Beach Life

A lovely day again with wall to wall sunshine, although still on the chilly side if out of the sun. This morning I worked in the garden, feeding shrubs, watering the borders, planting seed potatoes and fixing up some netting around the raised bed. This afternoon I had a lovely walk on the beach with my friend H, the holidaymakers have arrived and seemed to enjoy being out on the beach for a walk (or a photo shoot!). A plane was doing some acrobatics briefly, I've added a photo to Extras as it looked quite unusual - I looked up the registration G-YAKF and it's a YAK-52, a Soviet primary trainer aircraft.

Day 393 /  Day 2 of Step 2 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
UK deaths up 23 to 127,123 (revised basis), with 2,472 new cases (a big drop from yesterday's big rise), 2,537 patients in hospital, 377 on ventilation and 230 new admissions. Research in Brazil suggests that over half of people being treated for Covid in intensive care are now under 40. 32.3m have now received their first dose of the vaccine and 7.9m have had their second dose. The Govt has met its target re offering all over 50s a vaccine and 45 to 49 year olds have now been invited to book a jab. The Moderna jab is now being used in England. Boris has quite rightly reminded us that the improvement in Covid stats is primarily due to lockdown and not the vaccination programme - some of the behaviours seen on tv in the last two days have been appalling re a lack of social distancing and poor mask wearing. Johnson & Johnson has delayed the rollout of their vaccine in Europe whilst reports of rare blood clotting incidents are investigated. Over 70 confirmed or probably cases of the South African variant have been identified in south London (largely Lambeth and Wandsworth), resulting in the 'biggest surge testing operation to date'. The BBC are reported to have seen documents that indicate that the outbreak was triggered by an individual travelling from a country in Africa which wasn't on the Red List. Scientists in Israel say this variant is 'to some extent' able to 'break through' the Pfizer vaccine's protection. Two studies have found that the Kent variant spreads more easily, but does not increase disease severity.  Scotland will ease travel restrictions from Friday and six adults from up to six households will be able to meet outside.