'it's the dream isn't it.' (the light of an eclipse)

last night horsemouth dreamed. matthew from triple negative was in it. the dream occurred sometime after 4.30 (horsemouth was strangely restless and woke up then).

there was a sheet about a song with a list of the authors along the top horsemouth was trying to take it out of the box and matthew was stopping him.  he looked as if he was about to say something horsemouth leant in to hear what it was. 

'it's the dream isn't it.' remarked matthew hopefully.

then the dream popped and horsemouth woke up. a little later he wrote it down (in the half-light he couldn't see if the pencil was actually writing). there was more of the dream earlier (but horsemouth does  not remember it). 

the dream left horsemouth optimistic and cheerful (he'd seen matthew and he'd been in the dream). 

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there was an interesting economist podcast about covid (please ignore this if that's the way you roll) 

what is the true death toll from the coronavirus epidemic? 

to be counted in the official statistics you need to be tested and in poor and middle income countries this is not a priority. 

a better estimate than the 3.6 million deaths given by world governments is provided by the excess deaths statistics (how many more people have dies in the last year when compared to an ordinary year),  many countries do not however report excess deaths so it has to be modelled, this suggests with 95% probability that the real figure is between 7.1 and 12.7 million.. 

this gives a different shape to the pandemic. most deaths in pandemic have actually happened in the poor and middle income countries. the pandemic is getting worse not better - the epidemics in individual countries show a wave shape (as control measures have an effect), the pandemic globally has not, it has been rising since march last year. 

there are problems with supply chain for the vaccines, there are problems with keeping it working while it is expanded to meet need. there are problems with getting the jabs to where they are needed most. 

covid 19 is a global phenomena and it requires a global response - this has not happened. only 100thousand doses have flowed through covax. 

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today the sun is shining. at some point yesterday horsemouth went for a walk. later today a meeting of the communal endeavour. 

in 1871 on this day goncourt watches the fall of paris from burty's house (later he will escape back to his own). 

'when I awoke I looked for the corpse of the national guardsman who had been killed yesterday. it had not been removed. it had simply been covered with the branches of the tree under which he had been killed. 

the fires burning all over paris were creating a light like the light of an eclipse.'