WE'RE GOIN' DANN THE PUB IN ENGLAND FROM JULY 4th (or rather, I'm certainly not!)
Liverpool had two days of unsocially distanced celebrations
SIX MONTHS of 2020 have passed. After an extensive statistic analysis on 29th June 2020 (link below), the following facts have become clear, FACTS that is (links to data at foot of blog):
The UK was the hardest hit of all the G7 nations in the weeks leading up to early June.
England fared the worst in Europe for deaths.
Covid-19 deaths and excess deaths showed the UK worse than US, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.
The UK Testing and Tracing scheme will not be effective until September at the earliest. This is largely due to attempting a centrally stored data and distribution system, which so far has been totally inadequate, plus the abandonment of development of an App, which many other countries have been using for months. On alternate days, the Health Minister Matt Hancock last week announced that the government had turned to Apple/Google to use theirs, then stated that an App may well now be abandoned.
No “new numbers of people tested” data is issued anymore by the government. The maximum of 79,000 tests in a day is massively below the hundreds of thousands tested daily in Germany, USA and Russia. The UK was using all kinds of tests for its data, then after much criticism decided to abandon providing numbers entirely.
Finally the number of UK deaths per population continues to head the world table (after Belgium that is, see updated statistics at foot of today’s blog). This is surely absolutely disgraceful.
WORLD NEWS
Massive surges in all of South America and huge increases in North America indicate that the policies across Brazil and US States such as Texas and Florida where lockdowns have hardly come into place at all have led to desperate last minute measures to slow down the virus spread. Watch this space for all of July, to see a) how the virus spreads in Europe (Germany and Spain have seen relatively small spikes in the last week) and b) Whether many more extensive lockdowns are introduced in South America and USA.
Russia, India and Portugal figures indicate the virus is still in its first phase with many countries reporting the need to slow down re-opening of bars, cinemas and restaurants. Apart from Leicester in the UK, England is opening everything up. Plus, it’s going to be very decent weather in July 2020 in the UK so from my point of view, I’m most concerned about the virus spread over the next four weeks here in England.
TESTING - TREATMENT - VACCINE NEWS
The UK tests are STILL for essential workers (or their co-habitees). These are Antigen or Swab tests to see if you actually currently have the virus. They’re applied for online and delivered in a test site somewhere (usually drive-through) or a home test kit (which take ages to get the results back still).
The SARS CoV 2 IgG Antibody test (in the UK, US and Europe, this is the Abbott test which is 99-100% effective) can be taken at a cost in private clinics only so far. This test takes 24 hours to produce a result. Stocks of the similar Roche test are being directed towards currently Health professionals only, and currently in limited supply. These Abbott tests cost between £98 and £179 and have to be blood drawn from a vein, whereas there’s also a finger-prick almost instant test available at clinics from “SureScreen” which is slightly less reliable, but has Guy’s and St Thomas approval currently.
In the next 6 weeks, the finger-prick “Spike Response” test as mentioned in an earlier blog here, which also tests for antibodies, and also gives almost instant results, should be available. N.B. There are MANY other tests for Covid-19 antibodies, including here in the UK, and NONE of these are currently recommended here. In the US, there are three or four tests for antibodies which have received FDA approval, but the Abbott/Roche tests are still the most acknowledged as reliable.
There are 17 Vaccines further along in development of the 150 candidates are as follows at 29th June 2020 according to the WHO. Phase Three: Oxford/AstraZeneca……then, Phase Two Completed: CanSino (Beijing), Moderna (NIAID/US), Wuhan (Sinopharm/China), Sinovac (China), Novavax (China), BioNTech/Pfizer (Germany)..the rest are at Phase One and Pre-clinical trial levels and are scattered worldwide. The list of WHO vaccine development can be found here.
WELL…it’s all been a bit factual. We all do what we do, and while we listen to our own respective politicians bluster and make excuses, there’s a virus still extremely active and uncontrolled in many countries. Plus there’s a whole barrel load of industries about to go down the pan.
Comments always welcomed below.
Now, fancy a pint, mate?
Mounting deaths in Brazil and all of South America
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53222182
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632863-300-how-south-america-became-the-new-centre-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
https://walkin-clinic.co.uk/blood-tests/covid-19-antibody-test
WORLD DATA UPDATE (12 DAY CHANGE)
515,000 deaths worldwide as of 1st July 2020
Deaths Deaths/miliion pop.
Belgium 9750 (9700) 842 (840)
UK 43700 (43000) 645 (620)
Spain 28400 (27100) 610 (580)
Italy 34800 (34000) 575 (571)
Sweden 5300 (5000) 530 (500)
France 29800 (29600) 457 (454)
USA 130000 (121000) 395 (375)
Netherlands 6110 (6100) 357 (350)
Ireland 1740 (1700) 352 (350)
Chile 5700 (3800) 300 (200)
Peru 9700 (7500) 295 (230)
Brazil 59700 (51000) 281 (225)
Ecuador 4530 (4100) 257 (232)
Canada 8600 (8300) 228 (220)
Switzerland 1963 (1930) 227 (230)
Mexico 27150 (19000) 215 (160)
Portugal 1580 (1500) 155 (149)
Iran 11000 (10000) 130 (115)
Germany 9050 (8900) 108 (107)
….
Russia 9540 (7700) 65 (52)
…..
Pakistan 4400 (3100) 20 (14)
India 17500 (12600) 13 (9)