Currently typing with one hand only. I tripped and fell a few weeks ago and hurt my right hand. Thought it was just a bad sprain for a while, but had it checked when got back to Muscat.
It turned out to be well messed up, requiring surgery and the insertion of a metal plate. Had the surgery done last Thursday at the Khawlah Hospital, which was just known as the PDO clinic when I first worked here in th 80s, if it had even been built then! It is a huge place now.
Two days in hospital, good professional treatment, great staff. Highly recommended for anyone in need of treatment.
The problem I have now is getting home.
Thailand has extended their lock-down until the end of May, and I have no news on when Oman will open up for departures.
I have to confess that I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to this ‘pandemic’
If it had happened 40 or even 30 years ago, it would have been written off as just a bad flu season.
The problem we have now is that media, both mainstream and social, conflate real evidence with hypothetical possibilities. It is hypothetically possible that COVID-19 will kill billions, but the evidence clearly shows most people have little, if anything to worry about.
In fact the evidence clearly shows that the vast majority of those infected recover without intervention.
The media however want sensational headlines, and are happy to use any source to create them.
This from a parody site of course, but it does demonstrate what I mean.
There was a time when the BBC was a reliable source of unbiased news, now much of their content seems to be poorly researched, uninformed opinion pieces presented as fact.
Maybe I will get one of these:
I won’t even start on the American news outlets.
Furthermore, we have a distortion in the way things are counted from one year to the next.
What was the true number of flu deaths last year? No one knows, but we will surely know this year’s tally of COVID-19 deaths.
It will be years before we know the true story, if ever, but consulting the font of all knowledge – Wikipedia ……
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Epidemiology
(scroll down to about the middle to see the table “Major modern influenza pandemics”)
we see that in a typical yearly flu season the total worldwide deaths is anywhere between 290K and 650k, with over one billion infected.
Today, the worldwide reported count of infections for COVID-19 is just over 3 Million – after 4 months.
But what is the true count of infections? 2 Times? 10 Times? 100 times? More? We will likely never know, but it would not be unreasonable to assume a similar number to past flu seasons. Most of these unreported cases have recovered!
Yes, it’s a bad year, and yes we need to take care, but we should not be panicking.
And a lot of things forced on us now would have been unnecessary if common sense had prevailed years ago.
- Why are (were?) obviously sick people allowed on planes/trains/buses? We have all been forced to sit next to them – why?.
- Why do obviously sick people come into work? We have all had to work near them – Why?
Common sense should have stopped this years ago, and it would now be normal practice worldwide for anyone with flu like symptoms to self isolate.
As I see it, this variant has to run its course the same as every year.
Maybe some good will come of it with work towards a cure or effective vaccine for all flus.
hopefully we will see less people with flu symptoms out and about spreading their disease.
Agree with me or not, as you like, but don’t just accept what is being fed to you by the media.
I will of course comply with the rules.
But I will remain a skeptic.