Fighting Flamingos

G and I walked at Pensthorpe this morning. It was an amazing 16C, but we were lucky to get back to the car before the heavens opened. I've never heard such noise around there before from the flamingos, cranes and ducks - including from this fight between two flamingos. The two at the bottom of the photo were enjoying a bath and the chick on the right is growing up nicely. I suspect the warm weather was confusing the wildlife. 

Day 654 / Day 21 of Plan B (for my record only)
189,213 new cases were reported today (new record) which includes two days’ data for Wales (so official no really is c10k less), with new daily records for England and Scotland. The no. of Covid patients in England has risen by nearly 1.000 since yesterday, taking the total to 11,452 - a rise of 61% from a week ago. Wales an NI have joined England in reducing self isolation to 7 days from 10 if they have a negative LFT on days 6 and 7. Eight Nightingale 'surge hubs' are to be set up around England amid the huge Omicron surge which, if needed, will look after those near to being discharged who need minimal supervision in their Covid recovery. Work will begin this week and each location will have capacity for 100 patients. Other sites have been identified which could add another 4,000 'super surge' beds if required. The NHS national medical director said that '...the NHS is now on a war footing.' The on-going shortages of LFTs and PCR tests is causing 'great concern' among leading scientists, as is Boris' mixed messaging. The Health Secretary is tripling the supply of LFTs to 300m a month, but says the UK will need to 'constrain the system' at points over the next 2 weeks to 'manage supply' of tests. The Welsh Govt is loaning 4m LFTs to the NHS in England. 8m LFT kits are to be delivered to Pharmacies by tomorrow. It doesn't seem possible that it's only a year ago today that the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine was approved in the UK, with 2.5bn doses being administered worldwide so far.