Ian Kenway @iankenway@social.cleverlibre.org

last Friday was suspiciously low (and has now dropped out of the numerator of the equation), so this is no surprise. It represents a time-to-half of around 8 days.

There were 29 deaths today, reversing what I said yesterday was an unexpected blip in the trend. The average is now the lowest since the last peak, but still unacceptably high: to put it in context, it's still higher than the peak in the first wave, in April.
7-day average: 33.71 - DOWN 5.43
3/6

#Ceredigion is today's story. Zero cases, for the first time (excluding days with unreliable reporting) since way before the second ("firebreak") lockdown, back in the autumn. There is of course danger that news like this will make people complacent. Zero cases reported in one day doesn't mean zero cases in the community. You'd have to close the borders and wait 14 days to be sure of that. And that's a strategy that isn't so unreasonable, is it?
7-day average: 3.71 - DOWN 1.57
4/6

Overall, there is a lot of room for optimism in today's figures. I am very much hoping though that any changes in restrictions announced today will be small. We cannot afford to let R get over 1 again, and major changes could soon do that. We need far more people vaccinated before considering that. With four new, more contagious (and possibly more dangerous) strains out there, we know that it will be more difficult to contain than before, if we let it go.

[Screenshot: PHW web site]
5/6

I said it a week or so ago: I think there is room for small changes for the purpose of mental health, and so I was pleased to hear that FMWales is going to announce something along those lines today. That saves lives too. But beyond that, I'm not sure.
6/6

# How butterflies fly

Source:
* [YouTube](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeiU_eIB1c)
* https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210121132059.htm

> Until now, the common perception has been that butterfly wings are aerodynamically inefficient, however, the researchers suggest that the opposite is actually true.

> ... researchers studied the wingbeats of freely flying butterflies during take-off in a wind tunnel.

> _During the upward stroke, the wings cup, creating an air-filled pocket between them. When the wings then collide, the air is forced out, resulting in a backward jet that propels the butterflies forward. The downward wingbeat has another function: the butterflies stay in the air and do not fall to the ground._

Stop Using Cloudflare

1. It is a GIANT man in the middle - MITM.
2. Their DDOS protection is not that good.
3. You are contributing to a centralized Internet.

Today's #Covid19Cymru headlines:
Cases a little above expectation, though 7-day average down. R rises slightly. Deaths falling slowly.

My prediction, based purely on the R rate, for today was 677 - i.e. the equation predicted a rise. We've had 737 new cases. After a week which has been affected by weather (snow affecting infrastructure last weekend through to Tuesday), it's not surprising if some of these cases are ones that couldn't get to test centres as early as they otherwise would.
1/4

The positivity though is still very low, at 9.9% (the only lower recent figure was yesterday), so more tests were carried out; again, the weather is a likely explanation for this.

7-day average: 680 - DOWN 49

R (estimate): 0.73 - UP 0.03
It's a fairly crude estimate, which doesn't take into account the positivity, so I wouldn't read anything into this small increase at the moment. It's likely to rise again tomorrow for the same weather-related reason.
2/4

#Ceredigion has 2 new cases. Following yesterday's 0, this is fairly good news. Obviously we would all have hoped we'd got rid of it, but that was unlikely to happen so quickly. The hope now is that these two people were already isolating.
7-day average: 3.71 - UNCHANGED

In second best place, Merthyr - still with just 5 cases.
I can't help thinking my "herd immunity" theory (see other posts for what I mean) applies here. This is quite a remarkable turnaround for them.
4/4

I agree with Piglet. I miss the hugs 😢

Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen Hapus!
❤️❤️❤️
Happy St Dwynwen’s Day!

Dwynwen is Wales' patron saint of lovers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dydd_Santes_Dwynwen

U.S. Military Intelligence has been monitoring U.S. cellphone movement without a warrant! Anyone still think we don't need our own GDPR?

#privacy #GDPR #Military #intelligence #CybersecurityNews #technology

https://youtu.be/PRpEwUUKEQA

Why it’s too early to hold a referendum on independence. https://nation.cymru/opinion/why-its-too-early-to-hold-a-referendum-on-independence/

One time I applied to a crypto firm that had nearly 0 web presence and basically this was their business model

#SteveBell on the deadliness of the #UK #Covid-19 variant — #cartoon | Opinion | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2021/jan/26/steve-bell-on-the-deadliness-of-the-uk-covid-variant-cartoon

#UK #Politics #Satire #BorisJohnson #DavidCameron #BullingdonClub

Shame on the #UK #government. We’re now in the #SixFigureClub in terms of official number of #deaths from #Covid-19. It has been past that 100,000 for weeks if you consider excess deaths.

#Pandemic #Coronavirus

Cases at their lowest for over 2 months. Deaths down. Ceredigion still low.

Cases, just 570 (predicted: 699) are at their lowest since 10th November. Excluding that date (which was suspect) we have to go all the way back to 12th October for a lower figure.
7-day average: 936 - DOWN 77

Obviously questions will be asked whether or not today's figures are reliable. My feeling is that yes, they are - probably, but not certainly.
1/4

I'd predicted (based on yesterday's R and weekly trends) that today would be the lowest figure (excluding suspects) for 2 months.
Although it's lower than my prediction, it's not out of the ballpark. It's on the edge though. I'm not marking this one as suspicious in my spreadsheet, but I suspect that the by-sample-date graph might smooth this a bit. Positivity was a touch up on yesterday, at 12.9%.

Tomorrow's prediction: 888
R (estimate): 0.78.
2/4