please empty your brain below
Thanks for compiling them. It was useful as we went along to get a fairly dispassionate round-up of what was going on (especially when watching the daily news was too depressing in itself), and to have a historic record. Between you and MD's column in Private Eye you had pretty much everything important covered.

martin | 06.03.22 - 7:25 a.m. | #

Sadly the situation here in Hong Kong is somewhat similar to the rest of the world in 2020 - the constant sound of ambulance sirens, huge numbers of daily deaths, the prospect of lockdowns, and no idea what life will be like over the next year.

Alan | 06.03.22 - 8:09 a.m. | #

One of the unintended side effects of the lockdown was that it gave people time to look into things, this is what put the dent in any government narrative and started a cycle of distrust.

Stories we were officially told were conspiracy theories turned out to be true - masks weren't effective, being vaccinated doesn't stop the spread, it probably did leak from a lab, this flashed over into other parts of the news cycle, the BBC shows a short clip of someone being shot, but I can check the full video and see that he was fighting police beforehand, and find out he had a restraining order and had outstanding warrants.

So most of my Ukraine coverage comes from the likes The Duran and Jimmy Dore rather than the BBC/ITV/Channel 4 etc., and surprise surprise the west has been interfering (14000 have already died in eastern Ukraine), and when it doesn't work out (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria) we (the west) disappear and let the civilian population take the hit, also thanks to Jimmy Dore I've discovered offGuardian.

Thanks for the C-19 updates.

Still Anon | 06.03.22 - 8:54 a.m. | #

I had wondered where your weekly skew on events was coming from.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 06.03.22 - 9:04 a.m. | #

StillAnon - thanks for the recommendations for wacko news: I'll make sure to avoid them.

Martin'O'Holcombe | 06.03.22 - 9:05 a.m. | #

What Martin said.

Thanks for having done this DG. Some of those figures are very sobering - 6m dead?

This really has been a very long 2 years, but some aspects of it already seem likely to be permanent.

Will | 06.03.22 - 10:29 a.m. | #

Coronavirus now seems happy days compared with the ramifications of the war in Ukraine

Brian | 06.03.22 - 10:40 a.m. | #

I work at 4AMs on Sunday, so usually would read the update not long after it was updated. I did wonder when it hadn't appeared this morning whether we might have seen the last of them, so it's nice to see you give a fitting summary to close it out.

Thank you for the updates over the last two years.

Greg | 06.03.22 - 10:42 a.m. | #

I'm glad to see this Blog is swimming against the tide whereby it is thought the pandemic is consigned to history. Particularly significant is the sharp rise of infections in the Scottish Highlands and islands, which has gone unremarked elsewhere. Meanwhile in Wales, recorded infections are markedly lower than elsewhere. The contrast at the borders of each home nation could hardly be starker, but it is a puzzling picture. I will keep an eagle eye open for future posts...

cau1khead | 06.03.22 - 10:58 a.m. | #

Thanks for compiling these each week.
As always you were right on the pulse from Day 1 - I usually think to start recording events half way through them!

For my own mental health I started avoiding all news outlets in early 2020 and so your weekly reports provided just the right level of information to keep me ticking over.

But what an astonishing couple of years that was!

Cornish Cockney | 06.03.22 - 11:17 a.m. | #

Those Ten things, changed the world as we know it for ever.

Michael | 06.03.22 - 11:53 a.m. | #

A fantastic historical resource. Thank you for compiling these every week.

I am very sad that your weekly concise and authoritative summaries are ending, because the pandemic is far from over.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 06.03.22 - 2:28 p.m. | #

My partner and I both tested positive this week and are now feverish and self-isolating. Though I'm sure Still Anon will tell me I'm mistaken on the first count and stupid on the second. Wear a mask, be kind to people – it's not difficult. And, yes, thanks DG for all the summaries and cool-headedness.

Matt | Homepage | 06.03.22 - 5:00 p.m. | #

Still Anon is correct in his assertion that the Western nations like to start or fuel wars and then leave the civilian population to pick up,the pieces. No No Fly Zone is hardly helping the bombed out people of Ukraine.

Tones | 06.03.22 - 5:57 p.m. | #

Thanks for taking the trouble to record happenings over the last 2 years.

It makes fascinating reading looking back wondering what went on during that period, but I agree that now is the right time to put the feature to bed.

IanD | 06.03.22 - 9:19 p.m. | #

The other description of a no fly zone is a policy of "Nato shooting down any Russian plane which flies over Ukraine". Adopting this policy might not provoke nuclear response from Putin. But it might.
Sometimes a choice has to be made between two bad things.

Malcolm of Kent | 06.03.22 - 9:24 p.m. | #

Thanks for your formidable weekly record. So often, expecting to find only a reminder of the news I had read during the week plus a few stats, I’d then glance at the list and realise I’d missed interesting or significant developments. As always, you don’t do things by halves.

The irony is that going unmasked results in people feeling as though there is less risk rather than more (just as airline safety drills tend to make passengers feel less rather than more safe).

With more people willing to socialise, risk is bound to be higher than if everyone were to remain cautious (despite the AlternativeTruth™ entertainer’s claims to the contrary). UK deaths came down from about 250 a day in mid-January to about 100 a day last week (compare that with about 6 road deaths per day in a typical year), but there is no knowing whether increased mixing will result in deaths continuing to decline or starting to increase again among those coming into contact with people who are vulnerable or simply unlucky. Not to mention the uncertainty of future variants. Don’t assume we‘ve heard the last of C-19.

Still, you can’t avoid a pandemic forever, and we have delayed many people’s first infection until after they have had time to get vaccinated and after treatments have been developed. That, at least, is a triumph of science, technology and humanity.

Rich G | Homepage | 06.03.22 - 11:44 p.m. | #

Thank you for your persistence in this regard, as in so many others.

Chris | 07.03.22 - 8:14 a.m. | #

The dot com bubble. The Great Financial Crash. Brexit. The UK Government's mishandling of COVID. Rampant inflation. House prices out of the reach of many. Student loans. The rise of the far right. Now Ukraine.

Being a millenial I have to say adulthood has been something of a disappointment so far.

E | 07.03.22 - 10:47 a.m. | #

Thanks, I enjoyed reading the weekly updates.

This time two years ago I had started to suffer from a persistent tickle in the back of my throat. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before, but at the time I didn't think it was COVID as I had none of the main symptoms. Eventually it developed into a fever and persistent cough. My symptoms were so mild I didn't qualify for a PCR test, but a positive antibody test in the summer of 2020 confirmed the infection.

As luck would have it, two years later I just tested positive and am back self isolating again!

Rob | 07.03.22 - 12:55 p.m. | #











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