Joke on Reddit/QAnonCasualties:
How can you tell if someone’s been vaccinated?
Ask them who won the election.”

Joke on Reddit/QAnonCasualties:
How can you tell if someone’s been vaccinated?
Ask them who won the election.”

Not Dr Demon Sex?

I’m sure you are right about that, and – as you suggest – they are not missing much!

I expect that most of us in the UK have never heard of Metaxas (I only know of him from this and one or two other blogs) – and long may it remain so.

It is the case that the four nations of the UK have different regulations, but they all have regulations that are relatively robust (and the statistics for N Ireland and Scotland are broadly similar to those in England and Wales). The third round of ‘relaxation’ in England occurred last Monday; just how effective the vaccines are in keeping down infection rates should be known in around two weeks’ time. (The first two rounds of relaxation has not led to any rise in recorded cases despite more testing than ever going on, especially since the full reopening of schools and colleges in March.)

In the UK, probably around 65% of people have either had COVID-19 or been vaccinated. Is herd immunity close? We’ll soon get an idea. I certainly hope that an increasing proportion of vaccine doses being produced can be supplied to places where that percentage is lower.

I’m really happy to see that. We are still a collection of mixed states doing their own thing but it has definitely gone into high gear since Biden got in. Let’s hope this summer brings relief. We still have the rest of the world to deal with. The wealthy nations must play their part in this and help the poorer ones.

The red line shows what has happened as the vaccine ‘kicked in’. 2017-18 was a hard winter; 2018-19 and 2019-20 were relatively much milder, as was 2020-21.

Yes, I have been aware of his contributions. Thank you.

Of course, the ‘negative’ excess deaths is a recent thing in the UK, although there was a brief period last summer where, overall, fewer people than the average of the last five years were dying. During the first wave (March – June 2020), there were excess deaths not directly attributable to COVID-19, but I suspect that this was partly because the NHS had not yet got onto its proper ‘war footing’. As of today, the seven-day average for daily deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test is 35*, but this will rise slightly later in the week, because of delays in data collection over the long holiday weekend (which ends tomorrow).

* This is one-tenth the number in Italy (with a similar population and land area to the UK), showing clearly the enormous effect of the vaccination programme. Metaxas can ignore this if he wishes, but by doing so he is putting his contemptible stupidity on full display.

I would add that protestants / evangelicals in the UK seem on the whole to be taking a very different line to many in the USA. The local Baptist church is still closed, as are the Pentecostal churches I know of in the local area; the URC (Presbyterian / Congregationalist) church is open, but with very strict rules being applied. Across the spectrum of Christian traditions, the vaccines appear to have been welcomed.