Guided by the science! Or not? SAGE has stated that ministers should be planning for a huge rise in Covid cases as schools reopen. The governments plan seems to delegate responsibility to schools without giving them any advice or powers. So no masks or bubbles, no advice on contingency plans for an outbreak other than – schools may contact public health authorities if certain thresholds are met. Does this mean that Williamson is on some extended safari somewhere secret and must not be disturbed? Maybe like Raab’s £40.000 holiday.
JOHNSON REWRITES THE DICTIONARY
Rather than calling a liar, it may be fair to say he is just rewriting the definition of somethings in the dictionary. I will start with “almost everyone’ and ‘overwhelming majority’ that have been used to mean ‘more than a few’ – in the context of evacuating people from Afghanistan where thousands of eligible people have been left behind to an unknown but probably grizzly fate.
AFGHANISTAN
BREXIT
NEW ZEALAND – COVID RESPONSE
It is interesting to see how restrictions can work. The outbreak there is slowing. The government identifies sites of interest and all who have visited these sites and their contact have to self isolate. These sites are updated and published every 2 hours. The government there are reasonably confident they can contain the outbreak and return to ‘normal’ soon.
TRADE ENVOYS
COVID AUGUST
As we have seethe government is on holiday and has left a big ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ notice in Whitehall. However the covid virus seems to be on the rise again. Figures in Scotland have risen from 799 on 2 August to 3190 on Sunday, which coincides with the schools going back there. Deaths per day across the country have risen to their highest since 18 March, and hospitalisations are nearing the 1000 per day mark. Well below figures in the Spring but still too high.
COVID STATS
POPULATION
I started teaching in 1976 and population was a major issue. Population Concern published great posters. Since then the world population has gone up from 4.2 billion to 7.6 billion. All those extra mouths to feed, bodies to house and clothes, excrement to be disposed of. Population growth has ceased to be an issue in much of Europe with a birth rate below 2.1, but immigration has become a major issue. In the same time period the population of Africa has almost trebled, SE Asia doubled.
A GREEN AGENDA
is urgently needed. Not piecemeal statements which will be picked over by the rightwing press like flies on a corpse, but a comprehensive document which cane sold to the public. One which shows that the main costs will be born by the wealthy not the poor. although how Steve Baker (rightwing MP will manage a U Turn on that will be interesting.