Covid 19 statistics - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 138 [30 July 2020]

It will all be over by Christmas …

As the world’s media focuses upon the race to see which country can get the first Covid-19 vaccine off the starting blocks, amidst wild accusations of vaccine poaching and dramatic speculation that the game has gone nationalist, I discovered myself suffering from statistic-watch withdrawal symptoms. “It will all be over by Christmas,” so the generals said at the outbreak of World War I.

Anyway, as I could hear a lot of noise but could not see the cavalry, I ignored my wife who was chuntering on about a plot to crash the world economy, of which I am not at all guilty, and found the following stats for Russia in general and Kaliningrad in particular.

These are the coronavirus figures as provided by the sources credited as at 21:31 on 29 July 2020.

Coronavirus situation in Russia, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
[Access date: 29 July 2020]

Total Cases: 828,990

New Cases: +5,475

Total Deaths: 13,673

New Deaths: +169

Total Recovered: 620,333

Active Cases: 194,984

Coronavirus situation in Kaliningrad, from https://visalist.io/emergency/coronavirus/russia-country/kaliningrad
[Access date: 29 July 2020]

Contained: 84%

Total Confirmed Cases: 2835

Confirmed in last 24 hours: 14

Ill: 456

Total Recovered: 2334 (82%)

Recovered in last 24 hours: 11

Total Dead: 45 (2%)

Died in last 24 hours: 2

Both sites from which I have extrapolated these figures cover every country known to man (and Others), so if you want to consult and compare, you know where you can go.

Meanwhile, self-isolating has never seemed so reasonable. It appears that almost everybody in this neck of the woods is taking the opportunity to socialise and get out and about whilst they can.

Reports filtering in to me from the UK suggest that the lockdown mentality has taken root and that whilst restrictions have been eased officially, many people remain cagey, with most of these believing that a second wave is not only imminent but has already begun. Indeed, the UK government and media seem to be actively preparing the populace for the second-coming.

Here, in Kaliningrad, and rumour has it in Russia per se, the attitude is markedly different. Being British, I have already been accused of hiding under the bedsheets, but on those brief occasions when I have upped periscope, although the masks go marching on, the general impression I have is that the attitude-ohmmeter swings widely across a spectrum which starts with hardened disbelief, travels across a broad swathe of resignation and ends with stoical resolve. Paraphrased it goes something like this: it is not as bad as we are being led to believe; whatever will be will be; we will do our best to avoid it but somehow life must go on.

Second Wave Coronavirus

As an experiment, I popped over to Goggle News UK and in the search engine keyed in ‘second wave in Russia’. Herewith is a sample of the headlines my search returned:

No second wave of coronavirus infection expected in Russia — former chief sanitary doctor

Russia can avoid a second wave of coronavirus if everyone follows the rules and observes distance, says WHO

No preconditions for second COVID-19 wave in Russia yet, PM says

I then did the same with regard to western Europe, ie I keyed in ‘second wave in western Europe’. The search returned:

The second corona wave emerges in Europe

LIVE UPDATES: PM warns signs of second wave of virus in Europe

Spain’s second coronavirus wave swells, fuels concern across Europe

And finally, I made the same search, but substituted Europe for UK, ie ‘second wave in UK’. The search returned:

Cambridge scientists fear coronavirus second wave as ‘R’ rate rises across UK

Six towns where coronavirus is causing fears of UK second wave as Army brought in

Government not doing enough to stop coronavirus second wave, says British Medical Association chief

Even allowing for the fact that the last headline is merely concerned with party politics, ie vote Labour and they will instigate a street demo which will outlaw coronavirus for inciting populism, the attitudinal difference inherent in the way in which Covid-19 is reported and discussed is an interesting one.

Forget the argument that the Russian version of events is to play the significance of the virus down whilst the UK and western Europe motive is to peddle sensationalism and stoke hysteria, the questions are: does the first reassure and the second sow panic, does the divergent tone of each influence opinion or reflect a herd immunity to it and, lastly, but most significantly, does the public really care? How does it go? You can fool some of the people all of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

My take on the dominant attitude towards coronavirus in Kaliningrad is that for the majority of its citizens opinion is formed not by the media but in the character-making crucible of history. To understand that statement you will need to have at least an elementary knowledge of Russian history, of the hardships endured and surmounted. After all, if it puzzled such a great thinker and statesman as Churchill ~ on Russia Churchill’s famous definition was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” ~ what chance do you have? (alright, alright, there’s no need to take it out on Churchill’s statue ~ innit). However, you can shortcut the history lesson and understand the prevailing attitude towards the threat of coronavirus in Kaliningrad by remembering that Kaliningrad is in Russia, and Russia is the country that saw off Adolf Hitler!

As for me, well, I carry my British credentials everywhere, not only in my passport, and, although I have emerged and have become more flexible in my day to day regime of self-isolation, I remain as cautious as the proverbial butcher’s dog. Wait a moment, I think I may have botched the expression. Butcher’s dogs are called many things, but are they cautious? Mine is ~ it’s vegetarian.

Will there be a Second Wave — **Will there be a second wave?**
(Photo credit: Vlad Kiselov on Unsplash {https://unsplash.com/photos/6dTQbgj1hWs})

There are lies, damned lies and statistics

Britons think life will change dramatically after COVID-19 ~ but they are not sure why or why they said it

Published: 6 June 2020

The world will never be the same as it was when it wasn’t, and many Britons would not want things to go back the way they were before they weren’t, ie before coronavirus when they had to go to work, a survey for No Real News has revealed.

Will Life Change After Covid-19?

Coronavirus has been a confusing experience, not least because in lockdown many people found themselves in the park, driving to places where they ought not to go ~ especially should their spouse find out or if they worked for the government ~ and sometimes arriving in Skegness when they least felt capable of explaining why.

A lot of people suspect that far from separating them from family, friends and loved ones, coronavirus has brought them closer together. This is particularly true for those people who visited their family more just because they were told that they should not, and for people living 45 to a house who know what it is like to travel to the UK in a very small boat.

The survey has done all sorts of funny things to those who took part in it, from people saying that they will never have to commute again to shops being a thing of the past. However, more than a third thought that this was wishful thinking, particularly those who sell on eBoot, and a large percentage of the same group predicted foreign holidays would be abandoned for a day out on a grass verge at the side of the M25.

Life After Covid-19 ~ the post-coronavirus world — The post-coronavirus world

Zoom & Skype: what are the symptoms?

85% concluded that they would not miss socialising by Zoom and Skype, because they did not know what these were, and the remaining 25% knew that they had them but were still learning how to turn them off or, conversely, how to turn their computers on ~ the latter group tended to be in the baby-boomer range, 50 to 65 year olds, who would rather be down the pub.

A recent poll by WeBelieveYou for Pie in the Sky found that 70% believed that life would be so different that nothing would be the same as it was when they weren’t drinking, whilst only 15%, those returning to work, thought that the only change would be their underpants.

A majority, 2%, ardently wished that they had done better at maths at school. Of this group, 30% said they would like the world to be different, but they did not know how, and the remainder believed that the world they have helped to shape would have been very different indeed had they gone to school instead of mugging people.

‘… but you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone’

By far the largest ‘world changers’ were those who remembered how better life was before social engineering. 45% of these claimed they were building a TARDIS, whilst 25% thought they ought to be quiet, as they wanted their company pension, many of which are police officers.

Asked what they thought they were supposed to say is the most important issue the world must face when Covid-19 is over, only 10% cited tackling future pandemics as they liked staying at home, 78% said climate change ~ particularly in England where it rains too much ~ and less than half of the number you originally thought of then doubled hadn’t got a clue or couldn’t give a flying f!*? ~ and the greatest percentage of these were university students.

Sorting out terrorism had sunk to an all-time low of 1.5%, possibly due to the fact that no one goes out anymore or, alternatively, that the figure is a false one, and the controversial subject of migration and refugees was odds on favourite depending on Brexit going ahead and Dominic Cummings keeping his job. However, a second poll by TurnLeft for PC UK, put this figure on 1% and noted that within this group 95% were fascists and the remaining 5% waiting to be labelled as such.

{At this point articles of this nature typically run out of anything new to say, so they start repeating themselves in order to create more space around which to wrap their advertisements. But we will buck (yes, I said buck) the trend:}

75% of people who think, think that after the pandemic there will be no change there, then; of those who don’t think, 50% were demonstrating and the remaining 50% were having difficulty fitting the words of their slogans onto their cardboard banners; all were defying calls for social distancing, prompting one sociologist, who has never had a proper job, to suggest that this might be their penultimate demo, the last targeting a government conspiracy where certain groups are incited to demonstrate to ensure that they get coronavirus (source: Mr Anonymous, Antifart).

The majority of people thought this last comment spot-on, with a fictional majority invented by the press admitting they were demonstrating but had never left their house. There were signs, however, that some of this group had changed their name to Short and others to Cummings.

Will Life Change After Covid-19?: Conclusion

In conclusion, of those polled 75% who think things will change significantly believe that they will probably change their minds later and of that there is no doubt.

Of those not polled, 100% wondered why, as they don’t agree with any of this.

The majority of an unspecified group had grandparents who sat on Skegness beach for 20 years waiting for the tide to return from Calais whilst wearing a knotted hanky and eating fish and chips.

And everyone, including the world and somebody else’s wife, had not a shadow of a doubt, because they never went into that part of town and always looked behind them, that after the pandemic the magnitude shift away from trusting what the media said to relying on notes in Christmas crackers would eventually lead to no more bullshit.

100% and the rest of the world could not stop applauding this!