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

March 31st, 2020...I spent my days playing solitaire whilst listening to my music collection, irritated of course by the advertisements for will writing, life assurance and funeral details displayed on the computer screen. There were also adverts for turmeric, a spice used to treat joint pain and ward off cancer. Now how did they know I had been suffering from arthritis for the last six months in my right knee? I put the ailment down to emptying heavy bins of garden waste into the wheelie bin, a system designed so that bin men don't get arthritis? I thought my coronavirus infection was almost gone when I experienced an allergic reaction from Unilever's Persil clothes wash. My eye lids swelled up, as did my lips. My feet and hands swelled up and went red as they itched profusely. The reaction lasted four days. Since grocery purchases via the internet were still not available, that include lists of my favourite and safe purchases, I had bought the stuff off the shelf, instead of my usual wash. It can take years to find out what is safe to buy and what isn't. From then on I used washing up liquid to wash my clothes. Months later I was to buy some bed sheets, only to find that they stank of chemicals. I washed them with washing up liquid, but the smell still persisted. So I then put them in the washer dryer along with the Persil. It got rid of most of the odour, and to my surprise my body did not react to it later, as I slept on it. The workings of the immune system still baffle medical research, a science related to epigenetic's.

The furloughed and redundant workers had overloaded the internet based food delivery systems in the UK, and then stripped the shelves in their panic buying. I was unable therefore to get my groceries delivered via the internet as usual, and was now faced with long queues at my local supermarket. Sales of crisps and chocolate were up 30%, meat up 45%, fish up 60%, and of course, with the closure of pubs and bars, alcohol in cans and bottles went through the roof as aluminium kegs were effectively redundant. To increase production, manufacturers reduced their product range, thereby reducing down time. My favourite Marmite, being made from brewer's yeast (the pubs are closed), could only be supplied in small jars, whilst the demand for flour doubled, so it now came only in 1.5kg bags. Even chest freezer sales increased 200%. The supply of flour and noodles was still unreliable however. With only food takeaways open, the British were now sedentary, glued to TV bulletins on Covid-19, whilst munching away at some stress relieving banquet. The equivalent of 500 million extra meals were now being produced for people in the UK, whereas before they ate snacks on the go. And the next global medical problem will be obesity, as if it wasn't already. The internet was designed to withstand WWIII, but it couldn't even survive the needs of the British grocery shopper when HMG changed their work routine. It wasn't the panic buyers that had endangered the lives of people with allergies, but a clueless government that clearly wasn't thinking of the repercussions of its actions. They had put the lives of thousands of people in danger. Some people were not prepared to accept decisions made by big business. Tesco supermarket were taken to court by 318 people, using the Equality Act 2018, and the people won. Led by disabled mother, Joanne Baskett, they can now get their groceries delivered to their homes, and so can I. At the other extreme, thousands have signed up for the UK harvest, where 70,000 seasonal agricultural workers are needed. Weeks later it emerged that British workers were fleeing from the fields on day one, with their PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). On one UK farm, 300 people applied for the jobs, but only 20 worked there any length of time. Farms can only recruit one third of their normal requirement for casual workers from the continent, owing to the lockdown shutting down transport facilities. When I was a youngster in the cubs, we would take part in church parade on a Sunday, and during the summer it would be harvest festival, where we would sing hymns like 'we plough the fields and scatter', but times have changed, and the only scattering now appears to be that of the casual workers vacating the farms they promised to work at, but won't. Just how low can this nation sink? It's now clear that HMG must introduce the conscription of a land army to gather in the crops. In addition, much of the nation's food had come from the EU, and since we would be out of it at the end of the year, it's clear that this source would soon dry up. HMG would either have to find new sources abroad or invest heavily in food under glass, employing hydroponics. Although there is not much point in the latter, if our work shy youths can't be whipped into shape. So when will we see national service reintroduced, along with food rationing? June was to see people protesting about racism and colonialism, with attempts to remove or deface statues of the late wartime prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, and diamond miner, founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe & Zambia) and prime minister of Cape Colony, Cecil Rhodes. I shudder to think what this lot will make of conscription. Looks like you'll all be doing what I do regularly; lick your plate.

The verbal conflict concerning the design and quantity of PPE (personal protection equipment) required, continues between NHS staff, politicians and the media. Since the NHS is so large, why didn't they make it themselves in the UK, and stockpile it? HMG is believed to have planned to obtain PPE from the PRC after NHS England carried out Exercise Cygnus in October 2016, which simulated an H2N2 influenza outbreak, the result of which showed that the NHS was hopelessly ill prepared, suffering from a lack of PPE, ventilators, etc. The PRC government is thought to have deliberately underplayed the Covid-19 outbreak in the hope of diverting PPE production for home use rather than export to infected countries. The UK could not make this PPE because the manufacturing of essential raw materials had been transferred to the PRC and elsewhere, as a result of the Conservative Parties monetarist policies under the late PM Margaret Thatcher. As a result, the vast majority of health and care workers never received the necessary bio-hazard suits, with respirators, that were used in virology labs around the world to study this coronavirus.

Years before, HMG knew full well what was required to fight a pandemic, with the UK Influenza Preparedness Strategy 2011 and the Pandemic Influenza Response Plan 2014. As of 4-06-20 the report on Exercise Cygnus is still classified, although legal action is currently being taken to release it into the public domain. Watching TV news one gets the impression that politicians do not accept disasters seriously enough, but treat them as a photo opportunity to embellish their political party and their careers. Problems, and in particular disasters, should be handled by experts in that particular field. Have our scientists got the right stuff to make hard decisions in such a tense atmosphere? It also makes one wonder, just how many outdated detailed reports and action plans, are gathering dust in Whitehall. In a study into colds, coughs were found to project six metres, whilst sneezes project eight metres, and can remain suspended for three minutes. Studies at the Aalto University, Finland found that 20 micro metre particles will remain in the air from 2.5 to 6 minutes, depending upon the height of the person. The coronavirus can remain active on a smooth surfaces for up to three days. It does not bode well for essential workers in the NHS and supermarkets. When one thinks of the NHS, there is a tendency to ignore porters, cleaners, ambulance staff, building services technicians and morticians. They should all be wearing biohazard suits with ventilators, filters and transparent helmets, capable of being washed down at the end of a shift, before their removal. I'm also finding it difficult to think and motivate myself, possibly due to the effects of Sars-Cov-1, or is it lockdown syndrome? It reminds me of the effect of the Spanish flu on US President Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, France. His flu induced lethargy ultimately led to the second world war.

High mortality amongst Negroes (African-Americans) in the USA may well be a forewarning of what's to come in Africa. Japan has now declared a state of emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Like the UK, it failed to shut its sea ports and airports to people, and will now pay the price. Around the world there are now one million people infected with Covid-19, with 53,000 dead. Every week some famous person kicks the bucket. Our Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now in hospital with Covid-19, whilst other members of parliament are self isolating.

So what has HMG done for the nation?

Did it close down the airports and seaports when it had the chance, so that the economy could continue, whilst only airlines and ferry companies would need to be compensated?...NO!

Did it shut down the capitalist system (banks, stockmarkets, bureau de change, shops, etc), awarding homes a utility allowance, and food parcels, in order to prevent state bankruptcy?...NO!

Did it stop people dying from boredom by providing higher quality of television programmes during the lockdown?...NO!

Did it maintain supermarket grocery ordering and delivery for regular users, and put education and job training on the internet during the lockdown?...NO!

Has it created a land army, to serve UK farming, and set up hydroponics facilities for normally imported foods, from confiscated cannabis facilities?...NO!

Has it provided adequate numbers of PPE to a high enough standard, for NHS workers, etc?...NO!

Did HMG use the lockdown as a means of improving the nation's health, through promoting physical exercise (gardening, cycling, athletics, swimming, etc.), health survey (STI, diabetes, heart, lungs, stress, etc.) to determine who were vulnerable due to underlying health conditions, and a state sponsored healthy diet?...NO!'

Has HMG provided us with accurate mortality statistics, which include deaths at care homes and private homes?...NO!

HMG has become a walking disaster area. Its quality is little better than that during the phoney war..DO NOT RESUSCITATE!

April 7th, 2020...World health day. British Growers Association appeals for 70,000 temporary harvest workers from May to August. One week later agricultural workers are flown from Romania to UK after appeal for UK workers fails. HMG fails to conscript.

April 14th, 2020...UK lockdown costing 2.4 billion pounds per day, with output cut 31% according to the Centre for Economic and Business Research. HMG's Office of Budget Responsibility declares economic output will have fallen 35% by June, with a 10% increase in unemployment. IMF states that the global economy has fallen 3%, its worst since the great depression of the 1930's.

April 15th, 2020...USG stops funds to WHO, for failing to provide adequate warnings to USG regarding Covid-19. There is no proof that Covid-19 antibodies will prevent reinfection, as NHS plans to infuse such plasma into test subjects. 9 out of 10 Covid-19 victims have existing illnesses, such as heart disease, dementia or respiratory malfunction. Penlon Prima ES02 updated ventilator goes into production at 1500 per week by May. Survival rate for Covid-19 patients on ventilators is only 50:50. Covid-19 tests become available in UK.

April 16th, 2020...FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) wants payday loan, car finance and pawnshop borrowing given a payment holiday.

April 20th, 2020...PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) still consists of little more than a disposable plastic gown, mouth mask and transparent visor. I still believe that proper biohazard suits with respirator should be worn in hospitals and care homes, since it has been shown that micro droplets from sneezing can be suspended in the air for up to two hours. The concessions staff at my local Tesco supermarket worked behind a transparent screen, which does not afford much protection. By now all retailing should be on the internet, but companies cannot recruit enough people quickly enough. Needless to say, HMG is not conscripting them and vehicles. The long waits, two metres apart to get in, led me to try their web site again. This time I was able to gain access and ordered ninety pounds worth of goods, but antiseptic soap was not available. Fortunately I've enough old bars of soap to last at least a couple of months.

April 22nd, 2020...US state of Missouri sues PRC government over Covid-19 pandemic. Rumours exist that there are three or four strains of Covid-19.

April 24th, 2020...PRC reject call for full investigation into origin of Covid-19. 50,000 dead in USA, 20,000 dead in UK, 200,000 people dead from Covid-19 worldwide. At least 100 health workers have died from Covid-19 in the UK's National Health Service. Official HMG statistics for UK are thought to be 8,000 too low, since care home and home deaths are not counted. Some NHS staff sue HMG for failing to provide PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) when they said it was available.

April 26th, 2020...HMG carrying out trials of infected person tracer software for mobile phones. There are three possible systems, based either upon satellite GPS, bluetooth password transfer to neighbouring mobile phones, or tracing of mobile phone between cell transmitters using password. Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea used similar technology in March. Why didn't MI5 and MI6 have something to offer? Everyone must be forced to carry their mobile phone with this software installed, otherwise the system will fail. Will face masks finally have to be worn to prevent infection from asymptomatic people? WHO says that only 3% of people have been infected, not enough to prevent a second wave through herd immunity. In UK the infection figure is 7%. Will HMG finally shut seaports and airports to passengers, or put them in quarantine for two weeks? Questions, questions, but no answer from government. Looks like my sports arenas, theatres, night clubs and disco bars won't be open until December, assuming they open at all. Social distancing will kill off these events due to no atmosphere.

April 27th, 2020...Lots of questions from the media about ending lockdown. Are they trying to generate a story? When the lockdown ends, all the politicians will think about is economic recovery. If it ends too soon, with no professional use of contact-tracing software, detection kits, contact tracing by virologists and forced isolation of infected people, a second wave during the flu season is inevitable. Most of the deaths in the UK are now from care homes. UK prime minister Boris Johnson returns to work after Covid-19 infection and ICU care. Birmingham's emergency Nightingale Hospital at the National Exhibition Centre remains unused, due to over capacity. Similar hospitals have been set up across the country, including at ExCel, London and Manchester Central convention centre. The NHS should have transferred all patients infected with Covid-19 to these hospitals. Failure to do so resulted in one third of deaths originating from care homes, where 25,000 patients, were transferred from permanent hospitals, in order to provide beds for Covid-19 patients. Some of these patients were infected with Covid-19 or not tested, and transferred to care homes with either staff not knowing that, or they simply didn't care. This mentality persisted for one month. In addition, it was to take weeks to decontaminate permanent hospitals, resulting in many out-patients refusing to attend appointments for operations, etc. Whether the Nightingale hospitals had enough equipment to handle complex secondary infections, is a debatable point.

April 30th, 2020...Covid-19 deaths in UK now stand at 26,097, and will be the highest per country in Europe. Happy 100th birthday Captain Tom Moore, who raised thirty-one million pounds for NHS Charities Together.

May 4th, 2020...USG announces spending of a second $3 trillion for April to June period. Total US debt now $25 trillion. 6.3 million workers in UK now on furlough. That's 23% of workforce. Each person will be paid 80% of wages up to 2,500 pounds per month. Reports from Russia suggest that at least 111 medical staff have died, three having fallen out of windows. Official fatality figures are considered suspect, as staff complain of lack of PPE. Is this the beginning of the end?

On May 4th the European Commission announced a national pledge of 6.6 billion pounds (7.5 billion euros) in Covid-19 vaccine research. There is a continuing fear that politicians still don't realise that fear of this pandemic is worse than the pandemic itself. According to the World Bank, SARS cost fifty-four billion dollars. The estimated cost of a global pandemic is three trillion dollars. This pandemic is only worth fighting if it can be done quickly and affordably, otherwise everyone should be allowed to return to work regardless. Retail companies have to develop their own website and sell their products on market sites such as Amazon, in order to promote themselves. The days of high street and mall shopping could well be drawing to a close. The growing demand for clean energy projects, could well see renewable energy, including fusion, ultimately being dominant. HMG spent the first six weeks dithering through February to mid March, and then six weeks of lockdown. We are now half way through this, with another six weeks composed of lockdown, partial lockdown and regional lockdown whilst 'virology' teams seek out infected people and quarantine them. Who could believe that HMG would waste most of the first twelve weeks. Will they waste the next? Will they double our national debt? Covid-19 has become a plague upon our wealth creation system. When our lockdowns end, will it be a political, not a humanitarian decision, in just about every nation on the planet. Will nations have to create an international currency, or adopt a humanitarian approach and abandon money altogether? If positive results don't emerge in time, investors may well find that their savings are a victim of a dead cat bounce, or worse, a prolonged bull market.

HMG is spending millions on advertising, telling people to stay at home. The message appears in the top left hand corner of the television screen, TV ads showing people exercising in their home, messages on electronic road signs, the daily coronavirus daily update programme on TV, supermarket queuing two metres apart, as if TV and radio news wasn't enough. No doubt the advertising sector welcomed the business, as it had lost numerous contracts because of the pandemic. The stay at home policy caused a serious drop in the sale of newspapers and a drop in NHS visits to A&E by the ill. This apparently subliminal messaging appeared to be working well beyond what HMG intended. Virgin airlines were pleading for a government hand-out. Apparently HMG didn't want Richard Branson's desert island, Necker, in the Caribbean as security. And as the months went by, it was clear HMG didn't want to know the airline industry, full stop. Now if we had an expanded pound sterling zone with care homes, second homes, retirement homes and British holiday resorts moved to tropical islands, we wouldn't be in this mess, would we? According to the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders), only 4321 cars were registered in the UK, a 97% drop in sales. Airlines announce massive redundancies. DIY (Do It Yourself) stores can open for business, but not garden centres. Is HMG thinking straight? Things got really bad when the jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce announced possibly 8,000 job cuts, 15% of the workforce. Will Rolls-Royce leave the country like Dyson? If it did it would be a major and irreversible loss to the British economy. Probably the beginning of the end. The skilled workforce and technology must be retained in this country, at all cost. The way to do that is for HMG to finance Skylon and its civilian airliner equivalent LAPCAT (Long-term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies) which was initially financed by the EU. In this age of fancy accounting, just how deep is HMG's pocket? The project could also save Boeing (remember the 737 Max fiasco?), an existing partner, if it was financed by USG. Airliner seats are already 97% empty. If the 9/11 incident is anything to go by, that situation may remain for at least one year after lockdown ends.

May 7th, 2020...Total dead from Covid-19 worldwide stands at 263,189, over 30,000 in the UK. Since there are no compulsory autopsies in the UK, the statistics are likely to be too low. The cost of a funeral in the UK is about 3,700 pounds, although there is now a growing desire for simple funerals costing 2,200 pounds. A company called Synairgen, at University Hospital Southampton, is testing the use of interferon B to boost patient's immune system, whilst they have also created a great hood and respirator bio hazard suit for the NHS. Costs from 400 to 1000 pounds. Statistics suggest that ethnic minorities are more likely to die from Covid-19 that white people., says ONS (Office for National Statistics). Chinese 1.0 more, India 1.3 more, Pakistan/Bangladesh 1.8 more, Negro 4.2 more. The prime minister is asked to investigate matter.

There are 5.9 million businesses in the UK. Grocery shops are open, whilst the rest closed. Theatres are closed, whilst restaurants and cafes are open for take away meals only. If you close down businesses, even for a short while, you lose customers, and could well see your company fail. Even banks are being hit hard. In the UK, universities want 2 billion pounds (they don't get it). Presumably they don't like the idea of competition from US universities via the internet. It's a sign of things to come, in a shrinking world. Charities get handouts. Mothers find that the government issued free school meals vouchers for their children, that they have been waiting weeks for, do not work at the supermarket concessions. NHS staff find that they cannot return postal related blood samples of themselves for a Covid-19 check, because there is no return envelope. In early May, a cargo of 400,000 surgical NHS gowns flown in by RAF Hercules from Turkey, is found to be substandard and therefore useless. Why weren't they made in this country? Why wasn't the manufacturer vetted by a trade organisation and recognised customer, supplied with an example of the gown, written standards and legally binding contract to sign (in blood)? Will HMG get the money back, or will ministers pay for this incompetence out of their own pocket? Tens of millions of tax payer's money goes missing due to lack of financial control. At least 3 million unemployed want universal credit. There is no guarantee that those on furlough will get their jobs back. HMG offers 800 million pounds to small enterprises for R&D (research and development). It will also lend 350 billion pounds to desperate companies, but that does not appear to include airlines and travel agents. The North Sea Brent oil price falls from $50 per barrel in early March 2020 to $26 in early May, blunting HMG tax revenue. Tesco supermarkets gets 585 million pounds from the government’s business rates relief holiday, then hands out 900 million pounds in dividends. With internet based deliveries booming, its currently one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. Will all this bankrupt HMG and make the pound sterling worthless?

May 11th, 2020...HMG releases a fifty page manual explaining the government's plan to ease lockdown measures.

The lockdown will continue until:

1...There are at least one hundred thousand Covid-19 tests per day.

2...Covid-19 infections must be less than fifty, with deaths in single figures per week.

3...There are no more PPE problems.

4...The NHS has plenty of spare capacity.

5...There must be in place a test, track and trace software app. and telephone support, working in high efficacy, for at least two weeks.

The lockdown is likely to continue in some form until the end of July 2020 assuming HMG is competent enough, at which point the infection/mortality curve should have descended enough to permit a return to work within all regions. This assumes that a cure for patients with underlying health conditions has been found. There are currently about one hundred research teams around the world, and six to eight teams carrying out live trials. However, there was no vaccine for any coronavirus including Mers-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 and HIV. Since Covid-19 has mutated at least one hundred times, with research scientists investigating each mutation to determine whether it contains any new threat, it must be assumed that the creation of a vaccine is impossible. That leaves a cure, presumably administered by hypodermic injection or intravenously. It is known that the bodies immune system creates antibodies in its fight against Covid-19, but it's thought they only stay in the body for up to three months, after which a person can get reinfected. That beggars the question, 'does this time period reduce as the number of reinfections increases? This can happen with many diseases, eventually resulting in death. Is that what we are all facing? If that is not the case, then people could still be faced with maybe sixteen injections per annum in order to maintain total protection. Such a scenario is not realistic. Clearly an all embracing pill is needed, like Genvoya for HIV, or quinine for malaria.

All major nations should raise the lockdown simultaneously, otherwise the global trading system will still be inoperable. This will no doubt be good news to some animals in zoos, such as elephants, primates and talkative birds, that are evidently feeling lonely due to lack of visitors. HMG is trialling its tracer/tracker software with teams on the Isle of Wight, having recruited 18,000 'virologists'. If two thirds of the population have already had Covid-19, then a state of herd immunity exists which will prevent further spread of the disease in the second wave. At least that's the theory. But as time progresses it's obvious that with antibodies lasting only a limited time, the creation of a second wave, etc. is inevitable. Only long distance lorry drivers will be allowed to travel any distance, but will need to be tested regularly. Test centres will be set up at supermarkets, theatres and sport's arenas, to pick out those still infected, but without symptoms, who can infect others (asymptomatic). Current tests amount to a mouth swab test to find persistent infection, and a blood test to find out if you have had a previous infection, but are now OK. A swab test requires analysis in a lab, whilst a blood test is on site, taking 15 minutes. The elderly and staff at care centres, and those in their homes, will need to be tested regularly. International travel for people, will be banned for the foreseeable future. The economic implications of a long lockdown are by now obvious to all politicians. The mortality rate of Covid-19 appears to be much lower than that originally predicted, 1% in the UK, not 3.4%, and with only one in five deaths in the UK caused by Covid-19, there will be a growing desire to stop the lockdown, no matter what. The state of the global economy and national economies will come first. If Germany exits lockdown well before the UK, then many financial institutions in the City may simply relocate entirely to Frankfurt, since some company divisions have already done so due to UK withdrawal from the EU, known as Brexit. To remain in lockdown too long will cost the city of London and HM Treasury billions. The UK exit strategy will involve looking after number one, with no foreign aid to fight Covid-19 going to our commonwealth partners. Since we are bankrupt at least twice over, we will effectively write off India, the northern middle east and Africa. It will cause major friction within the Commonwealth. The death rate in Italy is 13%, whilst in the USA it's 4%. In many parts of the Commonwealth it will be substantially higher. Are our governments capable of implementing these measures? The cold ruthless way that this pandemic will be finalized, will leave many with the question, 'how can we handle this better next time?'

Of course all this trouble does beggar the question, "what happened to the UK's CDCUK (Civil Defence Corps)?" Created in 1949 and terminated in 1968, it was designed to handle national emergencies, including invasion during the cold war. It was a volunteer organisation manned by up to 330,000 personnel. The Isle of Man still retains its civil defence unit. Since earthquakes, floods, pandemics, tsunamis, tornadoes, plane, train and motorway crashes still strike the UK, not to mention the occasional bio-weapon, surely this pandemic would have been handled more swiftly and professionally had the CDCUK still existed. As for its cost effectiveness, the cost of HMG's incompetence to the tax payer and economy speaks for itself. The USG created a similar organisation, called FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) in 1978 under President Jimmy Carter. If USG found it necessary to create such an organisation then, why did HMG scrap the CDCUK ten years before? And also, what happened to all those disaster files that the CDCUK must have created for training and contingency purposes? It's obvious to me that at the time of CDCUK's closure, HMG thought that saving the long term economy of the nation was more important than saving the lives of individuals. In that atmosphere, did any government department bother to take notes concerning the MERS-CoV-1 (South Korea 2015) and Sars-CoV-1 (PRC 2002) outbreaks, and what did they do with all this knowledge?

May 12th, 2020...The Chinese have just announced that all eleven million citizens of Wuhan are to be tested for Covid-19 in ten days. They are presumably looking for asymptomatic carriers following the discovery of six new cases at the weekend, after lifting the lockdown. The South Koreans have a similar problem after a night club re-opened. Round two has just commenced. Why are western governments so keen to lift their lockdowns, without first seeing how the PRC and South Korea get on? I can see us all going back to a full lockdown lasting months.

May 13th, 2020...7.5 million workers in the UK are now on furlough costing 8 billion pounds, which HMG has now extended to October. Garden Centres finally re-open. Angling (sport fishing) starts. HMG advises people to go back to work. HMG now permits people to travel long distances and sit in the park. I don't have a local park, so how can I get to one if there is social distancing on buses? Car sales fell 97% in Uk. 300,000 now dead from Covid-19 worldwide. A&E (Accident & Emergency) visits at hospitals fall 56.6% as the lock down environment takes effect. Thirty-six million people lose their jobs in the USA.

May 14th, 2020...Japan lifts Covid-19 state of emergency in 39 out of 47 prefectures. Swiss drugs company LaRoche to supply NHS with Covid-19 antibody blood test, to test which people have had the coronavirus infection. HMG hands out 1.6 billion pounds to London Transport for running empty buses and underground trains, which are nearly empty due to the pandemic.

May 16th, 2020...Covid-19 outbreaks at abattoirs in German, France and USA.

May 19th, 2020...Officially there were 35,704 Covid-19 deaths in UK on this day, but there were 55,000 above average deaths. This is the excess deaths after deducting average deaths over a five year period. It was also revealed that day that there were 4,000 public health funerals in the UK last year. I'll probably qualify. There will be no one at my funeral. report issued by Dept. of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong, states that the wearing of surgical masks reduces transmission rate of Covid-19 75%. The experiments were carried out with hamsters in two cages. One month later, a report by Gutenberg and Southern Denmark Universities found that the compulsory use of masks reduced the infection rate by as much as 40%.

May 22nd, 2020...HMG borrows 62.1 billion pounds, £14 billion pounds spent on furlough. OBR (HMG's independent Office of Budgetary Responsibility) states that the projected deficit is 298 billion pounds, not seen since WWII. People arriving in UK will self isolate for 14 days. Failure carries a one thousand pound fine. Retail sales in UK fall 18.1%. NHS patients in ICU with low T-cell count will receive a drug called Interleukin-7. Musician Mory Kante dies in Guinea. The PRC announces plan to impose security laws in Honk Kong.

May 24th, 2020...UK PM's advisor Dominic Cummings asked to resign by up to 30 Conservative MPs for taking his sick wife and son 260 miles to grand parents home in Durham, thereby violating lock down. PM Boris Johnson stands by him.

May 26th, 2020...SwissCovid track & trace app under test. Other countries developing theirs. 8.4 million furloughed in UK, plus 2.3 million self employed supported by HMG handouts. Covid-19 test can now be booked at www.nhs.uk/coronavirus or dial 119. Numerous redundancies announced; Boeing 13,000, British Airways 12,000, EasyJet 4,500, Virgin Atlantic 3,000, Renault 15,000, whilst Nissan closes its factory in Spain.

May 29th, 2020...UK's Test & Trace telephone supported system starts up in England & Scotland. It is thought to consist of 25,000 trackers, capable of handling 10,000 cases per day. The smart phone version is expected to be operational at the end of June.

The NHS' telephone based test and trace system consists of tracers telephoning infected people to obtain details of contacts. These contacts would then be reached and told to self isolate for 14 days. Failure to do so now carries a one thousand pound fine. The smart phone (4G mobile phone) version is at least one month away. At the time of writing, details of HMG's test and trace software application are sketchy, but the process is roughly as follows:

1...You will need a smart mobile phone with bluetooth switched on.

2...Download the NHS Covid-19 app from your Google or Apple store, depending on manufacturer.

3...Enter first part of your postal code.

4...Answer medical questions. This is voluntary.

5...Keep mobile phone with you at all times.

6...As you travel and converse with people, your mobile phone will interrogate all phones via bluetooth. It will collate a contact list of all those within half a metre that remain in range for at least ten minutes.

7...Report symptoms via app, if you think you have become infected. You will be told to go into self isolation for 14 days. A test kit will be immediately sent to you. You will be required to send a list of contacts for the last 14 days. These contacts will be automatically notified to take self isolation for 14 days. No details of the source will be conveyed to them.

8...If your Covid-19 test is negative, the notifications from your contact list will be cancelled.

There are likely to be upgrades, privacy and the media permitting. Tracking by GPS maybe added later. Will this system experience the same problems as in Singapore? Has HMG conducted a census to determine what percentage of people travel with a smart phone that is switched on? If not, then the system won't work due to insufficient data. If this fails, or there's no cure, then the lockdown is likely to go on and on and on. Both Apple and Google have plans to improve this system, but the Chinese appear well ahead of the pack. In the PRC health QR (quick reaction) code is embedded into WeChat and Alipay apps. The QR code automatically reports travel and medical data. How acceptable you are determines whether you can travel, and even whether you can go to a restaurant. There is pressure from PRCG to include details about exercise, food eaten, drinking habits, sleep pattern and smoking habit, all gleaned from your credit and debit cards. In the UK, the wearing of face masks is still not compulsory, even though its obvious that it could impede super spreaders, whilst 50% of infected people in Iceland have no symptoms. Where will the incentive be to work, assuming they're allowed to, if they can't spend their money on leisure activities?

What is ideally needed is a personal electronic medical monitor (PEMM), a smart watch that can sense a person's blood, sweat or odour, and then send the report to the health centre via your mobile phone automatically, to be acted upon swiftly. I don't know whether such a sensor can be made small enough to fit inside a smart watch, but currently the LifeWatch, a German smart watch, is being promoted at just 45 pounds, whilst others cost at least two hundred. I assume it's not being sold at a loss, so when will it happen? Odour detectors have been around for about twenty years. The smart watch's database could search for other infections too, making it even more cost effective, and of course, look at the export potential. It's actually something the rest of the world needs. Thanks to Covid-19 the entire UK, not just HMG, is now bankrupt. We desperately need the business.

May 30th, 2020...USG cuts off all support to WHO. UK's SAGE against reducing lockdown measures.

June 5th, 2020...Singapore abandon track & trace using smart phones. Drug company AstraZeneca announce two billion dose vaccine production capability, after agreement with Bill Gates. Vaccine being developed at Oxford Vaccine Group, UK. HMG finally decides to make the wearing of face masks on public transport compulsory. Medical profession want the idea extended to hospitals, dental surgeries and medical centres. We now have the European Commission calling Covid-19 only a mid-level threat. Are they joining the final solution bandwagon too? Herd Immunity stands a good chance of also killing off billionaires and scientists, civilisations movers and shakers.

June 6th, 2020...The WHO finally recommend the wearing of face masks.

June 7th...PRCG replies to USG accusations by publishing a 66 page (english version) report of Covid-19 sequence of events. It states that certain nations have smeared and slandered the PRC. Leaks from HMG indicate that there is a growing demand to abandon NHSX's test and trace app in favour of Apple or Google app, etc., or whatever.

June 10th, 2020...Analysis of Sars-Cov-2 genetics, shows that it came to the UK mainly from the EU 1300 times, says Cog-UK (Covid-19 Genomics Consortium). So now you know why the airports, seaports and channel tunnel should have been shut down to passengers at the beginning of February 2020. Now will somebody please carry out the arrests. How else will the International Court of Justice take this seriously? In May 2021 at prime minister's questions PM Boris Johnson was still saying that the borders cannot be closed to trade. I agree, but there is no reason why it cannot be closed to people, except those (VIPs and diplomatic staff) that agree to quarantine and testing. The leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer KCB QC, stated that he had previously mentioned this three times.

June 12th, 2020...There are now 41,000 Covid-19 reported deaths in the UK from hospitals, care centres and homes. The above average number is at least 65,000. The total worldwide is now over 418,000, with the disease moving across the Americas. Brazil has 40,000 dead, with the USA at 115,000. It has spread to 213 countries, and shows no sign of losing its grip. 450 relatives and loved ones of Covid-19 deceased in UK, seek legal action through lawyer Elkan Abrahamson at Jackson Lees, to get public enquiry and guarantee that no related records will be destroyed. ONS data reveals that the UK GDP dropped 20.4% in the first month of lockdown, April. The UK PM has also announced the permitting of overnight visits to others by those living alone, including single parents with children under 18, known as support bubbles for lonely people. Will that promote prostitution, thereby encouraging the spread of this pandemic? It looks like HMG is still pursuing its policy of herd immunity. BMA (British Medical Association) council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul, complains that many BAME (Black, Asian, & Minority Ethnic) medical staff in the NHS have still not received the promised risk assessment and redeployment needed to reduce their vulnerability to Covid-19.

June 13th, 2020...Internet app. Twitter cancels 23,750 highly active accounts and 150,000 amplifier accounts linked to operations to promote PRC, including some mentioning Covid-19. Additionally, parts of the PRC capital Beijing, are in lockdown, due to Covid-19 outbreak. 45 people infected, with 10,000 from Xinfandi Food Market to test.

June 14th, 2020...Third anniversary of Grenfell Tower fire in west London, where 72 people were consumed in a blaze. Thus far no councilor, building inspector, architect, building contractor or subcontractor, construction worker, building regulations author, fire brigade authority or personnel has been charged with an offence. The public hearing will recommence after the lockdown. How could this have happened when even I and many of the tenants knew that aluminium is flammable? Are the building regulations ambiguous, unintelligible, or simply not conveyed to those that need them? And why in programmes like Channel 4's Grand Design series do I see houses covered in flammable timber cladding? Why should they be treated any differently from high rise dwellings?

Months later the 'How did they build that' television series started. One such building was an archway with flats built into it over a market in Rotterdam. Another was a railway station near Vesuvius volcano. Both were covered in aluminium panels. Were they highly flammable? The latter was covered in DuPont's Corian panels, which are mainly used as acrylic worktops in kitchens. I looked at a datasheet on the internet but couldn't find the answer. Data relating to all construction materials should be on the UK's BRE (Building Research Establishment) website in plain English. When the two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, New York in 2001 it was the high temperatures created by the burning aluminium airframe that distorted the steel structure and brought them down. This fact was not entered into the official report.

June 15th, 2020...Satellite photo study of traffic outside five hospitals in Wuhan, PRC by HMS (Harvard Medical School), show increased activity from August 2019. This coincided with increased browsing activity on Chinese browser Baidu in the area for coughs and diarrhoea. photos of car parks published on photo internet based app Bing. The wearing of face masks will finally be required on public transport, and in NHS facilities in the UK, whilst zoos, safari parks and drive in cinemas will reopen. UK non-food shops will finally be allowed to open. All these businesses will be required to follow social distancing rules. People will be required to stay two metres apart.

June 16th, 2020...The fast food delivery service Deliveroo, sends a petition signed by ninety UK firms, mainly restaurants and bars, to PM Boris Johnson, requesting that the two metre rule be reduced, otherwise they will require tax and rent allowances, in order to stay in business. The battle between humanity and capitalism continues. Meanwhile the European Union opens its borders. A perfect storm is in the making?

June 17th, 2020...First the good news...In a test involving 6000 patients, the 1960s drug Dexamethasone, normally used as a steroid to treat arthritis or asthma, was found to save the lives of 20% of patients on oxygen, and 33% on ventilators. It prevents the immune system from over- reacting to Covid-19, known as a "cytokine storm." And Germany has just released its contact-tracing app at a cost of £17.9 million. Uses bluetooth like the British version, retaining encrypted contact data for 14 days only. In the UK Lord Bethell, minister for health & social care, implies that HMG's version is not likely to be ready this side of winter, as it is not a priority. And now the bad news...for those who consistently fail to close the loo lid, scientists at Yangzhou University claim that flushing the toilet creates a fine spray that can spread Covid-19 up to one metre away. Is that sufficient grounds for divorce?

June 18th, 2020...The Bank of England issues another £100 billion of quantitative easing, making a total of £745 billion. In addition HMG's borrowing for May topped £55.2 billion, nine times higher than the previous May. HMG has now decided to stop developing test & trace software app in favour of Apple-Google bluetooth version. The Germans were right.
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The world war two singer Dame Vera Lynn died at the age of 103 years. We had our backs to the wall then, and we still have. And it's going to take a darn sight longer to pay off all this debt than winning a world war. A report requested by HMG regarding the higher death rate amongst BAME patients concluded that the NHS was racist. I fail to see how a multi-racial organisation, with strict protocols, can possibly be racist. They're so over worked they don't have time for that anyway. Evidently south Asian people have a higher death rate in hospital due to their diabetes.

June 19th, 2020...HMG reduces the Covid-19 danger level from 4 to 3, which basically means the infection rate is not exponential. I get the impression that HMG is about to bend to the will of businessmen and reduce social distancing to one metre. I think HMG should publish a list of these directors and the companies they represent. Name and shame, then leave it to their employees to decide what should be done with them. Lockdown is not a cure, it's only a delaying tactic until a cure comes along, as I've stated before. And we still have no effective track and trace system, which I think we should be buying from Singapore. Time is a luxury we simply don't have.

Now that's enough doom and gloom. We now live on the cusp of major medical advances. Since the pubs will be shut for sometime, (opening July 4th say the media, with social distancing, so there'll be no atmosphere.......any music?) maybe I should get an au pair, as I have run out of things to say to myself, and to hell with social distancing. The wood pigeons are cooing on the roof ridge. The bromeliads are flowering in the front garden. The goldfish are canoodling. NASA has awarded preliminary contracts to SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics for the Artemis manned lunar lander. Things are looking up.

June 28th, 2020...High levels of radioisotopes are detected in Scandinavia. Origin thought to be a damaged fuel element in west Russia. One disaster at a time, please. At a chicken processing factory in Llangefni, Anglesey, many workers are found to be infected with Covid-19, in addition to many workers in slaughter houses and abattoirs elsewhere. The cause is thought to be due to ideal conditions for the coronavirus, namely crowded canteens and work places, stainless steel surfaces, cool environment, busy production line and no worker's sick pay, thereby encouraging sick workers to stay at work. HMG is thinking of a lockdown for the city of Leicester, due to a spike in Covid-19 infections. All Friday afternoon and evening the jungle music could be heard from my place. Social distancing was clearly breaking down, and with any luck my neighbourhood will be next in line for a lockdown. HMG and other governments in the EU clearly want herd immunity, since they are promoting holidays abroad despite warnings from Florida and elsewhere. So when these infected holiday makers return home, and the infection rate goes through the roof, don't expect your government to clamp down. They know they can't stop it, and they know that the economy is more important than your life, because the economy promotes civilisation, etc. This is where younger people start to pay with their lives. Northern Ireland and Eire have developed their own smart phone track and trace apps based on Apple and Google technology. And just how many people will opt to use it? Worldwide, deaths from Covid-19 have now reached half a million, with the disease raging across the Americas and south Asia.

June 30th, 2020...One hundred days since the start of the lockdown in the UK. Covid-19 death toll worldwide now stands at half a million people, with the rate rising. Leicester in lockdown. European Airbus aerospace company announces 15,000 redundancies, including 1,700 in the UK. UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces a five billion pound investment in jobs over ten years, but its too small to stimulate a once two trillion pound per annum economy, and he still talks about manufacturing buses in a post Covid-19 world.

July 4th, 2020...The 244th anniversary of the founding of the United States. I can't wait to get out, or can I. Do I really want Covid-19 again? If I do get it again, will it undermine my immune system? The pubs and bars are open at last, but according to their websites they close at 10pm instead of 2am. Customers have to be served at tables, after ordering their drinks via a smart phone app. Well I'm darned of I'm giving Samsung another twenty pounds, and since there's no music, I may as well stay at home. I hate queuing anyway. It's not my idea of fun. Restaurants, hairdressers and cinemas can also reopen, but with staff wearing PPE and cleaning all surfaces every fifteen minutes, it's enough to send shivers up your spine, never mind the horror movie your watching. And public transport is having to be cleaned regularly also. A court enquiry has begun in France based upon complaints by trade unions and doctors against the ex-prime minister Edouard Philippe and two others, regarding the government handling of the pandemic, including shortage of PPE. It's announced that there have been 30,000 more deaths in UK care homes than during the same period last year. With so many sick and elderly dead, the death rate is now slightly below the average for last year. The French and Dutch state airlines Air France-KLM announce 7,500 job cuts over the next three years. Across Europe governments announce the lifting of quarantine measures (excluding Portugal, Brazil and USA) from July 10th. Which is the next government to be put on trial?

July 5th, 2020...The seventy-second anniversary of the creation of the National Health Service in the UK, three months before I was born. Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to HMG from 2000 to 2007, predicts 27,000 more deaths in UK between now and April 2021, due to relaxation of lockdown. 7,000 to 35,000 deaths are also predicted due to delays in decontaminating hospitals of Covid-19, resulting in delays to screening, referrals, and treatment.

July 7th, 2020...UN says Covid-19 will cost the global economy nine trillion dollars over two years. 239 scientists write to WHO, accusing it of not taking airborne transmission of Covid-19 seriously. This follows the detection of early occurrences of Sars-CoV-2 (Covid-19) around the world with no obvious means of transmission. It is known that the coral reefs in the Bahamas were created over eons from dust storms eminating from the Sahara desert. This implies that some viruses and bacteria could travel huge distances across the globe, were the conditions favourable. Did you know that thirteen zoonotic (animal to human) diseases kill 2.2 million people per year worldwide? 60,000 Saiga deer die in just 4 days in Kazakhstan last May, whilst one person has become infected with bubonic plague, probably from a marmot, in Inner Mongolia, PRC. Up to 2,000 cases of plague are reported to the WHO each year, about 7 in the USA. How safe do you feel?

July 8th, 2020...UK deaths below average for second week. HMG announces that its new Bio Security Centre will take over Covid-19 response from SAGE, its scientific advisers. Retiring chief civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill will get a 248,189 ponds pension, whilst research by Lloyds Bank shows that there are one million children in UK who have no access to a computer or smart phone, in order to access the internet. United Airlines in the USA is to furlough 36,000 employees. Four thousand jobs are to go at Boots, plus the closure of 48 opticians. John Lewis will close eight stores including one in Birmingham, making 1300 employees redundant. HMG has created air bridges to over seventy nations. Holiday bookings are taking off. The chancellor announces that meals in UK restaurants will be up to ten pounds per person cheaper from Monday to Wednesday during August. It now appears that governments have thrown in the towel, admitting to themselves that they can no longer afford to fight Covid-19. There is simply not enough money in all the world. As a result, continued warnings from the WHO are being ignored. By now much of the world is seemingly being managed by mass murderers, as the discredited policy of herd immunity was discretely implemented with professional ruthlessness, although no one admits its herd immunity.

July 13th, 2020...With no way of violating social distancing rules in lifts, office workers are working from home. As a result, many shops are still closed. This could well become permanent, with almost all shops switching to the internet. There is also the problem of ventilation in public buildings such as concert halls, night clubs and disco bars. HVAC (Heating Ventilating & Air Conditioning) systems are sized by contractors, they choose the next size down from that based on the most demanding circumstances. Needless to say pandemics are not calculated for. To upgrade disco bar HVAC would not simply be costly, but also impossible to install due to lack of space. And whilst we are on the subject of lack of space, pub loo standards fall well short of what's needed in a post Covid-19 world. As for AHUs (Air Handling Units) that you see on the roofs of office blocks, etc., the air inlets and outlets are too close together instead of being located on opposite sides of the building, whilst the contaminated rotating regenerators, used for heat recovery, permit pathogens to re-enter the building with ease. They would need to be replaced with fixed regenerators. With such costly improvements necessary, I fear that the age of the DJ (Disc Jockey)is coming to an end. The tourists planned for London, will otherwise walk along empty streets. Without its one million commuters per day, theatres will simply remain closed. Many people realise that they are better off on benefits. No commuting costs, no bad management, no bad working environment, no risky Covid-19 to worry about at work and whilst commuting, and a decent lunch at last. For property companies with no incoming rents, it's doom and gloom. HMG's plans to get the economy back to normal appear to be faltering. What will be the new normal? Estimates are that it will take five years for businesses to recruit new customers. Comet Neowise is sighted over Stonehenge. Is it an ill omen?

July 15th, 2020...The PM agrees to a public enquiry, but when? Demand for webmasters increases by 15%. British Airways to retire all 31 of its Boeing 747 jumbo jets.

July 19th, 2020...Updated my computer to Windows 10.99999 version 2004. It took 11 hours. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) launches its Mars orbiter Hope from Tanegashima Space Centre, Japan, in its quest to create a science based society. Biotechnology company Synairgen, based in Southampton, UK, announces its interferon-beta trials designed to reduce intensive care periods. Drug is administered by inhaling to lungs by using a nebuliser. HMG signs a deal for 90 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from BioNtech, Pfizer and Valneva, plus 100 million from Oxford Vaccine Group-AstraZeneca, the latter being developed in Oxford. A group action against UK insurance companies commences over the question, 'do policies cover pandemics? It's later determined that they do.

July 25th, 2020...One thousand people apply for a receptionist job at a hotel in Manchester, UK. I went out into the city centre for only the second time in four months. There were about half the usual number of people out one would expect for a Saturday. Many shops were still closed. Many would probably never reopen. I bought two umbrellas in Poundland and a belt from a street stall. I had been pulling up my jeans for weeks, after my fifty year old leather belt broke. The heat wave in June had been short lived, with rain and more rain falling on my re-seeded lawn. I had scattered 2.5 kg of seed after raking the moss out of it three times, then stared at it for weeks. My plants were not flowering as well as others on my estate. My garden was a brown field site, containing pieces of coke, slag and iron, not to mention remains of the outside loo. It needed an update. One cubic metre of compost cost 150 pounds. The thought of carrying it all through the house with my arthritic knee, I found disturbing. I later signed up to Tinder and Facebook. The pandemic continued, mainly across the Americas. Even the US president was now wearing a face mask, as his voter popularity dwindled. HMG now embarked upon tackling obesity, by placing advertising restrictions on junk food, on television, since many Covid-19 victims were obese. No laws to ban the manufacture and import of junk food. No law to ban parents feeding junk food to their kids. As usual it was too little too late. Much of the manufacturing in the UK now consisted of processed food. It no doubt wouldn't be long before the word got around, resulting in nations imposing bans on the import of junk food from the UK, and naturally enough HMG had no plan B. According to Al Jazeera news channel, the three gorges dam is at risk of collapse, with flood waters two meters above the flood warning line. Heavy rains in southern PRC for the last two months, have resulted in the worst floods for seventy years. Should the dam fail, it would be an apocalypse, wiping out the cities of Hunan and Hubei. More details were on www.breakingisraelnews.com HMG buys a vaccine producing factory from Benchmark, a company that produces vaccines for factory farmed fish.

July 28th, 2020...The gold price reaches a record $1940 per ounce in the wake of a Covid-19 second wave in Europe. Conflict between the PRC and USA over human rights in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong leads to trade restrictions. There are floods in India, Bangladesh and China, and more pandemic deaths in the USA and Brazil. HMG signs a 60 million dose vaccine deal with GSK and Sanofi. UK Finance warns the general public of Covid-19 scams involving impersonation of NHS and HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) officials. HMG announces unrestricted planning permission for new hospitals and affordable housing. Will the homes be eco housing, with the main axis of the building being east-west for optimum PVA efficiency. Will it have at least 200mm of wall and loft heat and sound insulation, use heat pump central heating, inert gas filled heat retentive glazing, floor insulation, a secure porch for parcel deliveries, a UAV landing pad in the back garden and hydroponic based healthy food production facilities with rain water collection, and a gym, plus local air taxi landing pad? Of course not. All you'll get is some bog stand British civil engineering crap, built by some conservative spiv. HMG has also announced that UK schools will reopen in September, having failed to put our education and training system on the internet, not that they actually tried. Scotland, like Northern Ireland has decided to use the Apple/Google track and trace software, since HMG's version failed on the Isle of Wight.

August 3rd, 2020...HMG's plan to promote the tourist industry backfires, when Spain is taken off the air bridge list of seventy nations due to growing infection rate in the Catalonia region, tourists are ordered by Jet2 to return to UK early as it cannot afford to fly empty planes in the meantime, as bookings are cancelled, due to HMG insisting that returning tourists undergo 14 days quarantine. Tourists in Ibiza and Canary Islands are included. More redundancies are announced in the UK; Hayes Travel 878, DW Sport 1700, whilst HSBC decides to accelerate its redundancy plan for 35,000 employees. It's estimated that 150,000 jobs have been lost in the UK due to the pandemic, with no doubt many more to follow, judging by all the parked cars, bumper to bumper along my street. Factories can't get the imported parts or raw materials, due to closed transport infrastructures or closed retail outlets, the latter simply because the unemployed or furloughed are not leaving home to spend their money, assuming they have any. Meanwhile HMG is promoting the service sector by its 'eat out to help out scheme' whereby customers get 50% off the cost of meals in restaurants, up to ten pounds, during Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A news story that was definitely hard to swallow came next. To the amazement of just about everyone, Russia announces that it is to commence mass vaccinations against Covid-19 in October. Now what could possibly go wrong? The UK is to undertake surveillance of the nation's wastewater, for signatures of Covid-19 deposited there in faeces.

I'm getting sick to death of the mamby-pamby, wishy-washy news on BBC television. I remember what it was like during the troubles in Northern Ireland. Over thirty years of troubling news from there and hardly anything else from elsewhere. Now it's all Covid-19 and trivia. Is the BBC deliberately dumbing down the population? Is this what we pay our TV licence for, not to mention the repeat programmes and the repeat channels? And it takes me at least half an hour to go through the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), mainly because at least half of it is temporarily missing. The signal is obviously not strong enough to display the information. I'm now watching Al Jazeera and RT. Why don't they group all the current affairs and documentary channels together. I like watching 'A Place in the Sun' and would go there but for one thing; you can't see a blade of grass anywhere. Gardening is out. I can see no point in going to a pub for a drink of ale when the table you're sitting at is cleaned every fifteen minutes by someone in a bio-hazard suit. Wouldn't it be best for the council to set up drinking zones in parks and squares, where people can drink non-alcoholic ale and cocktails, whilst listening to DJ music, managed by local pubs and bars? I see the inventor of the computer mouse has died. William English co-invented it in 1965 with Douglas Engelbart. Mines a glow mouse. It flickers on and off in response to work load, or is it my temperament? I feel like throwing it at the computer screen at times. I hope to get this web site on the internet this month. I've been trying for almost a year, through about seven or eight web hosts. I simply can't take the stress. It has taken me nine hours so far to upload the files, probably due to the UK internet being overloaded with office workers working from home. I now realise why HMG is not advocating education via the worldwide web.

August 5th, 2020...Redundancy announcements continue. In the UK it's Pizza Express 1100, W.H.Smith 1500, Travelex 1300, Dixon's Carphones 800. Face masks bought by HMG in a rush for the NHS have been declared unfit, because they do not fit every head size. Fifty million were bought at a cost of 150 million pounds, whilst 750,000 test kits made by Randox were declared unfit for use. Of course it's not much better in the USA where states have to bid against one another for health supplies, since the president refuses to engage in purchasing by central government, on their behalf. As if things weren't bad enough, the Lebanese city of Beirut is badly damaged by 275,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploding after a nearby fireworks factory ignited. It was held in storage for six years in the port, after being confiscated from a ship for fear it would be used by terrorists in explosives. It was the equivalent of a three kilotonne nuclear warhead detonation. Nuclear warheads on missiles are generally in the region of 120 to 170 kilotonnes. It makes you think. The blast killed at least two hundred people. A few days later, deaths in Brazil from Covid-19 reached at least 100,000, with no sign of levelling off. It was the second highest of any nation after the United States.

As of August 2020 there are about 26 groups now working on this coronavirus, with 23 clinical trials underway. Each of these will require its own production line. US billionaire Bill Gates has called for the need to set up these production lines now, even though some may never be used, in order to reduce lead times, stating that this would likely cost $2 billion. He is of course right, but will the nation's of the world now bury the hatchet, and work together to save the human race, civilisation and their self respect? Tests are already underway on humans at the Oxford Vaccine Group, UK, with talk of five million doses by winter. It took five years to get a vaccine for Ebola. We appear to be entering the age of bioengineering at full throttle.

August 14th, 2020...HMG has had to swallow its pride and accept Apple and Google software for its track and trace app for England. Like Northern Ireland and Scotland, Lazarus will detect smart phones within two metres of a person. Will enough people install this software and carry their smart phone with them at all times, knowing that they might end up enduring two weeks quarantine? The UK economy has experienced a 20% decline in output between April and June. The nation is now officially in recession. With Covid-19 outbreaks in Aberdeen and Orkney, it beggars the question, 'will North Sea oil production platforms be affected?' Such a scenario would be catastrophic for the economy. It proved easy to shut down businesses, but starting them up to the level that preceded the pandemic may prove illusive. Right now directors are wondering just how their company will survive. Since no one knows when this pandemic will cease, they need to remove their dependence on employees through automation, robotics, AI and no doubt relocation to the Far East. Relocation to countries managed by more competent political systems, as proved by their response to Covid-19, seems likely. This is why western nations need technocracies, in order to compete with that in the PRC and ultimately elsewhere. When will the referendum for a technocracy take place?

August 19th, 2020...The NHS states that Ibuprofen and paracetamol should not be used to treat pain, which is exactly what I was prescribed for my sciatica and arthritis this year. Do they know what they are doing? HMG has placed another order for Covid-19 vaccine, with US drug makers Johnson & Johnson's Janssen and Novavax Inc, making a total of 240 million doses, with most vaccines requiring two injections. I hope somebody can justify the cost of all this. Indoor Biotechnologies develops test for Covid-19 infection. Namely quantifying the T-Cells which are created when the body becomes infected, since they create antibodies to fight infection. HMG replaces Public Health England with the Health Protection Institute. No reason is given, but many people feel that PHE is being made a scape goat for HMG's incompetence in handling this pandemic. The worldwide death toll from Covid-19 now stands at 777,000 whilst HMG has adjusted the death toll in the UK, only including those that have died within 30 days of being diagnosed, justifying a reduction in numbers, as if it was nothing more than statistics of the unemployed. As such the figure now stands at 41,000. Worldwide, infections are rising at an alarming rate.

The management at the UK store chain Marks & Spencer can see the light. With internet sales outstripping those in their stores, they have decided to make 7,000 employees redundant. Shortly after, the company buys a 50% stake in the home delivery business Ocado. It may not be long before councils announce plans to introduce high street housing developments. Pizza Express food outlet is to close 73 sites making 1100 redundant, whilst Debenhams stores axes a further 2,500 jobs on top of the 4,000 it announced last May. I finally get my website on the internet. Now what do I do with all the spare time I've now got? Out there, there are many people asking the same question. The pubs are dead, theatres closed. With no work and no leisure, many people feel that they have no reason to live. The weather has been so hot at times that I haven't even dared to have my computer on. No solitaire and music. Few want a foreign holiday after HMG announced that France was on its Covid-19 black list at 4am in the morning, giving holiday makers 24 hours to get back to Blighty or face 14 days quarantine. How would you feel if you had forked out a thousand pounds for a family holiday abroad, only to have to cancel it after a few days, or face being prevented going back to work after it, resulting in dismissal? The list of countries on the black list gets longer as the predictable result of relaxing social distancing measures becomes apparent. Why has HMG suddenly taken so much interest in controlling the flow of people across our borders, and telling us to wear face masks, when it did the opposite in February? A society of silence and stillness torments the masses, causing a notable rise in mental illness. There arises a seething hot bed of discontent, particularly amongst young people, who are denied their outgoing social life. There is a notable shift amongst my neighbours to create entertainment areas in their back gardens for get togethers. Police break up meetings containing too many people, including weddings and music venues, even though HMG has given the green light to live indoor entertainment venues. Hot beds of Covid-19 infection, such as in pubs and clubs, are closed down. Temporary regional lockdowns are imposed in the UK as the death rate hangs at about twenty per day. The torture goes on and on. I think it's time for me to get out my plastic construction kits.

August 24th, 2020...British restaurant chain Pret-A-Manager to make 2,800 redundant, American Airlines announces 19,000 redundancies, whilst Tesco supermarkets in the UK decides to recruit 16,000 workers to select items on grocery lists and deliver them to people's homes. Fast food outlet Kentucky Fried Chicken decide to drop their slogan 'finger licking good' owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. And I wasn't feeling good that morning as I awoke at 4-45am to the sound of loud music and disco lights 200m away, down the road where the drug pushers hang out. It's a place I try to avoid, but the corner shop (convenience store) is down there, and I needed some more bread and milk. As I arrived, I was greeted by numerous empty bottles and cans dumped by revelers a few hours before. Due to rising Covid-19 infections, Birmingham was now on HMG's watch list. No sign of water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets yet. Mind you, I've never seen the police on my estate. Unlike American police, they've got no guns. Conscript the lot of them, to work on the farms. Three days later my website finally appears on the internet via Bing search engine. And where's Google? I went round and round in circles trying to get my sitemap on Google, never knowing whether any of these websites were now legacy. Now I've finally put my foot in it. As the days went by no one visited it. How was I to advertise it?

August 28th, 2020...Rumour has it that HMG is drawing up a plan to get office workers back into city centres to stimulate the transport and retail businesses. Well when office blocks conform to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical warfare) standards maybe that will happen, but right now of course, the government doesn't give a damn about the risk to people's lives. And by now of course, the average office worker has developed a deep seated loathing for commuting, known as the daily grind, or worse, with the risk of upskirting. It also beggars the question, 'why is HMG still located in the capital? Surely their offices don't comply to NBC standards, so where is their refuge. Have they sold off their last remaining nuclear bunkers from the days of the cold war? Supposing Covid-19 becomes more infectious and more lethal. What will HMG do then? Just lie down and die? The fact is that we are not prepared for anything worse. Just look at all the billions of honest hard working tax payer's money that governments in the west spend on wiping out the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and Iranians, and we can't even protect our own office workers. In the meantime, HMG has set up the UK-CIC (UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium) of 17 UK research centres to investigate how long Covid-19 immunity lasts and why the symptoms are so varied. A report from Hong Kong states that a person was reinfected with Covid-19 four and a half months after the initial infection. Determined to survive the next infection, our beloved prime minister has now embarked upon an intense exercise regime to lose weight. I looked at the scales last night, which read ten stone seven pounds. Looks like I'll have to stop consuming my daily intake of honey and marmite... for a while.

August 30th, 2020...HMG is still determined to get children back to school despite poor social distancing, bad ventilation, asymptomatic and threat to teachers. Now a study from South Korea states that children can have the Covid-19 coronavirus in their nose for up to three weeks after infection. Meanwhile the UCU (University & College Union) states that with one million students returning to higher education across the country, it risks turning colleges and universities into care homes of the second wave.

It is now necessary for me to explain the medical difference between a vaccine and a cure. A vaccine is usually an immobilized organism related in someway to the virus or coronavirus one is trying to impede. It is injected into the subject whilst they are still in good health. It may require a booster injection months or years later. It effectively enhances the bodies immune system, enabling it to recognise the attacker as soon as it enters the body, and before any real damage is caused. A cure on the other hand, requires human intervention after much damage has been caused to the human body, known as visible symptoms. Getting a patient to take orally (drink) antibodies, does what the human body normally does when a foreign body is detected within it, but cures are generally needed when this recognition fails to take place. With bioengineering, it is now possible to inject just part of the offending organism into the patient in such large quantities that the immune system cannot fail to detect them. Unfortunately a cure is only applied after the infection. The initial infection will inevitably cause some permanent damage to the body. Repeated infections will eventually cause the immune system to collapse and the subject, or that part of the affected metabolism, to die. However, with recent major advances in the treatment of malaria and tuberculosis, we may well be witnessing the birth of a new era in medical science.

There is a growing feeling in the medical professions, that like the influenza virus (the common cold) and HIV, the creation of a vaccine for Covid-19 is impossible. It has been noticed that lgG antibodies produced by infected people's immune systems only last a couple of months, affording no protection against reinfection after that time. This means that governments must plan for a world where Covid-19 is a permanent threat, but unlike the flu, it's around every month and is more lethal. And with over one hundred variants, it's likely to get even more deadly. Will government's simply look after number one, or work together? In such a world, social distancing will be the norm. Will centres for social gathering ever reopen? Will trains, buses, airliners be permanently shunned by the general public, with employees taken to work by employer ordered taxis? In order to reduce fatalities, governments must promote a healthy lifestyle, through the consumption of healthy foods in the correct amount, as well as through physical exercise, and through regular health checks. In order to obviate social gatherings, the state will appoint partners. Governments will promote the concept of healthy families. These families will be adopted by employers. Employers will provide work sharing schemes for the two bread winners, whilst their children will be cared for in the works nursery and later educated and trained on site. All this is to ensure that the families' movements are kept to a minimum, in order to minimize Covid-19 transmission. Employers will scan their workforce and their families daily. Families will scan one another daily. Like other deadly viruses and corona viruses that linger in the background, such as lassa fever and bubonic plague, Covid-19 will become a permanent fact of life, to be constantly monitored by the CDC. Covid-19 can also infect lions, tigers, mink, cattle, pigs, chickens, causing pneumonia. It can probably infect your pets. It may also spread to other species, with as yet no idea of the possible repercussions. Do we ban people from going to zoos? The BSE outbreak in the UK, which led to the incineration of thousands of cattle carcasses, after they were infected by feed stock made from deceased African antelopes obtained from a zoo, clearly shows the complexity of this problem, that the human race has created for itself. It is clear to me that we need order, and that that is only likely to come about through the creation of a world technocracy. We maybe forced to switch to artificial meats sooner than anticipated. Holidays will be in family groups, but not abroad. Places open to the general public will have activated charcoal filters fitted to their HVAC systems, which will be inspected regularly. Similar to the badge worn by people on nuclear sites, everyone will wear a Covid-19 badge when outside the home. Treatments against infection maybe administered on a regular basis. Over eighty years later, the national socialist concept of a perfect race has emerged again. Strength through joy. Will nations create a post Covid-19 world, or simply carry on regardless, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, simply to keep the global economy going?

If no vaccine is discovered, it will probably hang around for years, requiring global cooperation from governments and health organisations. Ultimately Covid-19 will destroy our immune system, and like HIV sufferers with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, we will die. We will become as extinct as all those alien civilisations out there on exoplanets across our galaxy who couldn't make the next step. Our technology combined with nature, will have defeated us. By 2023 to 2025 the human race could be extinct. The airports and seaports have still not been closed to passengers, whilst the mortality rate is on no more than a thirty degree downward slope. On May 11th HMG released a fifty page manual explaining the government's plan to ease lockdown measures. There's no mention of employers sorting out transport needs for employees, either through car share or taxis, and no mention of social isolation through employer's social club, gym, medical services, education and training.

Clearly HMG still thinks this pandemic won't last too long. HMG wants to maintain social distancing at two metres on public transport and in schools. They will still not consider education and training via the internet. Classrooms that once held thirty school children, can only house nine under the two metre rule. HMG insists upon fifteen. As for buses and railway carriages, imposing the two metre rule would make the operation uneconomic, that's assuming anyone would want to play musical chairs with these loons, but HMG is insistent, whilst the unions want risk assessment. It's like a scene from the keystone cops. How on Earth has the greatest empire in the world come to this. It's pathetic. HMG is clueless, out of its depth. It's lost the plot, but determined to carry on regardless. It plainly can't think straight, due to stress, whilst there's no one in parliament prepared to take the reins, and risk coming under fire. No one is going to get impeached, because the MPs know that they stand and fall together. The establishment protects its own. We urgently need a technocracy, management by relevantly qualified and trained experts, in all organisations in the UK, not just government. But that cannot come about except through the spillage of blood. Well now the blood and tears are falling. They are falling in hospitals across the land. Will you vote for these thumb sucking political parties at the next general election? If you're a frustrated retired or quarantined professional with technical qualifications, don't you think it's about time you achieved something really great in your life? Namely, stand for parliament as an independent candidate for your community. It's time to say, "enough is enough."

September 1st, 2020...Our prime minister is now castigated for failing to see representatives of 'Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice,' after they had written to him five times, but as he points out in a half hour session of prime minister's questions in the House of Commons at midday Wednesday, they have taken litigation out against HMG for its handling of the pandemic. The NHS is now promoting a 'soup and shake' diet regime for those suffering from type II diabetes. It took me five minutes to find it on my PC, since for some reason the news media get priority on the list of results, but I couldn't download it to my smart phone. 'It will be downloaded soon,' came the result. Well that's IT for ya. I checked out my BMI (Body Mass Index) at 23.6, and was told I was healthy. Well I'm not. In addition to arthritis in my right knee I'm also getting pains in my back, some needle like pains for a split second when I bend or sit down. I looked it up on a website. There are that many kinds of arthritis that I couldn't make up my mind what I suffered from. All I know is that it hurts, and thus far I've received no effective treatment since this started about six months ago. Is it connected to my Covid-19 infection, five months ago?

September 6th, 2020...Oxford Vaccine Group-Astra Zeneca test subject suffers from a neurological condition resulting in temporary suspension of Covid-19 vaccine testing.

September 7th, 2020...HMG insists that civil servants return to their offices in Whitehall, London in order to stimulate the local economy, trains, buses, taxis, underground, hair dressers, coffee houses, sandwich bars, cafes, restaurants, gymnasiums, theatres and the like. The words fall almost on deaf ears, since the civil servant union calls it an outdated mentality. Lack of numbers in government departments is affecting the application of law and order, with court cases being held back at least one year. The National Crime Agency is accused of failing to investigate financial institutions that are accused of falsifying documents in order to reposes people's homes. The evidence, in nineteen boxes, covers 362 cases. MPs complained to them one year ago about lack of progress, but they have still not interviewed the victims. No matter how tough the going gets, you never shut down government. I get a strong feeling that civilisation is slowly crumbling away. To make matters worse, it now appears that the Covid-19 outbreak maybe not as bad as first assumed. Reports suggest that Covid-19 tests could be detecting dead remnants of the coronavirus from earlier infections. As for me, I am more concerned at the level of air pollution on my housing estate. I did complain about it to the council a few years ago only for them to ask, 'where is it coming from?' Well I didn't have any mobile test equipment, which would no doubt cost thousands of pounds. Today I can't even report this pollution because the capability has been removed from the council's web site. I think the pollution comes from a local trading estate about half a mile away. It drifts over the tops of most houses then builds up along my row of terraced housing, which acts as a dam. The 1.8 metre high garden fences ensure that the only way it will move on is by opening your windows and doors and letting it drift through the house. The pollution is choking. It permeates my clothes, and is no doubt a contributory factor in local deaths in this terrace, of which there have been two in the six years I've lived here. HMG has thus far handed out 35.4 billion pounds in furlough payments, which pays 80% of a person's wages up to 2,500 pounds per month. However, it now appears that some of it has been handed out by mistake or through fraud, to the tune of 3.5 billion. HMG wouldn't miss a tiny million would they? The TV programme I watch more than any other is 'A Place in the Sun.' My investments are falling in value as the number of redundancies increases. About seven people stabbed by a deranged man in Birmingham city centre Saturday night, one fatally. Gotta get out of here. Dream on Nige.

HMG and many other western governments are now in the process of creating a second wave by lifting the lockdown. As stated before, the lockdown is not a cure, it is simply a delaying tactic, in the hope that a vaccine or cure comes along in the mean time. The politicians are now worried sick, because they can see the entire capitalist banking system collapsing. It's a mind shattering game of poker. Save lives, or save capitalism, democracy and win the next general election, if only the media would look the other way. Can they be bought off with a few medals and titles here and there, as the cremation furnaces burn on? Lorry drivers are defecating in their lorries. Day trippers, out for the first time in two months, are defecating behind trees and in sand dunes, all because the local authorities have shut the nation's public toilets, although why, I simply fail to understand. It's now clear that local authorities don't give a damn about general health anymore than central government does. We have a prime minister whose decisions appear to be answerable to no one. His Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) appears to be ignored in the main. Decisions are made based upon mathematical formulae, that take no account of unpredictable factors such as super spreaders, whilst the test and trace app is still not operational at the time of writing, and of course there are more infections in South Korea and the PRC.

September 18th, 2020...A BBC investigation confirms that Sir Patrick Vallance, HMG's chief scientific adviser, advised the prime minister to institute a lockdown of the UK far earlier than has thus far been admitted. The information comes via the freedom of information act. Another treatment being trialed for Covid-19 patients consists of monoclonal antibodies. This is an expensive treatment normally reserved for cancer patients. The R number is starting to rise again, indicating that a predictable second wave of Covid-19 is in the offering. Of course HMG is doing everything in its power not to admit that it's a second wave. Reported infections in England are now running at 6,000 per day. There are now increased lockdown measures in Birmingham, north east England including Newcastle, Manchester, with Liverpool suspected of being the next in line. HMG's Covid-19 response has been based upon the R number. The R number is a mathematical probability for determining when a lockdown should be implemented. Anything greater than one means that an infected person will infect that many people before they are either quarantined, cured, or they die. R stands for reproduction. This number is obtained from a graph showing infections in the vertical axis and time in days along the horizontal axis. The number of infections for a region is plotted over time. It is usually a wavy line. An accurate R number (reproduction number) can be obtained by dividing the second weekly total by the first weekly total, if accurate statistics are employed. e.g. If the second week is 30 and the first week is 20, then the R number is 1.5. This means that one person has infected 1.5 people on average. If the R number is less than one then the reproduction rate is falling. The death rate statistics will be more accurate than using infection rate, but the results will be more out of date, since the deceased will have been infected two to four weeks earlier. There are still many people complaining of the length of time it takes to get a Coronavirus check and the twenty-four hour wait for the result, some having to travel one hundred miles to a test centre. Almost two thirds of workers have now returned to work, many of whom want a test in order to satisfy their employer. Imperial College, London disclose that a lab-on-a chip can detect whether or not someone has Covid-19 within ninety minutes, which is being trialed at four NHS hospitals.