Johns Hopkins University table now shows that this week we have passed the grim figure of 5 million deaths worldwide. That comes out of a total recorded cases of 248,798,277.

As we know the likelihood is that the true number of cases will vastly exceed the “official figures” and of those deaths the UK is responsible for over 141,000. Happily the ongoing rate of deaths has been greatly reduced but the last seven day rolling total still amounts to 1190 and the total is still rising. It is also concerning to note that new patients are being admitted at the rate of 7259 per seven days, and continuing to rise.

COP26 has more or less monopolised the news recently but there is still plenty of “bad news” being transmitted about how the covid thing is doing, both in the UK and aboard and it really does not look good. It is true that the seven day rolling figure has come down and today stands at 275,264 but this is still a lot of new cases.

Gradually a new buzz starts to be heard – will there soon be another lockdown? At what point will Plan B become inevitable? Sadly every time a government minister is asked this, they wriggle their way out of it and fail to give an answer so we do not even have a clue what facts will trigger a decision to act.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, a SAGE scientist has stepped down from SAGE. Sir Jeremy said in April 2020, now 18 months ago, that the UK was likely to be among the European countries worst affected by covid. He was not wrong. The UK has recorded more cases than any other European country, including Russia and comes second to Russia in terms of number of deaths. It really does not look good.

I wonder what Sir Jeremy predicts now?

And along with glum predictions about where we are going with covid come other glum predictions about whether COP26 can actually save the earth and prevent the anticipated temperature rise above 1.5 degrees. Scientists now believe that the fall in CO2 emissions in 2020 will be nearly reversed in 2021. Are we all going to be making sacrifices to no avail?

It will be interesting when COP26 is over to see what the pluses and minuses look like and what the new predictions will be for 1.5 degrees. I am sure the scientists will be all over it like a rash!

In the meanwhile we have our work cut out ensuring we combat covid-19 as effectively as possible.

Adrian Leopard     04-11-21

Photo Chris LeBoutillier