Crocuses

The crocuses in my garden just about survived the snow and freezing weather. This morning I cleaned my hard floors with my new 'spinny' mop which worked very well. This afternoon I did a bit of prep in my garden before hopefully planting up towards the end of the month. 

Day 350 / Day 55 of Lockdown 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 104 to 122,953 (revised basis), with 5,455 new cases, 14,808 patients in hospital, 1.971 on ventilation and 1,112 new admissions. c20.3m have now received their first dose of the vaccine and the next group of 60-64 year olds are now being invited. Excellent news in the briefing about the effects now being seen as a result of the vaccine rollout. MH said that hospitalisations are falling faster than new cases and deaths in over 80s are falling faster than under 80's (reflecting who was vaccinated first). JVT then said PHE has issued a report on vaccine effectiveness to date. For infections with symptoms in people who got tested, both vaccines showed a 60% reduction in the 70+ in 28-34 days. There is a 80% reduction in hospitalisations in the over 80s and the provisional mortality reduction for Pfizer is 85% for those 70+ (too soon for AZ).  The number of over 80s admitted to ICU in the last couple of weeks has dropped to single figures. As was predicted by many in early Feb, the hotel quarantine restrictions were being implemented too late and now there's anger at the cases of the P1 variant found in the UK from some people returning from Brazil, particularly over the person that hasn't been traced as they didn't complete contact details. The EU is to introduce a vaccine passport and the UK is in discussion about plans which could enable foreign holidays. The ONS has published data suggesting that teachers have lower levels of covid antibodies (suggesting a prior infection) at 14.99% than the wider population of working adults at 18.22% (very slightly higher % in secondary than primary school teachers).