Coming Along

The wild area in the garden is coming along nicely, I hope the wild flowers will be fully open in a couple of weeks. This is how it looked 6 months ago https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2785592492358108937
I've included another extra of a dragonfly - the novelty hasn't worn off yet! A busy day, I took down, washed, dried (in no time at all), ironed and put back the voiles on the 5 windows that have them, and cleaned those windows and oiled the hinges too. I also washed and dried my bedding - keen to get up to date on washing before the storms! I also watched the 2nd great performance and win by Jack Draper at Queens, the breakthrough tournament for the 19 year old Brit. A bit of sitting out and reading later on, but very hot at around 28C - apart from 1 afternoon, we've had 3 weeks of glorious weather - thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow. 

Day 457 / Day 31 of Step 3 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
The Health Secretary has said that vaccines will be compulsory for care home staff from October (fully vaccinated) except for medical exemptions, subject to parliamentary approval and a subsequent 16 week grace period. Others coming into care homes such as healthcare workers, hairdressers, CQC Inspectors and tradespeople will also have to follow the new regulations. The Govt is consulting about having the same policy for NHS workers. I agree that those that can have the jab should have, it would have been better to be voluntary, but evidently there are pockets where only just over half of staff have been vaccinated. The risk is that staff leave and can't be replaced. 

MPs vote to extend lockdown until 19th July. Interestingly MH's stance has shifted to vaccinations being the deciding factor in ending lockdown, not data. Dominic Cummings has screen shotted a What's App message from the PM on 26th Mar 2020 that supposedly calls MH 'totally f****** hopeless' when talking about his efforts to boost COVID testing capacity - shortly afterwards Boris tried to ring DC to say he'd tested positive. Dr Susan Hopkins from PHE told MPs that the Delta variant unmitigated without any lockdown restrictions would lead to an R rate of between 5 & 7 (not sure if this includes without vaccine control). An anti-viral treatment by Regeneron called REGEN-COV has had good results in a trial of c10,000 people and could save some people from dying. It provides patients with artificial antibodies and is expected to be used on people who do not have antibodies of their own - this is very positive news for those where the vaccine is ineffective. It's exactly a year since the UK announced the World's first effective treatment, Dexamethasone. 21 and 22 year olds in Eng can now book a jab. There were 9,055 new cases today, A deaf woman is quite rightly taking legal action against the Govt for not providing in-person BSL interpreters at Covid briefings - that's been a disgrace.