Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'
Covid
Reading that article might well convince you of the accuracy of this statement: History may well conclude that the lockdowns were a dreadful mistake and a grotesque overreaction to a contagion that could be managed without recourse to such measures. After all, national lockdowns had never been part of pandemic emergency planning. But: By the time the world found out that Covid was nasty but not as virulent as feared, it had embarked on a course of action that those responsible could never accept might have been wrong.
I would add that politics demanded that a collapse of healthcare systems arising from initial failure be avoided at all costs. Including more deaths than there needed to have been. As MD of Private Eye said months ago: Lockdowns are an admission of earlier failure.
Looking ahead rather than behind . . . The growth of cases of the British, South African and Brazilian variants looks like jeopardising the vaccination certificate scheme desperately wanted by countries such as Spain dependent on tourism. Until, at least, 'adapted booster vaccines' are available later this year. .
Cosas de España y Galiza
In 2019, almost 84 million foreign tourists came to Spain. Last year, far, far fewer. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism says he’s confident Spain can recover around 40 million tourists this year. I fear he's being quite to very optimistic.
Some good news . . . Ten epic bike routes around Spain.
Pertinent headline: Tourism in Holy Week. Why can't I go to next door Asturias when Germans can come to our Rias Biaxas resorts in Galicia?
The UK
The government’s plans to allow international travel to recommence from 17 May are expected to be delayed, possibly until the end of June – which would be a further blow to Spain’s tourist industry.
The UK and The EU and Covid
If you take the Pfizer vaccine, 280 materials go into making the vaccine, 86 suppliers supply those materials from 19 countries around the world. If you start putting up barriers, other countries may follow suit in terms of some of those vital raw materials that are required. If we start that, we are in trouble: Boris Johnson? No, the Irish prime minister.
Scapegoating Britain will not save Europe from a self-made disaster. Bris Johnson? No, Ambrose Evans Pritchard here.
Germany
Fear is back among many Germans - and not only fear, but anger too. [Many Spaniards, by the way, are angry that there are so many Germans here in Spain, in the Balearic Islands and on the mainland.]
Finally . . .
It’s very hard to believe but true that, at the start of 1914 - after years of tension over naval expenditures - relations between Britain and Germany had become very good indeed. In fact, if the midsummer Balkans crisis of that year had been left to these 2 superpowers of the time, it’s very probable there wouldn’t have been either the First World War or the Second World War. As it is, the former saw the death of 3 empires. Including that of Germany, which - surprisingly - included islands off China and Japan.
We are all still paying the price for the actualities of 1914.
8 comments:
Yesterday, when I posted "To his coy mistress" by Andrew Marvell, I did not notice that the Galician version had been automatically translated, so there were two version in English. I've amended that.
Some 200,000 people died in GB during the flu epidemic of 1918-20 from a population of c 42,082,000, so proportionally Covid-19 is not as significant.
Don't you feel sorry for the Brits?
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-23/deadline-looms-for-undocumented-expats-in-spain-to-return-to-uk-under-new-brexit-rules
Some want to stay more than 90 days without registering, but they did not relies that even under EU rules they aware required to. Others were silly and just did nothing. I have no nice words about this bit of stupidity!
I wonder why there are so many Americans, Canadians, Australasia, who have applied golden visas when it is now ultra hard for British?
Why no edit button? I pressed the tick and send before I added this.....
Bargain Galicia?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9393673/Forget-1-homes-Italy-buy-entire-VILLAGE-Spain-price-London-flat.html
Colin, You quote "lockdowns were a dreadful mistake and a grotesque overreaction to a contagion that could be managed without recourse to such measures" - Possibly from reddit or the Telegraph.
You must realize that a person stating this can have one of two views of the world - One, that removing an individual's freedom to do whatever he/she wishes is wrong, period.
Or two, that the mistake was not to have a pandemic plan that could have been activated at the first whiff of a novel infection, thus avoiding the need for a lockdown.
By not making clear which of these positions you are promoting, you confuse your reader. He/she will either conclude you are crazy, or a clear thinking well balanced individual.
First off, I'm not at all concerned about being thought either a genius or a fool - or both. I've faced people with this challenge since I was around 20, when - at university - I both performed revues and gained a first class degree - in the days when only 1 or 2% got these, not the 25 to 50% of today.
Sorry to blow my proverbial but I feel a tad provoked . .
But on to your substantive point . . .
I'd have thought - from the many citations I've made in the last year - that it's crystal clear that I believe the right way to go - as MD of Private Eye has said a few times - was that of countries such as Taiwan and South Korea. Quickly and effectively. And involving severe border/containment measures. But once you've failed to do this, you're in for a series of lockdowns, which - though effective in the short term - mean you're always chasing your tail and are behind the eight-ball. To mix metaphors.
As MD has said, these belated lockdowns are an admission of initial failure.
I do not, of course, believe that 'removing an individual's freedom to do whatever he/she wishes is wrong, period/ful lstop'. But I do believe that 'it's a mistake not to have a pandemic plan that can be activated at the first whiff of a [serious] novel infection, thus avoiding the need for an endless series of lockdowns'.
The UK, of course, did have such a plan and had had it - in line with expert advice - for several years. But it chose not to follow the examples of China, Taiwan and South Korea and, worse, when the UK government did implement a plan, it was for flu and not for a dangerous virus. People have paid for this with their lives. Not all of them on the threshold of death.
From then on, the challenge was less to save lives than to avoid the potentially catastrophic - for the governing politicians - collapse of a health service that for years had been badly managed from the centre and very possibly underfunded.
I hope that's clear. If I wasn't before, I appreciate the opportunity to make it so.
It is, of course, a complex issue and one goes backwards and forwards, wondering what the correct response was/is.
Colin, I am grateful to you for your fulsome and most reassuring explanation.
Please forgive me. Many such as James Dellingpole publish articles such as this
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/03/24/bojos-lockdown-did-not-protect-us-but-it-will-destroy-us/
I had feared you were purveying the same dangerous nonsense. Clarity is vital on such incendiary topics, I'm sure you will agree.
I much appreciate your gracious reply.
See the latest MD overview later this morning
BTW . . . I read - but suspend belief in respect of - this guy. Who easily outdoes Delingpole.
https://therealslog.com
As I've said to friends, he's either a genius or an imbecile. Or at least the conspiratorial thinkers' conspiracy thinker.
I don't cite him, of course.
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