COVID-19, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu, Mpox and other virus UK and World News Update 13th June 2025

COVID-19, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu, Mpox and other virus UK and World News Update 13th June 2025

The UK NHS is critically short of blood and is asking for new donors to come forward urgently. If you are aged 17 to 65, generally fit and well, and weigh between 7 stone 12 lbs (50kg) and 25 stone (158kg) you can usually donate. Find out more information and register if you are able at blood dot co dot uk. Save a life. 

COVID-19, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 7th March 2025

COVID-19, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 7th March 2025

Just in case you haven't had enough of Norovirus this year, the UK Health Security Agency are warning us that there are 2 common strains, and the one which was most popular a couple of months ago is waning, but the second one is having a bit of a party. Sadly catching one doesn't mean you won't catch the other, so there are fun times ahead for some of you... 

As an aside, UKHSA reckon for every lab confirmed case, there are another 288 riding it out quietly at home. 

Latest UK Norovirus figures still aren't pretty, but they do finally show a decrease in cases. Overall still very high levels, and more than double the 5 year average for the same 2 week period. 

COVID-19 Coronavirus, HPAI Bird Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 24th January 2025

COVID-19 Coronavirus, HPAI Bird Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 24th January 2025

Well hello. It's been a very busy 2 weeks, and if you are reading this then I probably lost internet at some point due to Storm Eowyn (I uploaded this a couple of hours after power went off at 7.40am just in case I lost internet too). Sorry if anything is already out of date - I'll do a quick update to the update when I'm back online! I hope everyone out there isn't too badly affected. Stay safe everyone. Thank you to all of the emergency and essential workers risking their lives to look after us in this weather. 

"CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has provided real-time data and analysis about disease outbreaks and emerging health threats without a break every week since 1960. 

Until today."

Dr Tom Frieden, former CDC Director, 23rd January 2025.

The USA has a new President and as promised, Trump immediately signed executive orders withdrawing the USA from the Paris Climate Agreement (alongside just Iran, Libya and Yemen) and the World Health Organisation. Any WHO member officially has to give 1 year's notice to leave, so it may not have an immediate effect.

COVID-19 Coronavirus, HPAI H5N1 Bird Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 10th January 2025

COVID-19 Coronavirus, HPAI H5N1 and other virus UK and World News Update 10th January 2025

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good festive break, and I'm delighted to say that the world didn't become overrun by virus during the last 3 weeks, not entirely anyway... 

"NHS England says there were over 5,000 patients in hospital with flu at the end of last week. The average...was almost 3.5 times higher than the same week in 2023. NHS England says the number quadrupled since the end of November."

BBC Health Editor Hugh Pym on 3rd January. 

"NHS England says average flu patient numbers in hospitals at 5,400 last week - up on previous week. A&E attendances in 2024 up 7 per cent on the year. NHS leaders say strain on staff at times as bad as height of pandemic."

Hugh Pym on 9th January.

Flu levels are currently abysmal in the UK, but some suggestions we may soon peak - I hope so.

COVID-19 Coronavirus, H5N1 Avian Flu, Disease X and other virus UK and World News Update 20th December 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus, H5N1 Avian Flu, Disease X and other virus UK and World News Update 20th December 2024

"We are currently seeing more norovirus cases than in any season since we started our current reporting system."

UK Health Security Agency (HSA)

Norovirus is a tummy bug that can be nasty. Always wash hands before touching food, don't cook for others if you are ill, wash soiled bedding and clothes at 60º and as always, stay home if you are ill. 

UK HSA VirusWatch:

Flu activity has increased and is now at medium levels.  

COVID19 activity decreased across all indicators and remains at baseline levels. 

RSV activity decreased across most indicators and we are seeing less cases.

11,511 deaths were registered in England and Wales, week ending 6 Dec 2024 (Week 49):

· 8.0% lower than the expected number (998 fewer deaths)

· 14.5% involved influenza or pneumonia (1,671 deaths)

· 1.0% involved COVID19 (118 deaths)

UK public are being asked to only go to A&E at hospital if you really need to. If in doubt or you've got plenty of time to think about it, call 111 and get further advice. They will triage over the phone and send you for the correct help. If someone is seriously ill or injured, deteriorating rapidly, shows signs of stroke or heart attack, or a life is in danger, call 999 as an emergency. 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus including HPAI H5N1 and Disease X UK and World News Update 13th December 2024

 COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 13th December 2024

World COVID Statistics: 776,947,553 officially reported cases and 7,076,993 losses of life.

The world is still officially losing around 500 people to COVID each week, despite only 102 countries still reporting regular figures to the World Health Organisation. 

“We cannot talk about COVID in the past tense.

It’s still with us, it still causes acute disease and Long COVID, and it still kills.

The world might want to forget about COVID-19, but we cannot afford to.”

Dr Tedros, Head of WHO, at Wednesday's media briefing. 

This time 5 years ago, the first severely ill patients in Wuhan, China, were about to be hospitalised. 

Symptom onset for patient A was 1st December 2019, with 3 more patients by 10th December, and first hospitalisations around 17th. 

"On that first confirmed case, none of his family members developed fever or any respiratory symptoms. He had not been to the Huanan seafood market and also no epidemiological link could be found between the first patient and later cases.

Chinese media later reported that there were earlier suspected infectections, going back to 17 November. Authorities did not publicly accept there was human-to-human transmission of the virus until 21 January."

Jim Reed, BBC Health Reporter. 

5 years people... We all having been living a pandemic for 5 years. 

 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 29th November 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 29th November 2024

"I have no idea how to work within a system that accelerates catastrophic risk because people are pi**ed about the COVID pandemic. I have no idea how to convince people who think public health is a form of tyranny that millions of people could die in a flu pandemic."

Professor Angie Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), University of Saskatchewan.

English virus watch summary from the UK Health Security Agency (HSA):

- Influenza activity increased and has reached low activity levels

- COVID-19 activity remained stable and is at baseline levels

- Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) activity increased is at medium levels

RSV is particularly affecting babies and infants 0-4 years (moderate levels), and children 5-14 (high). The UK also has a pretty big issue with Norovirus right now (sickness tummy bug). 

Stay at home if you are ill... 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 15th November 2024

 COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 15th November 2024

10,644 deaths were registered in England and Wales, week ending 1 November 2024 (Week 44):

· 13.3% lower than the expected number (1,634 fewer deaths)

· 13.8% involved influenza or pneumonia (1,469 deaths)

· 2.5% involved COVID19 (262 deaths)

Office for National Statistics

The UK HSA have started publishing weekly virus watch reports for England. We currently have lots of RSV, especially in children under 5. COVID and flu are pretty stable. 

During the UK Autumn budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced significant extra money for the NHS - £25.7 BILLION over the next 2 years.

It includes:

- funding to reduce waiting times by supporting the NHS to deliver an extra 40,000 elective appointments a week. This is part of the "plan to make sure patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from their referral to getting treatment". (Which would be utterly amazing if it ever happens.)

- £1.5 billion to fund new surgical hubs which will help build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures, and more than 1.25 million additional diagnostic tests (which use CT or MRI scanners) 

- £70 million to invest in new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment 

- Over £2 billion for NHS technology and digital improvements to increase productivity and save staff time 

- Over £600 million increase in local government spending to support social care  

- £26 million to open new mental health crisis centres  

"Looking beyond this Budget, the government will publish a 10-year health plan for the NHS in spring 2025. This will set out the long-term vision for fixing the NHS."

Well that all sounds incredibly promising... as long as they can get, and keep, the staff to deliver it. 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 27th September 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 27th September 2024

The UK's 'cumulative mortality' continues to run at a level lower than would be expected historically. Summed up by COVID Actuary Stuart McDonald:

"Age-standardised death rates this year have tracked the best year on record (2019) very closely, except during the Covid-19 waves in June and July when death rates were a bit higher."

It's a very sad victory, but after so many people died early due to COVID, we would expect death rates to be lower than averages once stability returns. Last year it was clear that hadn't happened, this year looks more promising (unless XEC ruins it). 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 13th September 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 13th September 2024

The UK had a fairly small but significant COVID wave over early Summer due to the arrival of the FLIRT variants. As expected it then dropped down during the last few weeks of the English school Summer holidays, but it has started to creep back up already. No rest for the wicked. 

This peak and drop was reflected in hospital admissions with COVID, which peaked in England in July at their highest level since January, but fell by 45% in August.

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 30th August 2024

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 30th August 2024

Children in England and Wales will be going back to school any time now, and parents are being reminded that we have a measles outbreak in the UK.

It has slowed down over Summer, but there were still 153 cases in the 4 weeks to 5th August (mostly in London), and 2,278 cases across England since the start of the year.

Measles is nasty and almost entirely preventable by vaccination. Babies, infants and people with less robust immune systems are most at risk of serious illness, permanent damage and death. By taking your child for their MMR, or catching up with your own, you aren't only protecting one person, you are protecting all of those they come into contact with. The MMR has been considered safe and used around the world since 1971 (1988 in the UK). 

COVID-19 Coronavirus, Avian Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 19th July 2024

 COVID-19 Coronavirus, Avian Flu and other virus UK and World News Update 19th July 2024

"More from COVID inquiry on UK preparedness - strategy “outdated and lacked adaptability” , “fatal strategic flaws”, “lack of adequate leadership” by ministers, advisers and officials, Planning and policy  “failed their citizens” , system was “unduly complex and labyrinthine”"

Hugh Pym,  BBC News Health Editor, with the release of the first report from the UK COVID Inquiry. 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 12th April 2024

 COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 12th April 2024

World COVID Statistics: 704,749,430 officially reported cases and 7,010,624 losses of life.

Hiya! Welcome back. Not a lot of COVID news this week, it's especially quiet because a lot of regular sciencey folk have taken time off, so no big COVID news means no disasters, which is always a good thing.

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 17th March 2023

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 17th March 2023

World COVID Statistics: 682,255,152 reported cases and 6,817,431 losses of life.

"Over 3 years into the COVID19 emergency, too many lives have been lost. Too many people are still suffering, including from Long COVID. We'll never stop demanding equitable access to life-saving tools.

"Understanding COVID19’s origins and exploring all hypotheses remains:

-a scientific imperative, to help us prevent future outbreaks

-a moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people who died and those who live with Long COVID"

Dr Tedros, Head of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

On 11th March it was 3 years since WHO declared COVID a pandemic. It wasn't actually their job, but by 11th March 2020 it had become clear no-one else was going to do it and everyone was waiting, so Dr Tedros made the announcement. In some people's minds this made him responsible for the entire thing. 

"Around this time three years ago, the world woke up to the seriousness of COVID19, to stay at home orders, to life - as we had known it - changed…

We have all been impacted by the COVID19 pandemic, we are all different, and we cannot go “back” to the way it was, we need to make our futures better…

I know the world wants so desperately for the COVID19 pandemic to be over. I do too. But we aren’t done yet and this virus isn’t done with us yet. It is here to stay and we can do more to protect everyone, everywhere…"

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead, Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Lead, WHO Health Emergencies Programme.

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 24th February 2023

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 24th February 2023

World COVID Statistics: 679,392,534 reported cases and 6,796,421 losses of life.

"Almost everyone has at least one contact in their phone who will never pick up the phone again. Will never answer a text message "How are you?". These simple words have acquired a new meaning during the year of war. Every day, millions of Ukrainians have written or spoken this question to their loved ones millions of times. Every day, someone did not receive an answer. Every day, the occupiers killed our relatives and friends."

President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

Exactly a year after the first bombs fell on Kyiv, many countries have released statements hoping for peace. The Chinese message contains 12 points, never referring to invasion or war.  They include an offer of support to negotiate a peaceful settlement, and a promise to help with rebuilding post-war. They are also emphatic that nuclear, biological and chemical weapons must not be developed or used by any country, and that the sovereignty of countries must be respected in accordance with international law and the UN Charter.

They also have a pop at NATO and individual countries, saying that unilateral sanctions must stop, as it only agitates the situation and doesn't promote peace. 

“The Health Secretary will meet with the Royal College of Nursing on Wednesday to begin talks. The Royal College of Nursing will pause strike action during these talks.”

Joint statement from the Nursing Union RCN (Royal College of Nurses) and the Department for Health and Social Care on Tuesday. Scottish nurses have already paused strike action, now the rest of the UK follows, after the Government agreed to begin intensive talks.

"The talks will focus on pay, terms and conditions, and productivity enhancing reforms."

About blinking time. Let's hope it's productive. 

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 17th February 2023

COVID-19 Coronavirus and other virus UK and World News Update 17th February 2023

World COVID Statistics: 678,346,543 reported cases and 6,788,139 losses of life.

“Being First Minister of Scotland is, in my opinion, the best job in the world. It is a privilege beyond measure - one that has sustained and inspired me, in good times and through the toughest hours of my toughest days.

Since my first moments in the job, I have believed that part of serving well would be to know - almost instinctively - when the time is right to make way for someone else. And when that time comes, to have the courage to do so. In my head and my heart I know that time is now."

First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, announcing her resignation on Wednesday. 

Nicola spoke about needing time for herself, and commented on the brutality in politics... "It takes it's toll on you". 

Whatever your politics, over the past 3 years she had more integrity and honesty than any of the English cabinet, she actually answers questions, and she treated her population far more as intelligent human people, rather than expendable idiot meatbags. 

We did expect a rise in UK figures, and it looks like its arriving just in time for a half term firebreak. Hospital admissions with COVID are up by 11% on last week, bed occupancy is up 13%.

The UK ONS random sampling for week ending 7th February reflects this week's hospital increases - bear in mind this is always 'community transmission' and doesn't include people in care homes or hospitals:
- England, continued increase; estimate  1,054,200 people had COVID-19, equating to 1.88% of the population, or around 1 in 55 people.
- Wales, increase; estimate 46,300 people had COVID-19, equating to 1.50% of the population, or around 1 in 65 people.
- Northern Ireland, continued decrease; estimate 23,300 people had COVID-19, equating to 1.27% of the population, or around 1 in 80 people.
- Scotland, increase; estimate 96,500 people had COVID-19, equating to 1.83% of the population, or around 1 in 55 people.

This latest UK Continuous Mortality Investigation report is more of the same. We are still losing too many people each week. Week ending 3rd Feb:
"CMI calculates 167,200 excess deaths in the UK since the start of the pandemic. That total has increased by 15,800 in the first five weeks of 2023."
Again, a large non-COVID excess. Calculated excess deaths 1,509, the number of deaths mentioning COVID on the death certificate 499.

WHO were in trouble a good while back, when someone pointed out they were using flawed maths for their estimates of excess mortality - the number of extra people who died over the number we'd expect to lose. WHO apologised and changed it very quickly.

For over a year people in the know have also been telling IHME (the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) that they have a problem with their estimates of excess mortality - their modelled mortality is underestimating wildly, which means the excess figures look HUGE. Finally this is being openly discussed in The Lancet, and questions asked as to why their figures are so different from everyone else's. IHME data is respected and used by companies, agencies and Governments worldwide.

Whenever a big organisation like this makes an error and doesn't correct it promptly, it has a knock on effect and everyone trusts scientists a little less. A lot of people are very unhappy with them for this. 

Possibly as a knock on from this, the UK ONS have also been asked to review their excess deaths data. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) have complained that ONS 5 year averages now use 2021 data (they have skipped 2020), which includes a lot of COVID-related deaths in the early part of the year. This makes it look like deaths are way down on average, when really they're still higher than 2019. The OSR are unhappy that the ONS don't make this clear enough. We should ALL be able to read this and understand what it actually means. 

Two new studies today, and this one is getting a lot of press - immunity after COVID infection.

A huge US study which pulled together 65 studies from 19 countries has concluded that protection against severe illness and death is about as high from previous infection with an Omicron variant as it is from vaccination. 88% at 10 months post-infection. Not so great when you were infected with an older Grandparent variant, but even that still offers around 36% protection against severe disease from current Omicron variants at least 10 months after infection. 

Most of the world has been heavily Omicron variants for over a year now, and there have been billions of infections during this time, so this is really a good thing from a bad thing - although only time will tell how long this protection lasts. 

There is obviously a caveat to this, we all know COVID infection causes some damage, whether it's minimal and all repaired in a few days, or still affecting us 2 years later, and a smaller chance of severe illness or death is just that - a smaller chance. You roll that dice each time. Vaccination really is incredibly valuable and far safer than infection. 

A US Government funded study has found that over half of all adults treated at hospitals for COVID-19 are still suffering 6 months later. It's not a study to be happy about really. They looked at 825 patients after one, three and six months, and found:

- 75.4% of COVID-19 survivors experienced cardiopulmonary problems at 6 months compared with 67.3% at month 1.

- 47.3% of COVID-19 survivors experienced functional limitations at 6 months compared with 55.3% at month 1.

- 56.4% of COVID-19 survivors experienced financial problems at 6 months compared with 66.1% at month 1.

Cardiopulmonary problems include coughing, rapid or irregular heartbeat, and breathlessness. We have to hope they may not be picked up on in the early days because "I'm feeling better" or "I'm slowly recovering back to health and not back at work/bowls full time yet", or else people are not 'recovering' as much as slowly deteriorating. Age will play a part in this, but still not good. 

Better news is to see recovery in function - ability to get on and do your daily stuff - but demoralising that we don't see massive improvement there either. I very much hope the next update from this study does offer us more.

This study was in the USA, with private medical care, and it's horrific to think that 2/3 people have financial worries just after coming out of hospital when they should really be focussing on getting better. Possibly worse that over half of them are still struggling 5 months later... 

The WHO Mpox (formerly Monkeypox) committee have met again, and it's been decided Mpox remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). It's just too dangerous to let it go, lose Government amd international funding to eradicate it, and risk mutation to a more deadly form. The current mortality rate is around 1 in 1,000, but previously it was between 3 in 10 and 8 in 10. 

Scientific Spat Of The Week:

A report in Nature magazine claimed that the World Health Organisation have abandoned plans for a second 'Origins of COVID' investigation. On Wednesday WHO said that simply isn't true, it's just that they're unsure how to progress.

How many times can you visit a meat market, 3 years after an event, and hope to find some clue? 

Famous People With COVID:

The Queen Consort, Camilla. She first told us she had a 'seasonal illness'. Bit of a white lie, unless "the 2020s" is a season now. Maybe in the future... 

Remember on 13th January when I said Russia claimed they had shot down a UFO, and "great, I had war with the aliens on my 2023 Bingo card"? I joked too soon. 

The USA seem determined, they've raised the sensitivity on their scanners and are shooting down everything bigger than car. 4 in the last 10 days. How the heck do we have car-sized things floating about out there and no-one bothered to mention it before?

Efforts are ongoing to collect the pieces and find out what they were. My guess is drones and balloons from over-exuberant gender reveals. Of course, whatever the official sources tell us, we may never really know... *insert X Files theme here*

The World Health Organisation have confirmed an outbreak of Marburg Disease in Equatorial Guinea.

Marburg is a vicious cousin of Ebola. Usually spread by bats, but also in the blood and other fluids from infected people, it is a haemorrhagic disease which causes you to bleed internally. It is horrendously painful, and kills on average around half the people it infects. So far in this outbreak, 9 people are known to have died, and there are another 16 suspected cases.

Because of the severity of this disease, WHO convened on Tuesday to discuss possible vaccine candidates that already exist and have been cleared for human testing, but haven't yet been trialled in infected humans. It is hoped these can be offered to patients - with successful outcomes. 

Your risk from Marburg outside a specific area of Equatorial Guinea right now is almost zero. Fingers crossed they get it under control swiftly.

The world keeps turning. New Zealand announced a State Of Emergency this week for only the 3rd time, after Cyclone Gabrielle devastated first the North Island and then moved South. Those billionaire bunkers better have good waterproofing, or they're not going to be much use in future. Best of luck to everyone affected badly by weather this week - including those of you in the UK who faced a hurricane today. 

It is the weekend! Hurrah. Long week for me, half term next week. Hopefully your week has been a good one, whether you had kids on half term or not. I'm finishing early today because I'm in the land of no internet and poor phone reception, and it's cold outside! I'll pull in some more stats next time when I'm not working on my phone. 

Do NOT forget to treat yourself to something nice. Be kind to you - and the world will be a lot easier to cope with when you're refreshed. You've earnt it. 

Stay Warm, Stay Sensible, Save The NHS. 

Sources: 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

https://www.gov.scot/news/first-minister-to-resign/

https://www.gov.scot/

Bad stats 

https://twitter.com/jschoeley/status/1625056164969840642?t=SSkmy34pf5FFLC1D3uXbGQ&s=19

https://twitter.com/StatsRegulation/status/1625145538524987393?t=B9r316hONJ0THGlN5Q42OA&s=19

Sources:

Stats And images:
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1626552834878590978?t=yBmQhWtF1VoJH6utL9mmvg&s=19
https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1626156512556027906?t=rTqvso9zAK201ZrvD-tN2g&s=19
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/17february2023
https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1625501171707416581?t=o6R9BsWjf4nuasLMp7OKJg&s=19

Our world in Data US vaccination status
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1625815393393573889?t=HecZ4xEntKRu6TWPfB1QIA&s=19

Reinfection:
https://news.sky.com/story/past-covid-infection-as-good-as-vaccines-at-preventing-severe-illness-12812415
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02465-5/fulltext

Long COVID USA
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2801413

https://petalnet.org/studies/public/bluecoral

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/lingering-symptoms-common-after-covid-hospitalization

Mpox
https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1625903902733348879?t=RBNQAGURVz6N_LnOej9VMg&s=19

https://www.who.int/news/item/15-02-2023-fourth-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-(ihr)-emergency-committee-on-the-multi-country-outbreak-of-monkeypox-(mpox)

Origins of COVID WHO
https://healthpolicy-watch.news/who-abandon-investigation-covid-19-origins/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00283-y

Parent company of British Gas, Centrica, have announced record-breaking profits that are triple last year - £3.3BILLION.
The reason for the astronomical profits is that the price of gas went up massively, and their profits are in essence a percentage on top. Is there any other essential commodity which works like this? Are bakers raking it in because wheat is more expensive? Does your local Chinese takeaway now have a merc parked outside because of the price of spices? No. Usually a company has to keep to sensible price rises, or even lose a bit of profit, or the customer can go elsewhere. We can't realistically go elsewhere for power. Government decisions put us here.
https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1626173034259152896?t=I_kKe99hXMJt4FSKTb41kw&s=19

.

War with the aliens

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1624531900529352707?t=YU1nHBk-bgTbJcOnD77oKA&s=19

 

Marburg

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/marburg-disease-outbreak-what-is-marburg-disease-who-confirms-marburg-disease-outbreak-in-equatorial-guinea-all-you-need-to-know-101676344914340.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/hopes-test-marburg-virus-vaccine-equatorial-guinea-outbreak-rcna70595

https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2023/02/14/default-calendar/who-urgent-marburg-meeting

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