Winter Coat

I did my Spout Hills walk this morning, just about staying upright in the slippery mud. This horse seemed happy enough in their coat. I briefly saw my neighbour opposite who moved in before xmas. She told me her husband died on Sunday having got Covid and spending two weeks in a care home - this is such a terrible virus. 

Day 318 / Day 23 of Lockdown 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 1,725 to 101,887 (revised basis), with 25,308 new cases, 37,605 patients in hospital, 3,961 on ventilation and 3,082 new admissions.  c7.2m have now received their first dose of the vaccine. AZ have defended their production problems with vaccine for the EU by saying the UK signed a contract 3 months before the EU, giving UK manufacturing 3 more months to iron out production issues. The EU wants AZ to supply promised vaccines from UK manufacturing sites. AZ are also working with Oxford Uni on a vaccine that targets the South African variant. A roadmap for easing lockdown is to be published on 22nd Feb. The PM hopes to be able to open schools from 8th March, with caveats around meeting vaccination targets and data on prevalence etc with the CSA reminding us that c1m in England currently with the virus. There will be a catch up programme and summer schools. A US based firm, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has a two-antibody cocktail cocktail called REGEN-COV which has been trialled on 400 participants with a household member with COVID-19 with good outcomes and is now being trialled in the NHS on patients in hospital. As widely leaked, government provided quarantine hotels will be used for UK nationals and residents returning from 30 'red list' countries to quarantine for 10 days in order to try to prevent the entry of mutant strains of the virus getting in and potentially disrupting vaccine success. The reason for travel will be checked before departure, with the Home Secretary saying 'going on holiday is not a valid reason' to ignore the stay at home order. I'm unclear about what happens for travellers from 'red list' countries other than they have to undergo 'managed quarantine'  in 'hotels, presumably at their own cost. Will this be enough, I doubt it and think it should be all countries until we're all vaccinated and prevalence is negligible. The ONS has reported that the loss of sense of taste and smell is 'significantly less common' in people testing positive with the new variant, with fatigue, muscle ache, cough, sore throat and fever 'more common'.