The tragedy of life is not in our failure, but rather in not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities. – Benjamin E. Mays
The last blog was posted on 9th October which is almost a month ago. What does this signal? Boredom, loss of interest or a sense that this little pesky virus is no longer newsworthy? I suspect a bit of writers fatigue but heres the thing; this virus has now mutated into a monster which is causing havoc and panic across the World. There is also no doubt set in after the first wave was tamed but the pandemic is now reshaping into a twindemic as the second wave unleashes itself on a scale not seen in the first wave. Scary times indeed and humanity urgently needs to reset and apply all the recognised safety protocols many had tossed aside in recent months.
There is no better way to illustrate that is on the rampage than reviewing the score roughly a month ago with where the world is today. As
Are we starting to see the likelihood of fat cat, thieving politicians finally donning orange overalls?
at 1st October the situation based on the WHO dashboard was as follows (SA numbers in brackets): World 33.8million confirmed cases (674,339), World 1.01million deaths (16,734). As at 4th November the numbers are: World 47.3million confirmed cases (728,836), World 1.21million deaths (19,539). So, we have a world confirmed cases up by 40 percent and deaths by 20 percent. In one, single month! Our death tally in South Africa is up by 17 percent. This is no time to be complacent.
Europe took nine months to record its first 5 million cases and the next five million were tallied in just one month. France, Germany and the UK have announced lockdowns for the next month which are almost as strict as those imposed in March/April this year. Of course, the carrot that is dangling is Christmas and these efforts are geared to trying to ensure it is saved. These impositions by lawmakers and politicians are proving to be very unpopular and it will be interesting to observe the push back from citizens. Russia announced the release of its Sputnik 5 vaccine a few months back which has made no impact as their infections number has rocketed to 1.6 million
and reports indicate that hospitals across the country are at 90 percent related occupancy. Putin has announced to the nation that the Sputnik vaccine has crashed and is having little impact. A rare admission of failure in a country recognised for manipulating information. There are pockets of excellence; Taiwan for example, not recording a single infection for 200 consecutive days. Singapore is lifting travel restrictions with China which is remarkable given the potentially huge numbers of people who could opt to travel. The discipline of Asian people is without peer.
America continues to punch the lights out with the virus spiking across virtually all regions of the country. As at 4th November they have 9.2m confirmed cases (19.5 percent of global total) and 229,948 deaths (19.2 percent of global total). The question has to be posed; how did the Worlds most advanced nation spin out of control to this extent in mismanaging the pandemic? The two key factors undoubtedly are Trumps deliberate downplaying of the virus and the fact that many states chose their own battle plans, many of which fell short of what was needed.
on China. Consider the following; according to the WHO dashboard they have only recorded 92,077 confirmed cases and 4,747 deaths as at 5th November. This is mindboggling considering that they have a population of 1.39 billion making up 18 percent of the global total of 7.8 billion.
Travelmates near
