Eurasia Notes #4

Air on the G-string, the COVAX chalice and a Gift of Figs

Aug 10, 2021 - Tbilisi

A harbinger of autumn, Georgia’s government has announced we must all mask up after a health-giving summer of fresh air.

There seems to be a let-out clause since the rule only applies outside where five or more are gathered. So cross the street, I suppose.

The announcement came on the same day the United Nations released a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change saying,“If we cut greenhouse gases, we’ll improve air quality.”

The UN’s claims are dubious. Water vapour, methane and Co2 have nothing to do with air quality. A paper published in Nature in 2013 argued that air pollution and greenhouse gases are often released from the same sources: so reduce one, reduce the other.

The difference between correlation and causation don’t seem to trouble the minds of the UN’s researchers — nor of the journalists who stenographed the press release: this report by Reuters is worryingly simplistic.

As for masks, few Georgians have ever liked them and the local press has been vocal about the downsides.

Fine particulates (PM2.5 or particles smaller than 2.5 microns or micrometers, symbol μm) are the most harmful pollutants. Surgical masks don’t stop particles that small, or anything under 10 microns. Instead they generate their own particles, fiber-like microplastics, that pose an inhalation risk, though these are of approximately 20 microns (human hair is 50 microns in diameter). These microplastics then gather in street dust. Wearing a surgical mask will protect against microplastic dust outside the mask — but generate microplastic dust within the mask. Yes, that’s the research. Go figure.

Take a gulp of air before you put on your G-string.

Passing the Chalice

Belgium is giving 43,200 doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid shot to Georgia, via COVAX (or COVAX via Belgium — it’s not clear). The country now offers a cocktail list of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac.

The semblance of choice does not seem to impress the people. First Deputy Minister of Health Tamar Gabunia says 3,000 people did not show up for booked vaccinations. She has launched an inquiry to find whether it was the spontaneous action of the citizens or the intervention of anti-vaxxers.

The country has tallied about 450,000 positive tests so far, says the vast majority recovered and attributes 6,182 deaths to Covid. More than 540,000 have had at least one Covid shot out of a population of 3.7 million.

Figuratively Speaking

I returned, hands sticky from gathering some of the second crop of figs. The tree has gained a about a quarter in size this season, due to the rain. That’s caused the remaining fruits to swell and split so there’s a rush to eat them before the ants.

When they’re not fully ripe figs leak a white sap with the look of PVA glue yet even stickier. It causes me to itch terribly.

This fig tree has been my saviour this summer. I lived off it almost exclusively for a month but it will soon be time to cut it back. It reminds me of the story from the Bible in which Jesus curses a fig tree because it bears no fruit. This might seem strange, to smite an unproductive plant. The ficus is capable, however, of sustaining life, as my experience proved.

In May I could not wait to eat its faintly-bitter fruit which was not yet ripe. The taste would be familiar to shoppers in Britain where the grocery chains make a habit of peddling unripe produce. By mid-June its branches had begun to droop as the figs swelled and then it all happened at once: the skins began to turn yellow and the builders from the construction site upstairs helped themselves, along with anyone who visited: electricians, the cable guy, and of course the landlady’s family.

I was stuffing them into the fridge wherever I could find a space — which wasn’t much because the tkemali tree had gone mad. Yellow tkemali, a cross between a cherry and a plum, ripen during the course of a fortnight, falling like hail when the wind blows. Thankfully their high vitamin C levels preserve them for weeks, even without freezing.

Figs don’t last so long. Those on the tree were fermenting by mid-July but then a magical transformation: if they managed to cling on and didn’t drop they turned first to jam, then dried, becoming a wonderful accompaniment to coffee.

Like the big league and the junior league there have been two teams of figs: one remained smaller than than a golf ball through the summer, waiting for the first team to clear the field. Only then did they begin to swell and ripen. Now that its August it will be interesting to see how long the second crop lasts.