In Episode 27 of his new book, author Julian Roup listens to a quiet earth and a noisy dawn chorus amid Covid-19 lockdown.
In case you missed Episode 26, click here.
Life in a Time of Plague
Sussex, 2nd May 2020
By Julian Roup
Tomorrow, May 3, is ‘International Dawn Chorus Day’. People across Britain are urged by BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme to get up early to hear the avian orchestra tune up from 4.30am for the earth’s greatest symphony, led by robins and blackbirds, which are usually first out of their nests. This glorious sound, which wakes me each morning of lockdown, is in its way a sex-led frenzy as birds call to seek a mate and to claim breeding-feeding territory as their own.
I wonder how this behaviour would play out if it was part of the human range? Perish the thought; we have enough issues as a species ourselves.
British newspapers report today that France has been told that its exit strategy from lockdown hinges on ‘red and green’ regions and mass testing. The French have said they will begin to strip back confinement measures on May 11. France will start gradually easing lockdown to avoid economic collapse in a week’s time, but tighter restrictions will remain in ‘red’ regions, Paris and the North East, which have high infection levels. The country could backtrack if the epidemic flares up again, warned the French prime minister, Édouard Philippe. He told Parliament the decision to confine the population to their homes six weeks ago had saved 62,000 lives, but it was now time to start lifting the lockdown to avoid economic collapse. France has been one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, with more than 20,000 deaths thus far. “We are going to have to learn to live with Covid-19 and to protect ourselves from it,” he said. “It is a fine line that must be followed. A little too much carelessness, and the epidemic restarts. A little too much caution, and the entire country sinks.”
Spain has announced it hopes to return to ‘normality’ by the end of June.
As I write, more than half of humanity is under some sort of lockdown to stem the spread of the pandemic. But with some countries reporting falling infection numbers, governments are beginning to chart their way out of the shutdowns that have pummelled the global economy.
These plans to lift lockdown are to go ahead despite the rise in German Covid-19 infection rates after its own relaxation of restrictions.
Here in the UK, we are waiting till next week to hear what Boris has planned for the lifting of our own lockdown.
In the US, a drug is being made available which is said to inhibit the growth of Covid-19 and has proved effective in some patients. US regulators have allowed the emergency use of the experimental drug Remdesivir, which appears to help some coronavirus patients recover faster. It is the first drug shown to help fight Covid-19, which has killed more than 230,000 people worldwide as of today. Donald Trump announced the news on Friday at the White House alongside Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, who said the drug would be available for patients hospitalised with Covid-19.
The emergency approval comes days after Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, expressed cautious optimism about the results of a Remdesivir drug trial. “The data shows that Remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” Fauci said earlier this week. “What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus.”
The UK hasn’t been shaking as much since it went into Covid lockdown. This is a story that catches my eye in the Guardian. Seismometer stations, which are normally used to record earthquakes, have detected a big fall in the ground vibrations linked to human activity. Scientists from Imperial College London say this background hum is now half what it would usually be.
The unprecedented seismic quiet – a phenomenon mirrored in other countries – could offer a unique opportunity to study the Earth’s interior. “You’d have to go back decades to see noise levels like this,” commented Imperial’s Dr Stephen Hicks. “You’d often get quiet times in the evenings or at weekends but not continuously, for weeks,” he told BBC News.
Human activity – cars, lorries, trains, industry, and footfall – turn up in seismometers in a band of frequencies from 5 to 15 Hertz. Dr Hicks used the data from 127 instruments spread across Britain to map the signal’s evolution from mid-January to the present. He relied in part on the high-fidelity scientific stations operated by the British Geological Survey, but also on a network of citizen science seismometers.
The vibrations sensed in both sets of instruments were seen to drop off dramatically after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Britain into lockdown on 23 March. “The reduction in seismic noise should help us to see signals from earthquakes that are normally buried in the noise,” said Dr Brian Baptie, the head of seismology at the BGS.
How is that for a silver lining in all this? Or is it golden, as in silence?
Soon British commuters could be asked to take their temperature before leaving home as part of proposals to make public transport safer. It is understood to be among measures being considered for when the coronavirus lockdown is eased. A fever with a temperature above 37.8 Centigrade is one of the two main symptoms of the virus, the other being a dry continuous cough.
Having commuted from Sussex to London for years, I can only wonder at this new hurdle facing hard-pressed commuters. Before wrestling with the joys of British Rail, millions will have to start their day with a thermometer. That thought is enough to raise one’s temperature.
And I notice an interesting crack developing in the British Government’s hardline Brexit stance, reported in the Guardian .
“The British government is quietly seeking access to the European Union’s pandemic warning system, despite early reluctance to cooperate on health after Brexit,” the Guardian has learned. Now there is a surprise – or maybe not!
The UK is seeking “something akin to membership” of the EU’s early warning and response system (EWRS), which has played a critical role in coordinating Europe’s response to the coronavirus, as well as to earlier pandemics such as bird flu. According to an EU source, this would be “pretty much the same” as membership of the EU system.
As a committed ‘Remainer’ who voted to keep Britain in the EU, I smile wryly reading this, and wonder how many other aspects of the EU Boris will quietly be trying to ease back into?
Russia, too, is having its own battle with the virus. Two per cent of Moscow’s residents are infected, says its mayor –some 250,000 people. According to official statistics, Moscow has a population of 12.7 million people, but the real figure is believed to be higher.
Moscow has significantly increased testing capacity over the past few weeks, and the city has managed to contain the spread of the infection due to the enforcement of stay-at-home rules and other measures, say the authorities.
And something practical and lighthearted out of China today. To help remind kids of the importance of social distancing amid the pandemic, one school in Hangzhou has its young students wearing special headwear to class. The hats were all designed and made by the students themselves (presumably with a bit of help from their parents) before returning to school this week. Each hat includes a kind of rotor blade, a metre long, made of every conceivable material from plastic to cardboard to long skinny balloons, which helps to remind the kids to keep their distance from each other as they create a one-metre buffer zone around each of the first- to third-graders.
My thoughts this morning turn to our own plans for the day. Cleaning the house is on the cards, not a prospect I relish, but Gus fluff is evident everywhere. Jan gave him a shower this morning as he stank to high heaven after the vets cleared his blocked anal glands, an excuse if ever there was one not to be a vet. Poor Gus was somewhat bewildered and downcast over the past two days by not being allowed on couches or beds. So now he smells pretty good and hopefully wont be doing his butt-wipe arse-drag walk on the lawn. And the cottage needs cleaning.
By way of thanking Jan for doing the heavy lifting on Gus, I make American style pancakes for breakfast, slathered in honey, raspberries and Greek yogurt, with some fried Chorizo sausage on the side for some salt and spice as we are out of bacon.
We then take the newly clean Gus for a trip to see Callum and Traveller and have a walk through the bluebells, as they won’t last much longer with all the rain we’ve had. Both horses are fine, Callum in for the day as his field is sodden after yesterday’s downpour, but Traveller is happy as a clam in his field and rolls over twice in the mud to make the point.
After a sandwich lunch, I do some reading and then weed the garden, pulling out thistles and stinging nettles and that sticky green climbing plant that given rein will take over a whole bed. And I tie up the climbing roses which have tipped over from the wall in our last storm. The weather is still very mixed, sunshine and cloud alternating.
Our day ends quietly with supper and a movie, and I make a mental note to be up early for ‘International Dawn Chorus Day’ tomorrow. Things in Britain cannot be that desperate if thousands of people across the land will rise with the lark tomorrow to listen to birdsong.
