The world and her co-pilot know that the Brits are very fond of World War Two comparisons.
Well, here’s one for them, the Blitz from 1940-1941 claimed some 43,000 lives in Britain.
A combination of Covid and incompetence has claimed double that in the same period.
This week the awful figure of 100,000 was reached.
Was it inevitable?
Well, the folk in New Zealand would dispute that.
It is not breaking news to state that the Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson MP is a lazy bluffer.
Indeed, it has served him well throughout his life from Eton to Number 10.
However, when wartime comes around, and a pandemic is a kind of war, then you need to be on the ball.
He wasn’t.
The Brits have the highest death toll in Europe.
I’m reminded of the insanity of allowing the Cheltenham horse racing festival to go ahead, and many travelled from here in Ireland.
It was a super spreader event.
The Boris fella was enormously proud to say that he had shaken hands with folk in a hospital who had Covid.
Later he would spend some time in an ICU, where he narrowly missed receiving a Darwin Award.
Here on this island Partition has literally cost lives.
The lack of a 32 County approach has hampered health professionals’ efforts on both sides of the artificial boundary to utilise our geographical advantage.
Before Christmas, this state was the best performer in the European Union in suppressing the infection rate.
Within a few short weeks, we were the worst in the world.
Bowing to pressure, the government lifted the restrictions for Christmas.
This month, we have had more infections and, more deaths than all of the other Covid months put together.
The figure of 3,000 deaths has been reached this week in the 26 Counties.
Mercifully, the infection figures here on the island are starting to drop, and that’s because lockdowns actually work.
At the start of the pandemic, we immediately compared how we were doing by looks at the Brits and then across the Pond.
However, if you find that you’re doing better than countries run by these two, then you’re still no great shakes.
Conflicts between countries are often about resources, and at the moment, Covid vaccines are precious commodities.
This current spat isn’t a good look.
From either side.
Here is an excellent long read on the EU vaccine crisis.
Boris is visiting Fair Caledonia today to raise the spirits of those plucky Jocks, or something like that.
Wherever you are, please stay safe.
The Covid regulations are science-based, so try and remember that when they’re being announced by a politician you heartily detest.
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Phil,
I see you didn’t pass my first contribution on the EU’s vaccination shambles.
However, the most recent unilateral invocation of Article 16 by the EU which would have established a hard border between Ireland and NI suggests to many why the EU is not the benevolent force many make it out to be.
And the speed of the vaccine rollout confirms why the UK was right to pass on the EU commission’s vaccine procurement strategy.
You’re very much against anti-Irish racism and I applaud you for that. I similarly am very much against anti-Scottish racism of which, being resided in England I see more than a fair share of. I am also very much against the use of the term “Jocks” (plucky or otherwise) in reference to us Scots (that includes your good self by the way – however much you try to hide the fact) is it is very much used as a derogatory term down this way. Please don’t use it – refer to us as Scots, or if you really have to, as North Brits. Ta.
As far as Covid deaths are concerned, Schadenfreude is rarely a good look.
The plucky EU screwed up its vaccine procurement by delegating it to incompetents at the EU commission.
It appears now to be trying to pass the buck.
Some of the German newspapers are not buying that story though.
“The sclerotic and sluggish EU machine has delays, and in-fighting, national self-interest and sheer bungling bureaucracy have combined to cripple the EU’s vaccine efforts.”
Alexander von Schoenburg, editor of Bild
“Germany has bet on Europe, and lost heavily.”
Die Zeit
Phil, I love your blog but you have brought me to despair.
I’m sorry if I have misunderstood but are you suggesting that we all take a zero Covid approach?
If that is the case then you are sadly misguided/delusional and quite simply spreading utter nonsense. I will explain why in a moment.
For me zero Covid believers and flat earthers are in the same category and that’s saying something!
It is statistically impossible for any country on earth (including New Zealand) to achieve zero Covid without a perpetual lockdown of borders. Even perpetual lockdown of borders may not be sufficient to keep the virus out.
Covid-19 or a variant of it will be circulating in the population for the rest of our lifetimes and probably a few lifetimes after that.
There is no cure for Covid, only vaccines.
Zero Covid requires Covid to die off naturally without any medical intervention (no cure for it) across the entire world. That is simply not possible. With regards the vaccines that we currently have, the efficacy and uptake will not be sufficient to eradicate this virus.
I’ll give you a simple arithmetic exercise. If 60% of the population take the vaccine and the real efficacy number is 80% then multiplying the two will give you the vaccination rate of the population. This would put vaccination at best at 48%. There is a remaining 52% of the population that will be unvaccinated and the virus will circulate amongst these people (most will be completely unaffected).
I don’t think there are many people out there that don’t think the virus is dangerous, it is! But, you and everyone else will need to accept that this virus is here forever.
My prediction as to how this will play out: BTW, I only look at this from a statistical point of view and my logic is entirely numbers based. My record thus far on the behavious and spread of the virus has been pretty much on the money. I have been entirely consistent since pretty much early February of 2020.
In the next 2-3 weeks you will see a rapid decline in transmission numbers, as transmission pathways are greatly reduced and have been for the past month. Whilst you don’t need 100% compliance across the population for social distancing, masks etc., the compliance rate that we have is sufficiently high enough to interrupt transmission which will see a large drop off in numbers.
I believe we will largely be opened up again by mid to late summer. There will be enough vulnerable people vaccinated to allow us to get back to a semblance of normality. Governments are terrified and will use the vaccination program as a valid reason to reopen the country. Our national debt in Ireland now stands at €47,700 for every man woman and child on the island. We have no choice but to reopen, as we are a busted flush.
People need to face reality. The virus is here forever, we will vaccinate and protect the vulnerable, we will have to live with this and I assure you with every fibre in my body that we will get back to normal again.
We are nearly there.
Hypocrite! YOU moaned about the media printing an unflattering picture of Lennon, yet you do the same with Johnson!
Whilst I have no love for the man, it’s only right to point out your hypocrisy in printing the picture of him bowling a cricket ball.
Morelos should have retrospective punishment for the knee stamp. It was a red card all day long.
Over to u SFA compliance officer.
That’s odd, the Irish reporter Gemma O’Doherty received an official statement from the Irish Health Board admitting that they do not have an isolated specimen of the Covid-SARS 2 virus.
The Canadian journalist Christine Massey received the same statement from the Canadian government’s health board admitting that no one on Earth has isolated the Covid-SARS 2 virus.
Now as an alleged journalist yourself, don’t you think you ought to to take a little deeper look into this, Phil?
For if they don’t have an isolated of the virsu how can they possibly have a vaccine?
You really need to,put your thinking cap on, my son.
Otherwise it’ll begin to appear that you’re just going a long with the hoax by the mass media.
Star5 by asking yourself why annual flu death have dropped in the UK from 50,000 to pa to around 14,000 and you should get a good idea of how they’re rewatching these numbers.
And stop with your Brit shit.
If you’d watch that movie I sent you instead of blocking your fictitious fantasies will be turned upside down.
If he was in any other line of work Corporate manslaughter charges would be filed.
Anyone who votes Tory seriously needs to take a long hard look at themselves before the next Elections.
An IQ test of say 10 and above might also be a consideration?
As for Von Thatcher and the EU I wonder when the next tranche of Central Bank Bailout money is due to be grovelled for?
€1Trillion already in the hole and counting…
That was a very useful and well researched article. Thank you.
But who are the Brits? I keep asking that owing to my experiences and history as a south-west Scot. As I’ve said before, I come from a republican background and know from the villages around that the butchers bill from both wars meant that no-one here celebrated those events. It didn’t feel like victory when almost no-one came back from the first, and a scarred remnant came back from the second.
I know that English footie pundits have always used (to an embarrassing degree), war metaphor at certain international occasions and its no surprise that English footie supporters have behaved accordingly. There are sections of the Scottish footie population who have a Unionist bent and also betray the same mentality. I also know that on the mainland, particularly in the southern regions, there is a confusion of use of the terms English and British.
Just like here in Scotia, there is a certain lack of clarity in the present use of the phrase ‘Old Firm’.
Hail-hail
Calling Scots ‘Jocks’ is akin to calling Irish people ‘Paddies’.
Boris is visiting Fair Caledonia to prop up an ailing Scottish Branch of his toxic party which is led by Douglas Ross, a man who seemed desperate to prove there was indeed a less popular career choice than a match official in Football. I hardly think this was essential travel and was buoyed by reports that several Scots reported him to the Polis for breach of Covid rules. Less so by the fact that, Secretary of State for Scotland, Alistair Jack, when challenged in Westminster siad something along the lines of. “the prime minister governs the entire United Kingdom and can go where and do what he wants” Which shows the utter distain that the old school tie network running Wastemonster have for regional constitutional settlements. Not that I’m surprised in teh slightest of course.
Your spot on Phil, the majority of Scotland doesn’t want only the unionists. He’s about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
You can file his actions /inactions under gross negligence.
He also takes buffoonery to an even higher level.
Non essential trip but will galvanise independence vote. Will he meet the Tory fishermen?