Where it began, it seems a lifetime ago ....
This is the view from the market town of Ledbury, the heart of a rural community in Herefordshire, England. The county is set between the Malvern Hills and the
border with Wales. Recording facts about the pandemic as it happens from direct evidence or reliable information sources worldwide.
Background. Viruses are everywhere. Probably the earliest to be noticed and the one everyone now knows is the influenza
virus. The word ‘influenza’ coming from medieval Latin meaning ‘(astrological) influence (of the stars)’ and the illness was first recorded
by Hippocrates in 412 B.C.E. It is an orthomyxovirus and the form Influenza A has the potential to cause pandemics. The first viral pandemic
was in 1580 C.E. The most recent were all influenza virus A. “Spanish” Flu in 1918, H2N2 strain (Asian Flu) in 1957, H3N2 strain “Hong Kong”
Flu in 1967, H5N1 strain (Bird Flu) in 2005 and H1N1 strain (Swine Flu) in 2009.
The cold-weather Annual Seasonal Flu is a mild illness which has been common worldwide for many years. One influenza A(H1N1), one influenza A(H3N2), and one or
two influenza B viruses (depending on the vaccine) are included in each season’s influenza vaccines.
The earliest virus to affect humanity was probably the poliovirus which is a picornavirus. It was first described in the UK in 1789.
Because of widespread vaccination from the mid-1950’s onwards, polio was eliminated from the Western Hemisphere in 1994 but outbreaks have since been noted in
Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Around 1976 a retrovirus in Congo, West Africa passed from chimpanzees to humans and has since spread everywhere. The human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) attacks the body’s immune system leaving you wide open to other diseases. The illness, termed AIDS, peaked between 2005 and 2012 but to date over 36
million people have died. Another virus, a coronavirus, caused the SARS outbreak of 2002 in Guandong Province, China but the outbreak was only
classed as an epidemic. Another coronavirus caused the MERS outbreak in the Middle East in 2012.
The new coronavirus strain, SARS-Cov-2A, leading to the disease COVID-19, appeared in China possibly contracted by humans from
live animals at a market in Wuhan or possibly an escape from a research labaratory in Wuhan. Previous outbreaks, SARS and MERS came from bats, via palm civet cats
and camels respectively. The virus can be de-activated by soap solution or a 70%+-alcohol sanitary handwash solution. Since it appeared the virus has mutated
into a series of variants of interest (Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu) and variants of concern (the first alpha, beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron,
the latest). The name comes from the corona or crown which shows up on an electron microscope.
Virions of coronavirus (colored transmission electron microscopy image).Image Credit: Dr. Fred Murphy & Sylvia Whitfield/CDC
The story continues ....
Saturday 1st January The i newspaper reports that thousands of people left messages on the Chinese Weibo social media account
of Li Wenliang, the opthalmologist who first alerted the authorities to the novel coronavirus in Wuhan. It is the second anniversary of his warning (see 2020 diary)
and the messages expressed thanks and sadness that he was among the first to die of COVID-19.
The UK Government website reported today that a total of 546,000 people in England have been hosptalised in England since the start of the pandemic. The number is
43,000 in Scotland, 37,000 in Wales and 15,000 in Northern Ireland. At present there are 14,500 people in hospital including 850 in mechanical ventilation beds but
these figures are expected to continue to rise.
2nd January Last August the UK Government promised to supply around 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors to all state-funded education settings made
possible by £25 million of government funding. The aim was to detect poorly ventilated rooms (CO2 levels over 1500ppm) where improvements needed
to be made. They also supplied 1000 air purifier units as a trial. Today the Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi announces that the Department of Education will
supply a further 7,000 units. They will be targeted at modern classrooms without opening windows where recirculating air conditioning units are in use.
3rd January The latest world figures from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Right click
to view the dashboard full-size or
5th January The Evening Standard reports on 14th January that NHS staff absences peaked today at 49,941. The total includes staff who were ill
with coronavirus or who were having to self-isolate.
6th January The gov.uk ‘Coronavirus in the UK’ webpage says that from 6 January in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and
11 January in England, people with positive lateral flow results for COVID-19 need to report their result but don’t need to take a confirmatory PCR
test unless they develop COVID-19 symptoms. This is a temporary measure while COVID-19 rates remain high across the UK as the vast majority of people with
positive lateral flow test results can be confident that they have COVID-19. A similar approach was taken in January 2021, when infection prevalence was high,
meaning it was highly likely that a positive lateral flow test COVID-19 result was a true positive. Confirmatory PCRs were temporarily paused and
reintroduced in March 2021 after infection rates fell.
8th January The evening TV news reports that the figure for COVID-19 deaths now exceeds 150,000.
Vaccination progress is shown on these UK Government website charts. The number of people of all ages who have received a COVID-19 vaccination is shown as a
percentage of the population aged 12 and over using the 2020 mid-year population estimate. Right click to view full-size or
Sunday 9th January On BBC Broadcasting House this morning Paddy O’Connell spoke to consultant Dr. Steve James who gives his personal
reasons for refusing the COVID-19 vaccination.
11th January A New Yorker cartoon from early on in the pandemic.
Progress of the pandemic in our area of Herefordshire and edge of Worcestershire from August 11 last year to today. Right click to view the video full-size
or
12th January Dr. Jonathan Van-Tam who has been a prominent figure at Government briefings from Downing Street tells health officials this
evening that he will leave his government post at the end of March to return to academia. He was on secondment from Nottingham University to the Department of
Health for a four and a half year period and appointed deputy chief medical officer for England as well as serving on the
SAGE Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
committee.
13th January The UK Times newspaper reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson defied calls last night for his resignation over lockdown parties
in Downing Street as the Tories fell to their lowest poll rating against Labour in almost a decade. Speaking in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister
apologised to the public for the rage they feel over the allegations as he admitted attending an event in the No 10 garden in May 2020. He said
he believed it was a work event and that he had not seen an invitation from his principal private secretary for 100 staff to bring their own alcohol to
socially distanced drinks. He also told the Commons he had gone to the No10 party gathering to thank staff. The UK newspapers have
critical headlines today.
UK newspapers online report that the Health Secretary Sajid Javid tells the Commons today that the Covid self-isolation period in England for those who test
positive will be cut to five days from next Monday. He said that the UKHSA UK Health Security
Agency found around two thirds of positive cases are no longer infectious by the end of day five. People will only be
allowed to leave isolation if they record two negative lateral flow tests on days five and six, before being allowed to leave on the sixth. After
reviewing all of the evidence, we’ve made the decision to reduce the minimum self-isolation period to five full days in England, Mr Javid said.
From Monday, people can test twice before they go, leaving isolation at the start of day six.
14th January
Euronews reports that in India hundreds of thousands of Indian pilgrims are attending a massive religious festival as cases of
Covid-19 spread across the country. Authorities said they expected up to three million people to take a ritual bath in the holy river Ganges on Friday,
the highlight of the annual Gangasagar Mela. A similarly colossal religious festival, the Kumbh Mela, which the Hindu nationalist government refused to ban
last April, has been blamed in part for a devastating spike in cases that have killed 200,000 people, according to official counts, though some experts fear
the real toll is several times higher.
15th January This Herefordshire Council advertisement appeared in the local newspapers last November just before Omicron was recognised.
16th January On BBC Broadcasting House this morning Paddy O’Connell does a follow-up on coronavirus antibodies by having himself tested.
17th January Euronews reports that from today, older people in Greece that are not vaccinated face monthly fines. Those over the age of 60 and
without the jab will have to pay a €50 penalty in January, rising to €100 in February. The decision comes as the country’s public health system
struggles to cope with an increase in cases and the government starts to run out of patience with those who are still unvaccinated against COVID-19. In France
a new “vaccine pass” bill means people 16 and over who aren’t fully vaccinated will be excluded from restaurants, movie theatres, sports arenas,
and other venues, trains and domestic flights.
Starting from February, Austria will become the first European country to make coronavirus vaccination compulsory for all adults. Those who do not comply will
face a hefty fine of up to €3,600.
18th January On 21st December the Full Fact website had an article by Abbas Panjwani entitled “How many people in England are
unvaccinated?” It explained clearly the problems in answering this question.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) latest estimate for 2020 puts the population at 55.6 million based on updating the 2011 census figures. The ONS
estimate for the population aged 12 and over is 48,375,273.
The UKHSA UK Health Security Agency uses data extracted from the National
Immunisation Management Service (NIMS) which counts 62,724,319 people in England registered with the NHS. However this s expected to overestimate the
total population of England (and therefore the total number of unvaccinated people), as it includes people who are still registered with the NHS but
moved abroad for example, and may double count people registered with more than one GP. The NIMS figure for the population aged 12 or over is 54,328,630.
Today the total number of first vaccinations in England is reported as 43,819,571 so that means somewhere betweeen 4,555,702 and 10,509,059 people are
unvaccinated. The ONS figure is 9.4%, but the NIMS figure is 19.3% of the 12 and over population of England.
19th January The UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid gives a television briefing this afternoon where he summarise the developments since
he took over the post and confirms the latest relaxations of the rules. (9 mins)
This slide, presented at the briefing, shows the link between vaccination status and hospital admissions.
21st January London Mayor Sadiq Khan says that the Major Incident in the capital, declared on 18 December, is stood down today as daily case
numbers are falling.
23rd January These UK Government figures (PDF file) show how the Omicron wave of COVID infections
was reflected in hospitalisations and the various days when peaks occurred. Reports from various hospitals were that most patients were unvaccinated.
26th January
The Open Access News website reports on the latest data released by the
REACT Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission programme. This programme was
commissioned from the Imperial College London, School of Public Health by the UK Department of Health, to track how COVID-19 is spreading in the country.
The Omicron variant has now made an “almost complete” replacement of Delta in the UK, according to the latest analysis. Now, scientists are
tracking “unprecedented” levels of COVID cases across the country. Currently, one in 23 people have had the virus. This is a much higher level
of infection than January, 2021, despite the presence of majority double-vaccination across the country. Professor Paul Elliott, director of the REACT programme,
There is good news in our data in that infections had been rapidly dropping during January, but they are still extremely high and may have recently
stalled at a very high prevalence. When it comes to age groups, school-aged children have the highest number of infections. At the moment, one in 13
children are testing positive. The lowest level of infection is currently in those aged above 75+ at one in 41 cases of COVID. However this is still a
12-fold increase in contrast to December, 2021.
27th January The UK Government COVID dashboard reports today that from 31st January UKHSA will change its case reporting. Up to now cases have
been individual people who had been infected but reinfections were not counted as a new case. From here on where a person has a a reinfection 90 days or more
after a previous infection this wil be logged as a completely new case. Many cases now are reinfections, but this means the link with population is broken and
the number of cases recorded will not relate to the number of people affected. The total number of infections may not be a useful figure. Right click to view
the chart full-size or
In Scotland, individuals are only counted
as cases once, on the date of their first positive test.
Also, from today, face masks are no longer required to be worn in secondary school classrooms or communal areas. Face coverings are also not legally necessary
anywhere else, but remain a requirement in healthcare settings such as GP surgeries, hospitals or care homes. The government “recommends” that
people wear face coverings in enclosed or private spaces, but this will be a personal judgement. However London Mayor Sadiq Khan confirmed masks will remain
mandatory on all TfL Transport for London services including the Tube [London
Underground Trains].
A number of major retailers including Tesco, Sainsburys, Lidl, Waitrose, Morrisons and John Lewis have also asked staff and customers to keep wearing a face
covering as recommended by the retail workers trade union USDAW Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied
Workers . General secretary Paddy Lillis said We hope all retailers will continue to
put staff and customer safety first. Wearing a face covering is an important measure to help protect workers who have no option but to interact with the
public. Masks are still a legal requirement in many situations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
28th January This week’s edition of the BBC More or Less radio programme reports a fact that has been widely quoted on social media,
including by David Davis MP, that the number of deaths purely down to COVID-19 is 17,371 which is far less than that reported by the mainstream media. Their
researcher tracked down the number to a Freedom of Information request sent to the ONS. The reply came back on 16 December 2021 and looking at the various
spreadsheets gives interesting background. Firstly the figure is for England and Wales and the ONS figure to the end of 2021 is 18,907. Secondly these are
simply deaths with no other pre-existing condition written on the death certificate. So people with diabetes, dementia or Alzheimers, high blood pressure,
urinary infection, obesity or asthma for example before they contracted COVID are not counted. To be fair if ‘old age’ was put down as well as
COVID these were actually counted as COVID-only deaths. In summary the figure given on social media is meaningless as people with these conditions were not
expected to die of them but did die because they contracted COVID-19.
To the end of 2021 deaths recorded in England and Wales as involving COVID were 159,753; if 18,907 were COVID alone, then 140,846 were people who were
vulnerable because of other health conditions. A quote from a website called MENAFN.com:
To argue that the deaths from COVID of people with pre-existing conditions don’t count as true COVID deaths is to say
that people with pre-existing conditions don’t matter; that their lives are expendable and shouldn’t be considered when assessing the impact of the
pandemic. Over 140,000 people with pre-existing conditions have died of COVID in the last two years. We should be mourning this tragic loss of life, not
minimising it.
31st January UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid tells the House of Commons he is considering scrapping the mandatory vaccination requirement for
NHS and care home staff if Parliament approves the change. Around 40,000 people lost their jobs in November when the rule came in for care home staff and around
77,000 NHS unvaccinated healthcare workers are likely to follow if the law is not changed. BBC News summarises the FORs and AGAINSTs making vaccinations mandatory.
FOR Vaccines save lives AGAINST Civil liberty resistance worldwide
FOR No other options left AGAINST Improved access to jabs still needed
FOR Higher take-up avoids damaging lockdowns AGAINST Encourage conspiracy theories.
FACTCHECK: In the UK some frontline healthcare workers are required to have the Hepatitis B vaccine, this is not law but rather hospital trusts enacting
workplace health and safety and occupational health policies. In the US healthcare workers at any facility that receives funding from the Center for Medicare
and Medicaid Services must be vaccinated by 4 January 2022, unless granted a medical or religious exception. A Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense of
24 August 2021 requires military personnel to be vaccinated by various deadlines unless granted a medical or religious exception. Noncitizens traveling to
the United States by airplane must be vaccinated by the date of entry. Exceptions include persons under age 18, airplane crews, diplomats, permanent residents,
citizens of one of 43 nations with limited vaccine availability, persons issued exemptions due to humanitarian or national security reasons, vaccine trial
participants, and those with documented medical contraindications to vaccination.
1st February The UK Government COVID case figures released yesterday including reinfection cases from 1/1/2021 to date is 837,426 cases. This
is worked out from cumulative totals 17,315,893 - 16,478,467. However the daily figure given yesterday was 92,368. So around 750,000 cases last year were
reinfections.
On the UK COVID online dashboard this note appears: From 31 January 2022, UKHSA COVID-19 case reporting has changed to an episode-based definition which includes
possible reinfections. This means that from 1 February 2022 deaths will be reported using the new episode-based case definition in England, including deaths
following possible reinfections. From this point, reported deaths in people with COVID-19 (within 28 or 60 days of positive test) are considered from the first
positive specimen date of the most recent episode of infection, rather than an individual’s first ever positive specimen date. Deaths by date of death
have today been revised back to the beginning of the pandemic but historical deaths by report date have not been revised, so there is a step increase in the
cumulative numbers of deaths on 1 February.
[Ed. My UK Progress chart shows deaths by report date and the figure for today is 1,121. This is worked out from cumulative totals 156,875 - 155,754.
However the daily figure for deaths given today is 219. So around 900 COVID deaths last year were not reported at the time.]
3rd February
4th February
The Anchorage Daily News includes an Associated Press item. “New cases of COVID-19 in the US are falling in at least 49 out of 50 states as omicron
rapidly loosens its grip even as the nation’s death toll closes in on another bleak round number: 900,000”
The UKHSA issues a blog today explaining the changing of the COVID case definition.
4th February
Reuters News Agency reports that last Thursday the CEO of Afrigen Biologics Company in South Africa says the company has used the
publicly available sequence of the Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to make its own version of the shot which could be tested on humans by the end of this year.
It is the first mRNA vaccine to be designed, developed and produced at lab scale on the African continent. WHO last year picked a consortium including
Afrigen for a pilot project to give poor and middle-income countries the know-how to make COVID jabs, after Pfizer, BionTedch and Moderna declined to share
their technology and expertise. Last September Reuters said that more than three quarters of the 5.5 billion COVID-19 shots administered worldwide had gone
to high and upper-middle income countries, which make up just over a third of the world’s population.
9th February A TV programme on BBC2 this evening is called AtraZeneca: A Vaccine for the World. The BBC Medical Editor Fergus Walsh interviews key
people including Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert at Oxford and the AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. various points came up as previously noted in this diary such as the
hiatus following the reports of blood clots and the UK politicians emphasising a great British success whereas the Oxford scientists wanted to make it a vaccine
for the world by supplying it to COVAX at cost and having a vaccine that only required simple refrigeration. One fact that was new is that the US FDA
has still not approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in America Checking this out, Reuters published the following last December:
Dec 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the use of AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) antibody cocktail to prevent COVID-19
infections in individuals with weak immune systems or a history of severe side effects from coronavirus vaccines.
The antibody cocktail, Evusheld, is only authorized for adults and adolescents who are not currently infected with the novel coronavirus and have not recently
been exposed to an infected individual, the regulator said.
The authorization for the therapy, made up of two monoclonal antibodies tixagevimab and cilgavimab, marks a significant step for AstraZeneca, whose widely
used COVID-19 vaccine is yet to be approved by U.S. authorities.
AstraZeneca last month had agreed to supply the U.S. government with 700,000 doses of Evusheld ...
On 31 January the FDA fully approved a second COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine formerly known as Moderna COVID-19 will be marketed as ‘Spikevax’.
The FDA previously fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech branded version, Comirnaty, on August 23, 2021. Both vaccines had previously been supplied under Emergency
Use Authorisation and no change has been made to either vaccine’s formula.
12th February African Arguments website, published by the Royal Africa Society based at London University, School of Oriental
and African Studies, shows this summary map. Right click to view full-size or
.
Previously recorded on 18 December 2021 with the same countries with the highest vaccination rates.
19th February The New York Times publishes these graphs online. Right click to view full-size or
.
20th February BBC News reports the Queen (95) has tested positive for COVID-19 with only slight symptoms. Her son Prince Charles (73) had COVID
on 10 February, his second infection, and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall(74) on 14 February.
21st February 4.30pm The UK Prime Minister makes a statement in the House of Commons on ‘Living with COVID’
(11 mins).
The legal requirements for testing, contact-tracing, self-isolation and mask-wearing will all be removed by 1st April. Medical advice seems to be divided and
the Labour Opposition in the House disagreed with the proposal calling it “reckless” and making things more difficult for clinically vulnerable people.
Thursday 24th February From today the legal requirement for people to self-isolate if testing positive for COVID-19 is ended. Also masks are not
required by law to be worn in indoor settings. However Government guidelines still recommend these measures to reduce transmaission of the virus.
The world is distracted as this morning the Russian President Vladimir Putin orders the Russian army to attack Ukraine.
1st March UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid announces that the mandatory requirement for all health workers in
contact with patients to be vaccinated against COVID which was due to come into force on 1 April has now been revoked. A survey was carried out among health
professionals and the public and the results of this together with the less severe Omicron strain being now dominant have led to this decision.
7th March An update to 16th November 2021 chart. Right click to view full-size or
The UK has improved its world ranking.
8th March The latest world figures from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland show another sad milestone - over 6 million deaths
worldwide. Right click to view the dashboard full-size or
11th March These are the Government dashboard graphs for UK hospitals today.
Monday 14th March The Guardian online reports that the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, says that, although the the Office for National
Statistics Covid-19 Infections Survey shows an increase in cases across the whole of the UK, we are in a “very good position” and rising
infection rates were to be “expected’. There were 72,898 new cases of Covid-19 reported in the UK on Friday. On 24 February, when most of the
remaining Covid-19 restrictions in England ended, there were 38,933 cases reported. There are also almost 12,000 people in hospital in the UK with
Covid-19.
18th March Widely reported today that COVID infections are 1 in 25 people in Wales, 1 in 20 people in England and 1 in 14 people in Scotland
and Northern Ireland.
All remaining COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted today. A range of “contingency measures” may be applied if needed, to take “swift and
proportionate action” to tackle new variants, the Department for Transport said. This applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland but in Scotland the
requirement to wear a face mask while on flights is still in place.
19th March The Week magazine quotes John Rintoul in the Independent.
A new study has been published in the Lancet, Britain’s premier medical journal. It compares “excess deaths” data across 191 nations,
looking at how many more deaths occurred in each country in 2020 and 2021 than would have been expected in a non-pandemic year. Given the very different ways
in which countries have logged COVID fatalities, this is the best comparative measure we have. And on this measure the UK didn’t do too badly at all.
Our excess deaths of 127 per 100,000 is a shade over the global average of 120 - worse, it’s true, than Sweden (91) and Ireland (just 13), but far
better than Italy (227), Portugal (202), Belgium (147) and the US (179), and in line with France (124) and Germany (121).
23th March In the UK the second anniversary of the first COVID lockdoen is commemorated by a National Day of Reflection. There is a memorial
concert at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. A minute’s silence is held at midday as one of several events organised by end-of-life charity, Marie
Curie. The National Covid Memorial Wall in London is a public mural painted by volunteers to commemorate victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United
Kingdom. Started in March 2021 and stretching more than one-third mile (five hundred metres) along the South Bank of the River Thames, opposite the Palace
of Westminster, and just outside St Thomas’ Hospital, the mural consists of thousands of red and pink hearts, one heart for each of the approximately
150,000 casualties of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom at the time of the mural’s commencement.
The Express online reports that airline easyJet has said mask wearing will now be a personal choice for travellers from 27 March. Masks must still be worn
if it is a legal requirement in the departure or arrival airport. According to Which? online, face masks are still required on flights with Air Canada,
American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Emirates Airline, KLM, Ryanair, Qantas and United Airlines. British Airways, Jet2, TUI and Virgin Atlantic have relaxed
the rule.
24th March Professor Chris Whitty gave the keynote speech at a conference organised by the Local Government Association and The
Association of Directors of Public Health yesterday. His words were reported in the i newspaper. He said that the rising
hospitalisations are as a result of the Omicron sub-variant BA.2 will probably continue for at least another two weeks: The pandemic is going to become over time less dominant steadily but we’re going to have a significant problem with it in multiple parts of
the world for the rest of our lives. Let’s have no illusions about that. I’m expecting it to be probably, in the UK, seasonal but interspersed, at least for the next two or three years, by new variants while it is
still evolving essentially to adapt to humans, which may occur in between seasonal peaks.
Professor Whitty pointed to Hong Kong, which is going through its worst phase of the pandemic with hospitals struggling to cope. as an example of why
COVID has a long way to run. This is a slide from his presentation. Right click to view full-size or
.
[Ed. The Delta variant comprises 200 different sub-variants. The Omicron variant has lineages BA.1, BA.2, BA.3 and B.1.1.529. Sub-variant BA.1 accounts for
most of the world cases but BA.2 was first detected in the Philippines in November and is spreading. While BA.1 and BA.2 are similar, they are 20 mutations apart.
Studies in Denmark indicate that BA.2 is “substantially”" more transmissible than BA.1.]
Sunday 27th March With worldwide deaths from COVID being over 6 million, there are 12 countries which have each lost over 100,000
people to the virus. They are widely spread across the globe.
United States
India
Russia
Peru
United Kingdom
Italy
Indonesia
France
Iran
Colombia
Germany
Spain
Data: Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, Maryland (subject to the accuracy of information
supplied by the various countries).
Friday 1st April At 4.22 pm today BBC News online reports: Covid: Record 4.9 million people have the virus in the UK
This is not the daily figure of new cases but an estimate of the number of infected people in the UK in each week. Week endung 19 March was
4.3 million, week ending 26th March is 4.9 million. The graph shows how the number of total infections varied from the beginning of the
pandemic. It was falling after the post-Christmas peak in early January but the number shot up since 24 February due to easing of restrictions
and the spread of the more transmissable variant. The supply of free test kits ends today except for vulnerable people. The percentage
of the population with COVID is 7.6% (1in 13) in England, 8.6% (1 in 12) in Scotland, 7.0% (1 in 14) in Wales and 6.7% (1 in 15) in Northern
Ireland.
Following Professor Tim Spector’s research study last year [see 8 July 2021], the NHS has revised it’s symptom list for COVID-19
infection. On the NHS website, “Symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19)” it says these can include:
⬤ a high temperature or shivering (chills) – a high temperature means you feel hot to
touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
⬤ a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or
more coughing episodes in 24 hours
⬤ a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
⬤ shortness of breath
⬤ feeling tired or exhausted
⬤ an aching body
⬤ a headache
⬤ a sore throat
⬤ a blocked or runny nose
⬤ loss of appetite
⬤ diarrhoea
⬤ feeling sick or being sick
The symptoms apply to adults and children. It adds “The symptoms are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses, such as colds and flu.”
10th April [Editor’s Note: Since the conference last November, the pandemic has taken attention away from the
climate change issue. And since 24th February, the war in Ukraine has taken attention away from the pandemic. The civilians are on the streets
of Mariupol, in Southern Ukraine.
An effect of the war is soaring energy prices causing the UK Consumer Prices Index, the measure of inflation, to rise by 7.0% in the 12
months to March 2022. At present Europe relies on Russian oil and gas for its energy and UK and EU sanctions on Russia may lead to threats to
cut back supplies.]
11th April
12th April Two charts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing data from the start of the pandemic.
First cases/100,000 people by state, then deaths/100,000 by state.
Alaska and North Dakota both had more than 30,000 cases per 100,000 people.
Arizona and Mississippi both had more than 400 deaths per 100,000 people.
13th April From the Government COVID website: In line with weekday only reporting, the dashboard will not be updated over
the bank holiday weekend. Following the update on Thursday 14 April, the next update will be on Tuesday 19 April.
An article by Tom Bawden in the i newspaper today draws attention to the discrepancy between the ONS graph (shown on 1
April above) and the Government daily case numbers which show infections falling. The Government figures have always underestimated the true
extent of the virus as they are based solely on reported positive tests. People who are infected but choose either not to test themselves in
minor cases or to test but not to report the infection will be left out. The number of people taking and reporting tests has dropped off
dramatically in recent weeks for three main reasons:
1. At the end of February the legal obligation for people testing positive to self-isolate was removed. People do not need to be off work
and losing pay with mild symptoms and there is no incentive to test or report an infection.
2. At the end of March, supply of free test kits stopped in England. Having to buy the kits is a disincentive to testing yourself.
3. The Omicron infection is recognised generally as only causing mild illness in most cases so there is a sense it does not matter so much if
people catch and spread it.
[Ed. Since Government daily cases figures do not now usefully relate to actual cases, the Cases graph on the UK Progress Chart (link below)
will not be updated after the Easter holiday break.]
14th April The spread of the virus shown by the rolling rate per 100,000 people in the administrative areas of the UK
updated from 23 December 2021.
The New Scientist magazine reports that the US has extended its COVID-19 public health emergency status which was initially declared in
January 2020 and has been extended every quarter since. It was due to expire on April 16. The renewal allows people continued access to
free COVID-19 tests, vaccinations and treatments for at least another three months.
The UK MHRA Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
has approved the Valneva vaccine (based on a whole inactivated form of the SARS-Cov-2A virus) for people aged 18 to 50 years.
The vaccine can be stored for up to a year in a standard fridge.
Friday 15th April Start of Easter weekend in the UK.
16th April The UK Department of Health and Social Care posted this on Twitter today.
In the i newspaper today there is an interview with Professor Tim Spector of Kings College, London, who
runs the ZOE COVID study app. which now has around 4.5 million users in the UK, Sweden and the US. Among the points he makes are: * It may take five or six years for the pandemic to subside to a level of severity similar to current
influenza infections. * He expects COVID infections to drop to around 50,000 per day through the summer but to rise in the autumn
when children go back to school after the summer holidays. * Because the virus will be able to mutate more rapidly as so many people are infected, he anticipates
that a new variant will appear, able to evade our immune system response, and replace Omicron as the dominant strain. * He says that we are not talking about the risk of ‘Long COVID’ any more and it is a serious
concern for the NHS and businesses who have staff off work because of its effects.
The Government should say to the public ‘it’s
your civic duty to stay at home when you’ve got cold-like symptoms and not infect people. Just because it might be like a
cold for you, it’s not going to be like a cold for everyone. It could end up with someone being off work for a year’.
18th April [Ed. Since Government daily cases figures do not now usefully relate to actual cases, the Cases graphs on
the Herefordshire and Ledbury Progress Charts (links below) will not be updated after the Easter holiday break.]
21st April
Her Majesty the Queen is 96 today.
29th April An ONS table showing estimated infections as percentages of the populations in England, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland for 2022. Now considered more useful that NHS figures and shows rise and fall of infection levels. Right click to view full-size or
.
30th April A Matt Pritchett cartoon quoted in The Week magazine today.
9th May Johns Hopkins University reports the total number of US COVID-related deaths is close to a million people. The figure they
give is 997,539. The US CDC figure is 995,023. The New York Times has 996,283. With deaths per day at around 350 people the 1 million mark may be
reached in about two weeks.
BBC Online introduces another measure to show the effect of COVID on the countries of the world. “There’s no international standard for
measuring deaths or their causes, and countries record deaths in different ways, which makes comparison difficult. But experts say one of the most
accurate measures is how many extra deaths are recorded in a country above the number that would have been expected to die in an average year. Many
countries publish excess death data, but some poorer nations don’t or do it far less frequently. The WHO has published a report calculating
every country’s excess death count for 2020 and 2021. This measure takes into account deaths not directly due to Covid, but as a consequence
of the pandemic, such as people being unable to access hospitals for the care they needed.” The excess deaths in the 13 worst-hit countries are shown
on this BBC chart.
10th May
CTV News reports that World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells a media briefing today
that China’s zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy is not sustainable given what is now known of the virus, in rare public comments by the UN agency
on a government’s handling of the pandemic. He says they they have discussed this issue with Chinese experts. He also noted that China has
registered 15,000 deaths since the virus first emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 - a relatively low number compared with nearly 1 million
in the United States, more than 664,000 in Brazil and over 524,000 in India.
Reuters News Agency reports that China’s zero-COVID policy has led to a cycle of lockdowns of many millions of people. Shanghai’s
lockdown began on 28th March. The day before the city had recorded 3,450 asymptomatic cases, 70% of the nationwide total that day, as well as another
50 symptomatic cases. Shanghai’'s measures, affecting 26 million people, have been particularly strict Residents are allowed out of compounds only
for exceptional reasons, such as a medical emergency. According to social media posts and local government notices circulating online, in several parts
of the city entire appartment blocks have been deemed a health risk, with all occupants forced from their homes and placed into quarantine on the back
of one positive case.
15th May My wife and I had our fourth coronavirus jab (spring booster) at the pharmacy in a nearby town, Bromyard. We tested ourselves
to ensure we were free of the virus before going.
We were given this spring booster guide leaflet (PDF) and the Moderna Spikevax
package leaflet (PDF). As people over 75 years of age, we have now had two AZ (adenoviral vector), one Pfizer-Comirnaty (mRNA) and one Moderna Spikevax
(mRNA) vaccinations.
22nd May Our World in Data has this graph for daily confirmed cases in China. The Shanghai lockdown seems to have worked and the government
has said that restrictions will be eased in June.
Virions of coronavirus (colored transmission electron microscopy image).
Image Credit: Dr. Fred Murphy & Sylvia Whitfield/CDC
to return to the diary.
