I have to admit to be somewhat confused by all the comments, mainly on the UK media, about the status and issues around the pandemic.
I am certainly not ignoring the serious nature of the pandemic nor the problems faced by many parts of the world.
But where exactly are we in the UK and Europe?
In the UK most of the adult population have or are being vaccinated.
In Spain over 50% of the adult population have received at least one dose, nearly 30% have had two doses. And the numbers are rising rapidly.
We see reported infections daily of around 3000 in the UK and 5000 in Spain.
But all the reports are that these are not serious cases requiring hospitalisation.
The UK is panicking about the Indian variant, but then we are told that the vaccines are effective against it.
We hear that the NHS is concerned that they are inundated with patients.
But these are not Covid patients.
They are the backlog of normal patients which will take years to clear.
As for deaths, the only reliable figure, these are down to single figures in the UK and around 30 in Spain, per day.
In Spain many of these will be people who caught the virus before the vaccine programme rolled out.
And these are people dying WITH Covid, not necessarily OF Covid.
And we should compare the daily deaths with annual deaths in both countries, which is around 1% of the population annually.
That is …
In the UK around 1600 PER DAY
In Spain around 1300 PER DAY.
We are told by all the experts that Covid is with us for years.
So at some point we have to live with it.
My question is ..
If not now, when?
Fortunately in Spain we seem to have politicians who have accepted that the time is now.
There are discussions about when to relax rules about wearing masks.
In the UK they seem to want to close the country to foreign travel for months to come.
