No Immunity, Even in the West

Thank you to everyone who took a moment to send condolences during the past week, especially to those who went a step further and sent a personal message. 

Much appreciated. Before I came out to California and decided to ride out the pandemic in my wife's neck of the woods, I was concerned that my Dad might pass while I was away as he has been steadily declining for a few months, so it was a shock when it was my Mum, who had previously been in reasonable health for a 91 year old, who passed away.

After booking a flight back to the UK, I subsequently cancelled it as there is no date on a funeral at this time and as you can imagine, deaths from COVID-19 have swamped coroners and funeral services, so for now my plans are on hold. Visiting my Dad after a long flight is also not the greatest of ideas, but fortunately I have two sisters who have stepped up to help out. 

Obviously not the best time for a funeral, but we play the cards we are dealt in life.

I've mentioned Mark Littlewood in this blog before, for example last November when I wrote these words: 

This "@SmarterSig" chap (aka Mark Littlewood) might be worth following if you are into horse racing.

A quick look at some of his other posts show some quality content, something that is something of a rarity these days. He appears to be of a similar vintage to myself, although we differ in our opinions of Farage.

Unfortunately, first impressions can be wrong, and in January Mark showed an inability to argue logically, by employing the 'changing the subject' tactic:

Benefit of the doubt was given, anyone can have a bad day after all, but a couple of COVID-19 related tweets today made me realise that while Mark might be a knowledgeable source about horse racing (I really have no idea as I'm not a follower), he really has some confused ideas about COVID-19 and an inability to admit to being wrong.

Mark Tweeted the below:

Two important points here. 

1) The curve, actually the 'epidemic curve' refers to the number of cases.

2) The only way to accelerate the flattening of the curve is to prevent new cases

Unfortunately, while we all agree that it is good to have a healthy immune system, having one does not protect you from becoming infected with COVID-19, in other words your immune system will not flatten the curve since however great it is, it does not offer protection against a novel virus.

I pointed this out, actually giving Mark some help with how an immune system can be boosted, since he thinks it is possible with vitamins:

However, for most of us living in 'western' countries, additional vitamins aren't going to boost your immune system. If you are under nourished, they will, but countries where undernourishment is an issue almost certainly don't include wherever you are reading this:

Pretty clear? I thought so, but instead of admitting he might have misspoken, Mark comes back with:

Oh dear. This is not accurate at all. The United Nations have numbers on this, and I'm not seeing any 'western diet' countries at the top of any undernourished list:

At this point Mark tried changing the subject but the takeaway here is that Mark is clearly not a doctor and apparently incapable of admitting a mistake or two.  

Mark might well be knowledgeable about horse racing as he claims, but when people's claimed expertise in other areas is easily proven false, with no admission of error, credibility is clearly seriously weakened.