Jim Stewart's Blog

There are numerous sites in numerous countries reporting data on the virus. We all know that we need to keep that R0 below one, that is one of our conditions for restarting normality.

Unfortunately R0 cannot be calculated until you have widepread illness. For those that understand MC calculations it is equivalemt to having a small unrepresentative source. For those of you that don’t just imagine this – the country becomes virus free. A family of 5 flies in to the country and goes in to quarantine. Unfortunately one has the virus, and passed it to the other four. That gives an R0 of 4. Is 5 people with the virus enough to shut down a country?

There does need to be a bit nore thought than that, andI know PHE also look at the total numbers. But one thing that seems clear is that the recent increases in Europe seem to be driven by young people (that is the unrepresentative part of the source term for geeks).

I remember I had measles when I was young and didn’t understand why I suddenly had so many friends. It was a common thing to get kids infected while they were young. It certainly is an issue for mumps – the difference in effect between kids and adult men is dramatic.

So is a limited spread of the virus in the young a disaster. Certainly, like other viruses, there can be complications. But what if this is the best way to protect them as adults? We just don’t know.

What I do know is that there is an attempt to expain the actions of governments in really simple clear terms, and really you can’t. A simple single number is missleading. 

What I discovered this week is that there were 4 cases of the virus in Southport in the last week. That gives me a lot more confidence that things are not too bad. I know there are real issues with personal information, but maybe the more local information we have the better it will be. Forewarned is forearmed.

I’ve just realised I still have my booking for a hotel for the August bank holiday. Should I cancel? They need the money, hotels have been hit hard.

I heard about a couple this week that needed help pruning their vines, so they put out a call on the internet and hundreds of people volunteered to help.

But hang on – why were they short of people? What they have are a bunch of free labour. This at a time when there are so many people being laid off. Are these good hearted volunteers taking up jobs that people need?

There certainly has been a change in the attitude of people – lots of people are helping each other.

But surely we need to be careful, maybe we should be employing people to do some of these things to spread some of the money around.

So the 5m critter that washed up on the beach was apparently a half decayed whale. Amazing thinking of all the life that is under the water we look at from the beach.

Just the other night I came across a toad making tracks for a neighbours drive.

I always find it funny when I see the idyllic trips to the countryside on TV dramas. There never seem to be any critters in them.

We often live in nature free bubbles. So much so that we are shocked that we have a virus that has crossed from animals to us because of people eating strange things. But is it us that are sdo removed from nature that makes it sound so strange.

Last night I walked past the rugby field on my late night walk. I could hear a party going on in the field as I passed. On my way back they were leaving, several staggering, and two car loads (makes you wonder if they had designated drivers). At the side of the road there was one of the group face down not moving. I pointed him out to the group and they started checking for a pulse – yes he was that far gone.

A police van drove past and didn’t stop. I couldn’t help thinking, why should they stop and put themselves at risk because somebody was silly enough to drink too much.

The news tonight raised the thought that we might need to close pubs to open schools. I’m not sure that is an option that will deal with the sort of drunk behaviour.

But when you think about what they are saying it is not so much about what we should open, but is actually about where we should allow the virus to spread, in schools or in pubs. Welcome to the new normal.

Watching practice today and there was a crash. The car started to skid, the driver corrected to get control, failed, then tried again and it worked – just too late.

When you get taught about skidding you are told to steer in to the skid – point the wheels in the direction you are travelling. This allows the wheels to turn and get connected to the road again. Only after you have control you should turn toward the way you want to go.

This is the rules of pandemic control. People will only obey restrictions for so long, then they will start to disobey – government control is no longer pointing us in the right direction (this is one reason for starting lockdowns just before numbers rise, because the aim is to cover as much of the tail end of the wave as possible).

So people head to beaches, go on protest marches, and more importantly meet each other indoors (if you want to meet people then a house is the last place to meet).

So what does government do, well they steer in to the skid. They announce more relaxations in line with what people are doing. And once they gain control again they start to steer back toward where they want the country to go.

Following the science is not just about numbers of infections – it is just as much about managing a society by consensus. I don’t think it is any surprise that the stronger the state control of a society the better the response to coronavirus seems to be.

One of the big successes in one country was apparently that all infected people were placed in isolation wards (no self-isolation), and their families were placed in isolation houses (I think that means a cosy prison). That hit the virus on the head quickly.

What price are we willing to pay for personal freedom? It is part of our Human Rights. But do we have Human Responsibilities as well as Rights? One item I can’t find in the European Human Rights Convention which is in the Universal Declaration is

Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

What does that mean to you? How does that fit in with following lockdown rules?

There is a comet going over the earth at the moment. If you live on the west coast you will probably realise there has been cloud cover almost every night for the last two weeks stopping you from seeing it.

Hah! You think it was just clouds. Have you seen those offshore windmills? You think they are there to generate electricity. Nooo. They are actually a set of massive fans that blow my misty chemical mix over the west of England that assures compliance by the masses. My first step in world domination.

Crazy isn’t it, but pretty tame compared to some of the ideas out there. The advantage of such crazy things circulating on the internet is that we pay less attention to the crazy things that are happening in reality. Stay sane.

I saw an advert tonight about a tooth fairy advertising on TV and her business went through the roof. I see amazon trying to expand their business in to grocery delivery. It got me thinking about the definition of success.

A company that isn’t growing is stagnating, it isn’t considered a good investment. Yes there are arguments about economic growth improving our lives, but actually economic growth can be through different means, the means we favour at the moment channel the benefits of growth to those at the pointy end of the company systems.

There was a guy called Don that used to work for me. He had four brothers that were directors in major multi-nationals. But he was a low level in the organisation and refused to be promoted. He liked his life. He liked his cricket, and he would often have the head of the organisation visit him to chat about scores. His idea of success was not to progress, but to be content.

Then it struck me about the Brexit argument. Both sides were arguing that their way was the best way to do better. There was an assumption that the country needed to do better, to improve over all. But the UK is already in the top 30 countries based on GDP per capita. Why are we focusing on getting more money? Maybe it would be better to focus on how we use the money? Why is it that in a country that is in the top 30 there are so many needing to use foodbanks?

An odd coincidence today, the film of Animal Farm was on TV, and it was also one of the questions on Pointless.

I watched the film. I remember studying the book at school. Sadly the teacher never explained the background to the book but just focused on the text. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more with the context explained.

One part of the film stood out to me. The animals decided to destroy everything that reminded them of the hateful farmer. They had a book burning. I wondered about how that related to the statue removal going on. Maybe not so much a clear relation to the statues, but certainly there is a relation to Gone with the Wind.

It reminded me of the Mary Whitehouse days, where she declared which films she found offensive. There is no doubt she represented a large group of society – but should we have withdrawn those films because of their offence?

There is no doubt that many oppressive regimes start with book burning. It was interesting that one of the first actions of the Trump regime was to purge documents. Likewise the UK government website has reduced access to a wide range of documents that used to be readily available (does government produce documents for the political class, or for the people).

Perhaps the more difficult thought I had was about that famous line “All animals are equal”. Are we currently saying “All lives are equal, but black lives are more equal than others”? I think probably not. But it did remind me that I needed to think twice about how popular right can so easily become wrong.

An interesting book with some pointers to the problem of lust for power.

I found it interesting seeing the virus reports for Spain. Terrible – such high numbers. Or are they. I spotted one thing – that some of the maps were much less detailed than the reports from Spain – making it look like much wider spread. The latest data from Spain was not being used. In fact the 7 day rolling average was 4 cases per 100,000 per day. Okay, that is four times higher than the UK. In Catalonia the rates are a bit higher 10 in 100,000. That is about the current rate in Leicester.

It just struck me that the data being presented was having a big influence on the messaging.

I also watched the programme about China and the virus tonight. Fascinating way of presenting information. “A UK scientist” said. This is what I call Mailspeak – the sort of language you find in the Daily Mail. You know, “Reports are…” – “My wife’s cousin, when he was drunk, said…”. When you are part of a story you get used being able to identify language like this. At the end of the programme the real message came out “The Chinese Communist Party must…” Quite a carefully crafted report to point a finger without real evidence of guilt. There is certainly a clear message being sent out about China. I wonder who is giving us the message and why.

Thankfully I don’t know many people that believe Bill Gates is injecting the world with microchips with the coronavirus vaccine. But I do know some.

We heard today that advertising of junk food was going to be restricted – because if we hear things time and time again we might follow them. The tainted truth that comes out of news sources must have an impact on us – and how do we resist.

Interesting seeing Kate Bottley in her bright red top on Songs of Praise. I guess she has to tone down a bit for the BBC. But it was really special to see a programme from the local area.

The red squirrel wood is always advertised as being in Formby, but I think the better end of the wood is in our village. Thankfully parking is harder at this end so there is a better chance of a quiet walk. That is as long as there is no Martian Invasion (it was where they filmed part of War of the Worlds). But it was interesting seeing the wood on TV. I know I can walk there, but there is something about seeing where you live on TV.

And then there were all those folk I know taking part, I don’t know if any of the people filmed 14 years ago realised they were going to be shown today.

I’m not sure why it means so much to see familiar faces and places on TV, but it meant something.

A lot of people choose to go “home” or be with family when they are ill (one of the big problems with the people really ill with this virus is the isolation). I guess at our core there is something that draws us to the familiar.

Douglas Adams described it really well – a piece of elastic that joins you to your place of birth.

There was an interesting travel programme on today that went to Lesbos and incidentally filmed some refugees arriving.

I remember sitting round a fire in a refugee camp with a bunch of Syrian men drinking their incredibly sweet tea (something like 6 spoons of sugar a cup). they were discussing where they should go in Europe. They asked me where I thought they would be best, and my answer was Syria. Every one of them responded positively to that – all of them loved their home and wanted to be there.

Yes, there are some refugees that want to move their life to a new country, but the majority I have met have not wanted to leave “home” and would really like the situation to change so they can go back.

I think you also see it with “ex-pats” who take a little bit of home with them to the country they move to. The Irish pubs that are in every major city in the world might even be a symptom.

We see people searching for ancestors – a big business.

Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple