A Bit of Colour

Well it’s only a very tiny bit of colour, but nice to have anything to photograph in the garden at the moment. A chilly, sunny and breezy day, I managed to get two lots of washing mostly dried outside. I enjoyed watching the Naomi Osaka match this morning, good to see her back on court. More admin and housework today. 

Day 674 / Day 41 of Plan B (for my record only)
Unfortunately Boris hasn’t resigned yet, but in an attempt to be popular is dropping most Covid controls. With immediate effect the Govt doesn’t require people in England to work from home and from tomorrow face masks will not be required in English classrooms. From next Thursday mandatory mask wearing and Covid certification will end, although places can continue with certification if they prefer and the Govt ‘suggests’ masks are worn in high risk places. He also intends to end self isolation for people with Covid in the next few weeks. So….another gamble rather than a sensible and gradual easing of controls.  Needless to say that as someone who may have a severely compromised immune system, I’m very unhappy about the upcoming dropping of mandatory masks and self isolation. The WHO has urged countries not to just rely of vaccination alone to control Covid. The ONS weekly infection survey of private households to 15th Jan shows an estimated 1 in 20 with the virus in England (down); 1 in 20 in Scotland (unchanged); 1 in 25 in Wales (down); and 1 in 20 in NI (unchanged). An associate professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds said ministers had ‘repeatedly failed to act in a timely fashion to prevent now five consecutive waves of Covid resulting in profound human and economic cost’ and that ‘there is a mistaken notion that the virus is somehow evolving to become less virulent…..viruses do not evolve to become less virulent, necessarily, they evolve to ensure they can thrive and transmit effectively.’ The campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK has called Boris a ‘walking public health hazard’. The Mayor of London has said that ‘face masks will remain a condition of carriage on TfL services’. The reinfection risk from Omicron is 16 times higher than Delta per the ONS. Some interesting data published today about Covid deaths per 100,000 people in Regions of England: highest is the North West with 245.8 and lowest is the South West with 103.1. The changes today were made in Parliament by the PM and the tv briefing was given by the Health Secretary, normally it’s the other way round. The Health Secretary initially sounded like he was giving a victory speech, then got uncertain in his speech at Press questions, particularly when they asked with incredulity whether it was correct that all Covid controls would soon be gone.