Virtual Venice Tour

This afternoon I did my third virtual tour in Venice with the Arts Society (Glaven Valley). It was a live tour of the Ca’Rezzonico Palace with our guide Luisella Romeo, who’s an excellent guide. The above is a screen shot looking across the canal showing what a glorious sunny day it was in Venice today. I really enjoy these virtual tours, it’s like having a mini 90 min holiday. There’s another one on Tuesday of the Dylan Lewis Sculpture Park in the rolling countryside outside Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Day 680 / Day 47 of Plan B (for my record only)
The Metropolitan Police announced today that they are investigating ‘a number of events’ for potential breaches of Covid regulations - about time too, and was in part due to information passed across by the Cabinet Office investigation team. It was originally thought this could delay Sue Gray’s report from her internal investigation by weeks, but now Sky News understands the Met has not objected to the report being published (in full or part?) and that might be very soon. This came after reports last night that the PM had a birthday celebration in Downing Street during the first lockdown in 2020. There are also reports that there is ‘irritation’ among some Cabinet ministers as the PM didn’t mention the Met Police investigation in the meeting just before the announcement (presumably as they couldn’t be trusted not to immediately leak it to the Press). 

Today the UK reported 439 Covid deaths, the highest since 24th Feb last year. New cases today were still incredibly high at 94,326 (rem: fewer PCR tests being done), which is pretty much unchanged from last week where it should be falling to remove the restrictions. In England,  the pandemic has led to pressures on the NHS which have led to at least 4,000 non-Covid excess deaths and 32,000 cancer patients who are waiting for treatment which should have already started. This is why I’m for keeping simple Covid measures like mandatory mask wearing on public transport and indoor venues like the theatre/cinema that have no real cost and I’m afraid to say, mandatory vaccination of NHS staff. Dentists are to be paid extra to work weekends and evenings which should create an extra 350,000 NHS dental appointments and help clear backlogs - the cost is £50m. Pfizer and BioNTech are launching a trial of their new vaccine designed to target the Omicron variant. In laboratory tests in Japan, Omicron has been found to last longer than previous strains on plastic and skin. The IMF has downgraded global growth forecasts, due in part to Omicron and inflation.