“I’ve seldom had so much fun reading about people dying.” The Times (June, 09, 2018) Preamble The catch-line is taken straight from a Times review, from almost exactly one year ago, of Laura Spinney’s magisterial account of the Spanish flu of 1918 and how it changed the world. Laura’s highly readable narrative (my current bedtime […]

Weight gain and lockdown: empiricism vs. physical modelling   Summary Life in lockdown has disrupted our daily lives, creating the perfect setup for putting on pounds. In a poll of 1,000 people, nearly half of the women and almost one-quarter of the men reported that they had gained weight “due to COVID-19 restrictions”. I presume […]

Can predictive curve-fitting models pass that most pragmatic ‘litmus test’, namely usefulness? In recent days I have been posting blog pages about a geostatistical technique popularized by Marion King-Hubbert for analysing oil reserves, but instead applied here to curve-fitting COVID-19 epidemics. In particular I have tried to forecast the future trajectory and magnitude of the […]

Coronavirus lockdown: the end is in sight! Summary The end is clearly in sight. Let me qualify that statement slightly – the end of phase 1 of the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe is definitely in sight. Right-handed, fat-tailed lemur.   Forecast As we have seen in this series of blog pages epidemiologists find predicting pandemics […]

UK and Scottish coronavirus mortalities: how many more deaths will there be?   Summary The UK and Italy have been following very similar COVID-19 pathways. Italy being 15 days ahead, the UK with worse mortality rates. Taking data from the cruise ship Diamond Princess at face value Neil Ferguson’s intervention, which altered the course of […]

  Edinburgh St John’s Road air-quality monitoring site.  ID: ED1 Environment Type Kerbside Coordinates (Lat/Long) 55.942500, -3.281111 Altitude 53m Kerb Distance 0.5 Site Comments The nearest road is 0.5m from the site. Summary Good news. Concentrations of pollutants, especially those mainly emitted by road transport have shown a sharp drop in many European cities, including […]

COVID-19. Where are we now? What can we do? What does the future hold? Part XVIII of Glimmer of hope (30-April-2020) Graph and much of this blog page derives from Eppinger and Rueping Summary Despite early warnings, the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by surprise. An effective vaccine remains the world’s best hope. Individuals can […]

Scotland vs. the United Kingdom Part XVII of Glimmer of hope (28-April-2020)   Summary In terms of the course of COVID-19 infections Scotland leads the United Kingdom by two to three days. New COVID-19 infections rose slightly more rapidly to peak in Scotland than in the United Kingdom. Cases of new infections are now declining. […]

Prof. Roy Thompson vs. the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Part XVI of Glimmer of hope. (27-April-2020)   Summary 5 minutes ago today (18:00 27th April) the Chief Medical Officer for England said the country is not “consistently” past the peak of coronavirus deaths. 4 minutes ago (18:01 27th April) I reconfirmed (graph below), using the […]

Recap of postings on: I ‘Glimmer of hope’ II ‘COVID-19 and the Edinburgh congestion charge’ ————————————————————————————— I Glimmer of hope Part XXV (3-July-2020) EVERYONE Sitting at the intersection of craft, science and design, EVERYONE considers the environmental impact of Covid19 lockdown on Edinburgh through the medium of a large scale tapestry. Part XXIV (13-June-2020) COVID-19, […]