Lust

It is an interesting time to post this.  My wife, daughter and I are watching The First Time. The reason both my wife and daughter have wanted to watch this is because of Dylan O'Brien.  It has been interesting to watch this, but despite a few issues, his shirt being always ironed at the party for one, it is a good film.  I identify a lot with the father, but more so with the father from a short film the kids and I watched earlier today, Riley's First Date?

I thought that it dealt with teenage relationships quite well.  Not knowing what was going on, the mix of emotions and the message about the right thing to do,

But the reason I post this is, as the title suggests, about lust.

I have posted before about how I felt how Brett Kavanaugh lied, or forgot important episodes when he was drunk over the testimony given about the allegations of sexual assault against Christine Blasey Ford.  I do not think that he can be proven to have assaulted her, but if he tried her for defamation, she would be found innocent as while the GOP ignored the holes in his testimony a court of law would not.  It is horrible how people have slandered the woman who was brave enough to speak out over him.

Sexual assault is not just limited to the GOP, Biden has faced his and his creepy behaviour around women does not scream innocence on his part.  But he has not been shown to lie about this drinking.  And he has not boasted about sexual assault.

And that of course takes us to Donald Trump.  Not only has he boasted about infidelity and sexual assault, he has had two affairs that he know of, this being a one time dalliance with Stormy Daniels as well as a longer affair with Karen McDougal.  His supporters can say that these are just alleged affairs and the bush money paid to them does not imply guilt, but this is a man on his third wife.  In 2016, many who claimed to be Christians voted for him, as opposed to a woman who stuck with her adulterous husband.

One day, someone may explain this double standard to me.  But I have been waiting a few years and I suspect no one will be able to justify it.

Waiting for the R number to rise

Social distancing is still taking place, but not as much as before.  And I working in primary care, I can see the consequences.  Specifically, I have to assess and treat the consequences.

I suspect that one child I saw earlier this week has COVID-19, and today I saw two children with symptoms of viral infections that probably were not COVID.  Probably.  But in order for those children to get those infections, they had to have caught them from someone.  And if they can catch one virus, they can catch others, notably COVID.

In the last few weeks, I have not seen any children with symptoms of a viral infection, quite simply because they have been in isolation, and therefore were not able to catch these infections because they did not see anyone to catch infections from.  I knew that when the lockdown measures were eased that I would be seeing unwell children again.  And that has happened this week.  Which means that I am going to be at greater risk of catching COVID.

Things would be better if people were being sensible when it comes to how they act, but considering the crowds at beaches this week, not enough are.  Not all of them will end up like the Fusco family, but some may.
On he bright side, my COVID test came back and I do not have the plague. Yet.

COVID testing

Have been carrying out COVID19 testing at work today.  In the last seven or so days, we have lost four staff, but thanks to the way testing for COVID-19 has been improved, we have got two back already and one more is returning tomorrow.

But today we tested frontline workers.  I was one of the volunteers for testing and carried all (but my own) out.  Not all got tested, but some of us did as a way of the health service trying to find out how many people in the NHS are working but are asymptomatic carriers.

The procedure was uncomfortable and carried a risk of spreading infection in itself.  Also it was meant to have been carried out yesterday but we were not sent the samples.  And now it is a wait for the results.  Considering how we are monitoring temperatures at work now, I doubt that anyone will be found to be a carrier.

Vaccines Work

Vaccines work.  They have saved lives and reduced the burden of illness and disability.  We know this due to several things.  One is how Obama has harmed vaccination programs.  Another is the eradication of Smallpox.

Obama did many things as US president, Like Trump, some of this was good and some of it was not so.  When the USA assassinated Osama bin Laden in Operation Neptune Spear, they obtained information on this presence through a hepatitis vaccination programme allowing them to obtain DNA evidence of his presence.  Militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan started to attack healthcare workers who had been trying to eradicate polio and one of the reasons for this was the perception that healthcare workers were continuing to aid the USA.  Vaccination rates dropped and the rates of polio increased.  But when vaccination rates increased, the cases of polio fell.  Likewise, falling vaccination rates due to increasing unrest have resulted in more cases of polio in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  To be fair to Obama, he cannot be blamed for all of this as extremists there have been spreading lies and fake news about vaccinations.  

My next example of how vaccinations work is smallpox.  Put simply, it is not seen anymore.  And that is thanks to vaccination.  Those who are against vaccination claim that there are other reasons for the end of smallpox, this including hygiene measures.  But while other diseases have continued in areas of poor hygiene, smallpox has been eradicated.

At present in the world, many are hoping that a vaccination to COVID-19 will be developed.  An effective and safe vaccine may not be possible though.  Even trials into this have been subject to fake news with reports being shared that the main volunteer into this has died.  If Dr Elisa Granato has, she has been able to speak from beyond the grave to state that she is alive!

RIP Dr Mirza

Sadly a local GP has died.  I had only met him a few times but was surprised to find that he was in his 80’s as I assumed that he was about twenty years younger.  Well respected in the area, COVID-19 got him.

My own exposure to patients has increased.  In the last week I have seen more patients in a face to face role than I did last month.  I do have access to PPE, this being a simple fluid resistant mask, a bin liner apron, gloves and if I feel it is needed, a visor.  We are taking temperature measurements at work from everyone daily, but have lost two others this week.  Thanks to testing, the symptomatic members of their households will find out if they are carrying the plague or not and hopefully they will be back soon.

With lockdown easing, I know that not only am I seeing more patients, but the numbers of those infected by COVID is to increase.  I know that others have faced much more risk than me, but I know that the odds that I face are getting worse.

Every time I go to work, I am rolling the dice and I have no desire to join Dr Mirza as another local healthcare worker who has died in this pandemic.

Anyway, he was respected and I am even more impressed with him now that I know how old he was. May he rest in peace.

Is it right for an unarmed jogger to be shot in broad daylight just for running on the road

In the UK, people can now exercise outside the home as much as they want.  Which will mean more joggers being out and about.  And in these times of the plague, some joggers are considerate and give pedestrians a fair bit of distance as they jog past.  Others, not so much.

In the USA, an unarmed man was shot when jogging.  He allegedly decided to assault an armed man who shot him.  This was a few months ago but this has come to the public eye as a video recording of the incident from a dash cam was released.  It just happened that the unarmed man was black and the men who killed him were white.  Well one man killed him, the other could be argued to be an accessory.  There is an argument by some that there was a racial element to this and the crime that took place was running when black.  But I think that race should be ignored.

Ultimately the question to ask is if it is right for an armed man to kill an unarmed jogger.  As you can see, some think that it is acceptable, stating that he had a criminal past and was seen in a building site before.  Interestingly, it has been argued that it was right to pull him over for he crime of assaulting the man who pulled him over.  That reminds me of the film Minority Report, but the choice of film name will probably cause offence to some as well.

Yeah but no but yeah. Not Vicki Pollard, but our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson

pic.twitter.com/k6Sr4Iac15

— realmattlucas (@RealMattLucas) May 10, 2020

We in the UK are lucky.  No matter how much our Prime Minister screws things up, we can always look to Brazil and the USA for leaders who are more incompetent.  And while the government has got some things right (such as sourcing ventilators and building the Nightingale hospitals), and may be right in the long term when it comes to the policy of herd immunity, it has got many things wrong, an example of this being PPE.

In hindsight, we could say that the government should not have built the Nightingale hospitals but at the time, this of making the decision, based on the information available, this was the right thing to do.  Also, while letting the public know how measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 were to be put in place in advance, we can now say that the 'leak' about how lock-down measures were to be loosened before this bank holiday weekend was a bad idea.  Let alone how alcohol appears to have resulted in worsening social distancing measures on VE day.

But last night, the television address by the Prime Minister was a shambles.  Letting employers know that people are to return to work literally the night before the change comes into effect was insane.  It would have been far better to let employers know about this before the bank holiday weekend so that they would have had more notice along with employees.  Saying that, while we were told that the changes are to take effect today, it now appears that they are not.  And the advice on who we can or cannot meet now, or is it in the future, is also unclear.

A good thing about the performance of the Prime Minister is that it has taken our attention away from the message to Stay Alert.  The message to stay at home to protect the NHS was been a simple one and due to this it is to be kept by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  The change in message indicated that lock-down measures are to be relaxed, but due to the incompetence at which the message was changed to this unclear form, we should have been warned that the message would be shared in as incompetent a manner. 

There are ways to present a message to the nation.  This is one of them.  Boris should learn from this message how to present himself as a Prime Minister.  It is a shame we have a buffoon in charge when the man who should be Prime Minister is not.