following accusations of sexual harassment from security guards at quarantine hotels, the legal company PGMBM has decided to take HMG to court, calling the present system a deprivation of liberty. The current rules will be challenged. Presently a person arriving in the UK that has been adequately inoculated and has passed a recent Covid-19 test, is still required to stay for eleven nights in a hotel at a personal cost of £1750, now rising to £2285 and then of course there are all the Covid-19 tests to pay for.

August 15th, 2021...The restaurant chain Pret-A-Manager has decided to make pay cuts permanent as customers fail to return in sufficient numbers. Their competitor KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) announces that they are experiencing supply chain problems, without going into detail. There are insufficient workers available to gather harvests, process food and transport it. Some organisations think the nation is short of 100,000 lorry drivers. HMG has extended driver's hours behind the wheel, whilst some hauliers want extended articulated lorries, and the relaxing of regulations to enable drivers located on the continent to work here now that EU regulations no longer apply. The travel agent TUI complains that bookings are down in the UK compared to the EU because of HMG travel restrictions. Days later the restaurant chain Nandos states that it has had to second some of its employees to food processors, shutting 50 outlets, due to shortage of labour there, particularly in the processing of peri peri chicken.

August 20th, 2021...The Ronapreve vaccine gets approval in the UK, whilst in India ZyCoV-D, a DNA engineered vaccine, gets approval even though this type of vaccine usually only has 60% efficacy. Due to there being 14,000 job vacancies in the UK slaughter and meat processing plants, HMG has decided to fill them with prison inmates. Whilst HMG has invited farm workers back from the EU, the ban on HGV drivers from the continent remains. Some UK firms are now acquiring smaller vehicles fro their staff to drive, as a result. The vacancies have been caused by foreign workers leaving the country after Brexit, the pingdemic caused by an over eager test and trace app on people's mobile phones telling them to self quarantine for ten days, together with a preference by school leavers. etc. for cleaner and less stressful employment. Car manufacturing levels have now dropped to where they were in 1956, due to pindemic, microchip shortage, and unpredictable HGV deliveries interfering with JIT (Just In Time) schedules. HMG has now ordered a total of 540 million doses of eight vaccines. It's now certain that an annual booster jab will be necessary for the vulnerable, following figures released for the two main vaccines. Pfizer efficacy fell from 88% to 74% in 5 to 6 months, whilst the AstraZeneca efficacy fell from 77% to 67% in 4 to 5 months.

September 1st, 2021...A New Zealand woman dies shortly after being inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine. Cause of death is probably myocarditis, inflammation of heart muscle, a known problem. In Australia the Covid-19 death toll has reached 1000. Now that American military forces and their allies have left Afghanistan, will those people remaining get their Covid-19 inoculations, although that's probably the last thing they're thinking of right now?

September 10th, 2021...The UK economy is still 2.1% below what it was pre-pandemic, with over one million workers still on furlough. Britain's rail companies were complaining that commuter trains were still only one third full. HMG was considering making all health and care workers get the jab, as only 88% of NHS workers had two Covid-19 inoculations. Employers were complaining of a shortage in labour, due to many low paid returning to the continent, due to Brexit, the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. It was a similar story in the United States, where some companies were offering money towards college courses as an inducement, including Amazon. To reduce the HGV problem in the UK, HMG has decided to water down the vehicle licence requirements. Whilst HMG was considering an extra jab for vulnerable people with low immunity and an annual booster jab, others thought the manufacturing capacity should be handed to people in third world countries. Bearing in mind the economic state of the developed world, it was clear to me that the global economy came first. Over £400 billion had so far been spent on the pandemic by HMG. Just who was going to pay for the training of at least 10,000 heavy goods vehicle drivers? That week parliament referred to Covid-19 inoculation passports for night clubs, disco bars, and similar crowded places, that would come into force at the end of this month. Fearful of being shut out, I immediately applied for mine. For your paper passport, click the following link if you live in England. If you want the app on a mobile phone, you dial 119. Two days later HMG cancelled the Covid passport 'identity card', the day after Emma Radacanu won the US open tennis singles for the UK. A few days later HMG cancelled its contract for valneva Covid-19 vaccine...all one hundred million doses, after what it claimed was a contract breach. Also HMG admitted that 300,000 arrivals to the UK were suspected of having broken quarantine regulations or could not be traced. Clearly the high cost of staying at a quarantine hotel was having an effect. The importance of getting your inoculations was rammed home in a Daily Telegraph newspaper article stating that, only 59 vaccinated people without serious illness, had died from Covid-19 in England this year. I received my passport on the 14th. I'll have to keep it as it maybe needed in any lockdown in the winter.

September 18th, 2021...HMG changes entry system from traffic lights to a red list of countries with unacceptable levels of covid-19. In addition people who are fully vaccinated will not require pre-departure testing before entry to the UK from nations that are not on the red list. Upon arrival they would probably require a lateral flow test instead of time consuming PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). As for me I've never had a test, but I strongly suspect that I've been infected with Covid-19 again, after going to a disco bar. My two inoculations don't stop me getting Covid-19 again, nor from passing it on. I've had three allergy attacks on my face over the last ten days. My tongue has swelled up twice and my lips and right cheek have also swelled up leaving a cold sore or port-wine stain on my right cheek. A muscle on my right calf and right hip have also swelled up slightly. Covid-19 appears to detect what is medically wrong or imperfect and exacerbate the situation. That has got me thinking. Maybe medical science can use part of Covid-19 as a marker which can then repair or upgrade that part of the body. HMG have now started inoculating school children, but it maybe almost irrelevant for many teenagers. On Saturday night I walked along Broad Street where many disco bars are located, only to see long queues outside some bars, the longest stretched past O'Neill's public house and the Figure of Eight bar to Players. Have they upgraded their HVAC system? HMG doesn't appear to care, as there has been no announcement from the government on the problem.

In the continuing quest to find the origins of Covid-19, there are now reports from Cambodia that bats, caught in Stung Treng province and frozen ten years ago, for storage at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, have been found to contain a virus remarkably similar to Covid-19. Report is from Evening Standard/Sky News.

October 5th, 2021...In the UK deaths from Covid-19 are now running at about 120 per day. Travelers have been caught trying to escape from quarantine hotels. We are the twelfth worst country for high rates of Covid-19 infection, mainly due to our open border policy in my opinion. Inexplicably Australia has opened its borders for the first time in 18 months. The UK furlough scheme in the UK has finally come to an end. Whether this is great news to employers remains to be seen. Will it encourage employees to return to work. There is a chronic shortage of HGV workers, plus slaughter house and food processing operatives. HMG has decided to issue passports to 10,000 people from the continent to work here up until Christmas. Not to have a turkey on the table on Christmas Day was considered to be political suicidal. In the meantime the energy industry is in chaos. For the past week there have not been enough tanker drivers to get our imported fuels to petrol stations. BP temporarily closed some petrol stations. There is a shortage of at least 10,000 drivers. HMG appealed to the mainly retired one million UK citizens who had HGV licences, to forget about the abuse they received from managers, the absence of training, low wages, revolting meals and drinks at motorway cafes, and shitting in the wood-by-the-lay-by, because there are pitifully few public toilets for long distance lorry drivers, and step forward in its hour of dire need. 150 fuel trucks are being readied for soldiers to operate as HMG refuses to use the words chaos, apocalypse, rationing and the like for fear of creating panic.

Over 12 natural gas suppliers have now gone bust in the UK, serving 2.2 million customers, because although the retail price to domestic users is capped, the bulk supply price is dictated by global events. This also affects factories and hence the economy, and of course hospitals. The bulk price of natural gas has gone up from 69 to 294 pence per therm from May to October 2021. This has been caused by low wind speeds over wind farms in the North Sea for a month, outages at aging nuclear power stations, fire at an electricity import sub-station, Covid-19 hampering maintenance projects at power stations, and a 17% reduction in gas along pipelines from the gas supply company Gazprom in Russia. By mid-November the number of gas suppliers that had gone out of business had reached 20.

And of course the bright spark causing it all appears to be the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants the new North Stream 2 gas pipeline running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, to be exempt from EU rules, if he gets Gazprom to turn off the gas to the Ukraine, as the military face-off there continues. PRC military jets were testing out the air defence's on Taiwan, whilst North Korea was testing its own nuclear powered missile. Needless to say the USG had one too. WWIII was just around the corner. It has also been a cold wet summer, with my central heating switched on at times during August and September. The UK gets its gas and fuel from various sources including Norway and Bahrain, but that hasn't stopped the bulk price from going up 250% since the beginning of the year. So much so that two American owned fertilizer plants in the UK, closed down for a time, until HMG agreed to subsidize the gas price. They had little choice as this incident had cut off carbon dioxide supply, a bi-product to the food industry, which used it as a preservative to extend shelf life, make drinks fizzy, pour a pint in a bar and to stimulate growth of plants in glasshouses. The complicated global economy was proving to be highly vulnerable, hence my support for self supporting neighbourhoods based upon biomes. Will hospitals be overloaded with the elderly seeking warmth this winter? Shared bodily warmth. Fat chance of me getting it this Christmas, or any other time.

Vitamin A treatment trials are to commence for the treatment of long Covid-19, which can result in headaches, anxiety, breathing irregularities, and fatigue. I know, as I was suffering from the latter, although it could be due to old age. My seventy-third birthday was coming up. The prime minister made promises to the 'Covid-19 Bereavered Families For Justice' that he would appoint a chairman to the inquiry by Christmas. The inquiry would begin in spring 2022. HMG then stated that it would set up 40 diagnostic health clinics in England, in shopping centres by March 2022, in order to tackle the NHS backlog in cancer checks, x-rays and the like. That day I received an email from my GP's surgery offering me my Covid-19 booster jab. I phoned them to arrange an appointment, but gave up after almost three minutes due to the incessant prerecorded messages I had to hear first. A few days later I visited my GPs surgery, to book an appointment. There were two members of staff there, answering a continuous stream of telephone calls. I was told that I had arrived at the wrong time to book an appointment. I left in disgust. The next day I tried an NHS internet web site, which stated that I can get a booster jab, then it said I couldn't. There were numerous walk in centres listed for the Birmingham area, but booster jabs were not allowed. I gave up....for a few days at least. My second phone call finally got through. I was given an appointment for the annual flue jab, but I'd have to wait for the Covid-19 booster inoculation, which would come via someone else. The suspense was.....

Following an incident where a pig farmer was forced to slaughter all of his piglets because there was insufficient slaughtering capacity in the UK, it has now emerged that HMG has invited 300 fuel tanker drivers, 4700 food processing workers and hundreds of slaughter house butchers from the EU, to work here at least until next March. Evidently our unemployed and school leavers were simply not up to the job. It's more likely that the younger generation simply don't like the idea of animals being culled simply to satisfy their hunger. The Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) had recently ordered the slaughtering of the nice cuddly alpaca, Geronimo, on the grounds that it had bovine tuberculosis, which an autopsy proved wrong. This was the tenth known similar mistake made by DEFRA on llamas and alpacas. This was definitely an exercise in negative public relations, not to mention arrogance, whilst we were constantly told by environmentalists that cattle burp through their mouths large quantities of greenhouse gases that exacerbate global warming. As a result the army of vegetarians and vegans was growing larger. It was only a matter of time before traditional animal farming would be superseded by the production of artificial meats, hopefully in biomes. Can HMG visualize this, and thereby plan for the future? Does it have a strategic committee that decides long term government and economic policy? The good news was that the drug company Merck had completed initial trials of a new Covid-19 drug called molnupiravir, which was shown to reduce hospital cases by fifty per cent. Hopefully it will be more successful than HMG's tanker driver recruitment scheme where only 127 people applied for the 300 vacancies. No doubt they were as pissed off with UK employers as I am. In the USA the total number of Covid-19 dead had now reached 700,000.

October 19th, 2021...The PLSA (Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association) stated that a single person needs a pension of £10,900 to live comfortably in the UK, whilst a couple needs £16,700. My basic state pension is £181.54 plus £200 winter fuel allowance, a total of £9640.08. This of course did not allow for the ever increasing cost of natural gas. The price had now stabilized at 228p per therm, from 83p per therm on July 15th, 2021. How many windows in how many homes would freeze on the inside this winter, as the prime minister and chancellor stared out of their windows vacantly at their christmas tree in Downing Street? The MP's Covid-19 Response Report was finally published, stating that it was one of the worst ever public health failures. Legal proceedings finally began into HMG's Covid-19 failures, including the deaths of pensioners sent to old folk's homes, where they died because of cross infection. The antibody 54042-4 was found to halt delta and alpha variants of Covid-19. Unfortunately Covid-19 variants have also been updating their arsenal. The latest is AY.4.2 commonly known as Delta Plus. Six per cent of hospital cases are caused by these variants. As a result the daily death rate in the UK has risen to 223 with health officials now calling for the reintroduction of pandemic controls, namely face masks, distancing, working from home and the increased use of Covid-19 passports. HMG regarded the situation bearable, but many in the medical professions did not. There would be no implementation of plan 'B'.

Booster jabs have been offered to half the population of the UK including me, but I soon found out that the offer can be meaningless. I received an email telling me to contact my GP for it. But when I went to my GP's surgery to get my annual flu jab, there were two receptionists there answering a continuous stream of telephone calls, but there was only one patient in the waiting area apart from myself. The staff had no details of how I would get my Covid-19 booster jab. It was clear to me that the NHS wasn't working. Hospitals were filling up again with patients needing long term care, but there were no places available in care homes due to insufficient staff available. Hospitals had the same problem. Staff had either died from Covid-19, become mentally incapacitated, relocated for a better job back in their homeland, retired or quit in disgust at the absence of professional management. HMG had had at least three years to train professionals as a result of the forthcoming Brexit brain drain but had done nothing. They could have passed a bill through parliament obliging employers to train HGV drivers and other staff, but they did nothing. The situation was so bad that many medical professionals were now afraid to go to work and run the risk of patient abuse or litigation due to a medical error caused by overwork. It was obvious to me that chronic understaffing causing excessive work loads would ultimately result in a complete collapse of the NHS and possibly our political system. That same week the Institute of Cancer Research called for annual PSA blood tests for men over 40 years of age...dream on. Covid-19 was fighting a war of attrition. Should I go and live in that place in the sun? What was the point of staying here when the weather was so bad and the NHS was clearly not working?

October 27th, 2021...On this day, a Brazilian senate panel recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with crimes against humanity over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which had now cost the lives of over 600,000 Brazilians. I went out for a drink Saturday night, only to find that there was no draught beer or lager, due to HGV trouble no doubt. To top it all, the Tesco supermarket website had been hacked, making it impossible to use. I contacted my bank but got nowhere. After a few days of trying I finally gave up and ordered a new debit card. The nation was slowly falling to pieces. This was budget day. Chancellor Rishi Sunak was clearly on a roll. Listening to the figures I couldn't see how you could build so many homes with so little money. 180,000 homes for £11,500,000,000 = £63,889 each. I assumed the homes would be built by some revolutionary method on government owned land. Much of the statement was a classic case of smoke and mirrors. Money handed over was clearly being taken away by some other means. The rich appeared to be unaffected. Our corrupt tax system for the rich would remain in place. There would be no 90% top rate of income tax for the wealthy, to pay for the pandemic and economic recovery. The civil service would get a pay rise, which would no doubt be wiped out by the rising cost of living, which no government could control. Unrestricted capitalism would rule the day. The chancellor implied that interest rates would have to go up, but that would only put up the cost of living, devalue the pound and scupper wage increases. The leader of the opposition accused him of being in a parallel universe. The Resolution Foundation stated that the budget would boost earnings for the poorest by +2.8% and reduce earnings for the middle earners by -2.0%. It was they said the worst decade of pay growth since the 1930s. The Institute for Fiscal Studies stated that inflation and higher taxes would negate small wage increases for middle earners, such as civil servants. The cost of living will increase faster than benefit payments for low income households. There was no sign of HMG creating in the unrelenting march of AI, a science based leisure oriented society any time soon.

The next day I finally received an offer of my long awaited Covid-19 booster injection, but unlike my previous two appointments, which came in a letter, this one obviously came from a joker. It was a long complicated interactive message sent by SMS to my small screened Samsung Galaxy J3 mobile phone. First I had to choose the inoculation centre from a list. My GP's surgery was not included, so I had to browse through an interactive map to locate the location of the nearest. Unfortunately as I zoomed in on it in the map, the names of the streets would disappear. I had to use a magnifying class to read them. Having chosen the centre, I then had to state my national health number and date of birth. Now I can remember my old number, RLIH 391, but not my new one, which is 10 digits long, and only appears on medical letters, as for some reason I am not allowed an NHS identity card. After hunting around for the necessary correspondence, I had to start the process all over again, as the SMS message link had terminated itself. Finally I selected the date, then the hour, then the exact time of the appointment. It then asked me if I wanted a confirmation. I selected YES. That was a big mistake. It wanted my mobile phone number. Then my mobile phone number again. Then my email address. Then my email address again. It then told me that my appointment time had been taken by someone else. I blew a fuse, which could no doubt be confirmed by my alarmed neighbours. I swear that I will never get another inoculation this side of a bloody revolution in this country. I would rather be dead than live any longer under this hapless regime. Just how long I will remain in this state of smouldering revolutionary fervor is anybodies guess. What is plainly obvious, is that this country urgently needs a modern, professional constitution. A technocracy, to compete successfully in the global economy with the PRC and the like. Just what does it take. Under the present system our constitution has never been written down. Never approved by the electorate. Which makes our MPs imposters, doesn't it?

October 30th, 2021 Halloween...There were 2 good pieces of news when it came to combating Covid-19. Firstly an anti-depressant called fluvoxamine is known to reduce inflammation, so it was tested to see if it could reduce serious response to Covid-19. It could. Secondly, medical researchers have been looking for a drug that can stop the replication of coronavirus. Thus far the inoculations available have only been designed to enable the body to withstand Covid-19 attack, which does not destroy the coronavirus and its ability to replicate. To replicate requires its metabolic pentose phosphate pathway to be activated. Now the drug benfooxythiamine can stop this pathway, thereby preventing the coronavirus from replicating inside the infected body. Used with 2-deoxy-D-glucose the defence is even more effective. In addition to these two breakthroughs, the Scottish government is the first to introduce c-peptide blood tests for type 1 diabetics. The test determines how much insulin is being produced by the human body, and is therefore a guide as to how much insulin should be injected in future.

November 3rd, 2021...Having cooled down, I finally ventured to my local City Hospital to get my Pfizer-BioNTech booster jab. It ached a bit for about twelve hours, whilst the needle didn't hurt as it was plunged into my left arm. It took some time to find the place, tucked away at the back of the hospital, across the car park, since I saw no signs at the entrance. The booster was available to everyone over the age of 50 and to all NHS staff. There were still 4.5 million UK citizens not vaccinated against Covid-19, whilst 10 million have now had their booster jab. Surprisingly there are still 80,000 to 100,000 NHS workers still not vaccinated. The deadline for care home workers to be vaccinated is the end of this month, whilst the deadline for NHS workers in England is April 2022. Just what disciplinary measures will be taken against those that do not comply with HMG's wishes remains to be seen. Dismissal, no job reference, no pension, no welfare benefits, no passport, no driving licence, and a career trashed no doubt. Is it worth it?

The Pfizer drug Paxlovid has been found to be 89% effective against Covid-19 in high risk people. A similar drug, Molnupiravir, by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics is similarly effective and has received approval for use. These may be able to prevent transmission from person to person, and long covid. These drugs can certainly be taken at home.

November 17th, 2021...First the good news. The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 drug is now available to 95 third world countries to manufacture themselves. And now the bad. Just as the pharmaceutical industry could see a way of eradicating Covid-19, it has been found in 80% of white tailed deer in the USA. The only viruses to have been totally eradicated by man are SARS-CoV-1 and smallpox.

November 24th, 2021...The University of Tubingen, Germany is developing a T-Cell based vaccine that is injected into the stomach. T-Cells last longer in the body compared to the anti-body response from existing vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, but are slower to initially respond. A fourth wave of Covid-19 is spreading across mainland Europe. Lockdowns are being imposed in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands with protests in some areas.

I have been suffering from Covid-19 for the past 12 days. It's like mild flu. Doesn't cause a runny nose. Just a cough now and again. But in the past 6 days I have had 3 angioedema attacks and it's wearing me down. I've run out of medication. I set up an account on the internet to get my prescriptions delivered, but since they have run out I need to see a GP to get them renewed. I cannot arrange an appointment with a GP on and over the internet. The NHS is in the stone age. After 4 failed attempts to get through to my GP's surgery on the phone, I have placed orders for Ibuprofen, a pain killer for my arthritis, and Loratadine for my allergy, with Amazon. It's clear to me that the NHS is a disaster. A beaucracy screwed up by one government after another.

HMG has now cancelled flights from 6 southern African countries due to the prevalence of B.1.1.529 Covid-19 variant, later to be called omicron, it was sequenced on November 23rd. It is reputed to be the most dangerous so far, since it can evade immunity created by vaccines. This is because it has 32 mutations in its spike protein. The large number of mutations suggests that it originated from an HIV/AIDS victim. Will it wipe out the NHS? The next day HMG announced further countries to be avoided. Masks will be reintroduced on public transport and in public places in 3 days time on Tuesday. Other countries adopted similar measures. Originally called the Botswana virus, the WHO now called it Omicron. Stockmarket indices were falling, partly due to uncontrollable inflation, due to high restart costs in the global economy, but I left my money where it was as I had heard it all before. Is this a restart of the beginning? I didn't go out that weekend as the temperatures had plummeted to freezing, coupled with the first snow of the winter, delivered by storm Arwen. The price of natural gas had remained stubbornly high at about 240p/therm. News from the Ukraine, where the war front with Russia had remained static, was that Moscow was trying to orchestrate a military coup in Kiev. As for the conflict between the PRC and Taiwan, I suspect that my favourite honey has been tainted with sugar syrup from the PRC, since it now spreads more easily. There is currently no law to compel food processors in the UK to list the country of origin. Just whose side is HMG on? Later my freezing fingers lashed my fuchsias to the pergola, to stop them from being blown out of the planters. Incredibly, during the storm 27 illegal migrants, mainly refugees from the middle east, drowned in the freezing English Channel after failing to get a positive response from British and French border police on their mobile phones. There were only 2 survivors. More blizzards predicted. All the portents were ominous.

November 27th, 2021...Omicron is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is equivalent to the letter 'o'. Will we run out of Greek letters? Surprisingly, just as the pandemic drags on and on, so does Storm Arwen. Those near one hundred miles per hour winds, cut off power supply to almost one million homes, as trees crashed down upon overhead power lines. After five nights, there were still 30,000 homes without electricity. Many of those homes had no fireplace, being totally dependent upon electricity for their central heating. Pipes were freezing and bursting. Frozen under floor central heating pipes were causing concrete floors to crack. Disgruntled occupiers migrated to the warm welcoming homes of friends and relatives, or a hotel room, finding the cold coupled with the incessant wait for a portable electricity generator simply too much to bear. Some victims were not even allowed to access a hotel as they hadn't had a recent Covid-19 inoculation. One ninety-two year old hadn't had one in the previous eight months. there had been almost no warning. Just a few comments by weather presenters. The emergency services appeared to be totally unprepared, whilst no one was instructing people on how to survive this forthcoming storm. Where were the meals on wheels service and our non-existent Civil Defence Corps? An iron resolve was clearly developing amongst the victims to get an illegal log stove, photo-voltaics and a Tesla battery, or their own portable generator, ready for next time. It was clear that the only thing company directors had learned from the last similar incident, was that it didn't matter how apathetic or incompetent you were, you were not going to be put up against a wall and have your brains blown out. It was obvious that a group action intent upon suing the companies responsible, was the only way to bring about change. As for the army; that was not called in until day six. But as the linesmen and chainsaw teams attended hundreds of incidents across northern Britain, all the leader of the opposition in parliament could ask was whether the prime minister's christmas office party complied with the pandemic regulations, one year ago. HMG was spending hundreds of billions on a fantasy railroad instead of bare essentials. What affect would this storm have on the NHS? The long term impact of the pandemic was bad enough. A recent report stated that there were millions of people with cancer symptoms affected by cancelled appointments or operations. It would take years to get back to normal. Is it like this in other countries I wondered? Would I be better offer if I migrated, but to where? As for the politicians in their cosy warm pleasure palaces in Westminster and Edinburgh....... for an eternity.

December 3rd, 2021...Omicron infections are rising rapidly. In South Africa in mid-November it was 250 cases per day. Now it has risen from 8,500 to 11,500 in just one day. In South Korea the daily rise has now past 5,000 cases for the first time. Another new wave had begun. To combat it, HMG approves a new antibody treatment called sotrovimab, which is administered by drip into the vein. It can reduce the chances of death by 79%. In Cardiff, Wales and in the USA medical scientists find the cause of rare blood clots resulting from the Oxford-AstraZeneca inoculations. Apparently a protein is attracted to it, but whether this will lead to a preventative measure remains to be seen. The impotence pill Viagra was now thought to combat Alzheimer's dementia, said researchers in the USA. Should I buy it in the hope of improving my word recalling ability? They would never believe that I was buying it for that purpose would they, at the chemist?

December 20th, 2021...During December there were many revelations about parties and gatherings at 10 Downing Street in apparent contravention of Covid-19 regulations, but no matter how many photos of such gatherings were broadcast, the PM clung on to power, even after his Conservative Party was fined £17,800 over unacceptable financing of the PM's flat refurbishment. No sooner had Storm Arwen drifted away than Storm Barra arrived, temporarily cutting off power to 8,000 homes in Grampian, Scotland. On the seventeenth, the Liberal Democratic party won the parliamentary seat at North Shropshire with a swing of 34% from a 46.3 % turnout. The seat had been held by the Conservatives for almost two centuries. The bi-election was caused by Owen Paterson who resigned after being caught for paid lobbying. The previous day Oxford University stated that it was to conduct a study into the administering of molmpiravir pills at home, to fight Covid-19. HMG reported 88, 376 Covid-19 infections in one day, with 745,183 booster doses given. Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody was to be given to high risk groups during early infection by Covid-19.

I've now had Covid-19 omicron variant, I presume, for over two weeks. It started with a runny nose. It just wouldn't stop running. My soggy tissues would fill with mucous as my eardrums popped, as the harder I blew. Apparently just one person with a cold exhausts two litres of mucus per day. Wearing myself out, eventually I thrust a cotton bud stick up both nostrils coated with TCP, a liquid antiseptic, then I gargled with it. Finally in desperation I let some of it slide down my throat, which the makers do not recommend. The avalanche of snot stopped, but then the coronavirus employed another trick and put a lump in my throat, so large I could barely breath as I lay in bed that night. Should I phone for a paramedic? In desperation I got up, went to mission control and played solitaire whilst listening to my mp3s. I found it far easier to breath whilst sitting up in my office swivel chair, whilst the gaming took my mind off the discomfort. It occurred to me that the lump maybe caused by my angioedema, so I took four allergy pills, then smeared Vicks VapoRub up my nostrils to assist my breathing. I had used the same small bottle all of my life, becoming a long trusted friend. After about four hours the lump went down noticeably. Within 24 hours I was back filling the swing bin and loo with wet tissues, with pools of sweat on the bed sheets, and that's how it's been for about another 6 days. There was no nausea and no headaches during this time. By now I was praying for that nasal spray of llama nanobodies that scientists were working on. It was obvious that I needed something that would get rid of the critters in my lungs. Like most people I didn't go out at the weekend, instead watching Ridley Scott's 'Kingdom of Heaven' movie for at least the second time.

It's obvious to me that the WHO, etc. are fighting this pandemic the wrong way. They are reacting to events and not creating them. As I see it there are two ways to fight this bug. We can bio-engineer the immune system within the human genome, so that it works like that of an alpaca or bat, or we can bio-engineer a new variant of Covid-19 that is very quick spreading but benign, having the ability to wipe out competing variants. Such an artificial variant could be sprayed from the air over large cities around the world and at the sites of international airports. Failure to do this and the pandemic will drag on and on, wiping out the global economy and civilisation in general, with no guarantee that a grim reaper variant won't finally come along with a 20 to 30% mortality rate. I could end up spending the remainder of my life in lockdown with nothing to show for all the sacrifice, and so could billions of other people. The human race was getting restless. The NHS was now at level 4 national incident due to staff shortages, as ever increasing numbers of infected people sought help. The NHS website crashed due to over use as boosters were offered to the over 30s.

And just as I thought it was the end of the world, the pharmaceutical industry has come up with another drug to raise our hopes. This one is called Nirmatrelvir, a pill (investigational antiviral PF-07321332), brand name Paxlovid, at least it will be once the trials by Pfizer in the USA are completed successfully. Paxlovid treatment consists of four pills and one capsule, 2 to be taken each day whilst the remaining capsule is an existing drug originally used for the treatment of HIV called ritonavir, which slows the metabolism of some 3CL protease inhibitors. This treatment attacks the heart of the coronavirus, and does not rely upon support from the infected person's immune system. In November 2021 Pfizer announced, in an agreement with the USG, the availability of ten million courses of Paxlovid at a cost of $529 per course, adding $15 to $22 billion of revenue to Pfizer says Barclays analysts. Merck's competing product is yet to be revealed. Meanwhile the price of natural gas in the business data of the BBC's website, has now risen to 457p/therm (21-12-21). That's a ten fold increase since March 1st, 2021. No mention of coastal tidal barrages, nor the mass production of sea current generators, just a deathly silence from HMG on the issue. I can hear the moans from gas users as they read their bills once the energy price cap ends in April 2022, which stands at £1277, and then the gasping groans the following winter. Maybe it is the end of the world, or at least the beginning of the end....or maybe the start of a revolution?

There are rumours that the omicron infections are moving swiftly across the planet. So swiftly that England may avoid a lockdown over both Christmas and the new year. Evidently according to an article in Microsoft News Pfizer and Oxford University have reduced the time taken to design, test and produce a vaccine to less than 100 days. During the pandemic the time taken was reduced from 4 years to 326 days, due to rapid advances in technology. However it still won't be short enough to tackle the omicron variant. I thought that it might be possible to produce a vaccine on a modular basis, since the grim reaper variant is likely to employ omicron's fast infection capability. On December 22nd I woke up at 5am. Evidently my tongue and chin had swollen up due to angioedema again, possibly caused by stress, since I couldn't think of any other reason. My nose was still running. I could still smell the Covid-19 on my breath when I coughed occasionally. I had had Covid-19 for at least one and a half weeks, possibly two and a half. That day was the coldest day of the year thus far. 147,433 people had so far died from Covid-19 in the UK. Tesco delivered my Christmas groceries that morning, but I hadn't put up the decorations. It simply didn't feel like Christmas. Just another day in my empty life. No mother, no brother, just one xmas card from a neighbour.

January 3rd, 2022...My Covid-19 illness finally came to an end on Christmas Day. I stayed at home all Christmas and the new year. The buses normally ran every ten minutes, but due to staff shortages owing to the pandemic, the timetable had been drastically cut during the evening periods. Whilst the timetable stated that buses ran every half hour, in reality it was once per hour, and it never ran to the times listed. Who in their right mind would want to stand at a bus stop at night in the freezing rain, waiting up to an hour for a bus? Of course to keep your nose warm you could always wear your face mask. How about an N95? That's the best standard to go for in this age of omicron.

January 15th, 2022...Omicron sweeps across Europe as governments throw in the towel and abandon passenger air flight restrictions. Staff shortages in the NHS at numerous hospitals due to infection and over work. Two thirds of care homes are not taking in extra patients due to staff shortages. Also in the UK, 90% of recorded deaths due to Covid-19 were amongst non-vaccinated people. Meanwhile in Wales a trial is underway to test the affect on people of taking Covid-19 pills instead of an injection. In Chile the fourth round of Covid-19 inoculations is underway, whilst in the PRC a doctor is arrested for providing Covid-19 treatment without authorization. In the PRC pandemic treatment is kept separate from normal health care, which is how it should be everywhere else in my opinion. Meanwhile the UK prime minister is under more criticism following revelations of more parties at 10 downing Street during the lockdown, which prevented close contact between people, especially one within days of the funeral of HRH Duke of Edinburgh. It beggars the question 'what kind of mentality exists at the seat of our government? Meanwhile a police investigation is underway into HMG's VIP PPE purchase scheme which the courts have found unlawful. Some products cost HMG four times the going rate, whilst others failed to comply with quality standards.

January 27th, 2022...Thursday saw the official end of lockdown measures for most people, although it would not end for care homes until this coming Monday. It was a nice sunny day for once. Relatively mild, so I decided to take the bus into the city centre. It was my first trip out for about six weeks. I had stayed in over Christmas and the new year as there was no bus service presumably due to a shortage of drivers due to Covid-19. I was not in the mood to stand at a bus stop in the freezing rain not knowing when the next bus would come along. There were plenty of people out that afternoon, but I didn't walk far owing to the condition of my right knee. The sunshine helped to relieve the stress I had been through. Last Saturday my groceries were delivered by Tesco, only to find that most of the frozen items had not been included. I had defrosted my fridge-freezer in anticipation. I was not amused. I pointed out to the delivery man that four items had been included that I had not requested, including a frozen raw fish and a thin pizza. I compiled a list of missing items and sent it to Tesco by email. Three days later I realised that the email address was not being monitored. I emailed a second address only to find that that too was not being used. At the second phone call I got through and gave the man the details. Evidently the delivery man had only reported one item missing. I was left with the opinion that either they didn't understand english, or they wanted to be fired in order to qualify for welfare benefits. Following the failure of the Border Force to stop these illegal migrants from the crossing the English Channel, HMG has now ordered the Royal Navy to take charge. No comment! This incident follows a whole series of failed deliveries. HMG has now decided to reduce the time it takes the unemployed to find a job, so it'll be more square pegs in round holes and more on sickness benefit.

February 2nd, 2022...The previous day the PM Boris Johnson faced parliament over the release of the preliminary, or should it be redacted version, of the partygate scandal in Whitehall. Despite numerous calls from party leaders, he steadfastly refused to resign. Most of his colleagues in the Conservative Party supported him and were clearly prepared to go down with our democratic system. They had all brought shame to the government and the House of Commons. Whilst most of the general public had observed the government's lockdown rules, by not visiting loved ones in care homes and hospitals, and not attending funerals, Boris and co. were living it up at about 13 parties which according to the report compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray, warranted police investigation. The opposition parties immediately tried to get HMG to promise a release of the full report, thought to amount to 500 pages and 300 photographs, as soon as the police investigation was completed, to no avail. As for the police report, it could take years to emerge. As for the PPE investigation, it has now emerged that £8,700 million had been wasted on buying inadequate personal protective equipment. £673 million was to the wrong standard, £750 million had passed its expiry date, whilst £4,700 million had been spent on equipment that was now far cheaper to purchase. As for the rest, it had been binned somewhere. The thought of sending it to some trouble spot in the world like Syria or the Yemen clearly wasn't going to be promoted by the opposition, as this was political ammunition. As for the PM, like Superman he zoomed off to the Ukraine, to which HMG was providing military support in the form of anti-tank missiles and key personnel, designed to stop the 100,000 Russian troops on the border from invading. It was clear that the PM wanted that gremlin in the Kremlin to stand out as the greater threat.

February 8th, 2022...The battle to save the nation from dying from hypothermia from this April continues with a British Government announcement regarding energy subsidies, due to the price of natural gas staying at around 400p/therm. It is predicted that domestic energy bills will rise by £700 per annum. As such HMG has decided to reduce the community charge to home occupiers in the bands A to D by £150. In addition energy bills will be initially reduced by £200, to be paid back at the rate of £40 over 5 years. The maximum annual ceiling for energy bills per home now rises from £1277 to £1971. The poor on pay-per-meter face even higher bills. The cost of living was also rising, to a predicted 7% by April, as the global economy adjusted itself to new parameter values. To make matters worse the Bank of England raised the bank's base rate of interest to 0.5%. And whilst Shell plc (was Royal Dutch Shell) announced a profit of £20 billion, the national debt of the USA now stood at $30 trillion. It was obvious that the human race needed a world order, both in politics and economics. A world technocracy, but few people wanted change of any kind, especially Vladimir Putin, who, if the western media was right, wanted a return to the days of the USSR. The US government was predicting a full scale invasion of the Ukraine in weeks, when the ground was frozen hard enough to support their heavy armoured vehicles. Meanwhile, here in the UK, the confrontation between HMG and 70,000 members of the NHS, who refused to have their Covid-19 inoculations, continued. As for the UK general public, the feeling was that the pandemic was over, whilst others called for more vaccines to be sent to third world countries to stop the possibility of another variant emerging. In the far east however, lockdowns were emerging in Indonesia and the PRC. The pandemic was far from over. So far there have been 5.8 million deaths worldwide from Covid-19, including 158,000 in the UK, 905,000 in the USA.

They're coming to get ya.....

February 16th, 2022...There is a common acceptance that daily deaths of about 150 people will continue for some time. Apart from that, life has returned to normal. However, one disturbing fact has emerged. It turns out that a person who has died from Covid-19 can probably pass on the pathogen to someone else, weeks after their death. Should all corpses be cremated? And will a grim reaper version emerge from the unvaccinated third world, or from infected wildlife? The NHS is now urging people to attend cancer screening, including prostate cancer for men. Should I try again to get a blood test, or has the NHS definitely abandoned the over seventies?

March 24th, 2022...Gradually Covid-19 regulations have been concluded throughout the UK. In early March I applied for Attendance Allowance benefit from HMG owing to the rising cost of living and the increasing pain in my right knee due to arthritis. I filled in the form, but could not get an appointment with a GP, who would be required to confirm the details. I posted it anyway. When it comes to mobility, to get anywhere I will need to travel by taxi. As it is I don't travel anywhere, not even using my free bus pass, since the buses don't stick to the timetable in the evenings, and of course I would still have to walk some distance at the other end. I don't really have anywhere to travel to. I never go on holiday. Retirement appears to be an illusion. It's just a scrap heap of humanity. I thought about using the cities ebikes, scooters, but I couldn't find a map on the internet showing where they could be found and deposited. Plus of course, you have to use them on the road, not on the path, which is suicidal. We are slowly heading for WWIII now that Russia has invaded Ukraine. HMG has set up a refugee scheme, so I thought that this would make it easy for me to finally find a partner. I contacted over 40 females on the ukrainedate.com website, and gave them all the details, but got nowhere. If Russian bullets, bombs, rockets and missiles can't move 'em, what can? I've also researched the idea of leaving the UK for Mauritius, Jamaica, Barbados, etc. All countries where I could still receive my index linked state pension, but I somehow can't bring myself to leave on my own. I put a lot of work into my home, and it hurts to have to sell it. At any moment civilisation will cease to exist.

The deaths continue. In the UK during the last 7 days 1179 people died. All restrictions have been lifted, but the deaths continue, mostly amongst people who refuse to get vaccinated. Meanwhile in the PRC Shanghai is in lockdown. Deaths there amount to less than 15,000 officially. What the final figure will be for each nation depends upon just how effective their vaccination programmes are, including annual jabs. Deaths will continue, possibly for decades, until our immune systems can be enhanced through bioengineering. This blog will end, but the deaths will continue.