It’s the weekend, and even this column gets a lie in. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway!
2 big stories
There’s been a lot of controversy over the apparent delays in repatriating British tourists trapped overseas. But it isn’t as easy to arrange these things as you might think. Austrian Airlines have been collecting citizens from around the world, and in this interview, one of their pilots explains some of the issues encountered.
But how did we get to this at all? The Guardian has gone back to the source of the pandemic, Wuhan.
Coronavirus infections began cropping up in Wuhan in December – and reportedly as early as November – but the Chinese authorities did not inform the public that the virus could pass between humans until late January.
2 blog posts
Peter Black wants to attract our attention to one of the groups of people who always seem to profit from a crisis, hedge fund managers.
News of the multibillion-pound windfall came as Crispin Odey, the Brexit supporter who made millions betting against the pound in the run up to the EU referendum, said his fund had made its biggest monthly gain since the financial crisis.
Fraser Macpherson, on the other hand, has some advice to offer, courtesy of Dundee City Council’s Community Allotments Officer.



2 Comments
Thank you for the link to the Guardian article.
The facts that are given, that is that someone was admitted to hospital in Wuhan, fits in with the account of China, that is that they had reports in Wuhan of the symptoms being shown and having done the work to identify the virus they published the findings of their work.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has a website. This has a chronology which includes the following dates.
9 January China reported a novel Coronavirus was detected
10 January the first genome sequence was published by China.
30 January the WHO declared the outbreak ‘a public health emergency of international concern’.
11 March WHO declared the outbreak a global pandemic.
This illustrates the rapidity and efficiency of China.
As with SARS in 2002 China tried a cover up which didn’t work.
Is there any one left that still believes their claim of 3,000 deaths?