Work In Progress

For a change I thought I'd blip one of my jigsaws as a work in progress, using the puzzle sorting trays I saw in one of PollyH's blips. The finished jigsaw is shown as an Extra. I had 2 sleeps overnight (like we all did in Victorian times) so I could watch live the semi-final at 3am between Osaka and WIlliams. So good to see Williams back to a good level of fitness, but Osaka was so powerful and deserved her straight sets win. I watched the other semi-final this afternoon, having avoided the news so I hadn't heard the result. My car was collected for its annual service and MOT this morning and just returned (all ok). Rain all morning and sun this afternoon - I'd have loved to go for a walk, but I'd been notified of parcels being delivered by Royal Mail - which arrived at 5pm. 

Day 339 / Day 44 of Lockdown 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 454 to 119,387 (revised basis), with 12,057 new cases, 20,156 patients in hospital, 2,614 on ventilation and 1,531 new admissions. c16.4m have now received their first dose of the vaccine. (Slight upticks in hospital admissions and new cases in recent days).  Pfizer has designed its update to the vaccine to counter the South African variant and is in discussions with regulators about trials. Yesterday it was announced that a lab study suggested the SA variant may reduce antibodies for this vaccine by 2/3, although the impact on effectiveness is not known. Surge testing is to start in the LS8 postcode of Leeds and the IP22 postcode in Norfolk as more cases of the South African variant are found. Imperial College's REACT survey and PHE's weekly surveillance report both show a falling number of infections across England since Jan, with REACT showed the NW & NE now have the highest prevalence. This is thought to be mainly due to lockdown, with it being too soon for vaccines to have a big impact. Restrictions will stay in place in NI until the start of April, but pupils up to age 7 will return to school from 8/3 and up to 10 people from 2 households can meet outside in a public place like a park from 10/3. A short film with lots of stars will be shown on the UK main commercial TV channels tonight urging people to take the vaccine after on-going concerns about take up within some ethnic minority communities. The Resolution Foundation reports that 1.9m workers were unemployed or fully furloughed in January and had been so for at least 6 months.