By Benoit Van Overstraeten , Nathan
Allen
PARIS/MADRID (Reuters) - Europe faces a
lengthy battle against the coronavirus at least until mid-2021, France warned
on Friday, as anxious governments introduced ever more restrictions to curb the
disease once again accelerating through the continent.
Europe’s
daily infections have more than doubled in the last 10 days, reaching a total
of 7.8 million cases and about 247,000 deaths, as a second wave right before
winter has crushed economic revival hopes.
“When I
listen to scientists I see that projections are for at best until next summer,”
French President Emmanuel Macron said during a visit to a hospital near Paris.
France,
which passed 1 million cases on Friday with a new record daily total of more
than 42,000, has been one of the hardest-hit nations and has imposed curfews.
COVID-19
patients already occupy nearly half of France’s 5,000 intensive care beds and
one of the government’s advisers warned the virus was spreading more quickly
than in spring.
Further
curbs are underway by governments desperate to avoid a repeat of blanket
lockdowns that brought some control in March and April but strangled economies.
---- Belgium, another of the worst-hit
countries, whose foreign minister went into intensive care this week, further
limited social contact and banned fans from sports matches.
In the Czech
Republic, with Europe’s highest per capita infections, Prime Minister Andrej
Babis moved to sack his health minister for apparently flouting rules on masks
after a meeting in a restaurant that should have been closed.
In Spain,
which passed the 1 million case milestone earlier this week, two regions,
Castilla and Leon and Valencia, urged the central government to impose
night-time curfews.
Official
data show Spain already has the highest number of cases in Europe but the real
picture may be even worse according to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who said a
nationwide antibody study suggested the total may be over 3 million.
“If we don’t
follow precautions, we are putting the lives of those we love most at risk,” he
said.
How long
governments will be able to resist lockdowns is uncertain. The governor of
Campania, the southern Italian region around Naples which has already imposed a
curfew and shut schools, called for a total lockdown, saying “half measures”
were not working.
“It is
necessary to close everything, except for those businesses that produce and
transport essential goods,” Vincenzo De Luca said.
While health
services have not so far been overwhelmed to the extent they were in the first
wave, authorities have warned of a likely surge in demand for intensive care
beds as colder weather forces more people indoors and infections spread.
Italy’s top
public health body said the situation was approaching critical levels in many
regions and said complete tracing of contact chains had become impossible.
With its own
hospitals under increasing strain, the Netherlands began transferring patients
to Germany again, after dozens were treated in its larger neighbour during the
earlier phase of the crisis.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-europe/it-is-terrifying-europe-braces-for-lengthy-battle-with-covid-idUKKBN27822Q
Euro zone economy at risk of
double-dip recession - PMIs October 23, 20209:03 AM By Jonathan Cable
LONDON (Reuters) - Euro zone economic
activity slipped back into decline this month as a second wave of the
coronavirus sweeps across the continent, heightening expectations for a
double-dip recession, surveys showed on Friday.
Renewed
restrictions to control the pandemic forced many businesses in the bloc’s
dominant service industry to limit operations, and nearly 90% of economists
polled by Reuters this week said there was a high risk the coronavirus
resurgence would halt the nascent euro zone economic recovery.
“The euro
zone PMI confirms that the second wave of the coronavirus is weighing more and
more on the economy. A double-dip in the fourth quarter is becoming more likely
at this rate,” said Bert Colijn at ING.
IHS Markit’s
Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index, seen as a good gauge of economic
health, fell to 49.4 from September’s final reading of 50.4.
That was
below the 50-mark separating growth from contraction and only fractionally
better than the 49.3 predicted in a Reuters poll.
That
headline PMI was dragged down by the service industry’s PMI, which sank more
than expected to 46.2 from 48.0.
“The further
decline in the euro zone Composite PMI in October adds to the evidence that the
second wave of infections, and the new wave of containment measures, is taking
a heavy toll on the economy,” said Jack Allen-Reynolds at Capital Economics.
Friday’s
surveys showed the bloc’s economy is running at two speeds, with manufacturing
benefiting from strong global demand but services - which make up the bulk of
the economy - struggling to remain active as lockdowns force consumers to stay
home and businesses to close.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eurozone-economy-pmi/euro-zone-economy-at-risk-of-double-dip-recession-pmis-idUKKBN2780YD
UK sees record third-quarter
retail sales growth on COVID rebound October 23, 20207:22 AM
LONDON
(Reuters) - British retail sales beat expectations last month and grew for a
fifth month in a row, capping a record quarter of growth that took total sales
volumes to 5.5% above their level before the pandemic.
Retail sales
volumes grew by 1.5% in September alone and are 4.7% higher than a year
earlier, taking the annual rate above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of
economists.
Strong
household demand has been the mainstay of Britain’s recovery from the initial
shock of the coronavirus lockdown, when output contracted by 20%, more than in
any other major advanced economy.
Britain’s
economy is set to record a rapid rebound for the third quarter, and Friday’s
retail sales data showed a record 17.4% increase in sales volumes for the
period.
However,
rising coronavirus restrictions are hurting consumer morale and weighing on the
broader economy.
“Total
consumer spending will probably start to stutter over the next few months as
the furlough scheme ends and unemployment rises, despite the increased
generosity of the Job Support Scheme,” said Thomas Pugh of Capital Economics.
British
consumer sentiment fell this month by the most since a slump at the start of
the coronavirus pandemic as lockdown restrictions tightened across much of the
country, according to a long-running survey published on Friday.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-retail/uk-retail-sales-growth-beat-expectations-in-september-idUKKBN2780O4?feedType=nl&feedName=ukmorningdigest&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018%20Template:%20UK%20MORNING%20DIGEST%202020-10-23&utm_term=NEW:%20UK%20Morning%20Digest
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
This weekend, did the
scientific “experts” advising governments, get the science of the coronavirus
pandemic totally wrong? Are they still getting it wrong in the UK?
Dr. Mike Yeadon, with an
impressive CV, says “yes” and “yes.” A long and detailed analysis.
What SAGE Has Got Wrong 16 October
2020. Updated 21 October 2020. by Mike Yeadon
Dr Mike Yeadon has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology
and a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology. He has spent over 30
years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest
pharmaceutical companies, leaving Pfizer in 2011 as Vice President & Chief
Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory. That was the most senior research
position in this field in Pfizer. Since leaving Pfizer, Dr Yeadon has founded
his own biotech company, Ziarco, which was sold to the worlds biggest drug company,
Novartis, in 2017.
Abstract
SAGE made – and continues to make – two fatal errors in its
assessment of the SAR-CoV-2 pandemic, rendering its predictions wildly
inaccurate, with disastrous results. These errors led SAGE to conclude that the
pandemic is still in its early stages, with the vast majority (93%) of the UK
population remaining susceptible to infection and that, in the absence of more
action, a very high number of deaths will occur.
Error 1: Assuming that 100% of the population was susceptible
to the virus and that no pre-existing immunity existed. Error 2: The belief that the percentage of the population that
has been infected can be determined by surveying what fraction of the
population has antibodies. Both of these points run entirely counter to known science
regarding viruses and to a significant amount of evidence, as I will
demonstrate. The more likely situation is that the susceptible population is
now sufficiently depleted (now <40%, perhaps <30%) and the immune
population sufficiently large that there will not be another large, national
scale outbreak of COVID-19. Limited, regional outbreaks will be self-limiting
and the pandemic is effectively over. This matches current evidence, with
COVID-19 deaths remaining a fraction of what they were in spring, despite
numerous questionable practices, all designed to artificially increase the
number of apparent COVID-19 deaths.
Introduction
The ‘scientific method’ is what separates us from
pre-renaissance peoples, who might tackle plagues with prayer. We can do
better, but only if we’re rigorous. If an important theory isn’t consistent
with the findings it purports to oversee, then we’ve got it wrong. Honest
scientists occasionally are forced to accept they’ve gone astray and the best
scientists then go back and distinguish what they’ve assumed from what can be
shown beyond reasonable doubt.
After nearly 35 years of work leading teams in new drug
discovery, and trained in several biological disciplines, I like to think I’ve
a good nose for spotting inconsistencies.
----It is my contention that SAGE made – and tragically,
continues to make to this very day – two absolutely central and incorrect
assumptions about the behaviour of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and how it interacts
with the human immune system, at an individual as well as a population level.
I will show why, if you’re on SAGE and have accepted these
two assumptions, you’d believe that the pandemic has hardly begun and that
hundreds of thousands of people will probably die in addition to those who’ve
died already. I can empathise with anyone in that position. It must cause
despair that politicians aren’t doing what you’ve told them they must do.
If, like me, you’re sure that the pandemic, as a ghastly
public health event, is nearly over in UK, you will probably be with me in
sheer astonishment and frustration that SAGE, the Government and 99% of the
media maintain the fiction that this continues to be the biggest public health
emergency in decades. I have written
about the whole event in detail before (Yeadon et
al , 2020). Mortality in the UK in 2020 to date,
adjusted for population, lies in 8th place out of the last 27 years. It’s not
been that exceptional a year from a mortality point of view.
----A few pieces of background. In spring, membership of
SAGE was initially treated like a state secret. Eventually, membership was
revealed. I will say that, for myself, I was disappointed. I looked up the
credentials of all the members. There were no clinical immunologists. No one
who had a biology degree and a post-doctoral qualification in immunology. A few
medics, sure. Several people from the humanities including sociologists,
economists, psychologists and political theorists. No clinical immunologists.
What there were in profusion – seven in total – were mathematicians. This
comprised the modelling group. It is their output that has been responsible for
torturing the population for the last seven months or so.
---- How Many People Have Really Been Infected?
The first
method for estimating the proportion of the population that has been infected
by SARS-CoV-2 is, rather grimly, to work backwards from what is known as the
infection fatality ratio (IFR). The IFR is an imperfect tool, but it asks the
question, if we include a perfect cross-section of the population, how many
infections, statistically, are followed by one death? The IFR is being
calculated by literally dozens of research groups around the world. Some have
intensively surveyed a city during the pandemic and so they have a good handle
on how many people were infected over time. Obviously, they know how many died,
having tested positive. Looking at reviews of these studies, I think a fair
estimate of the IFR is 0.2% (Ioannidis, 2020). To make the arithmetic simple,
imagine an IFR of 0.1%. This is the same as saying 1 person in a 1000
(perfectly representative) people die after infection. In this thought
experiment, 43,000 deaths (roughly the number who have died with or of
SARS-C0V-2 in UK to date) would have been preceded by 43 million infections. An
IFR of 0.2% means that I in 500 people infected did succumb and this implies
approximately 21.5 million people have been infected. This is 32% of our
population of 67 million. That estimate might be a little high, but I’m
confident it’s a great deal closer to the real number than SAGE’s 7%.
More. Much, much, more!
https://lockdownsceptics.org/what-sage-got-wrong/
Coronavirus not among 10 most common causes of death
in September - ONS Friday 23 October 2020 10:54, UK
There were
2,703 excess deaths across England and Wales in September, official figures
show - but coronavirus was not in the 10 leading causes of fatality.
The numbers
released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), are relative to the
five-year average, counting from 2015 to 2019.
The leading
cause of death in September for both nations was dementia and Alzheimer's
disease.
However, coronavirus was the underlying cause of death
in 11.5% of all deaths in England and 9% of those in Wales from January to September this
year.
Advertisement
More than
800,000 people have caught coronavirus in the UK since the start of the
pandemic and more than 44,000 of them have died.
As cases
have surged again in the second wave, millions of people are facing tougher
lockdown rules in the next 24 hours.
More
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-not-among-10-most-common-causes-of-death-in-september-ons-12111980
Spanish PM Says Coronavirus
Infections May Be Triple Estimates By Rodrigo
Orihuela
October 23, 2020, 12:14 PM GMT+1 Updated on October 23, 2020,
1:05 PM GMT+1
Prime
Minister Pedro Sanchez said the number of people in Spain who have contracted
coronavirus since the start of the pandemic likely exceeds 3 million, some
three times higher than official data would suggest.
The much
steeper figure is based on serology tests, which measure the antibody response,
Sanchez said Friday in Madrid, reiterating an appeal for national unity and for
citizens to restrict movement and social contact. At the same time, he
indicated that curbs would not be tightened in a way that causes unnecessary
damage to the economy.
“We have to
put in place the measures needed with the least economic impact,” Sanchez said.
“We must at all cost avoid going back to home confinements as we did in
spring,” he added. “The next few weeks and months, now that we enter the
winter, will be difficult, very difficult.”
Spain this
week became the first Western European nation to surpass 1 million infections,
according to health ministry figures, as cases surge nationwide and officials
seek an effective strategy to check the spread. Health Minister Salvador Illa
conceded Thursday that in parts of the country the pandemic is out of control.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-23/spain-has-3-million-coronavirus-infections-premier-sanchez-says?srnd=premium-europe
Next, some very useful vaccine
links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World Health Organization -
Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine
Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford Website . https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
FDA information . https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download
Regulatory Focus COVID-19
vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Covid19info.live
https://wuflu.live/
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, and science in general, I’ve
added this section. Updates as they get reported.
Another Major Breakthrough For
Solar Energy By Alex Kimani - Oct 20, 2020, 5:00 PM CDT
---- Now,
next-generation perovskite solar cells are likely to not only put the final
nail in the coal’s coffin but also to twist the knife into a suffering oil and
gas industry.
Back in May, we
reported that the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) had forged a public-private consortium dubbed the
US-MAP for U.S. Manufacturing of Advanced
Perovskites Consortium , which aims to fast-track the development of
low-cost perovskite solar cells for the global marketplace.
That partnership appears to be bearing fruit, with the
consortium recently announcing highly encouraging advancements in perovskite
technology that could boost the efficiency of perovskite solar cells from
the current ceiling of ~25% to a dreamy 66%.
High-Performance Perovskite PV Coming
Silicon panels pretty much rule the solar energy sector,
with more than 90% of panels manufactured using the versatile element.
Silicon PV cells have their advantages: They're quite
robust and relatively easy to install. Thanks to advances in manufacturing
methods, they've also become less expensive, especially over the past decade,
particularly the polycrystalline panels constructed in Chinese factories.
However, they still come with a significant drawback: Silicon PV panels are quite inefficient , with the most
affordable models managing only 7%-16% energy efficiency depending on factors
such as placement, orientation, and weather conditions. Indeed, solar cells
have been around for more than six decades, yet commercial silicon has barely
scraped into the 25% range, maxing out at a theoretical 30%. This sad state of
affairs is due to the fact that Si panels are wafer-based rather than
thin-film, which makes them sturdier and more durable. The trade-off, however,
is efficiency.
To meet the world's rapidly growing energy appetite—and
achieve the kind of de-carbonization goals that would help slow the impact of
climate change—it would actually take hundreds of years to build and install
enough silicon PV panels.
----Until now, few designs emerged that were commercially
viable, particularly thin-film cells that could theoretically achieve much
higher levels of efficiency.
Thin-film PV panels can absorb more light and thus can
produce more energy. These panels can be manufactured cheaply and quickly,
meeting more energy demand in less time. There are a few different types of thin-film out there, all of them a
little different from standard crystalline silicon (c-si) PV panels.
More
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Another-Major-Breakthrough-For-Solar-Energy.html
This weekend’s musical diversion. The almost totally unknown Italian Domenico
Caudioso. 
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