Fab Flowers

These are the fabulous flowers I did a snatched photo of the other day, a lovely surprise gift. As it's rained all day and has been very misty and quite dark, it was a perfect day to photograph them again properly. I also sent my claim in to B&Q by email this morning as the sealant round the bath is separating away. It's 2 years since the work was done, so I didn't hold out much hope, but I got a call within a couple of hours saying they will replace the sealant or give me a cash sum to get somebody local to do the work. As I don't want the work done before I have the vaccine, we settled on the cash sum - an excellent response. Other than that I did a big pile of ironing and had my xmas Houseparty catch up with 2 of my sisters. I also watched Matt Hancock announcing more areas to go into Tier 4 from Boxing Day including Norfork which goes up from Tier 2. I'm actually please he's taking action quickly in our case to prevent it getting to very high levels hopefully. 

Day 283 / Day 4 of the 4 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 744 to 69,051 (revised basis), with 39,237 new cases, 20,917 patients in hospital and 1,529 on ventilation, which represents big increases on all 4 measures. The daily deaths are the highest since the end of April, which is a bit inconsistent with the reassurances given about lower death rates due to treatments now available, particularly given hospital cases are similar to at the peak of the 1st wave. New cases are a new record again and new daily hospital admissions went over 2,000. The R rate has risen again to 1.1-1.3 with a daily infection growth rate range of 1% to 6%. The R rate in London and the East of England is 1.2-1.5.  

There was a briefing today with Matt Hancock with more bad news. Another new variant has been found in South Africa which is more transmissible and has more mutations and also seems more common in young adults. 2 cases have been found in the UK, both of whom are contacts of people who travelled from SA in the last few weeks. Restrictions to travel from SA have been implemented.  Those returning from SA in the last fortnight and their close contacts must quarantine immediately, with the law being changed to make this a legal requirement. 

An urgent review of the Tier areas are in have been bought forward from 30th Dec, and from Boxing Day 6.3m more people move into Tier 4, 4.2m up into Tier 3 and 762k into Tier 2. So 52% of people in England will be in Tier 4, new areas are Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, rest of Essex, Waverley in Surrey and Hampshire (except New Forest). The graph shown had the rate of growth of existing Tier 4 areas and the same for new Tier 4 areas - these areas are starting to show growth at the same trajectory and this is a chance to stop growth reaching that of existing Tier 4 areas. The graph also showed areas without high numbers of the new variant were being controlled by the old 3 tier system. There has been unrest among lorry drivers stuck at Dover. Tony Blair has said that 2nd jabs of the vaccine should be held up to give more people first jabs, something that has not been tested at all, neither has the vaccine been approved on this basis - I wish he would shut up. I listened to a podcast today which said that an expert had estimated that the vaccination of the highest priority 6m people could prevent two thirds of deaths. Nicola Sturgeon apologises for breaching Covid rules.