Barn Owl Picture

A day of starting to sort out my project paperwork and do a bit of shredding. So as I didn't go out, I thought I'd blip the new picture that I put up before xmas, The Barn Owl Among the Willow by A K Green, a local artist. A big news day on Covid which pushed Parliament approving the EU trade deal by 521 to 73 and the PM signing the trade deal (already signed by the EU) way down the agenda.  

Day 290 / Day 11 of the 4 Tiers (for my record only)
UK deaths up 981 to 72,548 (revised basis), with 50,023 new cases, 23,771 patients in hospital and 1,847 on ventilation (only data for England is being updated every day during the xmas/new year period). Globally cases to date passed 82m yesterday evening, with cases in the US passing 20m today. Yesterday Russia said its no. of Covid deaths is more than 186,000, over 3 times that officially reported (low partly due to an autopsy having to list COVID-19 as the main cause of death).  Ireland returns to a full lockdown for at least a month due to the rapid spread of the new variant. The PM said cases in Eng went up 40% last week, the av case rate was 380 per 100k at 24/12, 1 in 70 with the virus and there are now more in hospital in Eng than during the first peak. Graphs show very sharp rises in hospital admissions in London, the East and South East with the new variant far outstripping the others in these areas. Therefore more areas move up a Tier in England from midnight, meaning that 78.3% of people will be in Tier 4, 21.7% in Tier 3, 0% in Tier 2 and under 0.1% in Tier 1. I was surprised we didn't go into a full lockdown, although the PM did say that 'the impact of Tier 4 is still an open question'. Tougher action is taken on schools and universities, but it's dependent on location and age, so details can be seen on the Govt website - but in general older students are delayed going back face to face, with provisional return dates set which are being kept under review according to what the data says. 

The main news though was the approval of the Oxford / Astra Zeneca vaccine by the UK regulator, with vaccinations starting Mon 4th Jan. The regulator in scrutinising the data believes that the half dose issue re improved efficacy was actually more related to a longer period between the first and second dose. More data is to be released this week, but verbally we were told the vaccine is around 70% effective 22 days after the first dose, with the 2nd dose possibly impacting the duration of protecton. Therefore the regulator has approved the vaccine to be used in two full doses up to 12 weeks apart and it has also changed its guidance on the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to be used in 2 doses up to 12 weeks apart. So, with the support of the data and approval by the regulator, the roll-out strategy has accelerated to vaccinating as many of the vulnerable as possible with a first dose and delaying the 2nd dose to up to 12 weeks. Also front line NHS and care home staff will now be vaccinated as a priority alongside the over 80s. The Deputy CMO stressed there is no major distinction between the 2 vaccines, the data can't be easily compared as for example they use different definitions of illness. He also stressed we need to get the max possible benefit in the shortest possible time and that this is endorsed by the 4 CMOs, and that we need to go as fast as the speed of supply.