Shadow

This morning G and I met up with A in her garden for a socially distanced chat, bringing our own portable chair, drink and snack. I was late as 10 mins before leaving the smoke alarm went off in my bedroom. After trying different things, I concluded it was a fault with the alarm and have now ordered a new one. Then about an hour after arriving it started spotting with rain, eventually becoming heavy enough to call it a day. It was still lovely to have a catch up. My photo was going to be G sheltering in A's lovely gazebo, but my new iPhone saved it as a tiny image for some reason. Not such a fun afternoon, steam cleaned the kitchen floor and cleaned the bird feeders. 

Day 96 / Day 88 of Lockdown / Day 19 of Step 2 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 173 to 42,461, with the R rate staying at 0.7-0.9. The big news was that the Coronavirus Alert Level has fallen to 3 meaning the epidemic is still in general circulation, no longer high or rising exponentially. Virus infections across the UK are falling by between 2 & 4% a day. ONS reports that men from black ethnic backgrounds are twice as likely to die with Covid-19 than white men - but still just statistical analysis rather than understanding why. I heard the other day that all hospital trusts were required to do risk assessments for their BAME staff, but not many had and little had happened as a result. 

The PM is sure all pupils can be back in school by September. He also announced a £1bn catch up programme for children who've missed out on schooling. I'm amazed how little work has been done by State pupils compared to private schools. My niece is a teacher and she rings pupils and parents - some of whom just aren't interested. On a This Morning phone in, a lot of the parents ringing in were saying their kids just ignored them when they told them to do school work. I know there are lots of reasons underprivileged kids can't do work (not least access to technology) and hopefully this fund will give them the much needed help they require.