Monday, May 25, 2020

Time-limited

I used to think that mosquitoes were only active from roughly nightfall to just before dawn, but here in Guatemala I’ve learned that they are pretty ravenous all day long and that it’s only the novel coronavirus that sticks to those hours. 

Dr G was back in his familiar Sunday prime time slot with a mixture of grim-faced news offset by more smiley-countenanced developments. Amongst the latter was a weather forecast that suggests we are now just as likely to die from dengue. 

The day before Mr Charisma himself from the Ministerio de Salud had announced a pronounced surge with a record number of new cases, but explained that over 200 of these could be attributed to one super-spreader at a Guatemala City sweat shop. 

So imagine our surprise when Sunday’s numbers were even worse. 

Giammattei must have twigged that ‘cases are only going up because we’re doing more tests’ made him sound like the imbecile up north, so he’s trying us out with ‘tests are only going up because of the rise in cases’, which is equally oxy-moronic. 

Truth is that we’re now beyond statistical illumination and the only number that will matter from now on is the number of hospital beds relative to the people that need them. 


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