Blue Monday

 

Blue Monday walk

What a brawly political and media world we live in. The third Monday in January is supposed to be the nadir of the year for our mental wellbeing. This was far from apparent when reading the morning papers, you would think that we had cracked COVID, Brexit, and Vaccinations and that the future of the UK was rosy. Allegra Stratton, the PM's new press supremo, was on the case creating a word cloud of optimism for the compliant press as she strives to bury the story of the bumbling incompetence of the PM and his ministers and replace it with an uplifting sense of entitlement that they seem to think they deserve. 

We set out in murky January conditions to climb our local hill. Unusually, it was bereft of life and it was a lonely tramp through the icy snow. Everyone else must have shuffled down their duvets to seek some comfort from the lockdown weather and utter futility of life. Then the winds abated, the clouds opened to reveal a rare blue sky above the fast shifting curtain of cloud. Was it a fleeting tantalising glance into future fortunes or just another forlorn promise?

On Tuesday I was able to check the reality of Blue Monday (18 January). COVID deaths were the highest ever recorded at 1610, and that 99,813 COVID deaths had been registered in the UK since the start of the pandemic. The numbers in hospital were also at an all time peak at 38,000. Just to add to the trauma, we then discovered that the number of vaccinations on Blue Monday had dropped to 204,076, a 37% drop from the previous Friday when 324,000 were vaccinated. The BMA claimed that the vaccines were not getting through to the GPs. Finally, the Israeli Health Services have discovered that those receiving only one Pfizer vaccination are still becoming infected with COVID and Pfizer have stated that there is only 51% efficacy with one shot compared to the 90% with two shots. The learning experience  for the UK in these facts is best summed up by Douglas Adams who said "You know that thing that you just did? Don't do that."

Looking for some of this information proved difficult to find on the BBC website, has Allegra Stratton now dragooned Sir David Clementi and Tim Davie, the Chair and Director Genneral of the BBC, into giving the government a break from any reporting that does not give the PM the glowing entitlement that is rightly his? .