One of the brilliant things about the Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian airbases by way of drones shipped close to the targets in shipping containers is that the only logical Russian response is to increase security checks on all shipping inside Russia. Which means...
... that Russia may have to start treating every shipping container like a potential bomb.
Massive delays at ports, rail hubs, warehouses. Every container merits inspection. That’s thousands per day. Russia’s military logistics, already straining, potentially gets a whole lot slower.
It's quite staggering when you look at the doubling of days of sickness absence for doctors in the NHS in five short years.
We're not "back to normal".
We're going *out of control*.
Zoom in to "Gastrointestinal Problems" and "Cold Cough Flu-Influenza".
Look at that genuinely astonishing rise from *2019* to now.
I mean, seriously, flipping look at it.
Doctors were off sick with stomach problems or respiratory infections for FOUR TIMES AS MANY DAYS IN THE LAST YEAR AS THEY WERE IN 2019.
I have just had the craziest morning.
I meet up twice a year with five colleagues to coordinate an annual event.
When I arrived the first two were already there...
One was talking about how her husband (early 50s) has not returned to work after a stroke six months ago, and about how she (early 50s) was dealing with unending fatigue.
The other guy replies, "Yes, my sister (40s) had a stroke at the end of last year, and her husband (late 40s) has just had an operation for a brain tumour."
The people who say that endless repeat covid infection is not a concern... They say it, despite the fact that studies like this one are only coming out now after *five years of work*. It was based on cases in 2020.
There *is* enough evidence in to say that endless repeat Covid infections are going to be detrimental to long term health on an individual and population level, but there will be even more evidence to come.
There will be problems caused by cases caught *today* that will not be out for years.
Don't forget:
*Mass widespread* universal covid *infection* only started in 2021.
*Mass widespread* universal covid *REinfection* only started in 2022.
In the mid 2000s, I got ill while finishing a project in Eastern Europe, and developed some health conditions that nobbled me for a few years, and my whole life changed track.
I didn't go back, but I never took my eye off what I had seen start to develop:
Putin's new empire.
🧵
Let me explain.
Gorbachev's perestroika descended into Yeltsin's mess, which evolved into Putin's era.
The first few years of it were a juggling act as Putin capitalised on the chaos and convinced the West that he was the best option for a stable Russia.