Astrid Kirchherr: Beatles photographer dies aged 81

Imagine! She was the very first person to photograph the Beatles, before they even were the Beatles. When she met them in the Kellar, they had slicked back hair and wore leather pants. She helped them create their style. It was she who cut then bassist Pete Sutcliffe's hair into the famous mop top. She was engaged to Sutcliffe but he died of a brain tumour just 21.  She called him the love of her life.

She died after a short illness, aged 81. 

And I sit here watching a CNN show on Zanzibar, noting the connection with Freddy Mercury who was born there. We visited Zanzibar on our Cape to Cairo trio in 2011 and had a meal off the waterfront cafe's "Freddy Mercury" menu.

Alaska Trip Day 9: Salt Lake City → Brigham City

Weather today in Brigham City: 19-30 C and sunny. Perfect.
TBF, surprised it’s so warm

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].

I put Spiral Jetty on the itinerary, having read about it in “White Sands” by Geoff Dyer. It’s a quirky piece of art on the dry bed of the Great Salt Lake, considered to be the most important work by sculptor Robert Smithson. He made it in 1970 and documented it in a 32-minute video [excerpts]. I believe you can walk along it. It’s a there and back in the same day kind of place as there’s no accommodation. We’d be staying at Brigham City, named for the famous early Mormon, Brigham Young, the founder of Salt Lake City.
Spiral Jetty

Clips from video

I’m also Wild About Utah

I’m watching the UK Education Secretary talk about kids…

… going back to school. And he [Gavin Williamson] is saying they will have to social distance and be “in bubbles” in class and avoid breathing on each other and, and … And I’m wondering doesn’t he know about the studies that show virtually no transmission of the virus in schools. And the experience, which shows the same.
What?!
And why don’t the media ask about this? Don’t they know?
Schools should go back tomorrow.
Performance of the government: C
Performance of the media: D-
Pathetic. Our future in their hands? I shudder.
And now I’m seeing a council person of Weston-Super-Mare tell us he doesn’t like see people enjoying themselves on the beach, they should hold on “just a little more”, but for what we are supposed to hold on, he doesn’t say. And I’m watching these people wind surfing and queueing for fish and chips, at perfect social distance and I’m thinking go for it. And that our political betters need to be straight and say: this virus is with us. Be careful. But go out, dear folks. Go out.
The German Football Bundesliga is back. Under some pretty strict social distancing rules. But these young, fit, men are at almost zero risk of Covid-19. Where on Earth is the sanity? Where is the science?

Sunset

Siena Park, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong.
Our house is just behind the trees in the middle

Institute of Arts and Ideas talks Coronavirus

Watch more videos on iai.tv

Including a Nobel Laureate, who doubts the efficacy of lockdowns. And I showed the figures in the post below. 

German civil service analysis of its handling of coronavirus

[With h/t to Toby Young ar Lockdown Sceptics]
This is a summary of an 83-page report written by a senior member of the German Ministry of the Interior. Germany has been frequently praised for its handling of the pandemic, whereas this report absolutely trashes its handling. And so, natch, the German government is trying to suppress it.
Here's a snippet:

The paper is written by a senior civil servant in the German equivalent of the Home Office ("Ministry of Internal Affairs") partly on the basis of contributions of several high-ranking scientists. At another website (Tillys Einblick)there ia detailed text demonstrating that the analysis was the assigned task of the civil servant concerned. 

Our bulbuls’ eggs in our mango tree this morning

Photo by Arlene. This morning 08:00

Now we just have to help Hector and Danni, our crested bulbul couple, keep the predators at bay…
Have a look at the eggs last year, here.
ADDED: just after photographing the eggs, we see a common rat snake by our fish pond.  I’d suspected snakes as the egg stealers, but we think the danger more likely comes from other birds, the main suspect being red-billed blue magpie. While I write this, a crested mynah bird is skulking around with intent. We’re on the lookout. Meantime, the rat snake, whose name I have to assume means it loves to chow down on delicious rodents. If so, three cheers for the common rat snake.

Alaska Trip Day 8: Moab Springs Ranch → Salt Lake City

An easy 3 and half hour drive. There will be things along the way. It’s Utah!

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].

Weather today in Salt Lake City. 18-23 and fine. Perfect! 

To Salt Lake City, last visited in the winter of 1998. John our son was a newborn. We carted him around in one of those cocoons, sliding it along on the snow, pulling it with a rope. So it’s winter, when we went to Park City, the famous skiing town.

Yours truly, 1998.  Park City, Utah. Head Skis, Lange Boots, iirc

Beautiful snow as I recall. I’m going to find and post a photo of me here. Not John or Jing only because I don’t have any of them — used to have, in photo albums, but they got lost in a move, and this photo I’ve had pinned next to my desk in the midst of a hundred others.

So, again, I’m imagining the drive is a fine one. I’ve driven in this area before, in winter, with snow on the ground, and it’s fine, jus fine.

When we were here in 1998 we were talking to a guy in Salt Lake City who’d been labelled the “Young US Entrepreneur of the Year”, an earnest, young-ish man who had developed a wraps business, and franchised it. We were looking to get the franchise for the Far East.  Failing the whole of the Far East, then Hong Kong. 

We talked business, he took us around to his outlets. On the way, he proselytised on Mormonism, this being its heartland. He insisted on stopping to buy us a “Book of Mormon”. Which is simply the most boring book ever written. Allah, or God, or Yawheh, strike me down if I’m wrong. 

We didn’t buy his franchise, because we thought it rather too simple. No competitive advantage that we could see. 

As it happens we later bought the Master Franchise for Wall Street Institute English language training system, which did have a competitive advantage, what Warren Buffett calls a “Moat”.  And we did well with it. 

But this is about Utah, in the here and now. We were supposed to be there, driving NorthWeset to SLC, from Moab Springs Resort. Today. But have been Covid-ded. 
Mind you, we’re lucky that that’s our main loss. We feel for all those, younger folks, with kids and businesses and mortgages, and lost jobs, and broken dreams, and and and... all of whom have lost to this pandemic. Heartbreaking.

Tennis Passionfruit

The courts by our place, now in use again. $US 4 per hour

The passionfruit vine brought in from Australia by Mutti
Now fruiting, which is a bit of a surprise as it’s on a north-facing wall so
not much sun.  We’ll see...

Football in Siena Park

Poinciana, aka Flame of the Forest, aka Phoenix Tree, aka  鳳凰樹
Siena Park, HK, the school roof behind.
We have a large one but it flowers erratically. 

Wall-to-wall disinfecting gear

At our local “Japan store”

Are lockdowns effective? (a bit nerdy)

UPDATE (17 May): This post was picked up by Toby Young on Lockdown Sceptics, here, scroll down, I'm mentioned by name. And some folks have asked if they could re-post to which I say “fine” as long as you link back to this post. Cheers.

Example: Hector Drummond post and comments.  

If Lockdowns were effective, you would expect a correlation between the stringency of the lockdown and the number of cases or deaths per million. For while correlation does not (necessarily) imply causation, the opposite is true: causation does mean correlation. Hence: the stronger the lockdown, the fewer the cases or deaths per million. That’s the theory.
I did the figures, based on a “stringency index” put out by Oxford University. 100 being the most stringent. And I did the correlation between this and the cases/deaths/ million, which come from Worldometer, run out of Johns Hopkins U.
Long and short: there is no correlation.

Go here to view the spreadsheet

A figure of less than 0.6 means little or no correlation. Here the figures are 0.36 for correlation between stringency and deaths/M and 0.13 for same and infected cases/M.

UPDATE (31 May): The latest figures are: 0.28 and 0.01. So, over time, the case for Lockdown has become even more tenuous.]

ADDED 2 May 2022. A better visualisation of the figures

So, there is -- at least according to the figures we have so far-- no correlation between the strength of the lockdown and the number of cases and deaths per million. This could change, and I’ll keep an eye on it.
By the way, they two yellow shaded are those with low levels of Lockdown (according to Oxford University). Our own Hong Kong is at the middling to lower end of stringency, but world-best in terms of cases and deaths per million.

ADDED (17 May): Singapore would likely have higher “Stringency Index” as it’s implemented “circuit breaker” measures since the Oxford figures which are as at March 30. Also: I’ve just noted Taiwan is very low in Stringency and ought be shaded yellow. My bad. Indeed, Taiwan has low Lockdown stringency and the lowest figures in the world for cases and deaths per million.

It seems to be the case that high levels of cases and deaths/million led to severe lockdowns, rather than the severe lockdowns leading to lower levels of each. And note also: that the top/best performers above, in terms of deaths per million (which the spreadsheet is sorted on), are all in Asia and Oceania. The top seven.

ADDED (18 May): The Lockdown Skeptic they couldn’t silence. Story of Medium.com suppressing Aaron Ginn's article, after it had had 2.4 million views. You can still read it here on WebArchive, and I see no reason why it ought to have been suppressed. It is simply some data, with some conclusions drawn. You may agree or not with the conclusions, but that ought to be allowed for debate, not simply suppressed. Especially when the US is making such a thing of the suppression of early Wuhan cases.

ADDED (20 May): This is my spreadsheet of the dates of lockdown, as defined (by me) as being the date that the Oxford U “stringency index” for the country in question went above 50. And the date of Peak infections, taken from Worldometer. I don’t want to make too much of this as there are many factors involved, such as the extent to which people did or did not follow the lockdown strictures, the measurement of the cases, etc. etc... Still, it’s interesting that the dates vary so widely. You’d expect them to cluster around 14 days, the incubation period. But they vary from 6 to 61 with an average of 28 days between the Lockdown and the peak of cases.

The live spreadsheet is here

The Walk of Shame | Andrew Cotter

Others from Andrew Cotter:
Dogs’ Breakfast Grand Final
Dog Olympics

The Company Meeting

Ten Ways Coronavirus willl change the world | We the Internet TV

From a reader in NZ

[anonymised with ***]

Hope you *** all well and happy.

Not much celebrating down here America's Cup or anything else at present.
First day out of 8 week lockdown today.
Now level 2 restrictions with some businesses restarting in limited way.

Paihia is like a ghost town. Under level 2 Kiwis can travel between regions but I doubt many will. I think until International tourism resumes it stays quiet for a long time.

Our economy has been completely broken so expect a slow grind, no V-shaped recovery that's for sure.

Government has doled out billions $ NZ [we] didn't have, poorly targeted in my opinion so how that gets serviced and repaid who knows ... a mortgage on the future.

Reserve Bank NZ now telling the trading banks to prepare for negative interest rates which maybe needed.

Although we are already heavily taxed expect tax's will need to increase further present 15% GST to 20% maybe. Income tax from 33% to maybe 50% . Capital gains tax. Death and gift duties back on the table anybody's guess with our present Government.

NZ has limited economic base without tourism so I think it's a long hard slog back up.
*** Real Estate predicted to be down 20% next 2 yrs. *** owns and operates a Public hot pool complex so Family have been badly impacted as have many others business people.

My thoughts and advice time to be conservative not a time to make any quick big bets. Reassess often as things evolve try to position as best able to.
There are going to be big winners and even bigger losers in NZ, but those categories different from before the virus.

NZ is home so we will try to stay positive and do what ever is necessary to recover from what can only be described as a complete disaster.

On a happier note want you to know [we] always think of you Jing and family and talk about you all often.
Best ****

Alaska Trip Day 7: Grand Canyon West → Moab Springs Ranch

Weather today at Moab Springs: 8-23C, sunny.  437km. 4hrs 3min

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].

A number of parks along the way. Will we slide on by, or detour? Looks like more fine high desert country driving. Scenic driving in Utah. Will have to do some more research, as the route I have above may be missing some key places to see, circled.
Like Panguich, a Lake and National Park. Maybe on the way to Hualapai, or on way to Moab Springs...

Maybe we stay here, instead of Hualapai Lodge
It looks fantastic

Staying at Moab Springs Ranch which looks great.

Alaska Trip Day 6: Las Vegas → Grand Canyon West

422km 3’52” . Looks like fine, high country desert driving
Weather 0-20C, 25%RH, Sunny.

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].
Nevada, dipping into Arizona, and then Utah. One of the places with no driving limit, iirc.This should be magnificent driving. Expecting the roads like in outside Albuquerque of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.  Like that. Good roads, few cars, high skies, mesas and buttes...
(On second thoughts, maybe not. Maybe full of tour buses from LA to the Grand Canyon.  We’ll see. Eventually).
Staying at a place called Hualapai Lodge on Grand Canyon West and on Route 66.
Just checked it out. Can you imagine this photo on their website, OMG! They’re actually advertising this!

Yuck!! BMI plus, baby!

As for the rest of it, seems to be desert-would-be-chic style, but not quite making it....
But let’s not forget the Grand Canyon! Yay. Which we’ll do on the way to the Lodge or the next morning.
And you can rent a Harley to tootle around the rim....

wid ma lady on da back

The case for the status quo

Early in the Hong Kong protests people were labelling them a new “colour revolution”. This was good branding. Because the various colour revolutions had mostly positive outcomes. 

But cursory analysis reveals the HK protests are nothing like those colour revolutions. Those were of peoples sick of their corrupt and inefficient governments and aimed to overthrow them. In Hong Kong things were rather more complicated. For a start there are two “villains” not just the one. Here we have the local government as the lesser villain and the Beijing government as the greater villain. But — and this is the critical part — the local government has been generally efficient and clean, while Beijing is popular with mainlanders, not least for having dramatically raised living standards and having fought corruption. Whatever one might think of Beijing’s human rights abuses (for which a loud boo), I can confirm from numerous visits to all parts of the mainland that people are generally pretty happy with their lives and their government. 

So whereas the colour revolutions drew on massive discontent across the nation, here in Hong Kong even mass local demonstrations count for very little in the grand national picture. Mainlanders were not “inspired” by the demos as many in the west speculated. They were baffled and resentful. They thought we were “ungrateful”. 

Thus it is risible to imagine that the rioters here could ever inspire mainlanders to overthrow the Beijing government, as, incredibly, some seem to believe. 

For those of us in the status quo camp have the tougher case to make. We are the stick-in-the-muds. Whereas the revolutionaries are idealists, the romantics. 
We do have a case, however, and it’s that the alternative is worse. That these revolutionaries, these idealists, will lead us to ruin. 
We believe that ongoing protests, continued violence and insistent stalling the business of our Legislature, will only fray Beijing’s patience and lead to more repression. And that will be a worse outcome than living with the Dragon and appreciating our  existing Seven Freedoms. In other words, protests will lead to the very thing they are protesting about. And it will be a result because of the protests, not despite them.

I acknowledge my privilege. We’ve been lucky and done well in Hong Kong. We’ve retired comfortably here after decades of work in government, in the corporate world and in our own business. We have children born here. We have very deep roots. We care for Hong Kong. 
Of course we don’t want people rocking the boat - isn’t that what any privileged person, comfortable retirees, would say? Sure, but that’s also the view of our friends and colleagues who are still out there, still working, still young, still raising families. They want peace and stability too. We count amongst them real estate agents, doctors, dentists, construction contractors, shop owners, pilots, technicians, lawyers, bankers, even some students. And - of course! -- the emblematic taxi drivers. All of them, all those folks we know here after forty-plus years, are against the protests and the violence. We all want and need stability in Hong Kong to get over the riots and the pandemic.

ADDED: Jing having read this, notes: that there are many friends and colleagues she knows who were kind of on the side of the protesters six months ago, as in “up you, Beijing!”, etc.... but who are now against the protests and the violence, because they see what harm they can do to our dear city and they are simply exhausted. It’s like “we need some peace, already! Settle down”!  (I’m freely interpreting her words here, you understand....).

And I’m also recalling that we ourselves were on side at the beginning and took part in the protests, marching  along with the chanting crowds. 

I also realise this seems like a counsel of despair. A counsel of appeasement, perhaps. What are we to do in Australia in response to China’s recent bullying of my own country? Are we to lie supine before the tyrant-dictator? Well, no, because Australia and China are two sovereign countries and the issues are economic and pandemic-related.  We must stand up to their bullying.
In the case of Hong Kong, we are under China’s sovereignty and it’s power and politics that are in dispute. The point being that continuing to challenge the sovereign can only end badly. Only badly. 

I looked up “world revolutions” in Wikipedia. It’s amazing how many there have been. They are colour-coded according to whether they failed, succeeded, or were neutral. A majority have failed. Not the American Revolution, obviously. But the French? The Great Proletarian Cultural? The Arab Spring? The Cuban? The Iranian Islamic? How many Syrians would prefer today’s deadly chaos to Assad’s pre-uprising Syria?

Below the fold is a letter in today’s Post, from a fellow DB resident.  He makes good points. Which are widely shared in Hong Kong.

Canadians being not nice. “Maskaphobia” in Montreal.

One of the things they say about Canadians — a bit of damning with faint praise — is that they’re “nice”.
Not so much lately. They’ve been rather not-nice.
Multiple reports today of them being out-and-out racist. They attack a woman of Asian appearance, above, because she’s wearing a mask and told to “go back where you come from”. Who knows? She was likely born in Canada. Asians have been there for generations and till now welcomed as contributors to the country. But viruses can scramble people’s brains.
Here in Hong Kong wearing a mask is normal and has been since 2002 SARS. I used not to wear a mask, because what I’d read from the experts (WHO!) said they weren’t effective or necessary if uu weren't frontline, but I started wearing them in public because it seemed the polite thing to do. Then WHO decided they were effective after all and governments are calling for them to be worn.
Back to Canada.
“Asian women in Canada abused, punched and spat on”. They call it “maskaphobia”.
Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, goes on racist. anti-China rant. (And gives non-apology apology).
“Opinion of China hits new low in Canada”. This view, TBF, is widely shared around the world.

Meantime a case of post hoc ergo proper hoc? That is, “X follows Y and is therefore caused by Y”. A (potential) fallacy. It may be true. It may not. They are saying that the lockdowns in Europe “may have saved 59,000 lives”. But there’s also plenty of data showing little correlation between infection rates and severe lockdown policies. In some cases (UK) the rates started falling before the lockdowns. In others, eg Italy, France, the increases continued well after the two week incubation rate. I’m not saying lockdowns were completely ineffective, but some aspects were, like locking down beaches and parks. The case for school closures remains doubtful. Stopping people going to work, when they can social distance, ditto. This will remain a fertile area for research for years to come.

Now I’m watching WHO official say on That  “this virus may be with us forever”. Well, duh! We were told that right at the beginning. And that we couldn’t hope to eradicate it. And that therefore our policies could not be based on eradication. Yet, as we’ve “flattened the curve” and “saved the health systems” — globally shared aims — we’ve also moved the goal posts towards eradication. If it’s true that it’s always going to be with us we need to find a level of virus in the community that we can live with, and how, and get back to work. 

Alaska Trip Day 5: Las Vegas

Freemont St, Las Vegas, pre-distancing days. Looks horrid, TBF

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].

We’ve not been to Las Vegas so I guess we’ll just tootle around town. Maybe take a tour of some sort. Maybe drive whatever we’ve rented. Which I’ve tossed up being a good old Mercedes or something a bit sportier — a Mustang perhaps, though TBF Mustangs are not too sporty. I last drove one in 2007 from New York to Wayne, in Maine to take John to Summer camp Androscoggin, a camp I’d been to in 1962. 800 miles each way, and it was pretty gutless and shocking handler. Still, bright red, drop-top and a bit of fun. Americans have a real love of this car. 

[FORGOT: I was also co-driver of the Mightly Mustang below, which we drove from Cape Town to Cairo in 2011]

Tour wise I’d love to do a Law and Order tour. Go all the places in the hit TV show, the original, with Billy Peterson and Margaret Hengleberger (?), before all the spin-offs, and we used to love. I wonder if they still do the tours. Or if they ever did. Maybe we’re just in my imagination. 

Remembering the Mighty Mustang.  Gordon K’s race-tricked 1968 model
We drove from Cape Town to Cairo in 2011. Table Mountain in background
More info and photos of the Mighty Mustang here 

‘Ten reasons to end the lockdown now’ | Dr John Lee

ADDED: I came across an article in the Washington Post, titled, “The weird things Rand Paul said about reopening schools”. So I went there and found nothing weird. He’s saying that the infection rates at schools is extremely low, they don’t transmit to adults, and their death rates “approach zero”. All of which are true, according to Swiss Studies and another study with many authors, which I’ve posted before.  While Dr Fauci prevaricates and says “I don’t know”. Why is it “weird” for Paul to note that Dr Fauci is “extremely cautious”. He is! If we want anything decent to happen to our kids, we need to get schools open again. Maybe there’s risk. But it’s small. Rand Paul notes that if the lockdown of schools continues, the worst hit will be minorities. Again, what’s “weird” about that. He also says that this issue should be debated.  To which WaPo says “weird”. Why? I don’t get it.

Dr John Lee is a professor of pathology and consultant to the NHS. He’s the one who wrote an article stressing the difference between dying “from Covid”, i.e. that’s the main cause of death, and dying “with Covid”when the death may be due to another factor or a number of factors and Covid just happens to be in the mix. Critical difference. The most common is the latter.
Here he is again:

Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with Covid. Such promises are easier made than kept. Following science means understanding science. It means engaging with rival interpretations of the limited data in order to tease out what is most important in what we don’t know. Instead, the government in the UK (and many other places) seems uninterested in alternative viewpoints. The chosen narrative – that lockdown has saved countless lives – has been doggedly followed by all spokespeople. No doubt is allowed. We have been seeing the groupthink response to a perceived external threat that Jonathan Haidt describes so lucidly in his excellent book on human moral thinking, The Righteous Mind.
It has now become a matter of faith that lockdown is vital. Not only is it believed to be causally responsible for 'flattening the curve', but it is feared that releasing it too soon may cause a second spike in cases and 'economic disaster' (presumably due to further huge numbers of deaths). On what evidence is this made?

 Even if one could understand why lockdown was imposed, it very rapidly became apparent that it had not been thought through. Not in terms of the wider effects on society (which have yet to be counted) and not even in terms of the ways that the virus itself might behave. But at the start, there was hardly any evidence. Everyone was guessing. Now we have a world of evidence, from around the globe, and the case for starting to reverse lockdown is compelling. Here are ten reasons why I believe that it is wrong to continue with lockdown and why we should start to reverse it immediately and rapidly.

‘Making sense of COVID-19 fatality rates’ | Star Tribune

I have no idea about the Star Tribune. I just came across this article when I was researching the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). This is the death rate as % of all cases of infection. Because we don’t know “all” cases, we have to guess, and the current best guesses are that the IFR of Covid-19 is between 0.05% and 0.5%. 

Meantime there is  a spreadsheet summarising 54 studies around the world estimating the IFR. It’s here. It’s average is 0.28%. Given that these are actual figures from actual proper studies, I’d go with that for now, with reasonable confidence as it’s smack bang in the middle of the above estimates.

The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is easier to measure.  It’s the number of deaths over the known, tested infected people. You can get it anytime from Worldometer.  It’s currently just above 6%. That is between ten and a hundred times more than the estimated IFR rate. Reason being of course, that the number of asymptomatic cases and also the number that have had the virus and got over it without reporting, is high. 

In sum: 

IFR = 0.28% (with a range of 0.05% to 0.5%) 

CFR = 6.5%

The IFR is around two to three times worse than an average flu season. It begs the question: we do precisely zip when the flu hits. Does it make sense to crash the economy for a risk that is two or three times larger?  And for those that are pro-Lockdown, what is the alternative? When does it end? What are there criteria for ending? Given that we’ve already reached the criteria we all set at the beginning: “flatten the curve’ and “protect the health system”.

In the comments to the Star Tribune article there’s this exchange (click to enlarge):

Click to enlarge

@Sfitz and @bigwolf are employing straw man arguments. No-one is saying we should have the “right to do whatvever you want”, or the “right to do as they please”. Just that people ought to have the chance to get back to work and make living for themselves and their families without putting the most vulnerable at too much risk. 

Those at risk would include me, 70+, male, high BMI. But unlike @sfitz, I don’t want the world to stop because of my risk.

I don’t want my offspring to have their lives shattered because I fear some risk. Mr @sftitz can stay at home if he’s worried. Or go for a walk and stay distanced. I don’t see what extra risk it is to him if people return to work, or reopen their nail salon, or go to the beach. Especially now people have got used to distancing and disinfecting, the two best ways to stop its spread. 

Alaska Trip Day 4: Joshua Tree → Las Vegas

Sacred Sands to LA, via Chiriaco Summit. 5 hours. 

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19].

I’ve never been to Las Vegas. We’ve never been. A nice memory of it from the fun movie “The Hangover”.

I booked Trump International Hotel, just to troll. Troll who? I dunno. Maybe my family, my partner, old friends.... In any case, I thought, surely an experience. 

And an idea for what to do in LA, was one of the Law and Order Tours.

To be via Chiriaco Summit. Desert Driving. Nice. About five hours.
Not sure why I chose Chiriaco Summit for a side trip. Better check.

Description

“Chiriaco Summit is a small unincorporated community and travel stop located along Interstate 10 in the Colorado Desert of Southern California. It lies 19 miles west of Desert Center on the divide between the Chuckwalla Valley and the Salton Sea basin at an elevation of 1,706 feet.” Wikipedia

Hmmm… is this worth a detour? I can’t even remember why
I put it on the itinerary 

Boris blows his Churchill moment

ADDED (13/5): TBF to Boris, having now read the 50 page(!) plan, it appears to boil down to “be sensible, use your common sense and what you know about social distancing, sanitising, etc”. Which is kind of what I thought was needed.  So maybe I was a not early to say Boris Bottled)

He waited his whole life. To emulate his hero. And blew it. Having just watched his announcement of “phased opening”. Which only appears to have confused and angered all sides.
This wasn’t his D-day landing, dear me no. Far from it. It wasn’t even his Dunkirk moment, a strategic retreat. It was more something like a Battle of the Curve moment. Or Gallipoli moment because this too is a dog’s breakfast of a policy.
Which is “you can do a bit of this, but not a bit of that. And maybe you can go back to work and maybe not” and it’s got everyone confused.
What I’m finding disturbing is that the commentators on BBC and other cable news are saying that everything has to be the government taking charge. The government telling people what to do. Whatever happened to individual responsibility?
And let’s remember, and tell everyone, that “flattering the curve” does not reduce the overall death rate. It just spreads it out.
A Churchillian action would have been to say, we need to open up because we cannot continue with the economy in a coma. We need an economy to have a health system. We need an economy in order to help people. We plan to protect the most vulnerable, who remain the elderly with other health conditions. We can do so because our NHS has the capacity. We will do our best for the most vulnerable, in our hospitals and our care homes. For the rest of us, let’s get back to work. Do so sensibly. You know what needs to be done. Let’s at it.

ADDED: Ben Pile says (Re the “R” number which we try to keep below one):

If I understand the Prime Minster, the level of alert will be updated by scientists checking their Rs.
If their Rs is low, then we can be free. But their Rs is high, then we must be locked up again.
Scientists will be speaking to the Prime Minster through their Rs.

And Boris gets a new moniker: Bottler Boris. That’s from his fans, is how bad it is. 

“I’m old enough to remember when...."

...as they say.
I’m old enough remember when -- because it was only a few months ago -- the reasons for lockdown were (1) To “flatten the curve” and (2) To “save the NHS”. (or whichever national health system).
Well, we’ve flattened the curves in all countries. Though to what effect, one wonders, because all that seems to have happened is deaths have been spread out, rather than concentrated in a taller hump at the beginning. But anyway, the curves have been flattened. I showed this the other day, with figures from Worldometer, which is the go-to site for latest stats.
And I also recall the panic about overwhelming the NHS. Well, the NHS is doing just fine. Not only is it not overwhelmed. It’s underused. Because people are scared to go there for the normal every day issues they have, whether it be testing for cancer, or treatment for various ailments. There are plenty of reports of empty wards and operating theatres lying idle. Same in New York. They sent the hospital ship away, because they didn’t need it.
The Nightingale hospitals, thrown up in record time in the UK are unused.
Why are the media not banging on about this? Rather than everyone banging on every Thursday night to thank the NHS. Fair enough, thank the NHS, but remember the strategy, people. The curves are flattened. The NHS is saved.
So the two main criteria for the lockdown are met. Yet everywhere is still in lockdown. It’s time to save the rest of the people. Those who’ve lost jobs, lost businesses, lost hope, lost all.
ADDED: we were also told at the beginning that we could not hope to get rid of the virus entirely because that was not possible. We would have to learn to live with it. But it seems now that the aim appears to be to wipe it out entirely. Which remains impossible and hence lockdown with no end.

Why the shifting goal posts? Why the lockdown still?
Here’s a comment on Dr John Lee’s latest “Ten reasons to end the lockdown now”.

But the most distressing aspect of this is the way the rationale and the goalposts keep changing. It feels like we are unwilling characters on a new version of Catch-22, with no way out except total impoverishment. I want to share something I picked up from another blog site comment, that seems to me to be spectacularly spot on, and very ironic on the 75th anniversary of Churchill's famous VE day speech : "Victory. Victory for the cause of freedom".
March 2020: Give up your liberties temporarily to flatten the curve and not overwhelm the NHS.
April 2020: Give up your liberties to save lives and eradicate the virus, in spite of 'good news'.
May 2020: Give up your liberties to prevent a catastrophic second wave.
June 2020 prediction : Give up your liberties and wait for vaccine.
Future prediction: Give up your liberties forever. Accept mandatory movement tracking and mandatory vaccination.

‘It’s not us, China – it’s you'

I returned from a posting to China in 1983, joined the Office of National Assessments, later accepted an offer to join an Australia boutique consultancy focused on doing business in China, founded by Stephen FitzGerald, Australia's first ambassador to China in 1972, appointed by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who called him "Comrade Ambassador". Phew.
With Steve at our helm and setting the tone, in all our writings and recommendations on China we were pretty hard nosed. It's there on the public record.
We warned of the "we Chinese" syndrome, where we often heard our Chinese interlocutors say "we Chinese think this or we Chinese believe that”. It was often used to unbalance and gain negotiating advantage.
We argued for reciprocity in all deals. We recommended against technology transfer when it would impact future competitive advantage in Australia. We had battles with the Australian aid agency about the transfer of wool-breeding technology to Xinjiang. (The Chinese were astonished that we would give away a home-grown treasure).
Steve is on record in books and speeches about all this. Summed up in: "lets not be played by China". I am less on record; I did so in speeches to business gatherings and some magazine articles, though they'll no doubt be lost in the mists of time. I was right along with Steve. He was my boss but I also believed he was correct. Start from a belief if the interests of Australia.  Don't be blinded by the "we Chinese have a huge market" rubric. Sure it's big and growing and we want to be in it. But it must be fair and reciprocal. If not we'll regret it.
And so sure enough, we do.
Chinese officials, in CCP mouthpieces, say Australia is "a piece of gum stuck on China's shoe". Such is their distain. Shocking. Except it's not. It was predictable. As we predicted. And as Douglas Murray shows.
Or read it below the fold:

‘Self defeating to invite foreign interference’

I don’t often agree with Alex Lo, but he’s spot on here. You don’t deal with a China you wish existed. You deal with the China you have. And this China is not going to buckle to foreign interference in Hong Kong. No China you can imagine, would. No country would, TBF.
China has sovereignty over Hong Kong. That is a simple fact of international law, recognised by every member of the United Nations.
The best we could hope for — perhaps the best we could have hoped for — is to maintain the very high degree of autonomy we have and the freedoms we already enjoy. One Country Two Systems to at least 2047.
For, as Alex points out, China wants Hong Kong to succeed.
Sure, there’s an extra freedom allowed for in the Basic Law — for voting the C-E by universal suffrage. “Eventually”, says the BL.  But when expansion of the franchise was on the table in 2012, the pan-Dems upended the table and stormed off in a huff. It wasn’t 100%, so they knocked back the 60%.  This was a major error. They shot themselves in the collective foot, and are now hobbling around one on the stump, plaintively holding up outstretched hands for “Five Demands, Not One Less”.
You blew it, guys.
Alex, speaking of (presumably) well-meaning Westerners:

Do they seriously think Beijing would ever concede to Western demands over Hong Kong, a city under Chinese sovereignty?

 There can only be harsh blowbacks and retaliations. Most outsiders have little understanding of the complicated relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland.

 Beijing is willing to talk; it wants Hong Kong to succeed. But like the king, [in The King and I] it cannot be seen as bowing to foreigners, especially Americans. [The rest…]

The road to hell….
Only problem is, the hell is not in the west, but we poor Hongkongers. 

Alaska Trip Day 3: LA → Joshua Tree National Park

[The virtual trip]
That’s why I wanted to go to Joshua Tree National Park. To see the place that inspired the U2 Album of 1987: “Joshua Tree - One Tree Hill”. I always loved the name. So evocative.
And it turns out Joshua Tree National Park is a beautiful desert-y place. The tree, the Joshua Tree, is kind of an overgrown hybrid of a cactus and pine, named by the Mormons for the biblical Joshua. They thought it looked like Joshua holding up his hands to guide the Israelites to their conquest of Canaan.
And here is the whole U2 Album.
It looks like it’ll be a grand drive. The park a wonder.
The Route:

Overnight at the Sacred Sands, hotel at the edge of Joshua Tree Park. How the road trip will be, I’m  not sure. Guessing busy. But not long. Couple of hours. Easy first day, ex LA.

Yes, please (Sacred Sands)

Check out the photos of this amazing desert retreat, Sacred Sands,which gets 9.9 on Booking.com. It’s difficult to get in, but we had a booking!

Hoping for a V-shaped recovery

Discovery Bay promenade looking East  Auberge Hotel
Click to enlarge

What are the main methods of coronavirus transmission?

LETTER TO SCMP:
I was shaken to see a senior official at a WHO press briefing unable to answer a simple question: what is the main method of the novel coronavirus transmission? 

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove couldn’t say (18’) which of the three main methods is primary: (1) large respiratory droplets (2) tiny aerosols (3) contaminated surfaces (fomites).

In effect, she said “We don’t have the data”.

But why not? The key mission of the WHO is prevention and control  of infectious diseases. Knowing the specific method of virus transmission has huge implications for how it is spread and how to control it. 

We are all concerned these days with the coronavirus “R” number and the need to keep it below one. “R” is an average and it appears that the spread of coronavirus is subject to the 80/20 principle: 80% of the spread is by 20% of people. They have a disproportionate effect on R. 

This occurs in Super Spreader Events (SSE). A recent analysis of public data in 28 countries by Jonathan Kay suggests the main transmission method is by Large Respiratory Droplets (aka “ Flügge droplets”). 

If confirmed, this has important implications for how to control the virus as we emerge from lockdowns. It means, for example, that cinemas, theatres and opera houses will generally be safe places to go, and importantly flying will generally be safe, whereas public gatherings such as football matches are less so, and will require masking. (The reasons are explained in the Kay article).

I have a suggestion. If the WHO can’t be bothered doing this basic research, how about our own government? Follow up and expand on the preliminary analysis done by Mr Kay — which he readily admits is less than comprehensive. Have it peer-reviewed and make the results public. 

A clearer understanding of specific spreading methods in SSEs would be a major contribution to world health and economic revival. And a fitting epitaph to the success Hong Kong has had in controlling the coronavirus, a success largely unrecognised to date.

Pf, etc…