Common-sense and Covid 19 by John Wilkins

OUR politicians hide behind following the science to escape criticism when things change for the worse. How about some plain, old fashioned common-sense?

Testing: Far too late in being implemented and even over last few months has only been stepped up at air ports. A friend, early last year, had been working in Venezuela training young doctors in his specialism, orthopaedic surgery. Deciding he needed to return to the UK he had to travel through three airports to get home. In three poor Latin American countries he was tested in each one, even though one was a temperature check. Yet he strolled through the airport here with NO test whatsoever!

Preparedness: Latest figures I could find showed the UK had less hospital beds per capita than most of Europe with only Sweden slightly worse. Significantly Sweden had far more doctors per capita whereas only Poland and Slovakia had less than us. We were low down on the list for critical care beds with just over half of those in Italy less than a quarter of those in Germany. As for our NHS the UK has by far and away the greatest number of private hospital beds in Europe.

Outside of Europe it is interesting to note that S. Korea has the second highest number of hospital beds in the world having been one of only a handful of countries to increase capacity in recent times. It is not surprising then that we have not coped well with this pandemic yet S. Korea has been one of the best to do so.

Clarity and leadership: Many people have complained about the lack of clarity about lock down rules and lack of common sense in formulating them.

So we have walkers targetted in the wilds of Derbyshire yet the PM's adviser, Cummings, dashed off to Barnard Castle to he claims to have an eye test with impunity. Boris Johnson contracted the virus shortly after leaving a meeting with several other people less than two metres apart and not wearing masks. Having experienced the illness he has been more careful since.

His father visited Greece "on essential business" to ensure a property he rents out was "Covid-proof". Baloney! At the time Greece had banned flights from UK there which Joe Johnson got around by flying in from Bulgaria.

Our PM could do with a course in leadership from New Zealand's leader, Jacinda Ardern. She brought unity after the horrendous attack on a mosque and carried the country with her in their lockdown. How? The people had respect and therefore trust in her.

Injections: Like Trump our Government were quick to pat themselves on the back for a) developing a vaccine and b) in the UK for being one of the first to use it. We are all grateful to the world's scientists for working collaboratively (not a word which can often apply to politicians) to create the vaccine.

The Government's job is how to deliver it and many have reservations about how it has been done. Although the expertise behind the Astra Zenica vaccines scientists at Oxford University the main production hub is at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep. There have been recent problems there which might slow deliveries down across Europe.

As I got an invite to have the injection (Pfizer) some time ago I felt guilty as I am only 76 and in good health but especially so when the PM warned it might be up to twelve weeks to get the second dose.

I thought the plan was to get as many over 80's, people with underlying health conditions and key workers vaccinated first.

Now a report from Israel has raised concerns that the effectiveness was only 52.4% between the first and second dose if spaced just 21 days apart.

My concerns have been shared by Baroness Joan Bakewell who has threatened the Government with legal action over delays to the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Also Alejandro Cravioto, chairman of WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, said the two doses of the Pfizer jab should be administered within 21 to 28 days.

Time for yet another U-turn Mat Hancock.

Following the rules: Hot topic after guests fled from a Jewish school when police arrived. The organisers faced a £10,000 fine for breaking lockdown rules and five guests were issued with £200 fixed penalty notices, according to police, out of about 150 present. Whilst I am not usually in favour of more offences resulting in prison, I am when the public's health is put at risk. The organisers deserve a custodial sentence or at least community service and more fines should be handed out.

In general people are obeying the rules but when shopping outlets say mask wearing is mandatory then make it so. People need to have more confidence in using forms of transport if we are to get more people into work safely. People are entitled to their opinions on the way the virus is tackled but our cherished freedom of speech does not mean anti-vaxxers can pedal false news and protest outside hospitals where NHS staff are putting their lives on the line. Take note Piers Corbyn and his acolytes!

Their activities have resulted in a drop in trust of vaccination particularly in the BAME community who have been shown to be most at risk of the virus.

We used to be admired as a nation for sticking to rules but not any more perhaps.

Postscript: Since I wrote this the EU look like playing 'hardball' over distribution of Pfizer vaccine from European plants.

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Let's Talk About The War

by Les May

SIR John Hawkins is considered the first English trader to profit from the demand for African slaves in the Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo and Venezuela in the late 16th century.  In other words he, along with Sir Francis Drake, was a slave traders as well as privateer.

From 1577 onwards Hawkins was Treasurer of the English Navy.  He rebuilt older ship and helped design newer, faster, sleeker, more manoeuvrable ‘race-built galleons’.  These were the ships that he and Drake commanded when with less than fifty ships they took on and defeated the 130 strong Spanish Armada in 1588.

The stories around this have sometimes been described as forming the ‘foundation myth’ of English identity; plucky little England standing up to more powerful bullies and giving them a ‘bloody nose’.  Nearly five hundred years later it was woven into another now British myth in Edward Shanks’ poem ‘The other little boats’ (see below)

On 13 July 1916 my uncle Tom died during the battle of the Somme, when ‘lions were led by donkeys’.  His name is on the war memorial in Littleborough near Rochdale. Somewhere in Germany there will be memorial with the name of a man who died the same day.  On the island of Tiree there is a tiny graveyard and in it are fifteen stones recording Merchant Seamen whose bodies washed up on its beaches in WW2.   Near Kiel is the Möltenort U-Boat Memorial it records the names of the 30,000 submariners who died in the same war.

In Europe we have learned to live with the knowledge that our past and those who peopled it, were imperfect.  We do not demand that the names of the U boat crew who fought for the Nazis be erased from memory.  We honour them as brave men, like we honour the imperfect men who ran up the beaches of Normandy in 1944.

It is that capacity, to not forget what happened, but also not to hold grudges about it, that gives me a sense of pride in being British.  Perhaps that is just something that my generation, who knew people on both sides who had lived through WW2 and are thankful it did not happen to them, can feel.  Particularly amongst students it seems that it is being replaced by an intolerant and puritanical insistence that only those whose views are deemed acceptable in the present should be remembered. Hawkins and Drake had better watch out.

If I take a somewhat jaundiced view of this it is nothing to how I feel about those privileged academics who, no doubt with an eye on furthering their careers, have decided that ‘the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon us even unto the third and fourth generation’.  Yes, Hawkins and Drake had better watch out.

The Other Little Boats

A pause came in the fighting and England held her breath
For the battle was not ended and the ending might be death
Then out they came, the little boats, from all the Channel shores
Free men were those who set the sails and laboured at the oars.
From Itchenor and Shoreham, from Deal and Winchelsea,
They put out into the Channel to keep their country free.
Not of Dunkirk this story, but of boatmen long ago,
When our Queen was Gloriana and King Philip was our foe,
And galleons rode the narrow seas, and Effingham and Drake
Were out of shot and powder, with all England still at stake.
They got the shot and powder, they charged the guns again,
The guns that guarded England from the galleons of Spain,
And the men that helped them do it, helped them still to hold the sea
Men from Itchenor and Shoreham, men from Deal and Winchelsea,
Looked out happily from heaven and cheered to see the work
Of their grandsons' grandsons' grandsons on the beaches of Dunkirk.

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What’s in the news in the internet in Venezuela.

 by Milton Pena

Editor:  The report below was sent by 

the author to John Wilkins of BOLD 

(Building Our Local Democracy}

YOUR request prompt me to look into the internet regarding what’s making the news in the internet in Venezuela.

Operación Gedeon.

I found it on google and didn’t know about it till 30 min ago! 

 

Guaido denies it. But apparently yesterday a group of anti Maduro Venezuelan military men from Colombia tried to enter the country via the Coast.  They came from Colombia, country that denied any involvement.  A gun battle took place and some were killed and other captured. 

 

An American mercenary went public to say that it was part of 17 similar groups already in Venezuela and their aim is to turn the arm forces against the government. 

 

No one on my household or in the neighborhood or in the media is talking about it. It’s only the internet and I suspect Main Stream media abroad!

Food and petrol

There is no shortage of food and people are not dying of hunger.  But it’s true that the prices have increased three fold since I arrived.  The government distributes a bag of food every month that helps a lot. 

 

Mangos are begining  to ripen and are plentiful.  They grow every where and generally not sold in shops but given free.  Speculation is ripe and difficult to control.  The petrol situation I don’t understand,  but there is enough for movement of goods and people.  Lately corrupted police  in charge at the pumps are charging in dollars for every litre, to those trying to avoid queues 

Covid 19

The statistics speak by themselves, only ten deaths till now, and only around 360 have contracted it.

 

This has been possible because very strict limitation of interstate movement, closing airports, quarantine and compulsory use of masks.  Also tracking every one suspected with the virus, known here as “pesquisaje”. 

Education 

University, secondary education continues via de internet.  This is a fact as I have witnessed myself by helping my nephews with their work.  I had to refresh my physiology and pathology and even maths (irrational numbers!)

Hope this account helps 

Report from Venezuela

by Milton Pena April 6 2020

THE situation in Acarigua/Azaure #1 is that of the whole country; calm and acceptance of the quarantine.

EVERYONE uses a mask and takes precautions. There is no shortage of food or essentials.

There have been few deaths and only a few cases diagnosed of Covid – 19. #2

As the country has been under an economic blockade for four years it has created means of distribution of food, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, house by house.This has helped tremendously.

There are Centres of Diagnostic Integrals everywhere which has alowed control 0of the pandemic. They have been (largely) run by Cuban doctors who are doing a great job.' #3

#1 Two cities under 200 miles west and inland of the capital Caracus'

#2 Latest figures 7 deaths out of 166 recorded cases.

#3 It has been reported that Cuban medical staff are currently helping in 14 countries world wide.

Comment: They (Cubans) generally work in poorer countries, but the world woke up in admiration when they sent out a team of 52 medics to help in Italy and allowed the British cruise ship MS Braemar to dock when it had been turned away from the US and other countries.

It prompted Dominic Raab, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, to thank the Cuban government for its assistance. In a ministerial statement in Parliament stating that he had spoken to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and that “we are very grateful to the Cuban government for swiftly enabling this operation and for their close co-operation to make sure it could be successful.”

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said of its decision: “These are times of solidarity, of understanding health as a human right, of reinforcing international co-operation to face our common challenges, values that are inherent in the humanistic practice of the Revolution and of our people.”

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Shadow of the House of Saud.

by Brian Bamford

I first became aware of the importance of politics of Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s, at the time of the idict by the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini  against Salman Rushdie over his book Satanic Verses.  A friend of mine, Zafar Khan, who was from Kashmir and then living in Luton told me that the campaign against Mr. Rushdie had allowed Shiite Iran to gain the initiative in the Islamic world over the sunni House of Saud.

What I scarcely realised until more recently was that the politics of oil as deployed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had dominated the world economy throughout the last half of the 20th century.  It began with the House of Saud using an oil embargo to do what the journalist Andrew Scott Cooper describes as a 'willingness to weaponize the oil markets'.  In October 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabian stopped oil shipments in retaliation for America's support for Israel during  the Yom Kippur War.  After that the price of oil quadrupled leading to a big rise in the cost of living, mass unemployment and rising social disruption.

The brutal effect of the flooding of the oil markets by the Saudis that occurred in 1977 was one of the consequences of the problems that faced the Shah of Iran.  It was not the only cause of the Iranian revolution but it was one important issue:  The Shah regime was destabilised at a time when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini started his campaign to replace a pro-Western monarchy with a theocratic state.  The journalist Andrew Scott Cooper suggests that the oil markets 'fuelled the rise of political Islam'.

Today, most of us in the west don't remember this because we are not now the Saudis' main target.  Now the oil crises are more to do with regional politics, as well as being an attempt to hurt the American fracking industry by undermining prices to make it uneconomic to frack.

More recently the Saudis have shown that they see the oil markets as a front line in the Sunni Muslim-majority kingdom's battle against its Shiite-dominated rival Iran.   Mr. Scott Cooper writes that the favourite tactic of thre Saudis is 'flooding' or pumping surplus crude into a soft market, which amounts to war by economic means; 'the equivalent of dropping the bomb on a rival.'

In 2006, Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security adviser, said that 'Riyadh was prepared to force prices down to “strangle” Iran's economy.'  Then in 2008, the Saudis acted on this with the aim of undermining Tehran's ability to support Shiite militia groups in Iraq, Lebanon and other places.

In this way the price of oil helped to end the Cold War.  At that time, the Soviet Union, like Russia today, as a Communist superpower was a global energy producer heavily reliant on incomes from oil and gas.  In 1985-86, the Saudis decision to flood the market led to a collapse in prices that sent the Soviet regime into decline.  'The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to Sept. 13, 1985,' wrote thre Russian economist Yegor Gaidar, 'on this date Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically.'

Currently in Russia, fully half of government revenue comes from oil and gas.  Inflation in Russia has exceeded double digits last year; its special fund which bails out Russian companies in difficulties, is low; and factory closures are encouraging labour unrest.

Venezuela, whose economy has been damaged by lost revenues from oil, that amounts to about 95% of its export earnings.   Inflation in Venezuela is predicted by the International Monetary Fund to reach 720% this year, and it is expected to become 'financial zombie state'.  The Left is blaming the USA for President Maduro's plight but his Venezuelan  regime is in reality at the mercy of the oil markets. 

It's all a cautionary tale of what can happen to countries that depend on heavily on a single unstable commodity price.  Russia for example is in fiscal crisis at a time when it is making military interventions in the Ukraine and Syria.