Bring out your dead!

On the last fourteen weeks I've only filled the car with petrol twice, I've read nineteen books though and watched more TV series than you could wave a stick at. I've weeded the garden so often that it is as weed free, and generally tidy, as it has been at any time whilst we've lived in Culebrón. I've even re-painted all but one of the exterior walls. Our area of Spain has been relatively mobile for the last two or three weeks but even then we've generally limited ourselves to a couple of outings to local bars or eateries with just one trip to the coast. We could have gone further, anywhere within the province, but we've chosen not to stray more than 60 kilometres from home. Basically we've done as we were asked, we've stayed at home.

Today though it's all more or less over, for us. We can now go where we like - masks, general hygiene, keeping distance and local regulations permitting. It's back to some sort of normal. The State of Alarm has been lifted.

I asked Maggie if she fancied going somewhere today, given that we could. I wondered about the Murcian coast. She didn't remind me of the death toll in Brazil but she did remind me that the sensible thing was to stay home, unless we had some reason to go out. It's one thing to go to see a fiesta or a museum or a theatre performance, to go out with a purpose, and to go out just because the shackles have been loosened. And just in case you don't think Maggie has it right here is a quick, and imprecise, personal view of the World Health Organisation figures.

I know that, in comparison to the the Antonine Plague, which killed between 5 and 10 million, (and we're complaining about statistical inaccuracies!) in the Second Century Roman Empire and the Spanish flu, which did for between 17 and 50 million, in 1918, Covid is nothing. A mere sniffle in the historical register. That given it's still true that Europe looks to be a bit poorly - 18,313 new cases and 1,726 dead in the last 24 hours. Mind you I'm not a health statistician so that may be the equivalent of a bad weekend on the roads for all I know. But, back at the Covid figures; the Russians and Turks are up there for new infections though the UK remains way out in front for deaths with Italy and France making up the top three and pushing us off the podium. Nonetheless, it's all looking a bit better, a bit healthier. 

The Americas are where it's all happening now (apart, obviously from Tulsa where Trump thought it a good idea to have an election rally yesterday). Brazil and the USA are currently running neck and neck in new infections but, yesterday, more people died in Brazil than in the US. If the Chinese are further ahead in quantum computing than Google and IBM (in projects headed up by Spaniards apparently) I presume that Donny can take some solace that the US is far and away the world leader in total Covid 19 dead. People are dying/have died in shedloads in Trump's United States and Bolsonaro's Brazil but Peru and Mexico don't look too cracky either. Interesting that countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua, run by madmen, have almost no reported deaths. Africa's numbers don't look "too bad" given that the head of the league table there for deaths, South Africa, is about equivalent to Ireland and over in Asia India doesn't look that good, number wise, but, given the population there I suppose they are doing remarkably well.

As for me I've just started book twenty - and it's in English for a change - and I'm wondering about that last wall.