SARS-CoV-2: Pandemic or endemic ?

                    SARS-CoV-2                            Shutterstock

 
As the world is preoccupied with the war in Europe, other geopolitical tensions and economic recovery, the pandemic has taken more of a backseat than its current risk would suggest is prudent. COVID-19 is far from gone and continues to circulate in communities world-wide. While the impact has been lessened through an extraordinary vaccination program, the virus still has capacity to develop variants as it has done with Delta and the more infectious Omicron. With an uneven supply and distribution of vaccines many communities particularly in developing nations or conflict zones remain potentially exposed to the virus and hence possible hosts for variants to develop. The detection of a merged Delticron variant (Delta and Omicron) being a point in case.

Various statements from Governments around the world, rather than health professionals, have canvassed that living with COVID-19 is the new normal as the virus is now more endemic than pandemic. This is not the case. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, classifying COVID-19 as endemic assumes there is stable circulation of the virus at predictable levels with predictable waves of transmission.

Bringing the virus to manageable levels depends on four key factors: global vaccination rates, the evolution of the virus itself; medical advances in both limiting infection and the treatment of those infected; and preventative measures such as improved ventilation and social distancing. At this time the race between vaccine development and deployment versus evolution of COVID-19 variants is head to head.

Terminology and meaning is important in this context. An epidemic is a disease that is surging in cases, and a pandemic is an epidemic that has spread over several continents. For a disease to be endemic the number of cases is more or less stable with possible seasonal fluctations similar, for example, to colds and flu. As COVID -19 is going through surges in different countries at present, it cannot be termed as endemic at this time.

Russian military: failures and abuses in the Ukrainian War

Destroyed Russian armour, Bucha, 5 April 2022  Shutterstock

The poor performance of the Russian Armed Forces in the Ukrainian War has surprised military analysts, international commentators and Governments around the world. With an overwhelming supremacy in technology with scale and size in assets, the Russians have not overwhelmed the Ukrainian Army and Air Force as first feared.  Instead a range of clear weaknesses have come to the fore including poor leadership, sloppy planning/logistics, chaotic deployment plus various other underperforming weapons systems.

Amongst the now identified failures -

Ground forces unsupplied and poor communications: armoured vehicles such as heavy battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers have literally run out of fuel and in some cases have been abandoned in the field. Russian soldiers have been seen requesting, appropriating or stealing fuel for their vehicles.

Rations for the troops in the field have been inadequate, lasting only a few days and out-of-date. No effective resupply system is apparent and Russian soldiers have been filmed stealing food and chickens as a result.

Communications have been chaotic with units uncertain of their objectives, their location or even exactly how to communicate with each other. Signals have often been unencrypted and transmissions easily detected by civilians.

Young conscripts with no combat experience have been deployed to the theatre of operations harkening back to another Russian episode being the Chechen War. In that conflict during 1994-96 the Soldiers Mothers Committee was established to bring young poorly trained conscripts back home. 6,500 young conscripts were killed in that war. Will it be the same in Putin's Ukrainian War ?

Air  superiority not achieved: The Ukrainian Air Force consists mainly of old Soviet era fighters such as MIG-29s and SU-27s and with other air assets (close suport, helicopters, transports) only amounts to around 200 aircraft. The Russians in comparison have approx 1,500 combat aircraft alone with modern strike aircraft such as the Su-30, Su-33 and Su-35. The Russians also have long range strategic bombers such as the Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-160. Despite this advantage, air superiority has not been achieved.

High tech missile system failures:  despite using cruise missiles and the much vaunted Iskander short range ballistic missiles with a range of around 500 km and accuracy to within 2-5 metres, the missiles have landed short of their targets despite over 300 being fired. The Ukrainian airfields and airforce rather than being destroyed remain viable and able to contest air space.

This is to the benefit of the Ukrainian defence forces which otherwise might have been rendered inert. Instead, with tactical Western support they remain a potent and viable force to defend their country.

A cliche of armed conflicts is that the first casualty of war is always the truth, however there is sufficient independent verification of media and intelligence reports to demonstrate atrocities against civilians have been perpetrated by the Russians and their proxy allies such as the Chechens. This is not  novel and has been a feature of Russian strategy and tactics from the early Soviet era onwards through various conflicts. It remains a stain on the professionalism of the Russian military and only begets a need for revenge from their opponents.  

Earth Hour 2022 - 26 March @ 8:30 PM

The message for the environment continues to be urgent and critical. No matter how small.

Earth Hour information and resources can be located at this hyperlink: Earth Hour 2022

IPCC Report February 2022: Key global indictors on impact of climate change

As part of the Sixth Assessment Report, working group II of the IPCC published the 'report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability'. This specific paper contains a list of impact indicators in a graphical presentation covering both ecological and human impact measures (as shown below). Copyright IPCC 2022.

Panel A

Panel B

IPCC Report February 2022: adaptation to climate change falls well behind

                                                              IPCC 2022

The latest report from Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) continues the well established trend of identifying the sadly lagging response to the threat of climate change globally. While a few concrete steps have been taken to address carbon emissions and mitigation, these efforts remain substantially insufficient and in many cases, badly misdirected.

A number of messages in the report emphasise the importance of close collaboration between all parts of society: Government, private sector, media, the scientific community, investors and essentially international cooperation.

There is also a sense that many of the 'soft limits' to human adaptation have been reached and increasingly the next steps will be harder to achieve with options now increasingly closing off with the risk of cascade events more likely.

Key points covered in this report -

• it is unequivocal that climate change has already disrupted human and natural systems. Past and current development trends (past emissions, development and climate change) have not advanced global climate resilient development.
• climate resilient development prospects are increasingly limited if current greenhouse gas emissions do not rapidly decline, especially if 1.5C global warming is exceeded in the near term.  the Report also noted that " evidence of observed impacts, projects risks, levels and trends in vulnerability, and adaptation limits, demonstrate that worldwide climate resilient development action is more urgent than previously assessed in the 5th Assessment Report".
• the rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and humans systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.
• approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.
• climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage. Multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously and multiple climatic and non climatic risks will interact resulting in compounding overall risk and risks cascading across sectors and regions.
• Note a key caveat about global warming that transiently exceeds 1.5C which is termed 'overshoot'. "Depending on the magnitude and duration of overshoot, some impacts will cause the release of additional greenhouse gases and some will be irreversible even if global warming is reduced".

The IPCC report can be accessed at this link: IPCC Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability report

The Ukrainian Armed Forces - outnumbered but still lethal

                                                                                                Shutterstock

Ukraine's armed forces may be small by comparison with their Russian counterparts, however they have lethal capabilities and after seven years of battling insurgency in the two breakaway provinces, a level of combat experience has been gained.

Ukraine to its great credit could have had nuclear weapons but discarded these lethal weapons many years ago. These weapons were part of the Soviet arsenal but the Ukraine decided to have them dismantled at part of the arms control treaty.

A brief comparison of key categories of assets in the armed forces of both countries is provided below drawn from various sources including the European Union.

Military assets	Russia	Ukraine
Personnel Active Reserves	1,154,000 2,000,000	255,000 1,000,000
Army and other land forces Armoured vehicles Tanks Artillery Self-propelled artillery Rocket launchers	26,831 12,270 18,497 6,500 4,350	6,990 2,105 3,721 1,040 630
Air Force Fighters Multirole aircraft Attack aircraft Helicopters Combat drones	5,550 832 870 1,720 30	70 0 29 120 12
Navy Aircraft carrier Destroyers Frigates Corvettes Submarines	1 18 11 83 55+	0 0 1 0 0
Military budgets 2020	$ 61.7B	$ 5.9B

Russia dwarfs the Ukraine in every form of military asset capability except the critical one: morale and commitment to defend one's homeland. After two weeks of war, the Ukrainians have demonstrated the willingness and capacity to defend their country.

Russia and war with the Ukraine - Putin's Pronouncement

 Vladimir Putin - Shutterstock

 
Like an old-style Soviet autocrat, former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel and long serving president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin has initiated the war with the Ukraine. The decision was made solely by Putin without just cause and seemingly not supported by the Russian people at large. A largely symbolic vote by the Russian Parliament (the Duma) to recognise the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk did not include authorising war against the Ukraine. Significant and large protests across Russian cities and towns bear witness to the opposition to Putin's war.

Putin has variously been described in the media as madman, delusional, various other colourful descriptions and compared to either Hitler or Stalin. This reaction however largely obscures the informed analysis of his views provided by foreign affairs commentators and Russian political analysts. The fundamental core of Putin's decision remains his oft-stated view of what Russia lost with the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. He has always maintained that this event was a disaster and as a consequence he has sought to seemingly reverse the loss of prestige, territory, power and influence for Russia. This is largely at the expense of countries within Russia's historical sphere of influence and is very much the perspective of a former KGB officer.

Putin's views were again clearly demonstrated in the recorded meeting of Russia's Security Council on 22 February 2022. At this staged meeting, Putin commented on the Russian empire (whatever that is) and variously claimed the Ukraine was a colony with a puppet regime, was created by Lenin, was acquiring nuclear weapons and that the Russian and Ukrainian were actually one people and hence it should not exist. Putin has also commented that he does not want countries that join NATO to be the immediate neighbours to Russia itself.

Even Putin's intelligence chief and long term associate from the KGB days, Sergei Natyshkin was left stumbling and unsure what to say as Putin insisted he provide a full endorsement of the direction being taken. 

Putin operates with a flawed understanding of what action other countries may take. He has probably estimated that -

• NATO is unlikely to directly confront Russia and it will not fight for the Ukraine.
• Western sanctions can be weathered and have been factored into his calculations on the risks for  Russia in this conflict
• Russia has prepared for this war with modernising its Armed Forces and building significant foreign reserves to enable some level of protection from Western sanctions.

Within Russia's own intelligentsia and military commentators, there is little actual concern about NATO and the perceived threat which Putin alludes to. This is Putin's war with at worst only vague support amongst the Russian people and at best, the FSB (the successor organisation to the KGB), the breakaway provinces and senior officers in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. It is however hard to measure given the level of suppression of any public opinion in Russia.