A quick tour through the Covid data as of the latest number. Slightly more bad news than good, but that doesn’t mean there’s no good. Let’s start with the overall UK picture. That 106k number a new daily record. And possibly not the last.
The good news is that for the time being the divergence between cases and admissions remains evident for the UK as a whole. Look at the red line vs the black line and look how different that relationship was last winter (eg before vaccines). Amazing really…
But you get a better sense of what’s going on by looking not at UK but at London, where most case growth is. This chart (hat-tip to @PaulMainwood for the concept) shows where we are vs the winter wave. On bright side, the blue/red lines aren’t going up in lockstep with cases.
That being said, hospitalisations in London are rising fast. By about 9% a day on average this past week. What we don’t know is a) how serious those hospitalisations are. ICU numbers still low and b) how long they’ll stay in. In SA hospital stays are much shorter this wave
Another way of looking at the London figs.
Black lines show you trajectory of the Alpha/Kent variant wave last winter.
Red lines show you case growth in this wave.
Cases rising far faster than last winter.
Hospitalisations broadly similar.
Still v early to jump to conclusions tho
Incidentally, it looks as if case growth may now have plateaued in the hottest of London’s Covid hotspots. This is 7 day cases in Lambeth by publication date. Look: is that line turning at the top right? Might be. @AlastairGrant4 keeping a close eye on this stuff.
Finally, for those wondering whether the reason we’re seeing such high case numbers is that we’re testing so much (we are testing a lot), here’s something that adjusts for that: test positivity %.
These lines are also basically vertical. Albeit not yet as high as last winter.
Today’s data was frankly a bit worse than I’d hoped.
That said, it’s still consistent with lower hospitalisation numbers per case, which is something.
Upon which note, good to see Imperial research on Omicron hospitalisations.
Last week: “no evidence”. This week: “some evidence”.
🧵Three years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, EU, UK and other nations vowed to wage economic war, via the toughest sanctions in history.
So... how's that going?
We've spent months documenting what ACTUALLY happened. Here's a thread of threads on the REAL story on sanctions...
1. Flows of dual use items, including radar parts, drone components and other parts used by Russia to kill Ukrainians, carried on from the UK and Europe to Russia, via the backdoor (eg the Caucasus & Central Asia)
2. Of all the goods sent by the UK to Russian neighbours, few were as significant as luxury cars.
Having sanctioned Russia (the idea being to starve Putin's cronies of luxuries) Britain (and Europe more widely) began sending those sanctioned cars in via the backdoor instead
If the main thing the US really wants out of a deal with Ukraine is "50% of its rare earth minerals" then I'm surprised this can't be wrapped up pretty quickly.
Why? Because Ukraine doesn't HAVE many rare earth resources.
Really. As far as anyone knows it's got barely any...
Yes, Ukraine has lots of coal and iron and manganese.
It also has some potential sizeable reserves of stuff like titanium, graphite and lithium. Not to mention some promising shale gas.
But of the 109 deposits identified by KSE only 3 are rare earth elements
Now in one respect I'm making a pedantic point: a lot of people say "rare earth elements" when they actually mean "critical minerals".
The two aren't the same thing.
Rare earth elements are a v specific bit of the periodic table: actually they're NOT all that rare.
More on them👇
🧵THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ONE MILLION POUND FINE
The story of an obscure press release on an obscure website which begs intriguing questions about Britain's "unprecedentedly tough" sanctions regime & why perhaps it's not quite as tough as it looks.
You may find it unsettling
👇
Back in Aug 2023, HMRC published this notice in the bowels of its website. Don't worry if it doesn't ring a bell - it didn't get any publicity.
But it's a big deal. A £1m fine for breaking Russian sanctions rules.
The single biggest fine in relation to trade sanctions.
But there are some gaping questions about this fine.
First: who paid it? Is this a firm we've heard of? Second: what did they actually do wrong? And what did they do to deserve to pay such a large sum?
There are no answers on the website. That's it. Here's why this matters.
🇨🇳I was rather hoping to be writing this from China, where the Chancellor has just landed for the most significant economic mission in ages - restarting Britain's formal economic relationship with China.
Alas I'm still in London.
But make no mistake; this visit is a BIG deal.
🧵
Why?
Because this is the first such trip since 2017.
UK econ relations with China have been getting frostier for 6 yrs or more.
Huawei have been thrown out; rules imposed on Chinese businesspeople; accusations of spying.
& around the world nations are imposing tariffs on China.
But the UK is doing something different.
While nearly every other G7 nation has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the UK hasn't. While most countries are going colder on China (most notably the US), the UK is now cosying up to China. Why?
🔥GAS PRICES🔥
Why are they on the rise again?
Why is Europe (and the UK) deindustrialising at a rapid pace?
Why have we failed (contrary to the conventional wisdom) to increase the amount of non-Russian gas in our system?
Lots of questions. Some answers in my five min primer 👇
This is a big deal - and not widely understood:
The volume of non-Russian gas in the European system is FLAT vs before the Ukraine war.
That's not the conventional wisdom.
Back in 2022 many assumed imported LNG would help make up the lost gas from Russia.
That didn't happen...
Instead what happened is subtly, but importantly, different.
Yes, the amount of LNG coming in from the US rose quite sharply - albeit from a low base.
But that rise was only enough to compensate for the fact that domestic production in the UK/EU was FALLING at the same time
🌾 VERTICAL FARMING🌾
Could it save the world?
I used to be sceptical. There are MANY challenges.
But then I visited one. & I'm no longer so sure.
So with the world facing future food crises here's a thread on the most interesting thing to happen to farming in a long time...
🧵
Let's start with a chart.
A few weeks ago I did a deep data dive into the state of farming in the UK.
It culminated with a v long-run chart suggesting our ability to grow ever more crops in a given hectare is slowing. Possibly stalling.
This is a really big deal
What if we could send the line in that chart 👇into the stratosphere?
It would have massive consequences. We'd be able to get ever more food from a relatively small section of land. Meaning more land for housing/rewilding or whatever else we'd want to use it for. But how?