Covid-19: Two £10,000 Fines For ‘150-Person’ Funeral
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A funeral director has been fined £10,000 after police were called to a funeral with close to 150 people in attendance.
This time, it appears that the covidiots were Roman Catholics.
Covid: 400-Person Wedding Party In Stamford Hill Broken Up By Police
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC,
I would have thought, that the organisers would have known better, as the Jewish community in Stamford Hill has suffered badly from th covids.
In Jews In The UK And COVID-19, which I wrote in May 2020, I did a simple analysis and said this.
From these simple figures Jews are over three times more likely to die of COVID-19, than the general population.
Walk around the area and their are signs up in Hebrew telling people to Stay Safe.
How can people be so stupid?
But that’s religion for you!
A Measles Epidemic
About a year ago, I was asked by my GP, if I had been vaccinated against measles.
I said no, but I have did have a bad case at about twenty-five, which I recounted in A Surprising Question From A Doctor.
He said fine and then added that there’s a measles epidemic in the North of the borough.
Apparently, the ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t have a high level of vaccination and a lot of children.
This worries me, as will they bother to get the vaccine for the covids.
They should listen to the eminently sensible Chief Rabbi.
Chaos In The Balls Pond Road
This article in The Times is called High Court Deals Blow To Expansion Of Cycle Lanes And Wider Pavements.
This was the first paragraph.
Road closures designed to boost walking and cycling could face legal challenges after a judge declared that a big expansion of the plans was “unlawful”.
A challenge to the often ill-thought out improvements from black-cab drovers has been successful.
My experience, yesterday, summed up my inconvenience with such a scheme.
yaxiI actually, think that matters are being made worse by some of the designs and planning by the Council Clowns.
A big scheme is being undertaken around the Balls Pond Road to bring in a cycleway between Tottenham and the City. In Hackney, it looks like it will improve walking and calm the traffic in residential areas as well.
I had a serious stroke ten years and my eyesight was ruined enough, so that I couldn’t drive, so I rely heavily on buses to get around.
On Tuesday, I needed to go to the Angel to pick up a prescription. On arriving at the junction of Balls Pond Road and Southgate Road, I found that one of Islington’s Idiots had planned to dig up the junction and all four bus stops were closed. The traffic was so jammed as well, that there weren’t even any stray black cabs stoating about!
In the end, I walked to the next bus stop. This was not easy, as the lock-down has ruined my feet and they were painful.
But I got a bus to the Angel and after a bit of food shopping, I looked for a taxi to come home.
But another branch of Clowns and Idiots Ltd. has closed the taxi rank, so I had to resort to the bus, which got stuck in another set of jams caused by Thames Water at one of their well-used Party Places.
I did find a black cab, but he was unable to take me home, as the area was gridlocked. So he said give him a tenner and walk. As this was less than what was on the meter, I complied!
I laid down the principles of project planning using small computers in the 1970s.
Obviously, My ideas have fallen on deaf ears in Islington Council.
Corporate Funding In Battery Storage In 2020 Was Up By 136% Compared To 2019, Mercom Says
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is a paragraph, which sums up funding worldwide.
The amount of corporate funding coming into the global battery storage industry in 2020 was more than double the amount the previous year, with over US$6.5 billion raised last year compared to around US$2.8 billion in 2019.
It appears that serious money is increasingly going into energy storage.
Some very big deals involving hundreds of millions of dollars are detailed, in countries as varied as Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the US.
Particular mention is given to a Swedish battery battery design and manufacturing start-up called Northvolt, who raised $600 million.
Most seem to be based on lithium-ion batteries, so the future could be bright for start-up companies like Cornish Lithium!
Covid: Biden Vows 100m Vaccinations For US In First 100 Days
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the introductory paragraphs of the article.
US President-elect Joe Biden has set a goal of 100 million Covid vaccinations in his first 100 days in office.
He said his first months in office would not end the outbreak and gave few details on a rollout plan but he said he would change the course of Covid-19.
Introducing his health team for when he takes office on 20 January, he urged Americans to “mask up for 100 days”.
I can see a few rocks ahead in his plan.
Vaccine Production
According to media reports, the number of vaccinations has declined since Friday because of delivery issues with the Pfizer vaccine.
In Tracking COVID-19 Vaccination Statistics, the number of vaccinations in the last few days are as follows.
- 15th January – 324233
- 16th January – 549920
- 17th January – 205235
- 18th January – 204076
The figures have been declining because of these delivery issues.
Pfizer say they are updating the factory in Belgium to increase production.
I don’t believe that, as the United States will be needing a million does per day, that they can get enough production on a reliable basis.
A Federal Lockdown
I believe that to get the virus under control in the United States, the country must follow the route of countries like France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK and have a period of perhaps a hundred days of total lockdown.
But I doubt that would be possible in the United States.
Mask Wearing
I don’t believe that Americans will mask up for a hundred days.
The Anti-Vaxxers And The Trumpeteers
I can see them having a field day!
Especially, if Joe Biden adds some strong legislation to curb the spread of the virus. Which in my view is needed.
Conclusion
It’s going to get a lot messier and probably more dangerous in the United States in the next few months.
Shell Withdraws From Waste To Jet Fuel Plant Project
The title of this post, is the same as that, of this article on Insider Media.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Oil giant Shell has withdrawn from the joint development agreement for a proposed facility for the conversion of waste into aviation fuel.
It would appear that the Altalto project will continue and has no likelihood of folding in the near future.
I like the idea behind Altalto, which will take household and industrial waste and turn it into sustainable aviation fuel and biodiesel.
But I also like Shell’s Blue Hydrogen Process, which takes methane and effectively removes the carbon to create carbon-neutral hydrogen.
Conclusion
I feel the world is a big enough place for both technologies.
The Diamond Light Source And Malaria
I had to put a link to this page on the Diamond Light Source web site, which is entitled Malaria in Action.
This is the introductory paragraph.
In 2007 Helen Saibil was at a conference in Australia. Amongst the presentations there happened to be talks on the parasites malaria and toxoplasma and how they infect mammalian cells, causing disease. Helen is a structural biologist and whilst listening she began to realise that her newly acquired skills -she was doing electron tomography of cells- might allow the researchers to see things they had never seen before.
The page describes the work of the Diamond Light Source to understand and lead the might against malaria.
What Will Oxford Do For An Encore?
In the UK, I suspect nearly all of us have watched in admiration, as Oxford University have developed a Covid-19 vaccine for the world.
So what will be the University’s next big medical breakthrough.
Antibiotics
Today, this article on the BBC web site, which is entitled Oxford Research Tackles Threat Of Antibiotic Resistance, was published.
This was the introductory sub-heading.
Oxford University is opening a new research institute dedicated to tackling resistance to antibiotics.
To start the funding INEOS has chipped in a cool £100 million.
This paragraph summarises the project.
There will be 50 researchers working in the new Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, addressing the “over-use and mis-use” of antibiotics, which the university warned could cause 10 million excess deaths per year by 2050.
To put that ten million excess deaths into perspective, the Covid-19 pandemic has so far killed 2.05 million worldwide.
It should be remembered that David Cameron warned of this problem back in 2014, as was reported in this article on the BBC, which was entitled Antibiotic Resistance: Cameron Warns Of Medical ‘Dark Ages‘.
This was the introductory paragraph.
The world could soon be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine” unless action is taken to tackle the growing threat of resistance to antibiotics, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
Will the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, solve one of the most pressing problems facing the modern world?
Malaria Vaccine
Sometime, this week I either read in The Times or heard someone say on the BBC, that Oxford would soon be starting trials for a malaria vaccine developed by the same team, who developed the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19.
This wasn’t the article in The Times, that I read, as it is dated the 5th of December 2020, but it does have a title of Malaria Vaccine Another Success Story For Jenner Institute Team Behind Covid Jab.
This is the first three paragraphs.
The Oxford team behind the coronavirus jab has taken a big step towards producing a cheap and effective vaccine for malaria.
The Jenner Institute said that it was due to enter the final stage of human trials with its vaccine, which it hopes could combat the almost half a million annual deaths, mainly in children.
“It’s going to be available in very large amounts — it works pretty well. And it’s going to be very low-priced,” Adrian Hill, director of the institute, said.
This looks to me, exactly what the world needs.
I’ve also found this page on the Oxford University web site, which is entitled Designer Malaria Vaccines.
This is the first two paragraphs on the page.
Malaria is one of the deadliest human diseases, killing a child in Africa every two minutes. A vaccine is urgently needed, but this is has proved extremely challenging because the malaria parasite is a master of disguise, able to change its surface coat to escape detection by the human body. However, structural biology is raising hopes for a vaccine against this killer parasite.
In order to replicate and develop, the malaria parasite must get inside human red blood cells – something that depends upon a malaria protein called RH5. Unlike the other variable malaria surface proteins, RH5 does not vary, making it more easily recognised and destroyed.
There is also this YouTube video.
From the video it looks like Oxford have used the Diamond Light Source to help develop the vaccine, just as the facility has been used to investigate Covid-19, as I wrote about in The Diamond Light Source And COVID-19.
I have added a new page called The Diamond Light Source And Malaria, which points to information on the Diamond Light web site.
There is also this Saturday Interview in The Times with Professor Adrian Hill, who is the Director of the Jenner Institute, at the University of Oxford.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Adrian Hill knew that this would be a big year. As head of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, this was the year, if all went well, he would announce a final large-scale trial into a vaccine to prevent a disease that was ravaging swathes of the planet. And this week, he did just that. Just not for the disease you’re thinking of.
A century after scientific research on the topic began, 30 years after he started working on it and eight years after this version was tried he has, he believes, an effective malaria vaccine. Now he is ready to try it at scale.
The interview is a must-read.
This paragraph from the article compares Covid-19 and malaria.
In the past 20 years, conventional public health investment has averted an estimated 1.5 billion malaria cases. Still, in an ordinary year it is one of the world’s biggest killers of children. “Malaria is a public health emergency. A lot more people will die in Africa this year from malaria than will die from Covid,” he says. “I don’t mean twice as many — probably ten times.”
The numbers show why a vaccine for malaria is so important.
Conclusion
Oxford University appears to have tremendous ambition, to see both these projects through to a successful conclusion.
I believe that their success with the Covid-19 vaccine will have major effects.
- People like Jim Ratcliffe and Bill and Melinda Gates, drug companies and charities like Wellcome Trust, will be prepared to fund more research.
- World-class researchers from all over the world will be drawn to work on Oxford’s projects.
- If Oxford or another group needs another powerful research tool, like the Diamond Light Source, the government will look favourably at the project.
People love to support winners! Just look at how kids follow the football team, at the top of the Premier League, when they first get interested in the game.
If the AstraZeneca vaccine is a success in the poorer countries of this world, that can’t afford the more expensive commercial vaccines, that this could change the world in bigger ways, than anybody imagines.
It could be extremely good not just for AstraZeneca, Oxford University and the UK, but the whole world. And not just in 2021, but in the future as well!
Whitechapel Station – 29th December 2020
I took these pictures as I passed through Whitechapel station.
Note.
- The platforms for the Metropolitan and District Lines seem to be almost complete.
- New lighting and seating has been installed.
The stairs down to the platforms from the street, can be seen behind one of the hoardings.
The Anonymous Widower 