Tag: virus
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Adventures of a virus in a hospital in South Africa
A hospital in South Africa recently published a remarkable account of how a single patient in the emergency department (ED) introduced Covid-19 to the hospital which then managed to spread to 119 confirmed cases by 30th April. The first patient, P1, appeared at the ED for a Covid-19 test on March 9 after recently returning…
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The future of meat
Eating animals poses a major global health risk and the costs are enormous and they’re not borne only by the meat-eaters themselves nor by the animals but by everybody on the planet whether they eat meat or not. I say this because we’ve seen this over and over again that epidemics and pandemics have come…
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Would you agree to quarantine in a “facility”?
There was a good article in The Times last weekend – Coronavirus: The new rhythms of life will jolt and jar as we try to live with this horrible teenager. In particular, I thought it would be good to get people’s thoughts on this quote: “In Asia we are doing mandatory quarantining,” says Ben Cowling,…
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May you live through interesting times
There’s a Chinese curse, may you live through interesting times. On a personal level, the Christchurch earthquakes make this pandemic seem like a walk in the park because that was a much tougher period of time for us. Nevertheless, both events brought strange changes and have made me think of the Chinese curse. But there…
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What happens next?
I’m sorry if everyone is getting sick of reading about the pandemic but a paper was published in Science yesterday which is worth sharing. It’s called Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the postpandemic period. This is important because there’s been a lot of short-term thinking with sudden closures of schools and businesses but…
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There’s no escaping the trade-off
It was kind of surreal to see headlines this week like, “Prime Minister is breathing on his own” and “Prime Minster able to take short walks“. No one could ever have imagined this a couple of months ago. The latest news is that the Prime Minister appears to be recovering and has left intensive care.…
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Music, privilege, and virus incubators
Some music. This is Elizabeth playing The Blue Danube. I learned recently that Aberdeen has been through all this lockdown business once before. In 1964 there was a typhoid outbreak and schools were closed, there were travel bans, and people died. The source of the outbreak was a single tin of corned beef. Meat is…
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On escaping to the Highlands during a pandemic and preparedness
I think Prince Charles made a grave misjudgment in coming to the Highlands last weekend. He was apparently well when he travelled last weekend but the key point is not that he was well but that he travelled last weekend. It was prior to last weekend that it became clear people were trying to isolate…
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BBC Four Pandemic and something to do this weekend
I just watched the BBC documentary, Contagion: The BBC Four Pandemic. It’s very good and I can’t believe I hadn’t seen or heard of it before. In 2018 the BBC simulated a pandemic across the UK to gather data for mathematical modellers to help with a future pandemic like the one we’re experiencing now. Tens…
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Outbreak #COVID2019
The Prime Minister now has coronavirus, as does the health secretary, and the chief medical officer is isolating after experiencing symptoms. They’re dropping like flies. It begs the question of whether they’ve all been following their own advice of social distancing and washing hands. Boris Johnson videoed the announcement about testing positive and shared it…
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Lockdown updates
I’ve got aches and pains all over and am hobbling around like a wounded animal. No, it’s not coronavirus. It’s because I’ve been doing Joe’s PE lesson at 9am with the kids each day. He live-streams a 30-minute workout for all the kids stuck at home and I decided to join in with Daniel and…
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Resources for kids at home #COVID2019
It’s the first day of homeschooling and the kids have been following the timetable they created yesterday. It’s likely this will change as we figure things out but it’s working well so far. The schools have also provided work for them to do but Elizabeth hasn’t been given much yet as I think the teachers…
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A bumblebee, extraordinary changes for the UK, and thoughts on mother’s day for the most abused of all mothers
I got stung by a bumblebee yesterday for the first time in my life. Since all our usual Saturday activities were cancelled I took the opportunity to do some gardening and as I put on my gardening gloves I felt a sharp prick. Thinking it was a spider (I’m terrified of spiders and yes I…
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Physical distancing for 12 months #COVID2019
The behavioural and social interventions implemented by the government over the past couple of weeks will be in place for 12 months, according to this article from the government website – Consensus view on social and behavioural and social interventions. But there may be periods during this time when some restrictions will be partially relaxed…
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Cycling to the rescue
It’s the last day of school today for goodness knows how long but it’s not all bad. There are some benefits to this virus. For instance, there’s noticeably less traffic on the roads, especially around the school gate. I think many parents have already withdrawn their kids from school. The air smelt cleaner and fresher…
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More restrictions for the UK #COVID2019
Yesterday more restrictions came into effect for people in the UK. We are now being told to self-isolate for 14 days if anyone in our household is showing symptoms. This means if one of us gets sick we all have to stay home. That seems reasonable to me. The government also advised people not to…
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Panic buying and the UK response to coronavirus
I don’t understand the panic buying. Do people not realise you can order groceries online and have them delivered? Anyone facing quarantine can still order groceries and have them delivered to their home. There’s no need to buy stuff to last the duration of the quarantine. Also, you can’t buy several weeks’ worth of fresh…
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There is nothing to fear but fear itself
We’ve noticed several similarities between our experience of the Christchurch earthquakes and the Covid-19 pandemic. After the big earthquake schools and universities were closed, hospitals and emergency services were overwhelmed, businesses went bankrupt, people lost jobs, shops were closed, supplies ran low including toilet paper, and people died. At that time, Ben remembers having to…
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Snot and brexit
I haven’t written a blog post for ages, the reason being that I’ve been feeling rotten for about a week. It all started last Wednesday. I was not feeling great and decided I needed to get out of the house and do some exercise so we cycled to Newton Dee. The effect of this was…
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Oops, I did it again
Sorry, indeed. For the second time I have published a test post to my real blog. This time I received some comments on it! Thank you 🙂 WordPress.com has a new editor and one of the features of this editor is that you can write up your posts from one central link and then choose which blog you…
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