The Ashes: England in a panic with team selection for 3rd test

December 25, 2021

Team selections were announced for the 3rd test starting tomorrow.

Australia: David Warner, Marcus Harris, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland.

England: Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dawid Malan, Joe Root (c), Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood, Jack Leach, Jimmy Anderson.

That England needed to make changes was inevitable. But there is a hint of panic in the changes made.

That Rory Burns needed to be dropped and replaced by Zak Crawley (for want of anybody else) was unavoidable. That Ollie Pope also needed to be left out was also inevitable but Bairstow rather than Lawrence as his replacement is questionable. Mark Wood comes in instead of Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson is retained. Ollie Robinson is also retained and Jack Leach replaces Chris Woakes(!). Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad have been taking wickets (3 and 2 )and their batting is not negligible.

“Woakes also averages 54.28 away from home and 55.61 in Australia while Broad averages 37.88 in Australia.”

The paradoxical thing is that there is now a longer tail but the bowling attack has simultaneously been weakened. And the batting remains just as vulnerable.

The line between winning and losing can be very thin. Of course a hundred by someone (Root or Buttler for example) together with a Ben Stokes blitz is all that is needed for a huge batting success. That may still happen but there is panic showing in the England camp.

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Virus GoT as Omicron mates with Delta to give us Delmicron

December 24, 2021

It sounds like the Game of Thrones. Which virus strain is going to conquer?

Hindustan Times:

As cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus are being reported in the US and Europe and rising in India, reports about “Delmicron” have emerged over the last few days. A member of the Covid-19 task force in Maharashtra has said there is a possibility that the West is caught between twin spikes of the Delta and the Omicron variants of the coronavirus.

“Delmicron, the twin spikes of Delta and Omicron, in Europe and US has led to a mini tsunami of cases,” Dr Shashank Joshi was quoted as saying by a leading newspaper. The highly contagious Omicron variant was first detected last month in southern Africa and has now been reported in 89 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Delmicron is not a new variant of the coronavirus but the Delta and the Omicron strains together fuelling Covid-19 cases. Data shows Omicron is the more dominant variant in the US and accounts for 73 per cent of all new cases, up from less than 1 per cent at the beginning of the month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the Delta variant was responsible for more than 99.5 per cent of the Covid-19 infections in the US last month.

……..

Doctors say people with a weak immune system, the elderly and ones with comorbidities are at higher risk of getting infected with the Delta and Omicron variants, simultaneously, according to a report. It added that areas with low vaccinations rates are also at risk. However, health experts are divided on whether the combination of the two variants can lead to a super strain.

That’s all we need now. Virus strains selectively sharing the characteristics most suited to their own survival.

 

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Of course vaccines work! As long as you keep taking them, avoid the infected and wear a mask

December 22, 2021

Medical science has come a long way since the 14th century but epidemiology is clearly no science.

700 years ago the best advice was to avoid the infected, wear a mask and burn the dead. During the early part of 2020 hopes rested on herd immunity being achieved. Advice on masks was ambiguous and contradictory. Social distancing was the new buzzword. Only the elderly were at risk. If older citizens were vaccinated and the younger people developed immunity through survivable infection then herd immunity could still be reached. Then the pharmaceutical community produced a dizzying range of vaccines and convinced the politicians that mass vaccinations were the way to go. Billions were poured into mass vaccination programs. But vaccinations seem to be addictive.

So we got our first shots (Astra Zeneca) in April 2021. Two shots were needed of this vaccine so we got our second shots in June 2021. We practiced social distancing. We avoided large gatherings. We wore our masks. We didn’t meet with friends and family. But herd immunity was not achieved. The virus was a step or two ahead and kept mutating. Mutating sufficiently to make any vaccine less effective. The Delta variant took over. A “booster” vaccination would do the trick said the epidemiologists. So we got our 3rd shots (Pfizer) in December 2021. ( I took my usual flu shot as well).

And now Omicron is here. None of the vaccines can prevent infection by the Omicron variant but apparently, they still do help in keeping the effects milder. 

So we are waiting for shot number 4 – perhaps in March/April 2022?

And we can expect Numbers 5 and 6 later in 2022.

Yes, indeed! Vaccines do work. Three shots per year against Covid for the foreseeable future. And keep avoiding the infected and wear a mask as they did against the Black Death 700 years ago.

But don’t abandon healthy skepticism. Don’t put uncertain, speculative “science” on a pedestal. Don’t believe everything the medical pundits say and keep a large bucket of salt handy if you are listening to epidemiologists.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/21/israel-to-begin-administering-fourth-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine

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Living alone and dying alone: a dark side to longevity

December 21, 2021

This story is from Swedish Television (SvT) about the increasing number of people found dead in their homes long after they have died. I suspect it is not an uncommon story in modern societies where longevity has increased sharply in the last 100 years. Western Europe and Japan are also places where the twin challenges of aging and population decline will be the new challenges for society. But the loneliness of the elderly is primarily a consequence of longevity. I also suspect that it may be somewhat accentuated in Sweden where the fixation on youth may be the reason for the elderly gradually becoming second class citizens.

Homes for the elderly have become places where people are sent to be forgotten and to slowly fade away without any fuss. Here too they actually die alone even though they may be surrounded by strangers within a faceless system of care.

SvT News:

SVT’s survey shows that since 2018, more than 400 people have been found lying dead in their homes at least a month after having passed away. Over ten of these had been dead for more than a year before they were found. “Many times dogs are found dead right next to their master or mistress. Animals are very faithful”, says Östen Sahlén, who has been transporting corpses for half a century. He faces death every work shift when he picks up deceased people on behalf of, among others, the Police Authority. They are often people who have been dead for a long time.

“It can vary from days, weeks, months or years. The longest I’ve been through was a person who had been lying dead for three years”. His rent had been fully paid by direct debit. SVT followed a pick-up in Nynäshamn where a body was to be transported to Stockholm for an autopsy. “The smell, this sweet and sour smell you come across. I don’t think you can really get used to it, you can live with it but not be unaffected by it”, says Östen Sahlén.

In November, a deceased man was found in southern Stockholm – and the indications are that he lay dead there for over two years. The rent was paid via direct debit and the landlord Stockholmshem said that therefore they had had no reason to contact the man. The bailiff, on the other hand, tried to get in touch with him in the autumn of 2019 due to an unpaid TV fee. When they did not receive an answer, they instead went into his account and collected the money. By then, the man was probably already dead.

SVT’s survey, using data from the National Board of Forensic Medicine, shows that over 400 people had died in their homes at least a month before they were found during the years 2018 to 2020. More than 100 had lain dead for over three months and at least ten for over a year before they were found.

“There can be piles of mail and advertising inside the doors that we need to move away to get in. This is the dark side of society. I feel a need to pick up those people so that they do not have to lie there in their loneliness. I do not think you should have to disappear in this way”, says Östen Sahlén. A case that has received much attention in recent years concerns a man in his 80s who was found dead in his apartment on Södermalm in Stockholm in the autumn of 2019. He had been dead for almost four years.

Related:

Dwindling peers or the loneliness of the long-distance survivors

 

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Chinese population could crash to half by 2100

December 13, 2021

I wonder how long it will take for the politically correct to acknowledge that it is population decline that is the  challenge and not population explosion. It was only about 10 -15 years ago that I realised that my perceptions of the existential threat posed by population explosion were largely the result of brain-washing by the politically correct. 

https://ktwop.com/tag/population-implosion/

But I note that the reality of population decline is beginning to enter mainstream journalism. The Lancet now recognises that there is a risk that Chinese population could halve by 2100.

https://www.thelancet.com/infographics/population-forecast

Population increase will still be an issue in Africa for the next 100 years but it will decline even there. But there is little doubt that the colour of the world population is changing irreversibly.

The changing colours of the world’s population

The success of a species is ultimately dependent upon survival of populations. For the human species, population implosion is more of an existential threat than population explosion ever was.

 

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Is Omicron the unexpected end game for Covid?

December 6, 2021

There is an intriguing report out today.

‘Extremely mild’ Omicron variant is rapidly killing off much more deadly Delta coronavirus mutation

Excitement is growing among Coronavirus experts in Southern Africa and around the world as it increasingly seems that the new Omicron variant is rapidly replacing the much more deadly Delta mutation. Experts are so ecstatic because it seems more and more that the Omicron variant is much more contagious and dominant than Delta, but also much milder and less deadly. 

Some experts are therefore even urging countries to drop restrictions and let Omicron spread so the more infectious but less severe variant can kill off Delta quicker.

Delta displacement in full swing

Infections in South Africa have started to rise rapidly in recent days, a sign that displacement of the lethal Delta variant is in full swing, according to Adrian Puren, the acting executive director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). “What will outcompete Delta? That has always been the question, in terms of transmissibility at least, … perhaps this particular variant is the variant,” Puren told Reuters in an interview earlier this week.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said there is early evidence to suggest Omicron has an “increased risk of reinfection” and its rapid spread in South Africa suggests it has a “growth advantage” compared to Delta. Therefore, virologist Marc van Ranst pointed out that “if the omicron variant is less pathogenic but with greater infectivity, allowing Omicron to replace Delta, this would be very positive.”

Well! Well!

Perhaps it will be the mutating virus itself which will allow it to survive in some relatively harmless symbiosis with humans who will no longer try to kill it off.

It is a very attractive end-game – from a human perspective – after a turbulent 3 years but I am not taking any bets as yet.

Saved by a mutation?

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The coming population implosion: Indian fertility now drops below replenishment level

November 25, 2021

It has been about 10 years since it dawned on me that the “population explosion crisis” was long since over and the challenge after 2100 would be the population implosion. Demographic trends become obvious slowly but the trends are inexorable and unavoidable. (But there are still people who keep talking about the defunct population explosion).

In India, the decline of population growth has continued and has now fallen below the replenishment level. The National Family Health Survey in India shows that the overall fertility rate in the country has now declined to 2.1.

Indian Express:

According to the survey, there are five states with TFR above 2: Bihar (3), Meghalaya (2.9), Uttar Pradesh (2.4), Jharkhand (2.3) and Manipur (2.2). Two states reported TFR at the same level as the national average: Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Two states have a TFR of 1.6: West Bengal and Maharashtra. Six states have a TFR of 1.7: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura. Six more states have a TFR of 1.8: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. And five states have a TFR of 1.9: Haryana, Assam, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Mizoram.

The simple reality is that China’s population has already peaked and started reducing. The Indian population growth has been declining for some time and replenishment fertility level has now fallen below that needed for a stable population (in Europe this is about 2.1 and in India about 2.3 due to higher child mortality). In India population will peak around 2050. In Africa the peak will not be reached until about 2090. The challenges faced by societies to meet the needs of growing populations over the last 200 years are going to undergo a paradigm shift. From 2090 onwards global population will be declining, everywhere. Countries (Iran and China for example) already have incentives for having children. Incentives for having children will become the global norm in the 2100s. Professional continuity and maintaining knowhow will come increasingly under pressure. Skills will disappear as some cultural transmission of knowhow breaks down. The challenge in the 2100s will be the maintaining of services and the care of the elderly as populations decline.

Japan is already there.

India National Family Health Survey

Related: 

New challenges as global population will start declining already in the 2060s

The alarmist population explosion meme bites the dust

Every EU country has a fertility rate below the replenishment level

Automation can mitigate for a population decline

Population implosion after 2100?

Other ktwop posts on demographics and the population implosion

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The WHO has failed in curbing the Covid19 pandemic

November 13, 2021

History will show that the World Health Organisation was complicit in suppressing information at the start of the pandemic in a misguided, political effort to shield China from charges of gross negligence. Those actions by the WHO were themselves acts of wilful negligence.

During the course of the pandemic – soon entering its 3rd year – it is difficult to see any impact of the WHO.

The beneficial impact of WHO actions, if any, cannot be discerned in the spread, or the speed of spreading, of the virus. 

The impact of WHO actions on curtailing the numbers who died cannot be discerned.

Most of the successes (and failures) in tackling the pandemic have been at the national and bilateral level.

If the WHO has provided any benefits during this pandemic, these benefits cannot be discerned in the raw data.

The existence of the WHO has made no significant difference to the course of this pandemic.

The purpose of the WHO is not a bad idea. But it is the bureaucratic/political cadre at the WHO which needs to be uprooted.

Nature.com

…….. the agency is lumbered with a cumbersome and expensive organizational structure comprising a headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and six semi-autonomous regional offices. This has resulted in a complex, bureaucratic and ineffective management structure. It is a body that is ripe for root-and-branch reform.

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Why we need stupid people

November 10, 2021

Feeling a little irritated today.

I find I have been irritated before

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

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The real reason why India was eliminated from the T20 World Cup

November 8, 2021

India will play its last, inconsequential match against Namibia today and then they will all go home.

For the first time in about 9 years India has failed to qualify for the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup.

There will be much analysis by idiot experts and expert idiots, by journalists and sociologists, by coaches and hangers-on, by talk-show hosts and politicians, by pundits and imams, by celebrities and other ignoramuses, and sometimes by the knowledgeable. We will hear variously that:

    1. the IPL is prioritised over playing for the country,
    2. the BCCI failed,
    3. the BCCI is only interested in money
    4. Ravi Shastri had no interest,
    5. there is too much cricket,
    6. team selection was wrong,
    7. the timing was wrong for the tournament,
    8. it was not an auspicious time,
    9. the batsmen failed,
    10. the bowlers had too much to do
    11. it was bad luck or bad karma
    12. India team players are not hungry enough,
    13. the matches were fixed,
    14. Virat Kohli is well past it,
    15. Rishab Pant is a buffoon,
    16. Harthik Pandya is crude and over-rated,
    17. …………

The real reasons claimed might seem quite simple. Read the rest of this entry »

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