DID YOU REALLY THINK IT WAS ALL OVER?

TIME FOR MY MONTHLY COVID UPDATE 

TIME TO REMIND YOU THIS IS NOT A FLU VIRUS

TIME TO URGE YOU TO REMEMBER THIS VIRUS IS MUCH MORE LETHAL

SARS-CoV-2 - the virus in a variant form 

I bring you the latest graphs from my online searches and trust that you will read and inwardly

digest and conclude that : 

THESE GRAPHS ARE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD

This latest graph, downloaded today, showing the increase in COVID cases as of 15 October 2022 

Let me unpick some of the detail:

• Over 208,000 Brits have died after catching COVID.
• Nearly 24 million cases of COVID have been confirmed in the UK.
• Over 6.5 million people have died from COVID worldwide - this figure will be at least 2 million under the actual figure due to reporting issues.
• The number of new cases reported for the week ending on Thursday 13 October was just over 59,000 - that's around 8,400 UK citizens each day reporting they are ill with COVID.
• On Thursday 29 September the comparative figure for new cases was just over 46,800, around 6,680 UK citizens each day reporting ill with COVID. We are living through the start of another wave. 
• You can see that back in 2021, the number of new cases after the Christmas/New Year/Spring peaks of 2020/2021 (which killed thousands after the PM, Boris Johnson, lifted restrictions and then had to reimpose them for Christmas Day - inane government in action) fell sharply before increasing again as summer turned to autumn, and then rose dramatically as Christmas 2021 approached, then fell back before rising dramatically after the PM, Boris Johnson, lifted all restrictions from January this year, 2022.
• Why did he do this? Why did he opt for a policy of living - and dying - with Covid? Why does the vast majority of the nation act as if the pandemic is over? 
• He did what he did because he wanted to keep the support of the right-wing ideologues who sit as Conservative MPs in the House of Commons - people like Rees-Mogg, Kwateng, and Truss - people who prize the market and profit more than they do public health and people's lives. A few weeks later, he was ousted anyway from the premiership. 
• Notice how cases surge after all restrictions are lifted - and then follow a pattern in this year of surge and decline with a measure of flatlining during the summer when most people were outdoors most of the time.
• Now that autumn is here and winter approaches and people spend more time indoors together, expect a rise - and a new wave.       

This graph below, showing hospitalizations, is a rich, if frightening, source:

 

UK hospitalizations and vaccinations - as of today, downloaded from Our World in Data

Let me unpick more detail from this graph:

• The early spring and autumn and winter of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, were times of the great stain on the NHS. That was when the numbers in intensive care and the numbers dying rose sharply.
• Last year, in 2021, the figures for hospitalization fell sharply in the spring and summer but started to increase again in the autumn and winter - more periods of acute pressure on the NHS.
• This year, in 2022, the pattern has been of waves, with spring and autumn peaks and now another surge in admissions as we approach winter. The NHS faces another winter of disruption. And always remember that around 2 million Brits are living with the symptoms of Long Covid - and obviously no one knows what the long-term consequences of that will be. 

This COVID-19 image is taken, with my thanks, from the New York Times  

What are the media saying about this?

Not very much. We are being misgoverned and those who own the newspapers and oversee our TV outlets follow the government line of keeping us unknowing about these matters.

But here are the buried headlines from the inner pages of the 'i' newspaper so far this month:

BIGGEST RISE IN COVID CASES SINCE SUMMER AS 1.1 M TEST POSITIVE - 1/10/2022

COVID CASES IN UK DOUBLE TO 200,000 A DAY - 4/10/2022

COVID CASES RISE IN LATEST WAVE WITH ONE IN 25 PEOPLE INFECTED - 8/10/22

OMICRON SUBVARIANTS 'DRIVING UP INFECTIONS' - 11/10/2022 

Yesterday, my Morning Star reported that: 

NEW COVID WAVE SWEEPING EUROPE, SAY HEALTH BODIES 

"ALTHOUGH WE ARE NOT WHERE WE WERE ONE YEAR AGO, IT IS CLEAR THAT THE COVID PANDEMIC IS STILL NOT OVER", SAID THE EUROPEAN DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) AND THE DIRECTOR OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR DISEASE PREVENTION AND CONTROL (ECDC) 

"THE POTENTIAL CO-CIRCULATION OF COVID-19 AND SEASONAL INFLUENZA WILL PUT VULNERABLE PEOPLE AT INCREASED RISK OF SEVERE ILLNESS AND DEATH, WITH INCREASED PRESSURE ON BOTH HOSPITALS AND HEALTHCARE WORKERS ALREADY EXHAUSTED FROM ALMOST THREE YEARS ON THE FRONTLINES OF THE PANDEMIC", THEY SAID. 

Louise and I had our Moderna and flu vaccines around a fortnight ago. We are all in for a bumpy ride this winter - and the pandemic is part of that nightmare. We have been misgoverned - and the horror-show continues.