Herp a Derp

 Good to see that finally the opening up of stuff in the face of the Indian variant of Covid is being questioned. A little bit too late imho. If I can spot the problem a week ago on my half assed keeping on top of current events, surely someone doing a proper job should have been on top of this... when they initially put India on the red list, weeks before and even then, hey, wont everyone rush back from India to beat our red list day and just make the problem worse ? nah. . . that would never happen. . . oh. I think the whole give em a week or two of warning so they can all rush back bullshit is laughably idiotic. All it does is guarantee you a spike of infections. The reverse of what you're trying to achieve. Red list travel bans should be without warning and instant. Anyone that needs to come back can - but they have to sit their ass in government controlled quarantine for 14 days. Is there a problem with that ? Inconvenience. Deal with it.

I suspect it's not just a case of following the logic, but trying to keep a handle on the emotions as well. A frustrated populace. Political shenanigans and backstabbing. Still. I think a clear message backed up by clear reasons why would have been tolerated well enough. 

I do wonder if this will be the new normal for quite a few years to come. Modest openings in summer. Lockdowns in winter. My expectation is for a vaccine beating - or minimising - variant to pop up once covid gets to properly spread in a vaccinated population. Not a guarantee though. A fine line between extermination or whether it can adapt quickly enough. Also the variety of vaccines on hand as opposed to a single vaccine does you a few favours here - possibly. Still. On balance. I think it's inevitable it will morph into something vaccine beating. Or, at least, this round of vaccines. The reason for this just comes down to math. Everytime it jumps into someone new, it offers a bunch of chances to mutate. The more people this is happening with, the more chances of mutation. A bit like a lottery ticket. Buy one. Small chance of winning. Buy 100,000, much better chances of winning. Winning here meaning a mutation that "achieves" getting round a vaccination. The perfect scenario for this is large scale infection in a partially vaccinated population. This allows the virus to replicate without control in unvaccinated people, but also, get to mix with vaccinated people and go through mutations that will eventually succeed. In effect a good supply of troops to attempt the problem.

Which is incidentally the scenario in the UK. And the US. And the UK is leaning into this by opening up. The exact thing you shouldn't be doing.

All that remains to be seen is whether it can adapt the necessary mutation - it might not be able to - and how quickly it can do that. A question that is unknown even to the brightest in the field. Do you feel lucky punk ? You only have to look at the evolution in something like the common cold or flu to realise that you shouldn't be feeling that lucky.

The other problem here is, that even if you achieve a perfect defence in say the US or the UK, other parts of the world where the virus gets to spread with glee and go through many mutations comes back to haunt the "perfect defence" of everywhere else. Whack a mole. You have to eliminate it in all its major wells, not just your priviliged few.

This also becomes a major problem where you start to hit people... just being people. Leaders of some countries that refuse to believe its a problem. Not everyone in the world is on board with the whole covid is a problem and we need to fix it. And large parts of the world mistrust any kind of medical intervention. And not all countries are transparent with their information. Saving of face still dominates many countries. Russia. China. Japan to name an important few. They'd rather go down burning - and take you with them - than admit to a perceived "weakness". A form of toxic masculinity on the world stage.

Just a bunch of mostly stupid hairless apes at the end of the day. With outliers in either direction.

Ho hum.

Went to bed at 7.20pm last night. Exhausted. Ended up sleeping for a good 12 hours. Uh huh. Perfectly normal ?

Feel better this morning. All that rest will do that.