Who's over COVID19? Who's had enough of masks, comical fist bump/handshakes, while going stir-crazy with caged-up kids and other halves? The trouble is, this pesky strain of Coronavirus won't go away quietly. To defeat it, we the human race have to get the number of COVID19 cases to zero. Yes zero. Everywhere.  The thing about viruses is that they don't do border control. They spread faster than toupees in a hurricane. The Spanish Flu of 1918 reached remote islands within months, without the aid of modern air travel. In fact, all it needed to travel was air itself. So, it's down to us to stop COVID19 from returning again and again, like an unwelcome uncle who seems to crash permanently on your sofa. The really tricky thing about COVID19 is that the total number of cases isn’t known. Only cases confirmed by a Coronavirus test are actually known. Databases are being built so that visualisations of the curve can explain if we humans are making progress. The only way to...

The world has a choice, develop herd immunity and let COVID19 run its course. Leaving the world with a massive body count. With few escaping the loss of a friend or a family member. OR… The human race searches for the 21 st  Century holy grail. A vaccine, that can be distributed on a massive scale to save a significant amount of humanity. Obviously, the latter is more attractive, so how are we doing on our quest? The race for a COVID19 vaccine is on! I better kick off with a word of caution, the development of a safe vaccine for a new illness like COVID19, can take up to 18 months to get to us. That’s with accelerated approval and research moving at unprecedented speed. Saying that, the first COVID-cure-off-the-rank, of course looks like coming from China. This vaccine is being developed by two giant Chinese pharmaceutical companies and it has just completed a second phase of testing. They say it might be ready to go to market by the end of 2020, which is astonishing. In fact,...

The Coronavirus pandemic is always on the lookout for the most vulnerable, in the worst conditions. When these two circumstances align, it doesn’t hesitate to send the grim reaper to harvest innocent souls. Sending red lines on graphs shooting upward, at acute angles on news programmes around the world. Such a situation occurred recently in Brazil. A meat packing plant, full of indigenous workers with little access to clean water and health services. BOOM! COVID19’s ship had truly come in! South America’s U.S.A.? Brazil’s death toll is flying faster than the great Jairzinho going down the wing. Surpassing 21,000, its consistently clocking up deaths of over a thousand on a daily basis. Indigenous leaders aren’t sure of how many of this total, are from their community, as indigenous names aren’t always used when being admitted to hospital. Brazil zoomed past Russia, in total infections (330,890) behind the Big Daddy of the COVID19 pandemic, the United States. We’ll Meat Again!...

President Donald Trump has decided to conduct a clinically insane trial of 1! He is taking hydroxychloroquine, an old malaria drug in an attempt to defend against COVID-19. Donnie’s nemesis, the much maligned, World Health Organisation says the science is still unclear about the drug and recommends that it should only be taken under controlled conditions of clinical trials. (So not taken in a random fashion by an orange 5-year old, masquerading as the 25 th  President of the United States?) Poo-pooing Science.  In fact, President Donnie poo-pooed studies that linked  hydroxychloroquine  to high fatality rates in COVID19 patients. Saying that it was a ‘bad survey’ and it had been administered to people who were ‘almost dead’. Meanwhile at the University of Virginia, their studies showed that more than twice as many patients on the drug, died from Coronavirus than those NOT on the drug. While studies in France and China proved the drug was totally ineffective agai...

You Still Alive and Kicking? I checked in with my precious older sister Esme and my brother-in-law Ray last night. It was morning in Blighty and evening in Oz. And guess what popped into the conversation? The friggin’ Black Death! Like the rest of the world, I didn’t see COVID19 coming. Or for that matter, the Black Death being a topic of conversation for my elderly, kith and kin to happily chat about! Obviously, being in their late 70s and early 80s, they didn’t actually remember first-hand the bubonic plague but it was a surreal experience non-the-less. 'Which is worse, Coronavirus or the plague?' Search me? I was just phoning to see if you were alright! They’re both in the sweet-spot, demographic for the virus to have its evil way, so you can understand my concern. A Short History of Virus. As a life-long student of history, it got me thinking about the similarities between the two. Both spread rapidly between countries around the globe, catching governmen...