We commented yesterday on the current outbreak of Covid-19 cases further west in Cornwall than Davidstow, and suggested that the cause may be the recent G7 Summit in St. Ives, which finished on Sunday.
Here is yesterday’s map:
Together with a “heatmap” showing the age distribution of cases across Cornwall as a whole:
The far right of the image suggests that during this so called “third wave” of Covid-19 cases, the 15 to 24 age range has been the hardest hit. Possibly that’s because this section of the population has yet to be vaccinated?
The official data for June 10th have also just been released, and this is how the latest map looks:
Truro, Redruth and Mevagissey are no longer pure white, as they were on June 9th. A total of 27 cases in St. Ives doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s an enormous percentage increase on the previous 7 days.
The swell was onshore and the wind was light and sometimes offshore along the North Cornwall coast on Sunday 13th June:
Hence we headed to the coast for an afternoon bodyboarding session at Watergate Bay, which also allowed us to wave goodbye to some of the global leaders departing these shores at the conclusion of the 2021 G7 Summit:
Pics from our #surfing session at #Watergate Bay yesterday, as our assorted lords and masters flew out of #Newquay Airport.
The police were friendly, although not local by the sound of it. Almost apologetic as we left.
The G7 summit ended with rich nations reaffirming their goal to limit global heating to 1.5C, and agreeing to protect and restore 30% of the natural world by the end of this decade, but failing to provide the funds experts say will be needed to reach such goals.
Boris Johnson badly needed a successful G7 deal on climate finance to pave the way for vital UN climate talks, called Cop26, to be held in Glasgow this November. Climate finance is provided by rich countries to developing nations, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown, and was supposed to reach $100bn a year by 2020, but has fallen far short.
Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace, said: “The G7 have failed to set us up for a successful Cop26, as trust is sorely lacking between rich and developing countries.”
Without stronger commitments on climate finance, Johnson will face an uphill struggle in getting support for any Cop26 deal from the developing world, who make up the majority of countries at the UN climate talks and who will make or break any deal there.
The prime minister was left to re-announce previously allocated cash, in the form of a £500m blue planet fund for marine conservation, already set out last year, while the other G7 members refused to stump up funds. About $2bn is to be provided to help countries phase out coal-fired power generation, but it is not clear whether this is new money.
— Laurence Reed UK BBC 🎙 (@laurencereed) May 13, 2020
Since I’d already been writing to my MP about the probable problems of policing the new Covid-19 lockdown exercise guidance revealed by Boris Johnson over the weekend, the thought of asking Shaun Sawyer a question or two was irresistible! I duly dialled the listed number and was told to expect a call back once Shaun Sawyer was on air later in the afternoon.
Sure enough a couple of hours later I was listening to what Shaun had to say when my mobile phone rang. Now listening via my phone I heard Laurence frighten Shaun off by asking him about his worst ever date! Not long after that Laurence said my name. You can hear what happened after that by fast forwarding the following recording on BBC Sounds to 1:53:45
The recording will be available for another 29 days, and during that time I’ll endeavour to post a more complete transcript below. For the moment here’s an extract to give you a flavour:
Jim – I was hoping to speak to our Chief Constable, but he’s gone… Can I make my point?
Laurence – Please do.
Jim – Lots of other people have made all sorts of other points that I was endeavouring to get across to our Chief Constable, but I’ll just quote one from Twitter, not written by me. He was “tweeting” to Shaun, saying “What do you make of the ill thought out, poor legislation made in haste by our Government?”. So my question would have been “Has the Government consulted either the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall or indeed the Chief Constable’s organisation before implementing these hasty, ill thought out measures that all of us in Devon and Cornwall are having to put up with?”
He’s gone, so I can’t ask him!
Plus the question I’d have put to @CCShaunSawyer if you hadn’t frightened him away with a question about his first date!
Before the recent “easing” of the #lockdown regulations, were you and/or the @PoliceChiefs as a whole consulted about the new “infinite exercise” guidance?
Here is the output of James Annan’s Covid-19 epidemic model, comparing what actually happened with what would have happened if the UK lockdown had been imposed one week earlier:
To summarise, that’s 11,000 simulated deaths if lockdown had taken place on March 16th, instead of around 43,000 actual deaths following lockdown on March 23rd.
