Geneva, Monday 13 April 2020

We are now into our fifth week of lockdown. Whilst I am getting used to it, the background noise of anxiety is just a bit louder each day.

This morning was fine and clear. It seems as though everything turned green overnight. With this spell of unusually warm weather, the pariah kites (a sub-species of black kite – Milvus migrans) have arrived from Africa for their summer hols hereabouts. They’ll be wheeling overhead in great numbers for the next five months before heading south again.

Amid agitated craws and screeches, a newly arrived kite got into one the crows’ nests in the pine tree right in front of our balcony. We couldn’t see if it was able to grab a nestling but it was seen off by the crows with some vim. The same kite with three of his buddies circled over and around the tree for a good half hour afterwards while the crows flew back and forth making a great din. All this during our daily putting competition!

It seems that everyone has gone down the bread-making route. In our local Coop, there is plenty of bread but flour is now as rare as toilet paper was four weeks ago. 

Fortunately, our stocks are just sufficient to allow my wife to adventure into her first ciabatta. Delicious! All this while Boris the sourdough-starter bides his time in a quiet corner being lovingly fed and watered. The big moment of truth – when we find out if he has got what it takes to make one big sourdough bloomer – will come later this week assuming we can find the flour.

Another moment of truth looms. A number of countries, Spain for example, are moving towards relaxing their self isolation / social distancing measures in the next three weeks. Rest assured, the lifting will be in stages and we will all just have to wait and see whether or not each stage brings a resurgence of cases of COVD-19; if so, re-imposed restrictions are likely. Even though this is light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel stuff, it will be quite the balancing act for those making these decisions. As if to dampen our spirits, China announced today a new rise in cases due to their own nationals returning home. Mr Putin has admitted that Russia has a problem.

I should point out that, whilst I can’t stomach the man’s politics, I was very pleased to hear that the other Boris – the Prime Minister chappy – left hospital yesterday. A headless conservative party in government is a more frightening spectre than one with him in charge. Go, Boris! Back on that horse! After such glowing tributes to the care given to you by NHS staff, you’ll really have to fulfil your election promises to them now.

The putting: Not being as distracted as I was by the kite-crow kerfuffle, my wife beat me 1 – up. Just shows the importance of being able to concentrate! Overall, I’m still up 14 games to 7. At least two weeks to go, though!

Hoping you are all well, safe and calm.

Geneva, Easter Sunday (12 April) 2020

Let’s stay with the theme of lies and truth. Yesterday, I went off on epidemiological statistics about this pandemic being manipulated or misrepresented. This is nothing compared with the big league of bio-untruths: political propaganda and conspiracy theories.

A number of people have asked me about the possible origin of this particular coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Is it really from a wild animal food market in Wuhan? Is it from bats? Is it from a pangolin? Is it linked to the biosecurity lab in Wuhan? Was there a governmental cover-up in the early stages of the epidemic there? Was it imported to China from America? My only credentials for commenting on this come from having worked on the project “Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity” during my time with the International Committee of the Red Cross; this involved no small interaction with states’ representatives to the UN’s 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (Full title: Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. Let’s just say “BWC.”) This is a disarmament convention of the highest importance to international security and therefore to humanity; this is why 183 nations are party to it. Within the BWC discourse, genuine concerns and well-founded suspicions can be voiced although most can only be viewed through smoke and mirrors. It is also a field that attracts a whole host of conspiracies and fallacies; you get used to these and learn to recognise them from a safe distance.

The BWC has an interesting history. It was first proposed to the international community by the USA because American scientists managed to convince the Nixon administration that biological weapons were of no military value as long as they, the USA, had nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union saw the wisdom of this and eagerly came on board (but carried on with their bio-weapons programmes anyway.) In rather typical disarmament double-dweeble, biological weapons became known as the poor man’s nuclear weapon whilst nuclear weapons states claimed they needed their nuclear weapons to deter any threat of use of biological weapons. Within this, the health community (read WHO) whilst understandably wishing to avoid getting mired in the international security implications, stipulated that whether the cause of an epidemic was natural or man-made, the public health response would be the same. This is a stance that I have always fundamentally disagreed with. If an epidemic were ever seen as an intentional act of a state, group or individual, the reaction would obviously involve a public health element but this would be embedded in and ultimately subsumed by a huge security response that would not exclude use of military force. Making a distinction between a natural outbreak and the intentional spread of disease is very, very important. 

Here are my thoughts. This pandemic is serious enough. We do not need American commentators saying the virus came from a Chinese bioweapons lab and we do not need Chinese commentators saying the virus originated in an American bioweapons lab. Both sides know that such claims represent barely veiled accusations of violation of the BWC. No state takes this lightly. Raising the spectre of bioweapons in relation to this pandemic through accusation is very, very dangerous. 

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, a good man who doesn’t miss a trick, addressed the Security Council three days ago. The sixth of eight risks to international security he identified in relation to the pandemic was that “the weaknesses and lack of preparedness exposed by this pandemic provide a window onto how a bioterrorist attack might unfold – and may increase its risks. Non-state groups could gain access to virulent strains that could pose similar devastation to societies around the globe.” Those familiar with BWC speak will recognise that this is as close as he can go to making reference to state-backed bio-weapons programmes. He knows that the line between state on “non-state” activity in this domain is not clear and bright; he also knowns that if a non-state actor were to use a biological warfare agent to intentionally spread disease, the most likely source of that agent would be a state programme.

So above you have my thoughts about the propaganda, theories and all other loony-baloony stuff that is circulating like the virus itself. Here is my advice. Bear in mind that any assessment of whether or not there’s a sinister cause for this outbreak can only be made authoritatively by a UN Security Council mechanism and that would involve a neutral stance, a ton of diplomacy, the best of science, the coolest of heads and time. Don’t believe anything unless it comes direct from Mr Guterres.

Given the above, it may seem to be of little import but… I won the putting competition today on the first play-off hole. That’s 14 games to 6.

Geneva, Saturday 11 April 2020

Another beautiful day in the time of lockdown. The geraniums have been taken out of hibernation and the balcony is looking spruce and ready for spring amid a flurry of replanting, potting out, feeding and trimming. Nice! 

The abandoned putting match from two days ago was completed yesterday evening. I won on the fifth play-off hole. I’m up now by 13 games to 6. Plenty of matches still to be played especially as we now have an extension of the lockdown until at least 26 April. The official reason is “the number of infections of the new corona virus continues to rise.” Statistics!

My friend Nathan from Toronto is a statistician. He’s just about the brainiest bloke I know. You should understand that statisticians look upon epidemiologists as bumbling amateurs when it comes to data, graphs and stuff. I once quipped “But you can tell lies with statistics!” Nathan scratched that mighty head and replied “Sure! You can tell lies with statistics. You can tell lies without statistics. It’s just much more difficult to tell lies with statistics. If you do, you get caught out.” Doesn’t this just apply to the COVID-19 pandemic? And guess who is lying with and without statistics willy nilly? Yup, the same guy who said two weeks ago “Everything indicates this will be over by Easter!” Hmmm… What’s “Everything”? And it’s Easter now, Big Boy. You got caught out in the lie and, furthermore, the state of New York alone now has more cases – and rising – than any other country. Today’s White House statement that “The outbreak is starting to level off” may or may not be true but sits in such a background of lies and political obfuscation that it’s hard to know what to believe. Go listen to Nathan. He’s just over the border. He’ll tell you what you can and can’t say with the statistics you have at hand. Having said this, at least the White House provides a veneer of data-to-policy speak unlike the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, who believes in no policy at all (other than vodka) because he can’t see any coronaviruses flying about!

Moving closer to home, I’m not accusing the Swiss government of lying with statistics but they are certainly taking advantage of the different ways that statistics can be presented. “The number of infections of the new corona virus continues to rise” is a correct statement. An equally correct statement is “the number of new infections of the new corona virus reported each day is falling.” The Johns Hopkins coronavirus website shows graphs to support both statements. Whilst the first statement clearly justifies the extended lockdown; the second shows we are probably past the peak of the epidemic curve and so might lead people to think that the job is done, the pandemic has passed, and the extension to the lockdown is unnecessary…. so let’s party!

If I were in charge of communicating the Swiss stats, I would go with the first statement (after consulting with Nathan.) Here’s why: the number of any country’s COVID-19 cases in relation to its population (so calculating cases per capita) is, I would argue, more meaningful in terms of progress of the epidemic. For Switzerland this figure is 0.28% and for the USA it’s 0.15%. (Figures for these calculations again sourced from Johns Hopkins and worldometer.) In other words, we are far from finished with this story here. I tell no lies! 

I learnt another pearl of statistical wisdom from Nathan. It is that we use statistics ultimately for one purpose only: to tell us what is going to happen. It’s a kind of mathematical crystal ball. So remember this, if we are given statistics that propagate lies, these lies determine our future.

Even closer to home – and this might be of interest to other Geneva-dwellers – we have from our balcony a fine view to the east of a mountain called le Salève (see photo above.) The Swiss-French border is right at the bottom of this steep, rocky slope. It is a source of some annoyance to Geneva residents that our view of this beautiful mountain is spoilt by the French quarrying many tons of stone from it. No-one actually living in France can see this eye-sore and so no French politician will lose votes as a result of it. I look that way ten times a day and yesterday evening, I noticed a large black smudge right in the middle of the quarry. It must be about the size of a couple of football fields and it has only appeared in the last days. Have they struck oil? If so, that’ll really ruin the view!