What Has Gone Wrong In Kent?
The population of the county is 1.855 million, as opposed to Greater Manchester’s 2.822. So its population is about two-thirds of that of Greater Manchester.
Over the last few days Kent has had around 500-700 new cases of the covids per day as opposed to about 150 per day in Greater Manchester. Liverpool is less than 100.
Stonehenge A303 Tunnel Plan Approved By Transport Secretary
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A controversial plan to dig a £2.4bn road tunnel near Stonehenge has been approved by the Transport Secretary.
As a non-driver, who would prefer to travel to the South West by train, I have no definite opinion on the proposed scheme.
However, I do hope that the design has taken full account of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Will more decide to holiday at home?
- Will more buy holiday homes in Cornwall and Devon?
- Will the road attract more traffic, as most do?
I do feel though, that it will be some years before construction starts, as if ever there was a project, that will be a pot of gold lawyers, then this is it!
The End Of The Beginning
At 16:08 on the 9th of November 2020, I sent this text message to the BBC.
Churchill would have dubbed Pfizer’s news the End of the Beginning in the War against the Covids!
Then at 17:00 Boris used the same phrase in his Press Conference.
Wikipedia says this about Churchill’s use of the phrase.
A quotation from a 1942 speech by Winston Churchill concerning the Second Battle of El Alamein.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought between the 23rd of October and the 11th of November 1942. So exactly, seventy-eight years ago, the battle was coming to a close.
As a biographer of Churchill, did Boris spot the historical link?
Let’s hope Boris, Macron, Biden, Merkel, Trudeau et al, get the chance to paraphrase another of Churchill’s quotes about the very different battle.
It may almost be said, “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat”
Let’s hope Pfizer’s vaccine is our generation’s Alamein and marks the turning point in the War against the Covids.
Certainly, the news has been well-received by experts, including Jeremy Farrar of the Welcome Trust, who was being interviewed by the BBC, when the news broke.
I am 73 and my parents told me how Alamein and other news like it, stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood in the dark days of World War II!
Second Time Around For A Lockdown
What is different this time around, is that I’ve had three months practice and I believed it would come, so I stocked up with essentials.
My Dalstonista grandmother regretted in the Great War, she didn’t stock up, so wasn’t caught out in the Second, with a hundredweight of both jam and sugar in the cellar.
My essentials are a bit different.
- Adnams Beer – 0.5 % alcohol.
- Tins of sardines in tomato.
- Gluten-free pasta
- Muesli
- Pots of porridge.
- Pots of M & S luxury honey & ginger yoghurt. For adding to fruit, muesli and as a pasta sauce.
- Ready meals in the freezer.
I would assume, I can get gluten-free bread, bananas, milk and eggs, when I need them.
Gloria Gaynor’s song is in my brain.
Wear Mask, Save Live
Even Borat, is doing his bit to help fight Covids!
I photographed him lying above the Old Street roundabout.
Police Shut Down Illegal Halloween Parties And A Christening
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the Evening Standard.
This is the opening paragraph.
Police were called to break up 11 illegal lockdown parties in the capital over the Halloween weekend – including a 1,000 people rave in East London.
The police were also called to a Christening, where a £10,000 fixed-penalty notice was handed out.
When will people learn that Careless Meeting Costs Lives.
Perhaps we should avoid the two R-words; rave and religion to keep the all important R-number down.
Bristol Illegal Rave Attended By 700 People
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-title.
Police say they were attacked as they tried to break up an illegal rave at a warehouse near Bristol.
Let’s hope it gives lots of work for criminal defence solicitors.
Equilibrium With The Covids
The rate of lab confirmed cases in six cities per 100,000 of the population are as follows.
- London – 836.6
- Leeds – 2128
- Liverpool – 2113.6
- Manchester – 2879.6
- Sheffield – 2291.2
- Hull – 1013.9
In addition, if you look at many individual London boroughs, they are around the 600-900 range.
Is There A London Equilibrium?
As London is a more-or-less coherent entity has the virus found an equilibrium with the city?
As a Control Engineer, I think London is showing a classic example of water finding its own level.
I would suspect that the average Londoner, visits a couple of other boroughs very regularly.
Does this mean that the virus gets transferred regularly across borough boundaries and this levels things up?
Is There A Northern Equilibrium?
It also looks like the virus has found a higher equilibrium with the Northern cities.
If you look at other areas in the North, that sit between the major cities, they seem in line with rates in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds..
The city that is out of line is Hull, which has a rate half that of the others. Could this be because of its location?
Suffolk In The Sixties
I remember Suffolk in the 1960s, when it was three counties; East Suffolk, West Suffolk and Ipswich.
All counties had different pub opening hours people would drive miles to get an extra half-hour of drinking.
I wonder if the different regulations and lock-downs across the various parts of the North have actually increased travel across regions and spread the virus.
This behaviour has created an equilibrium between the virus and the population.
Is There A East Anglian Equilibrium?
These are the figures for the three East Anglian counties.
- Cambridgeshire – 596
- Norfolk – 536
- Suffolk – 531
There is not a large spread in the figures.
Other Areas
I have looked at other areas and a similar pattern seems to apply, where the figures are more or less the same in somewhere like the West Midlands, the South West (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire) or Wales.
Will The Return Of Strictly Cause The Number Of Cases Of The Covids To Drop?
The phrase Bread and Circuses, was apparently first used by Juvenal, who was a Roman poet
During the covids, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose and others have delivered the bread.
And now the BBC is bringing on the circuses with the start of the new series of Strictly from tomorrow.
If the rate does drop, the Government should buy up the latest James Bond film and show it on a Friday night.
How Covids-Unfriendly Is A Class 345 Train?
These pictures show Crossrail’s Class 345 trains.
Note.
- This example was a nine-car train going to Heathrow.
- It is 205 metres long and can carry 1500 passengers.
- As with most London Underground trains, most of the passengers sit longitudinally.
- Having watched people on these trains several times in the last few weeks and feel that the design encourages social-distancing
But there are other big advantages, when it comes to suppressing the virus.
- Each car has three sets of sliding doors on each side, which is more than most trains. As the lobbies on the train are spacious, does this help the maintaining of social-distancing, when entering and leaving the train.
- The trains are walk-through, so if you end up with a car, that is full of mask deniers, it is easy to move.
- The trains have full air-conditioning, which should reduce the amount of virus in the air.
I hope Transport for London are watching the statistics for the covids, to see if they go up or down, as more new trains are introduced on Crossrail routes.
The Anonymous Widower 