Cucumbers

A bit of an emergency blip of my cucumbers, I’ve had a bit of a busy day with various things. Quite a warm day, which I wasn’t expecting.

Day 883 / Day 174 of no Legal Covid Requirements in England (for my record only)
The weekly ONS infection survey of private households up to 8th Aug (Wales, Scotland, NI) and 6th Aug (Eng) showed falling rates from the previous report, with 1 in 40 with the virus across the UK. There's an estimated 1 in 40 with the virus in England (down); 1 in 30 in Scotland (down); 1 in 40 in Wales (down), and 1 in 50 in NI (down). 

The Autumn booster is to be offered in Eng from 5th Sept, the housebound and care home residents will be the first to get them. The new bivalent Moderna vaccine will be used ‘subject to sufficient supply’. Some people will be offered a flu vaccine at the same time. The booster should not be given until 3 months after a previous Covid jab. The NHS will be the first in the world to deliver the bivalent vaccine, approved earlier this week, which targets the original Covid strain and the first Omicron variant (BA.1). 

Research has shown that 2 years after having had Covid, brain fog, dementia and epilepsy are more common than after other respiratory infections, but anxiety and depression are no more likely. Research by Imperial College has shown that two thirds of people with mild Covid are still infectious 5 days after symptoms began, and a quarter were still infectious after 7 days (NHS guidance recommends people avoid contact with others for 5 days). It also found 1 in 5 were infectious before symptoms began (participants were exposed to the virus and required to do daily LFTs. Another study in the US found that more than half of people infected with Omicron didn’t know they had it and this is leading to its rapid spread. A glitch led to the NHS Covid pass being unavailable for c6 hours - I can’t believe some travellers hadn’t printed it out in case this happened.