Sunny Afternoon Chat

It was another gloriously sunny day today. More work in the garden this morning, then G & A came round this afternoon for a really lovely sunny afternoon catch up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIl6n_SRCI

Day 187 / Full Day 179 of Lockdown / Day 5 of Rule of Six (for my record only)
UK deaths up 27 to 41,732 (revised basis), with new daily cases up by 4,322 (a 48% increase from last Fri) and 1,020 patients in hospital. Unsurprisingly the R rate has risen to 1.1-1.4, which SAGE says is shows 'widespread growth of the epidemic across the country'. The ONS estimates 6,000 people in England were infected with the virus each day in the first week of September, nearly double the previous week and that 1 in 900 had the virus. New daily cases in France are still rising at 13,215. Dublin closes restaurants and advises against non-essential travel as cases treble in two weeks, with the Irish R rate being 1.3-1.7. Israel starts a 2nd national lockdown. 

Boris says 'we're now seeing a second wave coming' and that it's 'inevitable'. It's reported that proposals are being drawn up for a two week 'circuit break' where schools and workplaces would stay open, restaurants and bars would close and different households wouldn't mix (I doubt two weeks would be enough). Matt Hancock rightly referred to a national lockdown as a 'last line of defence'. Some new local lockdown rules are announced for parts of the North West, Midlands and West Yorkshire, but bizarrely do not come into force until Tuesday. There are growing calls for more local control of virus management and powers, this seems to work well in other countries. Researchers at Trinity College Dublin found that half the people in their study that had recovered from the virus were still suffering from persistent fatigue regardless of how badly they'd been affected.