Spout Hills

After a cold night, it was a lovely sunny morning, so I thought I'd risk my old lockdown walk. It was really quite wet underfoot, even on the old railway line where there is the remains of the gravel track bed. On one bit my foot was sinking into the ground as if it were marshland. A beautiful morning with lovely blue sky. This afternoon I attended a Teams talk from the ONS on Lady Hamilton, which was very interesting. She came from poverty, made her way up in society and after Nelson's death she returned to poverty and was in a debtors' prison at one point. Women were soooooo badly treated then. 

Day 313 / Day 18 of Lockdown 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 1,401 to 95,981 (revised basis), with 40,261 new cases, 38,562 patients in hospital, 3,960 on ventilation and 4,034 new admissions. The R rate has dropped to 0.8-1.0 from 1.2-1.3 last week, with new infections estimated to be falling by 1-4% ever day. The ONS infection survey estimates 1 in 55 people in private households in England had COVID-19 between 10th & 16th Jan, with 1 in 60 in NI, 1 in 100 in Scotland and 1 in 70 in Wales. c5.4m have now received their first dose of the vaccine. The CSA said in the briefing that there is increasing evidence that the new variant will be susceptible to the current vaccines. 

The briefing focused on the new variants, mostly the UK one. It's now thought it transmits 30-70% more easily than the old one (not yet sure why) and that there is no different from previously in the age distribution of people affected. The bad news is that there is some evidence from hospital data outcomes that the new variant has worse outcomes, but that remains uncertain. For a man in their 60s, for every 1,000 infections with the old variant there would be 10 deaths, but with the new variant 13-14 would die. There are similar relative increases across other age groups. The CSA and CMO are more concerned with the South African and Brazilian variants as they have certain features that might make them less susceptible to vaccines - research is on-going. All at the briefing made it clear than in order to start releasing restrictions, vaccinating the vulnerable wasn't enough, but that the prevalence of the virus needs to come right down, and also we need to keep other variants out of the country so as not to undermine the vaccination programme. 

There were rumours of a £500 payment to everyone testing positive, but Downing St. says it has no plans for this as the Govt already offers a £500 payment to support those on low incomes who can't WFH. Govt polling reportedly shows only 17% of people with symptoms come forward for a test, and only a quarter of those testing positive stay at home and self isolate. There are reports that the Spanish PM has said that the country would not welcome international tourists until the 'end of Summer'. Retail Sales for 2020 saw the largest drop ever of 1.9% with clothing falling more than a quarter. Public sector borrowing since April has reached £270.8bn, taking Public sector debt to an all time high of £2.13trn or 99.4% of GDP.