Sunny Cromer

It was a lovely sunny early morning in Cromer, with a little bit of sea mist in the distance as you can see. I had a very efficient appointment at YBS to open two new accounts and merge in some other accounts. It was a bit stuffy in the branch - old bank / building society branches are not easy to ventilate as for security reasons you can't just open windows! I attended a very interesting U3A talk later in the morning from a WWII evacuee from Lowestoft to Creswell in Derbyshire. I didn't know there was a 2nd phase of evacuations from East coast ports in June 1940. Lowestoft had more air raids than any other town in Britain and 75% of properties were damaged. Later in life Clive Capps took part in reunions, and co-authored a book after interviewing fellow evacuees from the area. I also had an Arts Society lecture and managed to sit in the garden in the sun and spotted peacock, brimstone and orange tip butterflies.

Excellent news that the Govt has bought forward climate change commitments and aims to cut carbon emissions by 78% from 1990 levels by 2035. I don't think people have yet woken up to the fact that this means THEY have to materially change their behaviours and do so now. 

 Day 400 /  Day 9 of Step 2 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
UK deaths up 33 to 127,307 (revised basis), with 2,524 new cases, 1,973 patients in hospital, 318 on ventilation and 192 new admissions. 33m have now received their first dose of the vaccine and 10.4m have had their second dose. The EMA has found a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine and rare blood clots with low blood platelets and recommends listing these rare side effects but stressed that the 'overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing Covid-19 outweigh the risks of side effects'. Boris again said we're likely to get another wave of infections at some time this year and announced that a new antiviral task force is being set up to identify the most promising new antiviral medicines - a good move. He hopes that it may be possible that someone testing positive is sent antivirals to take at home (on 12/4 GPs were told they could prescribe budesonide, an asthma drug for someone testing positive). A study has found that asymptomatic people have raised levels of B cells (an immune cell), mild to moderate cases have high levels of T cells which help fight infection, but people with serious cases have lost a lot of immune cells. A report says police forces did not always follow self-isolation rules last year - shocking!