zyxpwf: 2024

We're seeing mpox spreading across Africa, and leaking out to Sweden and Pakistan (so far). The WHO has declared it a public health emergency of international concern.

The NHS tells us "If you get infected with mpox, it usually takes between 5 and 21 days for the first symptoms to appear", and the first sign could be "flu-like symptoms". That could give us plenty of time for infection to spread before it's detected.

NHS advice is imprecise on whether the infection can be transmitted asymptomatically if you are "in close contact (such as touching their skin or sharing towels, clothes or bedding) with someone who HAS MPOX OR HAS MPOX SYMPTOMS" [my capitalisation], but there are warnings that it can - "Some people can spread mpox to others from 1 to 4 days before they have symptoms".

The UK Health Security Agency tells us "The risk to the UK population is currently considered low. However, planning is underway to prepare for any cases that we might see in the UK. This includes ensuring that clinicians are aware and able to recognise cases promptly, that rapid testing is available, and that protocols are developed for the safe clinical care of people who have the infection and the prevention of onward transmission".

The first Hallett report on the UK's preparedness for a pandemic emerged on 18 July, with recommendations to act quickly and visibly. The Cabinet Office and UK Health Security Agency would surely be expected to have a plan for a plan by now to deliver according to the recommendations defined in Appendix 4 of the report, and I'd like to know why it wouldn't require the first review (Recommendation 1) before Christmas.

This is a test of the UK's seriousness, and you should be pursuing it rather than waiting for official announcements.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Wilson

Wednesday, 31 July 2024

56 seconds of Farridge - "My response to the attack in Southport" - statement, 30 July 2024

Farridge Commentary

Well it's pretty horrendous. The third young girl has died as a result of the stabbings yesterday in Southport. I obviously join everybody in my horror at what has happened. I know the prime minister went to lay flowers and was heckled, and it shows you how unhappy the public are with the state of law and order in our country.

Indeed we are (though when was the last prime ministerial visit which didn't attract the odd heckle?)

police numbers slashed and only partly replaced by inexperienced recruits after ten wasted years
prison staff slashed and hard to recruit due to working conditions
probation half-privatised then re-deprivatised
courts closed, judicial schedules squeezed, legal aid lawyers' pay held down - for more than a decade this time - and legal aid withdrawn
child and youth provision pretty much disappeared in many areas
boasts that crime is down - largely true - but sentences pushed up, so the prisons are full to overflowing
Covid effects (there are some, but most of it has nothing to do with those two years) leaving court schedules way behind and many more remand prisoners
prosecutions, from the appalling figures for rape, to shoplifting and all points in between, apparently just not happening

I have to say, there are one or two questions. Was this guy being monitored by the security services?

Nobody seems to have any reason to say so, but let's throw that in.

Some reports say he was, others less sure.

A classic directed on-the-one-hand-but-then-on-the-other, with several hands missing and a strong hint at the direction he wants you to take.

The police say it's a non-terror incident, just as they said the stabbing of an army lieutenant-colonel in uniform on the streets of Kent the other day was a non-terror incident.

As far as I know, neither of these terrible cases is being investigated as a terrorist incident, though counter-terror police might be consulted in complex cases - see this discussion of police and media methods from an experienced journalist.

I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don't know the answer to that, but it is a fair and legitimate question.

He has no reason or evidence to wonder this (except perhaps a suspicious mind), but he thinks he should by now have planted the idea that "fair and legitimate question" actually means "bleedin' obvious".

What I do know is something is going horribly wrong in our once beautiful country.

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