Flowers

The wild flower seeds I sowed in my small 'wild garden' are starting to come into flower, alongside some others I planted like the ox-eye daisy on the right. From my Plant-net app I think on the left is chamomile and in the middle is flax. I picked up a few more plants for the pond this afternoon. I should have been on an Arts Society talk about Giles the cartoonist at the time, but I forgot - doh!

Good to see Andy Murray back playing at Queens today and winning - what a lot he's had to go through injury wise in his career. 

Day 456 / Day 30 of Step 3 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
30m adults in the UK (57.4%) have now had two doses of the vaccine - a great achievement in a tad over 6 months since Margaret Keenan in the UK was the first person in the world to be given the jab outside of trials. All adults (over 18) can book their jab in England from Friday if not already called, 23 and 24 year olds from today. PHE data suggests that after two doses the Pfizer jab is 96% effective against hospitalisation for the Delta variant (which has twice the hospitalisation risk of the Alpha variant), and the AZ jab is 92% effective - great news. COVID symptoms are different for the Delta variant with headache, runny nose and sore throat the most common according to the Zoe Covid Symptom study - I bet that will lead to less people getting tested. Interestingly new cases today were up 27% on a week ago, which is less than half the rate as was - is this just a one-off or a trend? The AZ trial on antibody treatment for recently infected people was found to be ineffective. Michael Gove says the July 19th 'terminus date' could only be derailed by 'unprecedented and remarkable alteration in the progress of the disease'. Deaths in the US have now passed 600,000. New cases in India today are still 57,728, with 1,420 deaths today. 

A year ago today non-essential shops re-opened and how nuts to see in my blip that people weren't wearing masks as they weren't mandatory until July 24th (I obviously wore one!)