LIFE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS PART EIGHT

SATURDAY 2 MAY 2020 0700BST

I’ve succumbed. Yesterday I could stand my hair no longer and I gave myself a CoronaCut. I have two things to say on that. One, I actually didn’t do all that bad a job of it. Two, the hair salons and barbers are going to make a bloody fortune fixing all our CoronaCuts when this is all over.  

Meanwhile. Boris is back but not quite fully recovered. His breathing is still a little rough and there are whispers his lungs are compromised. Quite possibly. Big Woo. Aside from fervently wishing him well, let’s please to recall Churchill brought us through six horrific years of war with compromised lungs. And he lived to be 91 years old. May Boris enjoy so long a life.

Speaking of Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he and Carrie Symonds (his live-in fiancé) welcomed a son Wednesday 29^th April 2020 in the wee hours. No further info as to actual time, weight, and name. No photos either. When Boris wants to be private, he does private rather well.

Speaking of Boris Johnson and Winston Churchill, I’ve just bought a used 1^st edition copy of Johnson’s biography of Sir Winston.

In the USA, according to news reports and what Fox tells me he’s seeing ‘on the ground’, agitation to lift the mass ‘stay at home’ orders has risen to an alarming level – last week protesters swarmed into Michigan State House during session. No shots were fired but the legislators were so frightened by the protesters they voted down the Governor’s bill to continue the Public Health Order keeping everyone on a stay-at-home restriction.

Here in the UK we are still on ‘lockdown’. Supposedly the restrictions are to be reviewed and an announcement made on the 7^th of May (a Thursday) regarding any changes.There have been ‘interesting rumours’ floated through-out this nightmare. One being ‘basic income’ (with all our pensions and savings confiscated to be used towards giving everyone a ‘basic income’) – that one appears to have gone away as ‘not gonna happen’.

Another 'interesting rumour', this one currently making the rounds, has gained a bit of tractions. University Warwick put out a study the past few days saying the over-50yo lot should be on lockdown for the next year but younger people should be permitted to go as they please.

Naturally, this is not popular with the over-50s lot. It certainly has created a lot of popular press buzz but so far the Government isn’t talking.

Meanwhile, we now have a rather shocking death toll going on here in Britain and NI. Not the full story of just how many have died (and the accompanying stats regarding age, underlying conditions, ethnicity, etc. Apparently discussing those stats is considered racist as it shows when ‘ethnic minorities’ contract the virus and become seriously unwell with it, they tend to die (meaning they suffer horribly and then die either in hospital or ‘in the community’). Mustn’t have that uncomfortable conversation. The usual suspects (the professional victims) in the BAME ‘community’ agitated for a few days to make it sound as though the deaths in ‘their community’ were somehow a racist plot by whites to kill off the BAME population. Until it was revealed the ‘death toll’ is 57+% white. Then they stfu.

The death toll. Ah, yes, the death toll. By my calculations, the toll is 30,310. By the Government calculations, it’s ‘only’ 27K, owing to creative accounting – the other three nations in the UK apparently don’t ‘count’ when the English Department of Health release the daily ‘UK total’ – it is obvious they are not adding in the numbers from the other three (Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales).

Worse, NI, Scotland and Wales are not releasing a daily total that includes the horrific number (rising and not ‘peak’ yet) of deaths in care and nursing homes and ‘the community’. England now finally is adding those numbers into the daily total. Once a week Nicola Sturgeon (the First Minister of Scotland – and don’t you bloody forget her title when referring to her!) drops an astonishingly high number of recorded deaths that include the words ‘confirmed or suspected Coronavirus’ on the death certificate. But that number is never used again, the daily totals announced from Scotland revert to hospital only deaths. God only knows what numbers include in the daily NI announcement. As for Wales, sometimes the so-called UK totals include Wales, sometimes those totals do not. Yet the daily total is solemnly announced every afternoon by ‘the UK Government’ as the ‘UK Total’.

As such, I recognise my calculations are not perfect but at least mine include what numbers the other three nations release daily. It’s the best I can do in these utterly bizarre times we are living through.Like the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920, I don't think we'll know the full story, ever. After that one was over and the tally was attempted to be made, records keeping (and records skewing, let's be honest here) meant we'll never really know if the 'wildest toll number' of 'over 50 million globally' is accurate.