Snow - Day 3

There was another couple of inches of snow overnight which I cleared from the paths this morning, but it's snowed on and off all day. Last night I noticed a patch of damp on the ceiling where the pipes to the bathroom run. I feared a leak so turned off the isolation valves, but suspected condensation with it being sooooo cold for so many days. I rang HomeServe in the evening and a plumber turned up this afternoon. It was condensation at the point where there's a joint in the boards, even though the pipes are lagged and under loft insulation (too many pipes, hot and cold, running together). He's separated them a bit with the loft lagging and reassured me that the lagging is sufficient to prevent freezing.  I've added an extra of a ruler in the snow on my lawn - about 6 inches of snow so far, more than I'm used to seeing. 

Day 330 / Day 35 of Lockdown 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 1,052 to 113,850 (revised basis), with 12,364 new cases, 26,723 patients in hospital, 3,230 on ventilation and 1,987 new admissions (the lowest since 18th Dec). c12.6m have now received their first dose of the vaccine. An international team of WHO scientists and experts in China have said it's 'extremely unlikely' the virus came via a laboratory incident in a lab which surprises me. Instead they think it jumped from 'an intermediary host species' to humans. They also said there was no evidence that Covid was spreading in Wuhan before Dec 19, which also surprises me as it's thought by some to have been here then. The Health Secretary has announced that UK and Irish residents returning from 'red list' countries will have to pay £1,750 for a single adult for their 10-day mandatory stay in a quarantine hotel from Monday, including their Covid tests and escorted travel. 4,600 rooms have been booked across 16 hotels. Fines in England for those failing to quarantine will be up to £10k, with those trying to conceal that they've been in a country on the red list will face up to 10 years in prison. Airlines and travel companies will be legally required to check that travellers have signed up for the new measures before they depart and could be fined for failing to do so. Good to see that this is finally being controlled appropriately (if 2-3 weeks too late), although the Press have questioned why so many countries with cases of the South African variant aren't on the red list. In addition, people arriving into England from all countries will now be required to take a PCR test on days two and eight in their 10 day quarantine period in addition to having a negative test result from 72 hours before travel. Fines for failing to comply will be up to £2k plus an extension of their quarantine period. All positive tests for travellers will undergo genomic sequencing. MH is working with the devolved administrations to implement similar schemes. Surge testing has started in parts of Greater Manchester after cases of a new mutation of the Kent variant. The NHS covid app has now told 1.7m in Eng and Wales to self-isolate.