Emergency Blip

I suddenly realised I hadn’t taken a photo today, so here’s an EB of my latest jigsaw that I’m just about to pack up. A day of odd jobs: 2 lots of washing done and dried, a huge pile of ironing done whilst watching the Olympics opening ceremony, a start made on sorting out the garage, a phone call to the docs to ask why I have no medical records from before I moved here (the physio told me…..they’ll look into it), a call to order a council ‘bulk waste collection’ for my old bed base that’s in the garage, and a call to John Lewis about £20 credit that I couldn’t apply to my online order of an air conditioning unit as it had disappeared from my account. I couldn’t believe the council charged me £39 to collect the bed base! It’s the charge for 1-3 items, if I’d have have 9 such items it would have only cost £60! 

Day 494 / Day 5 of Step 4 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
Some details were released last night about who are to be deemed 'critical workers' in Eng, and more came out today. The 16 critical sectors are energy, civil nuclear, digital infrastructure, food production and supply, waste, water, veterinary medicines, essential chemicals, essential transport, medicines, medical devices, clinical consumable supplies, emergency services, border control, essential defence outputs, and local government. Workers can be excluded from self isolation if double jabbed (+14 days), have a negative daily test and only leave home to go to work and do their job. The exemption applies only to a 'limited no. of named workers' in these areas - unclear how that bit happens except to contact the relevant Govt dept, but the employer needs a Govt letter with specific workers names on. 

Experts on Spi-M have warned that testing is likely to come under strain, particularly after the changes on 16th Aug (test to release) - also one of the risks raised by the CSA on Monday re high prevalence. PHE have said that the Delta variant is 46% more likely to cause reinfection than the Alpha variant. R is unchanged at 1.2 to 1.4. All regions saw rises to 17/7 in the ONS weekly infection survey in private households, with 1 in 75 having the virus in Eng, 1 in 210 in Wales, 1 in 80 in Scotland and 1 in 170 in NI. The Moderna jab has been approved for teenagers in the EU. The Olympics opening ceremony took place today in Tokyo in a largely empty stadium, with athletes socially distanced and wearing masks, and a toned down show.