The New Normal

The forecast was for dry weather this morning and rain this afternoon. So after 3 hours of rain this morning (!) I took myself off to Morston Quay to have a wander and take some photos. This is one of the boats used to take people out to look at the seals, I thought it was a sign of the times that everyone was wearing a mask, although in other boats hardly anyone was. I spend some time photographing what I think was little egrets catching food (they had yellow feet) and as I have a lot of Extras left please take a look at my results. No rain this afternoon, but as I was expecting it I'd decided to watch The Shining, followed by the recent sequel Doctor Sleep which was very good.

Day 217 / Day 5 of The 3 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 67 to 43,646 (revised basis), with a 16,982 rise in new daily cases, 5,608 patients in hospital and 592 in ventilator beds. Globally cases to date pass 40m, up 1m in 3 days. Day 7 of the dispute between the Govt and Gtr Mcr Mayor about Tier 3 restrictions with the Labour Mayor accusing the PM of lying about the severity of the outbreak in his area. 20 MPs from areas with low virus levels (incl the N. Norfolk MP) have written to the Mayor offering their sympathy but asking him to reconsider his calls for a National Lockdown. A SAGE scientific advisor says in the next 3-6 months more than one vaccine will be available. A fitness 'influencer' who thought the virus did not exist, has sadly died aged 33 from heart complications caused by the virus. 

I read an interesting article by Dr Michael Mosley in the Daily Mail about 'super spreaders'. He reports that 80% of new cases are caused by just 10% of infected people. He also said that a small Harvard Uni experiment found that 10% of people produced far more droplets when they breathed out, and these people tended to be older and with a higher BMI. He says that just as important as the R value is the K value, which reflects the pattern with which it spreads, with flu having a K value of 1 and spreading evenly and Covid having a K value of 0.1 suggesting there might be super spreaders who would have the biggest impact in crowded, poorly ventilated indoor spaces with noisy strangers in close proximity (so avoid Trump if you see him in the pub!).