Two months later and little has changed

 

It's two months later and not much has changed! Just the colours of the trees here in Zhytomyr where I happen to be once more.

This time the Ukraine government had closed its borders to 'foreigners' in an attempt to bring some increase in new COVID cases under control but it didn't make any noticeable difference. Maybe they merely increased at a slower rate. Like in almost every other country across the planet, however, the average number of new cases per day over the previous seven days per 100,000 population has been steadily increasing.

I had considered that a number of 5 per 100,000 was quite big, and that 4 was what some countries were using to denominate a Green / Red Zone. Now vast parts of the planet are showing numbers like 10 or more. 

The chart shows how many European nations compare. Leaving Montenegro to its own devices, the rest, while covering a range of rates, do show one thing very clearly - they're pretty much all doing the same thing! No one country's data is changing in a way that is much different from any other. Despite what are very great differences not only in government intervention but also in the extent to which people obey the rules, everywhere is proceeding pretty much in the same direction.

This leads me to just one conclusion: it doesn't really seem to matter what we do. The virus will spread one way or another and do its own thing. There is not a great deal we can do about it as a nation or even as a county or town. Individually, we can keep out of trouble and simply not go anywhere near anyone who might have it and those of us who manage that will probably get through unscathed but it will be a minority unless there is a vaccine or the virus just fades away.

So I have suggested that the government just let us make our own minds up on all this. I do believe that there is a great risk for the vulnerable and that they should be encouraged to lock themselves away or, at least, steer well clear of any risks. I also think it is important to respect what others may want. So if colleagues prefer to maintain a distance and do not want us close or to worry them then we should respect that. It may mean that we keep a good distance away but, where that is impracticable, then I think they should stay away and let us do what we wish, respecting our views as well. Those who worry about catching the virus in shops or pubs or events shouldn't go to shops or pubs or events. Then they won't catch it that way. And we can carry on without worrying that we're upsetting people by not wearing a mask or whatever.

Some of us will catch the virus, I'm sure. Most of us will get through it, though, and those who don't will, largely be the people who should perhaps have locked themselves away so their fate is their own decision. 

It may sound irresponsible and careless but I do believe that for the vast majority of us this will be a better existence and will enable most of the nation to get back to work and help repair the badly damaged economy. The country needs people in work and living reasonably normal lives so that we can feel better generally, with less stress and making sufficient resources available to care for those who are not so fortunate. With most of us not earning a living then the funds for health care will soon diminish and real problems will arise for those who succumb.

We are, as individuals or family groups, very capable of making decisions about the risks we face in our daily lives. Coping with the risk of COVID-19 is going to be just one addition we need to bear in mind. But let us decide what we feel comfortable doing, not a government. If a massive mob of teenagers is descending on the local pub then I may well decide that that's too great a risk for me and I'll leave. Naturally I'd be happier if they keep away but I'm not going to have some law telling them to do so. Similarly, I go into a store and will generally steer fairly clear of others there. If someone approaches me a bit too closely and is coughing and spluttering then I'll do my best to escape his proximity! Yes, it'll be a drag but no, I don't want laws about all this. By and large I would like to think that such groups or sick individuals would realise that what they may be doing is wrong or, at least, inconsiderate and adjust their behaviour over time in the light of experience and what they learn.

Here in Ukraine I see a few more masks but few worn properly. Life does carry on much as it did before and I cannot think of anything that isn't functioning these days. The numbers of cases reported have gone up but are following the same curves as everywhere else. I think that if I was going to get the virus I would have got it by now. I know I take a chance every time I go out on a bus or walk in a busy street. It is in my mind, for sure, and I don't feel as safe as I do in rural Astcote! Having said that, I have to go round Tescos and in and out of a few shops each week in Towcester and I am not so sure the risk is that much lower there than here.

I will return to the UK in a few days' time and there will be the risk of the airports and the plane journey itself to survive. I was hoping that the weather might be better than the grey, very grey days I'm having here, hardly ever leaving an apartment because of the weather, not fears for my wellbeing! From what I can gather, however, there is rain and more rain there too. I will be happier on ground level, though, and able to walk out of a door and stroll around a garden or field for a while. I miss that here where I am nine stories up and the field is a bit of a walk away.

Is it chaos or just life as normal in the Green Zone

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that we have got our reaction this COVID-19 threat completely wrong. If I am still in good health in a couple of weeks then I will be certain of it. I am writing this in Zhytomyr, a town in Ukraine where I arrived on a very hot Wednesday 5th August. Suddenly, a few days earlier, the UK and Ukraine both became members of the Green Zone by virtue of someone calculating that their number of 'active cases' had fallen below a certain figure and this meant that I was no longer required to go through a hugely complicated process to enter the country.

A short while ago I would have had to download an app which would report my whereabouts and require me to take a photograph of myself in a particular place within 15 minutes of a request to do so. The app was totally written in Ukrainian and indecipherable to me. I had, with the help of my friend, started to enter some data which I had expected to need, when she told me to stop because people had been reporting problems if the address entered did not tie in with the location assessed by the app's geo-location software. Better to wait until I arrive in Ukraine, she suggested, and I could merely show the border patrol people that it was installed. at least.

In addition I would have to be tested at a specified medical place in town within 24 hours of arrival. If I were found to be free of the virus then the app would be notified by the medical centre and it should then inform me accordingly that I need not remain locked in a particular location thereafter. Despite all their best efforts, though, there had been reports of delays in notification and incorrect results too. So i was not too enthusiastic about the prospect of not being able to leave an apartment for the duration of my stay here.

Finally, I would have to demonstrate that I had insurance that would meet the costs of any medical expenses incurred should I get afflicted with COVID-19 whilst in the country. I had purchased suitable insurance in March but, unfortunately, not only would it be invalid as a result of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office not recommending travel to Ukraine but, even if, as it turned out, that restriction was lifted prior to my departure, the company issuing the policy needed to have an administrative office of some sort in Ukraine! Mine didn't. For a while this massive hole in the road for anyone trying to get to Ukraine virtually prevented getting here but then the Powers That Be introduced a nifty button on the VisitUkraine website which enabled insurance cover to be arranged at a quite modest cost for the duration of the trip. I had been worried that there might be an age limit or some restriction for previous health issues but no, oldies like me were accepted and so I was able to see how to overcome one hurdle at least.

I was prepared to take a chance on the results thing but, to my delight, the UK changed from Red Zone to Green Zone and all that testing and quarantine stuff evaporated away, leaving only the insurance requirement and a bundle of papers to show the border patrol officer.

On arrival at Zhulainy Airport, a pleasant and efficient little airport, it soon became clear that most travellers from the UK had not done their homework. They might have learned when they boarded the plane as we were all asked to show our insurance documents. As they arrived at the border patrol officer's window they all started having to dive into their cases once more, not only for the same document but also for some paperwork which would show where they would be staying and with contact details. No-one seemed to have completed the forms and so were trying to dictate awkward-sounding addresses to the officer and it all took a great deal of extra time. Yes, I had everything all ready. I was determined not to fall at that sort of hurdle!

The real surprise, however, came as I left the airport. Almost no-one had a mask or face covering. No-one seemed to pay any attention to what we call social distancing. Taxi drivers were just like they had always been and there was no cleaning of seats every time someone got out. I had rather suspected that even in the UK this wouldn't be likely to happen but the drivers might make a semblance of effort at least. 

The bus from Kyiv outskirts to Zhytomyr was pretty full and stiflingly hot. A couple of passengers wore face coverings but that was all. To be honest it was quite a relief not to have felt obliged to wear mine in such heat and, instead, I spent most of the long journey leaning forward to attempt to make the most of the cooler air flow from a nozzle above my friend's seat. Real chaos ensued on the local buses in Zhytomyr town. Usually jam-packed anyway, they had been restricted to certain numbers prior to May but since the easing of many restrictions in the country, people just clambered aboard and stood close to each other as they always had done. There was an occasional face covering but the majority of people seems to dangle theirs from one ear or not bother at all. It was ruddy hot and I can well understand. Mine stayed in my pocket for the most part. Only on entering shops and offices did we use them and even then, if a brief look around showed that no-one was bothering with them, they were dropped or removed again.

One notable exception was on the trolley buses. Here a small round lady would control the numbers getting on at each stop to ensure that there were the same number as were seats available. Needless to say, I spent most of the journey wondering why on Earth an old chap with a dirty old shopping bag was hanging from a bar above my seat and blocking everyone's passage down the bus when there were plenty of seats empty.

In the streets people busily went about their business or shopping or just chatting in the street much as I reckon they always had done. I started trying to give others a wide berth and to avoid breathing in any air that might have recently been breathed out by a passer-by. That didn't last very long. Old and young, healthy-looking and infirm, men and women, all of us basically seemed to be operating on the basis that there was no such thing as COVID-19 or, if there were, it was no great shakes and, as with each years 'flu, what will be will be.

All so very different to the UK that I had left only a short time earlier. There our behaviour is much more tightly regulated and, whilst there may have been some areas where the number of new cases has been growing rapidly, generally we seem now not to be experiencing anything very different in ill health or deaths than might have been expected in any average year. It is also worth noting that even our very heavy death toll of 46000 is of similar magnitude, proportionately, to the deaths from Asian 'flu in 1957 when we took little precaution other than common sense.

We get angry at the mobs or youths and not-so-young too congregating at holiday beaches or tourist beauty spots and decry their irresponsibility at 'spreading the virus'. Personally I am more angry at the mess they leave behind and lack of good manners so many seem to show when they leave their council estates and carry-out meals in front of massive buy-now-pay-later tvs on their reclining buy-now-pay-later sofas to share the real British countryside. Do we ever read about any of these idiots getting ill or dying? Or, for that matter, those who might be expected to suffer from their proximity, the people who actually live in these lovely places. 

I think we should encourage them all to get the hell out of Britain and soil some foreign country's beaches if they have to behave that way. Make it easier to travel abroad, not more difficult. And let's not stop there. Let's lift all the restrictions and just get back to life as it was at the start of the year, or as close as we can get to that. By all means be selective about who we permit to join us from other places but the true chaos is, in my opinion, going to be in the United Kingdom, not Ukraine from here forward.

COVID-19 New Cases around the world

As mentioned in the last article, I have been watching the data across the world and, i particular, the numbers of new cases each day and my sheet expresses these as the number per 1m population. This, I feel, provides a better comparison that mere totals and the total active cases seem most unreliable with totally different methods of calculation in different places.

I do appreciate, of course, that there will also be huge problems in the reliability of some of the data from countries with poor recording or testing facilities or procedures. This will almost certainly mean that where the virus has taken hold in a poor, less well-equipped country then the  number of active cases must be significantly higher than the official data shows. or all that, I do feel this is a useful guide, especially as 'active' cases are not available for the UK and some other countries and it is really to see how we're doing in comparison to others that I do this. More in hope than anything else these days, though.

I got a mouthful from some woman in Portugal when I put these on Facebook. She was most offended that I had shown Portugal as red and UK as a nice apple green. Clearly, as she pointed out amongst the huffing and puffing, every country will have lovely safe places where no-one is ill and you can happily visit and hug people and wander around without a mask. I am sure Portugal has many. But unless someone provides me with all the detailed regional data all I can share is the national stuff and, indeed, that is what tends to guide authorities, for better or worse. But, yes, don't make any decisions based on what I publish. It's purely data, made a little more comprehensible.

Depending upon what I am doing with this sheet from time to time it may change to show all the days or may be filtered to show just Europe or just certain areas of the planet.

Stuck in the Red Zone

This is not exactly Astcote news but I feel I need to write about the continuing confusion and difficulties getting away. There is a definite sense that we are pretty much clear of the virus in this part of the country and people are, albeit cautiously still, coming out and moving around a lot more than they have been doing for many weeks. With this new-found freedom, however, comes the dreaded masks, or I should say, face covering. I am not at all fond of the things which strap around your ears and have instead acquired a supply of quite nice banadanna things. They're made of thin material, seem quite easy to breathe through and look a lot more decent and, if not natural, a little less science fiction. However, I am still not inclined to wear them unless I really have to and I really will have to in shops in a week's time.

I shall be doing my best to avoid shops, therefore, while this face covering thing is necessary. With that in mind, and also encouraged by beginning to look more like a tree than a human, I got a haircut in Towcester yesterday. It was totally unplanned, a spur of the moment thing and I simply called in at the first salon I came to after parking my car. A nice Romanian chap did a first class job and took so long I wondered whether he'd ever finish. With no-one else in sight, though, I guess it didn't matter. I had intended to hang on until I reached Zhytomyr where an excellent young lady would take care of my thatch for a very small price but goodness only knows when I will get there.

Ukraine still lists the UK as a Red Zone and so I would have some difficulties on arrival. There has been an improvement and some much-needed clarification, however. It seems that I would have to download an app on my phone using a Ukraine SIM card. Luckily my phone can have two SIM cards so that is feasible but not for many people I would imagine. It will, however, be entirely in Ukrainian so I won't have a clue what it says but Olga would be able to help.

Having downloaded the app and shown this to Border Police on arrival (assuming I manage that on my own, that is!)  I can then choose either to have a test within 24 hours in Zhytomyr or quarantine myself for 14 days at a stated address. If the test shows I am clear of the virus then a message should be sent to my phone and the app will no longer be needed. Until then, however, or if I choose not to have a test at all, I will be called at random by some official who will want to see a selfie of me at the stipulated address given on arrival. If I do not do this within 15 minutes I can be arrested and taken to Chernobyl to do gardening or something.

Knowing Ukraine administration, however, I have some doubts that my results would be communicated very quickly, if at all, or that I would recognise the message if it arrived. And, of course, there is the small matter of the possibility of my results being mixed up with someone who has got the virus - or, God help me, I do actually have it! - and I finish up in some grotty hospital miles from anyone who speaks English.

So I am inclined not to go until the UK is Green - but there lies another problem. It seems that to go Green a country has to have fewer than 400 'active' cases per 100,000 population. So that's about 25000 for the UK. Now, I cannot find any statistics anywhere that provide the number of 'active' cases for the UK. I can find 'accumulated total' cases since Year Dot and 'new' cases each day but not 'active' cases. So I assume that it is reasonable to calculate 'active' cases as the number of people who had the virus but have not yet got better. I can add up the number of 'new' cases over the last month and that is about 25000. OK, but many of those people will have recovered or probably not even had any problems to get better from in many cases. And surely there will not be many people who have had it for more than a month? So the total could be, in reality, pretty close to, if not quite a lot lower than 25000 and the UK is, in my view, definitely in the Green Zone.

So why do we appear in the Red Zone all the time? My conclusion is that there is a fundamental error that seems to have been missed. We are testing 200,000 or more people every day and record those who have the virus. What we don't do is test people later so there is no evidence that they do not have it any more. The records for the vast majority of people are simply that they had it and, to all statistical intents and purposes, still have it and are thus 'active'! Without a procedure to test the same vast numbers again and take them off the 'active' list the UK is well and truly buggered in terms of how it will be viewed by other nations. Probably for ever.

Consequently, assuming nothing gets done about this (and I have written to some well-connected people), I shall just go on 5 August and hope for the best. I have a ticket for 22 July but I think I won't make that one. 5 August is OK and I return on 21 August. Then I have another for 7 September and again 12 October. I am hoping that we can have a holiday in October / November, probably Malta as the weather will be nice then.

I had been watching the list of Green Zone countries, which supposed to be updated daily, slowly scrolling to the bottom and hoping that United Kingdom would appear, doing this several times a day. Now I have come to the conclusion that it is not going to happen anytime soon. 

But you can check here. Just in case. You never know!

Who'll stop the rain?

After weeks of really hot sunshine it rained this weekend aand there was hail in June. In fact, just along the road the hail had accumulated and looked exactly like some snow that might have been there since January. Clearly, that spot must have its own minute climate as it was many hours later when I had ventured out after the storm had subsided.

With a bit of luck this might have put off some of the people planning to join a protest march in whatever town or city the marxist agitators had arranged as the place to chuck things at police, knock out some windows and generally frighten residents nearby. Whilst there are, of course, many people who genuinely wish to make a point, hold up a placard, get some attention for whatever it is they think needs to be fixed this week, or still hasn't been fixed to their liking since last week, month, year or, in most cases ever, there are forces at work within society that aim to maximise the impact of these events. Violence erupts and property gets damaged. Often just a small group of organisers can be most effective. They start by working on social media to get people worked up and usually succeed in concentrating marches or gatherings in a particular place for maximum effect. There they excite those who can be excited and swell their own numbers so that when the nasty stuff starts later there are many more getting involved who had no intention at the outset of doing much more than moaning for a while. 

The object of the exercise is seldom of any relevance to the cause declared on the placards. 

In a matter of a week or so we have seen journalists shouting and pushing and shoving as they try to interview a government adviser who they had been told had broken the lockdown rules. Oddly, it was perfectly OK, it seems, for them to do so as well. But they were hardly likely to dob each other in, were they? And anyway, it was all on TV and whatever the cries of foul that viewers might utter at home, they wouldn't be heard. Then we see thousands of people gathering and definitely not keeping either to groups of 6 or even anywhere near a safe distance from each other as they did their demonstrations and moaning in various cities this weekend.

Yes, indeed, one rule for us, one rule for them.

Brilliant! BBC meeting to decide how to fill the year's schedule.

The Clap Trap

I do hope this business of people standing around banging pots and clapping every Thursday at 8pm comes to an end soon. I mean as some sort of national requirement that makes a top or second to top news item each evening two hours later. I have nothing against anyone showing their appreciation for the good work done by others, although I am quite relieved that there is not an out-of-work opera singer or bagpipe player living within earshot who wishes to do so. Everyone should be free to say thank you, draw rainbows or whatever. What seems to have developed, though, is criticism of those who do not participate.

It seems that it is necessary to be seen clapping and that has become as important a feature of the procedure as the sign of appreciation itself. It is like praying to one's God or whatever similar activity a person may wish to do in line with his religion or belief. Some people need to demonstrate that they are praying, attending church on Sunday or whatever when most religions I know about refer to being modest and not making any obvious outward show of intent. To pray quietly in the peace of one's own home seems far more genuine and desirable than to do so noisily in public.

Although everyone's clapping is not praying the two activities are similar in many ways and I think there has been enough public, organised 'thank you' activity. Indeed, just the one would have been extremely effective, as would, I suggest, celebration when we finally get something definitive by way of an all-clear of the virus or a vaccine produced.

I like all my neighbours. I do appreciate the hard work put in by many, many people in all walks of life to help keep me and my friends and family safe. I would just feel uncomfortable standing outside my door at a set time on a set day clapping. It's not something I feel at ease doing. It would be unnatural and the sole reason I would have done so would have been to have been seen doing so. Now I have to put up with the niggling thought that one or two people will be asking themselves, or each other, why I was not out there clapping or banging a spoon on a pan.

Things were going well for a while but now the virus and events around it are getting political. We have seen several efforts to make the Government ministers feel embarrassed, possibly hoping they might resign and slowly build support for the opposition. First blame for some shortages of protective equipment is placed on various ministers. No-one seems to ask what part the very well-paid and numerous senior executives running the NHS and other services might have played. They were, indeed the people whose job descriptions will have included ensuring the adequacy of supplies - and that would, I presume, include more that just asking for them and moaning when they don't receive them.

Secondly, blame for our either being locked down too late in the day or, bizarrely on the other hand too, for actually being locked down at all is placed on various ministers. None of them are experts in this field. There may have been scenarios played out in years gone by when the country's response to different types of threat were conducted and weaknesses here and there shown up. Whether any of our ministers were familiar with these or recommendations when all this blew up I don't know but I doubt anyone was particularly well-briefed personally and will have relied heavily upon the advice provided by those who, again, are paid handsomely from the public purse for doing so.

I maintain that, whoever had been in Government, whatever their political affiliation. then there would now be blame placed on them and the same amount of whingeing and journalists constantly asking questions about whether they should have done this or that several weeks ago when the public want to know what will be happening tomorrow and in the months ahead. I think we all largely accept that there may well have been better decisions taken at different times but we want to know now what decisions are being taken for the best outcomes in future.

I get the impression that most of the ministers directly involved in making decisions about my future are intelligent and sensible. I don't get the impression that they are being at all 'Conservative' but doing what they believe, after listening to advice from experts, is right. In contrast, we now have teachers' union officials stirring up great unease amongst a group who have tended to be Labour or Liberal voters in the main, in relation to the proposals to get children at certain ages to return to school soon. We expected that there would be parents who will be reluctant to move out of the security blanket that staying at home provides and I have talked before about those idiots who seek a guarantee that their child will not get the virus. Now, though, it is harder to get past a union decree that their members should not work until their representatives have been satisfied that it will be safe. Quite what these union officials can do that the people running the schools can't do is beyond me, especially as most, if not all the schools have been open ever since the damned virus first appeared.

Yes, it will be ruddy complicated. Yes, there will be times when it will be simply not be feasible to be 2 metres away or 100% certain that a surface does not harbour contagion. But all the experts I have heard talk about this, without any obvious political leaning in either direction, are saying that children appear to be far far less likely to suffer as a result of catching the virus and the numbers affected in any serious way are minute across the nation and that the risk to teachers in the school environment is no greater than in any other work environment.

You have expected our local supermarkets to be open and staff to be on duty. You have queued to buy non-essentials at a Garden Centre with staff there hauling plants and decking around for you but now you don't want to go into a classroom or you want to keep your child effectively locked in her room on the 7th floor of an apartment until September. Actually, I wouldn't mind betting that many of these left wing complainers and moaners are the same people who will be driving to some beach or barbecue area at the weekend and probably leaving their litter behind as well as their shit in someone's garden as they made no allowance whatsoever for public toilets being closed.

The Government cannot really win, whatever they do. It only takes a nurse to die and they'll be blamed for her PPE not being adequate. One child will get ill and they'll be blamed for encouraging a return too soon. Old folk will die in Care Homes and that will be their fault too, whether it is from the virus or not. Many businesses will collapse because they will have been shut for too long and unable to get going again. That will be the Government's fault for the length of lockdown. Almost everything that goes wrong will be their fault and it will be virtually impossible to argue against the opposition's complaints or journalists' insinuations that then become headlines in our newspapers and on our screens.

Boris Johnson might just as well hold his hands up now and say "OK. It's all my fault. Vote Labour in 2024."

Except it isn't. And you need to realise something. China is where this all started. The people to blame are the Chinese Communist Party. And no-one gets to vote for or against them. Indeed, in Hong Kong last week, those members of parliament who were objecting to a change in regulations being introduced by Chinese Communist Party representatives in Hong Kong were forcibly prevented from returning to the voting chamber. The rules state that only those present can vote and so a raft of changes became law against the wishes of, I suspect, the vast majority of Hong Kong citizens. When we ceded control of Hong Kong to an arrangement between Hong Kong and China there was supposed to be respect maintained for the independence of Hong Kong. This was enshrined in agreements made between the United Kingdom and China at the time. These agreements are now being eroded to such an extent that it is quite wrong to sit back and not object.

Perhaps those people so keen to moan at the UK Government might use their efforts better by focussing on what China is doing. Now there they would have good cause to argue, moan, whinge and shout. Why don't you? The virus has conveniently led to our taking the eye off the Hong Kong ball. And it will be Hong Kong citizens who will pay the penalty.