The world’s media have gone into excited overdrive over the last couple of days with the announcement that US drug company Pfizer has developed an effective vaccine against Covid-19. Should we be celebrating? Or is our desperation for a vaccine and a ‘return to normal’ clouding our collective judgement?
Self-isolation during the COVID 19 pandemic (www.vperemen.com)
As the second wave of Covid-19 infections breaks
tumultuously over our heads, it’s disappointing that there’s still so much
misinformation out there, and some of it is originating from places where it
really didn’t ought to. But that’s just one factor in a complicated mosaic that
has led us to this dismal outcome.
A shorter version of this post appears on the Sussex Bylines news website
The Archery Road housing development resulted from a controversial planning application with many objections. In the future, will such developments not need permission at all?
Earlier this month, the government published ‘Planning for
the Future’, a consultation White Paper on the future of the planning system,
promising the biggest shake up since 1948 with a ‘fast track for beauty’
through the planning system. The
proposals were immediately criticised by many, with the Royal Institute of
British Architects branding them as ‘disgraceful’, and the Royal Town Planning
Institute describing the White Paper as a ‘serious error’. So what exactly is
proposed in the White Paper and how’s it different from the current planning
system?
How will councils continue to provide basic services with no money?
Dramatic cuts in income have left councils with big budget shortfalls, and no way to get the money they need to provide day-to-day services. Had the Covid-19 crisis happened back in 2010, there wouldn’t have been such a problem. Ten years of austerity have left councils in no fit state to cope.
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand Prime Minister (New Zealand Government, Office of the Governor-General )
Today, New Zealand declared the country to be free of the
COVID-19 virus, and scrapped all COVID-related restrictions, apart from
quarantine of overseas visitors. It’s
not the first country to announce that it’s COVID-free, nor is it the
largest. But it is significant in that
it’s a country that’s broadly comparable to European and North American
nations, and took an approach to tackling the virus that was very different from
that of UK.
Will we see crowds of sunbathers back in Hastings?
The government has changed their advice from ‘stay at home’
to ‘stay alert’. The original message
was clear and straightforward; the new one is meaningless. Even ‘Get the
Pandemic Done’ would have been better, although just as ambiguous as the original
vote-winning Brexit slogan.
There’s been a lot of talk about how things will be
different after lockdown, with various commentators putting their own prognosis
on how we’ll all be better people in a better world when all this is over. I did at first doubt it, whether this
Coronavirus pandemic would make any difference at all, or whether we’d all have
forgotten about it in a year’s time.
That seems unlikely now – there will I believe be lasting effects, but
it’s far from clear what they will be.
Keir Starmer has secured an impressive victory as Labour
Party leader, and has appointed his shadow cabinet and shadow ministerial
team. But what does this mean for the
Labour Party? Is it really an end to
Corbynism? Does it mean a return to
Blairism? And does it mean we can look forward to a Labour Government?
Keeping chickens has been such an enormous pleasure. There’s something very relaxing about them,
their movements, the noises they make, their behaviour … it’s a much more
pleasurable experience than I’d expected.
And of course, fresh eggs every day.
The ‘White Champagne’ hydrothermal vent in the Marianas Trench – where life could have evolved.
While we’re all thinking about viruses, it might be
interesting, to some at least, to consider how these things came into being in
the first place, which in itself opens up some interesting philosophical
questions.