Day 92 of lockdown

The government are planning to reduce the social distancing measure to 1 metre from 4th July. This is being pre-announced all over the media. Meanwhile Go Outdoors, owned by JD sports, has just called in the administrators with a risk to 2,700 staff across 67 stores. Just the latest of many. Pubs and restaurants look set to be allowed to open but even with a 1m social distancing measure in place this will not be financially viable for many.

People like the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, suggests that unless we can develop either a vaccine or treatment that means that the vulnerable groups do not suffer so badly from the disease, we shall have to continue with some form of social distancing probably into 2021. 

I suspect that this will be economically ruinous and that, in the longer term, the impact on deaths of the measures we have taken to control the virus will turn out to be much more severe than the deaths directly attributable to coronavirus, when controlled for deaths that would have occurred normally at that time of the year. 

I've read some interesting analyses of the distribution of deaths from coronavirus. Most deaths are of people with underlying health issues, who probably wouldn't have died had they not caught coronavirus, and the very elderly, possibly with health conditions as well, who may well have died even had they not caught the virus. They were suggesting that with an above average overall death count in the month of May, this may well be balanced out by a lower death rate in June because some of the people who would have died anyway in June had died a month earlier. Well, that seemed to be the basic gist. 

The trouble is, coronavirus deaths are dreadful, and they are immediate, in the here and now. The suicides, the domestic abuse exacerbated by the lockdown and the unavailability of support and the economic deprivation, the mental health issues, the deaths from undiagnosed cancers and untreated neurological complaints, will only become truly apparent in the longer term. 

I'd like to hear a question posed, during these tedious daily governmental coronavirus briefings, asking if it would be possible to have a return to normal with minimal social distancing. I heard today on Radio 4 that there has been a suggestion that when the distancing is reduced to 1m, that people with health issues could wear a ribbon or badge to show that they prefer larger social distance if possible. Well could we not eliminate all social distancing and get everybody back to working normally, with rigourous cleaning and hand sanitisers available. However this would need to be backed up by rapid testing should anybody exhibit symptoms and fast lockdown of any developing clusters of infection. 

This brings me onto the app. So the Govt have done a complete U turn and are now trying to write an app that will use the Apple/Google API. Privacy conditions are stringent. No central storage of data being key. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary tried to but a positive spin on this, but failed. At the very start, I wondered why they didn't just go with the Apple Google app, but instead they've spend, I believe I heard, somewhere in the region of either £11million or £17million. How can anybody spend that much on developing an app that just doesn't work properly. 

I don't think any government would have been prepared for this, least of all one that only came into power on 12th December and that has all the Brexit negotiations to work on on top. However I do ask myself who is advising them. All along I've found myself questioning decisions - 

• The decision to stop testing in the community once the virus took hold in March, but to limit testing to hospitals. That seemed daft and counter to the practice of all the countries, e.g. Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, that had caught the virus and nipped it in the bud. 
• The UK Govt. decision to go their own way and try to develop an tracing app that basically did not conform to Apple or Google privacy guidelines which ultimately wasted money and time.
• The Govt. refusal to back the Covid-19 symptom app that was released by Kings College with a small company Zoe under the aegis of Professor Tim Spector and which now has nearly 4 million contributors. At the time, they said they were concerned in case it caused confusion with the public with the govts. own app (which has failed testing). Even now, I don't think they are partnering with Kings. 
• The Public Health England (PHE) refusal in the early stages to even respond to the offers from private laboratories to use their facilities to fast-track Covid tests. PHE were trying to keep all tests to their own labs in, I believe, Milton Keynes. So testing was so slow to get going in the UK, the virus really took hold. 
• Then there was the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) fiasco. There were companies in the UK that held stocks of PPE and were giving them free to their local hospital (Birmingham) and contacting PHE offering to be their supplier. However they weren't used and to their great despair, had to use their stocks to fulfil orders for PPE coming in from abroad, whilst our own frontline workers were poorly protected.

Many many mistakes. Lets hope the government have learned from them and maybe get their advice from a wider set of sources.

Day 83 of Coronavirus lockdown, give or take a day

Wow, that's a long time! Losing track of the days a bit. The government seems to be wavering this way and that. As of my last post, certain years (reception, 1 and 6) were due to return to school with the rest of primary back in school before the summer. A bit of resistance from parents and wholehearted opposition from the unions who want 100% risk-free environment to be guaranteed, which of course is not possible. So now the government say other years will not return, and that secondary pupils 'may' return in September. 

Independent schools are hopping mad. Several really ancient ones have closed already. There seem to be arbitrary rules about what percentage of pupils are allowed to return into class which, since the independents already have smaller class sizes. So allowing 25% of a class which, when full, only numbers 15 is quite different to 25% of a class of 35 pupils. The independents are challenging the government (cannot recall how) but they plan to have all years return to school in September and putting in place their own track and trace processes as well as hygiene measures etc.

Academies are also aiming to get back. This ludicrous 2m social distancing rule is making everything so much more difficult. Businesses are on the verge of going bust because they cannot operate with that sort of constraint. Schools will struggle too - they are doing awful things like having kids in little social bubbles and trying to keep them apart in the playground. To be honest, it feels like we have this dreadful disease, and we are using it as an excuse to punish our children by isolating them from their friends and impeding their education so that we can be absolutely confident that they will not catch it asymptomatically and inadvertently pass it on to us. What a society!

As for the 2m rule, aparently the govt is considering reducing it to match up with WHO guidelines of 1m. That is what many other countries have and they have no great outbreaks. But they are going to take 3 weeks to think about it! How many hospitality businesses will close in the interim. How many thousands of staff will lose their livelihoods. It doesn't bear thinking about. 

Then you have the discredited Professor Ferguson who piped up, about a week ago, saying something like the fatalities would have been halved had we locked down a week earlier. Fortunately the SAGE papers are being made available and it turns out that he was on SAGE when they definitely did not recomment that Boris Johnson initiate the lockdown. Quite the reverse, they recommended that social distancing measures (which in now seems were having a measurable affect based on when the peak occurred) be continued. Professor Ferguson's imperial college paper which put the frighteners on everybody by suggesting that if no changes to behaviour were undertaken, 200,000 fatalities might occur also mentioned the word lockdown only once, and in the context that we should not need to impose it. 

The Imperial College code for the program was eventually released. That was a joke! It originally consisted of one long line of code (bad coding practice) and they held off releasing it until they'd had time to improve it a little (but not much). Nevertheless, when other universities (Edinburgh?) tried to run it, they found that the same input variables could produce estimated fatalities that varied by 80,000 between one run and the next. i.e. the model was worse than useless. And this was the thing that scared the government into imposing lockdown.

I can see how it helped for the first 3 weeks. Everyone was scared that the NHS would be overwhelmed like the health service in Italy.

Well it wasn't. So we should have started to release lockdown much sooner.

We now have young people (who would be hardly affected by the virus) who are ineligible for the furlough scheme due to their 0hour contracts committing suicide and leaving behind family and children. How desperate must you feel to do that. 

Yet still the government dithers. 

Finally there is a little more information at a regional level. Milton Keynes (my nearest big place) has had no new positive tests the entire month of June. The rate in the community is well below 1 in 1600. The virus is concentrated in care homes and hospitals. 

This morning I took a look at the coronavirus legislation. Turns out that this week they modified it to make it an offence to gather more than 6 people. Like that is going to make any difference to the thousands who are demonstrating #blacklivesmatter after the dreadful killing of George Floyd by a US police officer which was filmed and shared on social media.  There were even MPs joining in the illegal marches and protests in London. Feels like one rule for them and one for everyone else. If you are participating in a 'woke' campaign, then you can ignore the rules. 

Then there is the 14 day quarantine for everyone coming into this country from abroad. Everyone that is, apart from the people most likely to spread the virus - people who commute between countries like lorry drivers and people who live in one country yet work in another. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. What is laughable is that New Zealand, where they have shut the borders and eradicated the virus, allowed two women to fly in from the UK on compassionate grounds (a parent was dying). Believe it or not, they were tested on arrival and found to have the virus! So we in the UK are exporting it! There is much lobbying from MPs and a court case from the airlines to try to get the government to reverse this stupid ruling. I hope they succeed and soon otherwise this will be the first Conservative government ever to completely trash the country's economy beyond all recognition. 

Day 54 of Coronavirus lockdown

Broad beans

The emphasis is on getting to work rather than staying home. It is not possible to eliminate risk entirely. I read recently that out of the 36000 or so deaths, most have been in the over 80s. A figure of something like 246 deaths of people under the age of 40 sticks in my mind. I think the odds of being injured in a road traffic accident are probably higher.

Well, actually as of last Monday, things have eased up a little in England. We can now go out as often as we want. The mantra has changed to "Stay alert, save the NHS, save lives".....or something like that. I don't actually remember apart from the Stay alert bit which many people seem to be confused by. So confused that the Govt. issued a detailed explanation of what they meant. I think many people are really enjoying being told exactly what to do, when to go out, when to stay in, how to interact with others. 

So we can now go to the park, have a picnic, sit on a bench. But we cannot go visit elderly relatives in care homes. That is a fiasco. The Court of human rights is looking into whether the human rights of care home residents have been infringed. More and more evidence is emerging that there was a directive in place to release elderly patients from hospital into care homes without testing if they were still infectious with COVID-19. Private care home owners have said they were able to refuse, but others were forced into taking in these patients and then it spread in the care home. 

Schools are supposed to go back in a phased way - reception, yr1 and yr 6 on 1st June. The unions are resisting it - I guess it is easy for teachers to refuse to go back as they are still being paid. Parents with school age children in deprived areas with insecure employment have fewer choices. The academies are defying the unions and are their schools back as they have more autonomy. So far the evidence seems to be that particularly young children neither catch nor spread the disease - out of 62 NHS nurseries that have been open during this period, only 3 have had any positive tests for COVID-19 and of those, there have been no instances of children passing it on. Mainly staff picking it up from outside I suspect. 

There is a lot on the news about the difference between different regions. It does seem to make sense. If you live somewhere where the virus is ramping up, then it makes more sense not to ease the restrictions. But if you live somewhere where the virus is under control - I think they had something like 26 new cases in London yesterday, then surely you should go back to something resembling normal. 

On a positive note - my broad beans have really grown well and I can even see little mini-beans forming. Hopefully they will stay blight free and we shall be eating some of our own before the season is over.

Red Mite......again

On Monday I had just sat down at my laptop after playing with my chickensin the run, getting them to jump on my knee to take treats out of my hands. I spotted the unmistakable little mite wandering across the bottom of my laptop screen. Recognised it instantly, even though it was not red, i.e. had not recently fed. I squished it

I trotted back to the chickens and looked carefully in the eglu and there was one little accumulation of red mites. Just in a corner between the roosting bars and the nest box. I looked very carefully, and could see others, but very few seemed to be moving. I dust the entire eglu with diatomaceous earth each time I clean it which, if the mites wander over it, dessicates and kills them. However I had become complacent. I wasn't checking the roosting bars as carefully as I should, and I wasn't washing everything each time, so I'd allowed the little mites to gain a foothold.

So I swung into action. Here are my steps for getting rid of red mite. I video'd myself during each step, and have made a recording probably as much for my own benefit as for anyone else. Nevertheless, I recall how worried I was the first time I had red mite so I hope this post and associated video will help any other backyard chicken keepers facing this teeny enemy for the first time. 

Day 1: Monday

Having discovered the mites, my priority was to remove the chickens to somewhere safe. Over the years I have acquired 4 eglus. I use only one in the main walk in run (WIR). I have another in the outdoor run. I have one set aside as a spare (in case the main eglu gets red mite) and I have another eglu plus tunnel permanently set up and empty as a hospital eglu. In this case, I removed the chickens from their red eglu in the WIR to the green hospital eglu. However to minimise the red mites that would transfer across with the chickens, I took each one out, one by one, and rubbed diatomacious earth into their bodies, focusing on chest, under wing, back and vent. 

Having cleared the WIR, I then dismantled the red eglu and moved it, and all the perching blocks, dustbaths, run enrichment toys etc out onto the grass. I sprayed everything, every nook and cranny, with mite killer. Any proprietory brand will do the trick. I have read that if you simply jet wash everything without first killing off the mites, you spread them all over your garden. 

I then left everything in the sun to sterilise.

Also, I took all my clothes off and put straight in the washing machine and had a shower to reduce the change of introducing red mite into the house.

Day 2: Tuesday

Today I cleared out all the bedding. This was a surprisingly tiring task. Previously I have made every mistake in the book. Clearing things without first killing the red mites, for instance - I once gave red mite infestation to my large black wheely bin once! That was disgusting. 

Again, total clothes change, wash clothes and shower before joining the household.

Day 3: Wednesday

Today is the fun day - jet washing. So enjoyable, yet I couldn't say why. I jet washed the spare pink eglu first - it was clean and clear of mites, but had got a little grubby as it had been stored outside. Then I jet washed the floor of the run and lastly the red eglu that had the mites. Before washing it, I checked carefully. There were still one or two little mites alive in the roosting bars. In fact, that was where they had been hiding out - the diatomaceous earth is a powder, and all the surfaces had been well covered, but underneath the bars was clear of powder and so an ideal breeding ground for the nasty little mites. 

I zapped them with mite killer before jetwashing the entire thing. I then took the door portion from the base portion and discovered that there were crevices there where mites could hide. Important to dismantle everything.

Having washed everything, I left it in the sun to try out. The red eglu has gone into storage ready for my next red mite problem. Provided it is unused for 8 months, any mites left on it (and I believe I've got rid of them all) will have died so it should be fine. 

Day 4: Thursday

Time to reassemble everything. I used Poultry shield on the pink eglu before reassembling it. I don't know if that will make much difference, but it can only help. I put everything back together in the WIR and dusted with diatomaceous earth. Then I moved the chickens back home. I took the opportunity to spray their legs with scaley mite spray just in case. 

Looking carefully at the green hospital eglu, I could see one or two clear mites (unfed) in the poop tray so there had obviously been some on the birds when I moved them across. Each time I handle the girls, I end up with up to 3 little mites on me. However they are all clear, unfed mites so I'm hoping that infestation will not build up either in the hen house, or in my home.

My plan moving forward is to clean and change the roosting bars and poop try every 3 days, and to reapply diatomaceous earth every day. I think the mites have a 5 day life cycle, so if I clean everything thoroughly every 3 days, and if in the interim the place is full of diatomaceous earth which should kill them, I'm hoping to eradicate them. 

If you don't have a spare eglu, then much of what I have done will not be possible. The first time I had red mite, I had only one eglu and I controlled it by cleaning regularly and spraying with mite killer. If they cannot find a little dark place to accumulate and breed, I think they will eventually die out. 

Here's an 18 minute video of the whole process

Day 39 of Coronavirus Lockdown

I submitted the revised version of my paper yesterday. It is much better and I'm very happy with it. That has taken up much more of my time than I expected, so not much blogging. The glorious April weather we have been having up until a few days ago broke and it has been pouring, so not too difficult to sit working on the paper.

While the sun has been out and it's been lovely and warm, I've really enjoyed walking in the woods and discovering more footpaths. I'm so fortunate to live here. It feels like CoronaVirus is a million miles away. Last Sunday we recorded ourselves playing the tune for a Morris dance called Hells Bells. This was to be the master music track so I uploaded it on YouTube. Then the dancers and musicians from our side, Wicket Brood, can record themselves dancing or playing along to it and we can post it as a video on our Facebook page. Stuart, a brilliant melodion play in our band who has also demonstrated spectacular video editing skills is editing all the footage down. I can't wait to see how it looks.

After recording ourselves in the courtyard playing our instruments, we recorded ourselves doing a bit of the dance, then we recorded ourselves at the end of the garden. As we did so, a couple of ladies and a dog walked past in the field at the end. There is no footpath on the field, but one of the ladies said she was from the victorian house up the hill and owned the field. It was lovely to meet our neighbours in such an odd way (we were in full Morris kit with face paint and everything). She said they heard the lovely music and came along to see what it was. She invited us to come for their midsummer celebrations. So, Coronavirus can be a great way to meet new people.

 

Other news, well Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds had a baby boy on Wednesday morning - 29th April. I wonder if they will call him Tom after the veteran who has raised £26million by walking round his garden in Marston Mortaine, not far from here, who was 100 years old on 30th April. They did a spitfire flyby for him which was lovely. Boris is back, but the noises from government are that this lockdown is likely to continue. Recent surveys suggest that 60% of British people would feel anxious and uncomfortable about going out if the restrictions were removed.

That number doesn't include me! I'd be out like a shot. I know somebody who has the virus. He is in his 30s and on day 12 of the disease. It sounds unpleasant, but not unbearable. It seems to me that the choice is to wreck the economy by keeping able-bodied people and school children at home, yet coping with a huge toll of elderly people in care homes, just in case we catch it.

It sounds like the Govt are considering options for lifting the restrictions. Financially, it is getting dire. I've read that 1 in 6 retail businesses are not going to reopen. British Airways are making 12,000 staff redundant. Ryan air and Easyjet are looking to do similar, focus being on pilots and air crew. People are being asked to take pay cuts. Others are furloughed at 80% up to a fairly low ceiling, so many families are wondering how they are going to survive economically.

I read an interesting article today in the Telegraph, written by an American, that suggested that lockdown i the best cousrse of action. I find it quite convincing, especially since here in the UK we failed spectacularly at protecting our most vulnerable elderly people in care homes. Mass testing and tracking and tracing as outlined by the Government is very welcome, but this should have been attempted much earlier, and the social care sector really needs to be treated as part of the NHS, not siloed, making elderly people into some sort of second class citizen.

Dat 28 of Coronavirus Lockdown - Yes, 3 more weeks

As expected, on Thursday Dominic Raab announced that these restrictions will persist for another 3 weeks.

I've been reading a great deal about the crisis in care homes. It is as if the elderly have been forgotten, their carers denied status as 'key workers' and certainly at the back of the queue for PPE. Estimates vary widely, but I've read that 45% of COVID-19 deaths are probably occuring in care homes among elderly people who have been persuaded to agree to "do not admit to hospital" wishes.

Hopefully this is in the process of being addressed more effectively now it has been raised in the media.

I'm thoroughly fed up with these restrictions. People in the USA are protesting at the lockdown, yet here in the UK people seem so happy to persist. I thought, and the Govt. thought, that we are a nation of rebels who would not submit to limitations to our liberty. Quite the reverse. The Govt are talking about releasing things only as public opinion changes. So we are in lockdown which will only end when we think it should! True that they need to carry the public with them, and also true that they have been more effective in their messaging and have terrified so many people that I suspect there will be mental issues, with people too anxious to leave their houses, lasting far into the future.

We have the virus under control, I believe. The NHS is not overwhelmed, indeed it has excess capacity though we are awaiting deliveries of PPE. The challenge will be to get the country back to work, with people too scared to go to the workplace and too scared to allow their children back to school in case they pick up the virus. I've seen threads on Facebook of Mothers saying that no way will they let their kids go back to school. Admittedly, if you have a serious health condition as a Mother, then since kids can easily get the disease, spread it but recover themselves with minimal effects, it is probably pretty worrying.

Onto positive things - enjoying cooking.


Discovered a lovely oriental supermarket and authentic japanese dishes from the Wagamamma cook book and a vegan japanese cookbook. Getting out every day for a lovely walk in the woods. Avoiding supermarkets apart from one a fortnight. Might carry on with that. Enjoying gardening - my seeds are sprouting! I'll be around all summer so easily able to ensure they are looked after and don't dry out.

Day 25 of Coronavirus lockdown

This is definitely displacement activity. I've had a paper accepted for publication in a journal, and have until 30th April to incorporate the review comments. I've made a start and intend to finish this week - so I'm just about to embark on it, but guess what suddenly seems so important :) Yup - blogging.

Procrastination is the name of the day.

Yesterday I went out for a walk in the woods and saw a neighbour in his garden and started chatting through the hedge (been doing a lot of that lately - I think the coronavirus neutralising effects of privet have been under-researched).

Turns out he is a data analyst working on the graphs that get published by the government and the media. He is in contact with his opposite numbers in other countries. He mentioned Germany and showed me a text on his phone (over the hedge) that he read out. It sort of confirms my suspicions that there is not a lot of transparency. Apparently Germany distinguish between patients who die 'of' coronavirus, and those who die 'with' coronavirus, but of another cause - say a heart attack. So the drop in the German cases may not be as steep as it appears.

Equally, he pointed out that in the UK, we were coping well. The new Nightingale hospital in London was sitting fully manned (he said 600 nurses and Drs but I don't know) and zero patients.  He also said that the death statistics weren't actually as bad as they were made out to be.

I would like to see a lot more open discussion about the deaths - ages, exactly what they died of, what underlying health conditions they had, if any, also if they were health care workers (as that seems to place you at greater risk even if you don't have underlying health conditions). On today's BBC news site, there is an article saying that according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 9 out of 10 COVID-19 deaths are patients with underlying conditions. Most common was heart disease, followed by dementia and then respiratory illness.

Young people under age of 40 may contract the disease but combat it somehow without generating antibodies, so the antibody test will not work on them. This goes some way to explaining why the disease is so much worse for older people. Their immune systems go into overdrive - people over age 60 have 3 times as high an immune response as those under according to one article I read. The risk of dying over that age also increased hugely.

When this lockdown was initiated, it was for 3 weeks. Today during the PM briefing (Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary will probably host it as he is deputising for the PM as Boris Johnson recovers at Chequers) they will announce what happens next. All the papers are reporting that the lockdown is likely to be continued for another 3 weeks. Many people are calling for more transparency about what the exit strategy will be. 

Most working age people, if they catch the virus, will recover. It may, or may not, be as bad as flu. Older people get it much worse. I really thing that we should get the economy moving sooner rather than later as it is powered by younger people. These people will be shouldering the financial burden of the impending recession, they are the ones losing their jobs as businesses go under and losing their homes as they can no longer afford the mortgage. Let's see what Dominic Raab announces this afternoon.

Day 24 of Coronavirus lockdown - death statistics

Today it is all over the news how residents in care homes have ended up with COVID-19. It seems that frail patients were discharged from hospitals into their care homes without being tested for COVID-19, even if they displayed symptoms. The disease then spread within the care home with predictable mortality results. Workers in care homes do not get priority for PPE unlike healthcare workers. It must be really dire.

And the Nightingale hospitals are standing empty. There were 17 patients in the London one (capacity 4000). In one article I read it was suggested that frail patients could be discharged from hospitals to a form of 'staging' house, either their own home, or other accommodation where they would be cared for by one person. Maybe we should use parts of the Nightingale hospitals for this since we don't seem to need them for Coronavirus patients.

It is easy to say that the rate of deaths is dropping if you don't test certain categories of patients, the elderly and frail, who exhibit symptoms and then don't put it on the death certificate. I found this table in the Spectator daily roundup which lists the expected number of deaths for the week ending 3rd April alongside the actual number of deaths, whether for COVID-19 or not. Makes for interesting reading.

Day 23 of Coronavirus lockdown

I'm deliberately not rereading my previous posts before writing this one so I don't influence my thoughts. It has been surprisingly difficult to find time to sit down and write an update, but I've just got back from the post office (15 minute queue outside) where I posted a parcel for Stephen and bought two cards for Esther. She isn't expecting many cards on her birthday on 17th as we are still all staying at home so she won't see any friends or colleagues, so I got her one from me and one from the cats. I walked to her house, pushed the lot through the door and left.

Some people are really freaked out by the whole situation. As you walk around, people stand aside so you can keep 2m between you. Or they cross to the other side of the road. Everyone is following the social distancing rules. Some people, particularly the elderly and I assume anybody who has an underlying health issue or is just panicked by the idea of catching the virus is wearing a mask. There is no evidence that masks, other than the top grade surgical masks, stop you from catching the virus. However the WHO are considering changing their advice in the light of growing evidence that wearing a mask stops you from unwittingly infecting others around you if you have the virus asymptomatically. Just another example of the unclear guidelines.

Looking at the trend in deaths, it seems to me that health workers and key workers such as bus drivers, supermarket staff etc who deal with lots of people are the most at risk. They should therefore have the best PPE (personal protection equipment). Ordinary members of the public can make do with scarves or less expensive masks. There seems to be some effect of 'viral load' whereby otherwise fit Doctors and nurses get the infection and then get very ill and sometimes die.

The lockdown thus far seems to have achieved what was intended. There is a compliance level of 90%. We have avoided overloading the NHS. Several new Nightingale hospitals have been built in conference centres etc in areas like London, Manchester where high infection rates are likely, all ready to deal with the intensive care demands. Sadly Boris Johnson got very ill and had to go into intensive care. He is out now and recuperating with his girlfriend, Carrie Simmonds at Chequers. So much hinges on him as a leader and as a positive energy. His approval ratings seem to be really high.

I've read articles about how people have accepted the strict lockdown measures. The government didn't expect so many companies to shut up shop and claim loans to keep afloat. There are more businesses closing their doors and far more workers furloughed or losing their jobs than expected. One estimate puts the cost of the government's job retention schemes at billions of pounds per week.

There has been talk of an 'exit strategy', but people are so convinced by the message that they must stay home in order to protect the NHS and save lives, there is a chance that workers will refuse to go back into the work place. Public opinion seems to be driving government decisions.

A cabinet source said: "We won't be able to lift the lockdown until the public feels ready for it. The Prime Minister's illness has probably added another week to when that point will come, because it's made everyone feel as if they know someone who has come close to losing their life to the virus and it has changed attitudes."

So the timing will be dictated as much by the public's attitudes as by the science otherwise it won't work. To persuade the public the govt need to get a new message across. Instead of talking about 'exit' which has a feel of finality and suddenness about it, Dominic Raab is using terms like 'relaxation' and 'transition'.

Only 717 deaths were recorded yesterday - Easter Monday - as compared to over 900 the day before. This could be due to delayed reporting. Also, deaths in care homes are excluded from the statistics (by international agreement, apart from Belgium who include them). The situation in care homes is getting far worse. Over 100 institutions have had outbreaks in the past 24 hours. Without testing, I think the care home staff are probably bringing it in unwittingly, then the residents catch it and die because they generally don't go to hospital. There has been controversy of late over GPs and others getting elderly people to say that if they get COVID-19 they don't want to go to hospital. Most probably come too high up the frailty scale (1 - 9 with 5 - 9 counting as too frail) to be considered for intervention when resources are scarce.

My feeling is that this virus is here to stay. The best we can do is ensure that the NHS is geared up to cope, and then let the population slowly catch and recover from it. Lets be honest, what is the alternative? If we all stay home, the economy will grind to a halt and we will run out of things. I've been keeping an eye on Sweden, and looking at Mark Handley's graphs, Sweden, with no full lockdown, is showing a similar infection and death curve to Italy, yet Italy imposed lockdown.

I find myself wondering if the full lockdown and consequent impact on the economy is making any difference to the overall progression of the disease. We've done what we needed to do to protect the NHS. There is no way we can all stay indoors until the virus is eradicated because it won't be. We need an exit strategy now.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have allowed the ghastly wet markets to start up again. I do not blame Chinese people per se, but the Chinese government is authoritarian and has the power to stop this, yet they do not. They have caused a world pandemic yet they continue to allow the wet markets from which the virus sprang. I have seen the usual virulent tweets on twitter, blaming Boris Johnson for the deaths of people from Coronavirus. Cheap political point scoring in my opinion. The UK bodies have done what they thought was best at the time, given the advice they had. Some of their choices may not have been the best, though I think it makes little difference overall. In my view, the real culprits in this ghastly worldwide pandemic are the Chinese government. I am no fan of Trump, but why should he not say it like it is - the virus originated in China, they tried to deny it, chastised the Doctor who first raised the alarm in December and who subsequently caught and died from the virus. In my mind they are totally to blame for creating and releasing a worldwide pandemic.

Day 15 of Coronavirus Lockdown

It has been two weeks since we all went on virtual house arrest, so I thought it a good time to post a quick update on how my thinking has developed. I've fallen into a habit of reading the newspaper from cover to cover. Probably the first 10 news articles relate to Coronavirus. I seldom watch the 16:00 Coronavirus update any more. It is well reported in subsequent news broadcasts and I usually catch the gist later in the day. I don't really want to structure my day around a COVID-19 related news broadcast.

I'm probably reading too much news, but it is a bit addictive. I awoke last night, around 2am and couldn't get back to sleep so sometime after 3pm I got my iPad out and downloaded and read today's paper. I remember key snippets, but it does rather blur into one. I'm interested in Iceland, where they are relying on a culture of collaboration and cooperation to assure social distancing and have not initiated any European or Chinese-style whole country lockdown, and Sweden, where they seem convinced that the way forward is to follow the track the UK followed initially, asking people to social distance but not imposing any great lockdown. They've banned social gatherings of 50 people or more I believe, and A level students and university students are learning from home. I think the vulnerable are urged to stay home. People can still walk the streets and enjoy restaurants etc. The Swedish medical office says that the damage to the economy would be far worse than the disease. They only have (if I remember correctly) 600 intensive care beds.

I've read other research into how the disease is transmitted, conducted I believe in Iceland. They have followed an intensive track and trace approach, with 60 dedicated officers and medics who track the origin of each infected person. So far they've identified 20 different strains of the virus, some more virulent than others, and traced each infected person back to some foreign contact, with, interestingly, 9 Iclanders having been infected in the UK in January at a particular, but not identified, football match. At that point, the UK didn't realise it even had the virus.

Iclandic researchers have also collected data on where the virus is most likely to be transmitted, and it is little surprise that it is through mass gatherings such as football matches, concerts, theatres. Transmission is rarer at restaurants, and very rare in supermarkets. Walking past people outside is very unlikely to cause contagion, though it is still possible. They also swabbed down a household where multiple members COVID-19 and discovered no traces of the virus on high use areas such as door handles, surfaces etc. I have also read estimates that up to 50% of the population is or has been infected asymptomatically.

We won't know here in the UK as we don't have the capacity to test, thanks to Public Health England's centralised approach to testing and early disinclination to make use of the offers of help from labs and research scientists across the country. PHE have not exactly covered themselves in glory, advising the PM not to undertake testing in the community, restricting it to only those admitted to hospital, when the World Health Organisation were advising community testing and track and trace as a more effective way to manage the disease. However we can use the research from other countries whose public health authorities are more aware of the importance of collaboration and research sharing.

The initial findings from the research into modes of transmission in Iceland has got me wondering at the advisability of continuing this whole country lockdown beyond the 3 week original limit specified by Boris Johnson. This is a rather contentious thought, but I'd like to explore it. I've seen a fair amount of virtue signalling on social media. This cartoon captures it pretty well. People sitting in their extensive gardens with their iPads and laptops disapproving of those who go exercise in a public space. Then you have cases like the Scottish Chief Medical Officer driving 40 miles out of Edinburgh for two weeks in a row to spend the weekend with her family at her bungalow, whilst advising others to stay at home. She has now resigned amid a storm of criticism.

But how dangerous is going for a walk in a park. Is it less dangerous than sitting for a moment on a park bench on your own to catch your breath? The police have challenged people for doing just that. Or driving to walk your dog in a more remote part of the countryside, rather than on the pavements outside your house or apartment where you come into contact with loads of other people.

I'm worried about the economic impact. The banks (unsurprisingly) seem unwilling to help out small businesses with loans despite the fact that the Govt. has released money for it. Some businesses are within days or weeks of going under, and the banks are asking them to put up collateral, or explore other avenues for getting a loan. People with mortgages are worried about losing their homes. Mortgage companies are offering a 3 month payment holiday, but if you are made redundant as is happening as businesses go under then this will not help.

So we come to the hard choices. The Imperial study from Professor Ferguson, the same who predicted that the impact of CJD would be huge in 25 years (it wasn't) and who advised the massive cattle culling that many now deem excessive and unnecessary, predicted 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 if the PM didn't impose the lockdown. Yet a recent Oxford paper suggested that this estimate of potential deaths might be excessive. Conflicting advice, but increasing amounts of data from countries who are ahead of us on the curve. I came across @MarkJHandley on Twitter who posts fascinating statistical graphs with freely available data from affected countries. Things are serious, but as yet I'm not sure whether the levelling off of cases is due to lockdown measures, or if the same might happen with the closure of high infection risk places such as football grounds and concert venues whilst allowing people to carry on economic activity with hightened levels of hygene in public transport and public places, and social distancing in other places.

There is no doubt that people are dying horribly in ICUs in hospitals. I read that if you are admitted to an ICU with corona virus you have a 50% chance of dying. However if you are over 80 years old, this rises hugely to something like 80%. And this brings me to the reason I'm wondering about the advisability of this lockdown. It looks like the vast majority of the population can catch COVID-19 with mild to flu-like symptoms.

These people, who would be only mildly affected by the virus, are the people who are losing their livelihoods and who will bear the economic burden of paying for this for years to come. There will be suicides and wholesale misery, as there was to a lesser extent during the CJD crisis when farmer after farmer committed suicide. This current situation is much more far-reaching and will, I think, result in huge numbers of mental health issues caused by the uncertainty and fear.

I wonder if we could return to a semblance of normality, using social distancing together with protection for the vulnerable groups, until we have time to develop one of the potential cures, vaccines and anti-virals that are currently being rushed through development and testing. I'm not sure that keeping the 90% of the population who will be relatively unaffected by the virus from earning money, contributing taxes and keeping the economy afloat is the right long-term solution. We have ramped up the NHS ICU provision with the Nightingale hospitals. It is the metropolitan areas that are the most affected. Why not allow the rest of the country to get back to work, whilst protecting the vulnerable?

Day 11 of Coronavirus Lockdown

Thursday today. Important to mention as it is easy to lose track of the days. It started out sunny so I took a short walk into the village to the post office to post a package. It was very pleasant. Hardly anybody out, very few cars. The lady in the post office said that she had been expecting people to get angry if they had to queue as she was working on her own there, but everybody had been very cheerful. I guess it is just nice to get out of the house so a short wait just means you get more time to admire the things for sale in the PO.

Walking back I decided to go up Sandy Lane, rather than the road. This is a very old byway open to all traffic (actually, just pedestrians) that runs up the hill, past the old sandpit area parallel to the road, with a number of footpaths connecting it to the road, some with quirky houses. It was a good choice. The air smelled really fresh, and there were flowering daffodils that I could smell as I walked past. I've heard that the reduction in vehicles and planes is doing great things for our carbon emissions. Am I imagining it, or does the air smell fresher and cleaner?  It always is pretty clean here due to all the trees surrounding us.

I've got lots to do. I have my crochet - I've done two of 9 squares and have decided to have a go at a hexagon. Excitement! 
I've also got a big sack of compost - they were selling it in Costco where we went yesterday for some provisions. Keeping trips to the supermarket down to 1 per week, less if we can manage it. So I have lots of seed planning and planting to do. At least the postal service is still working so I can order seeds. There is much news about nurseries  and farms who will have to destroy plants and crops unless they can get them to an open garden centre, in the case of the nurseries, or get skilled labourers to harvest the crops in the case of the farmers. We may well be relying on my broad beans!

I have had a paper accepted for publication with what they call major revisions - they aren't really major, but will take a bit of thoughtful implementation. I have until 30th April. I made a start last week, but was struggling to concentrate. This week feels better, but I'm still resisting. To be honest, I'd rather be practising one of my musical instruments, or doing some crochet or tending to my chickens. I even found myself sorting the measuring spoons in the kitchen drawer in descending order of size!

Even blogging has its attractions! I'm supposed to be amending the paper as I sit here. 

The death toll continues to rise.  today we have had 2,352 deaths, an increase of 563 on yesterday and, as always, the biggest daily increase yet. The govenment talk about maybe increasing the restrictions, but I'm not sure that would be warranted. Any impact from the restrictions would take two or three weeks to show up in a reduction of cases. We are currently faced with a shortage of tests, so many NHS workers are in self-isolation due to having contact with somebody with COVID-19, when in fact they might be perfectly well. There are big testing centres being set up, e.g. at Ikea in Wembly, but there seem to be delays in doing the tests, with some NHS workers having been sent away yesterday because they didn't have the right paperwork. Hopefully they will get this sorted. The government were definitely slow to act in the early days, when ordering test kits and instituting distancing protocols would have had the strongest effect. To shift the blame onto the population now by implying that the lockdown restrictions need to be increased because we aren't adhering to it properly would be, I think, a wrong call. 

Must get back to that paper!

Wormery

I've been enjoying spending time in the garden. This little video shows my first experience of getting soil out of my wormery.

Day 8 of CoronaVirus Lockdown

The days are starting to run together a bit. There isn't a lot to distinguish between them. I've been reading about how best to cope with the stay-at-home instruction, and the advice seems to be have a routine of some sort. My routine at the moment involves breakfast in bed reading the newspaper on my iPad. Get up, check the chickens, then it varies. It all depends on my mood. I've been putting together little videos to go on YouTube and link back to this blog. Now that I'm back in the swing of blogging, it is quite nice to have that little bit of structure.

Last night I had a group accordion session with my No1 Ladies Accordion Orchestra. We all went online together and one lady would lead. We used Zoom. Mics were all muted so you could hear the lady who was leading and what you were playing. We then chatted a little between pieces. We had shared around all the music electronically beforehand. Debi could display the score for us via the main screen as the host if we needed it, but that made it difficult for her to join in. Most people had printed off copies. It was great fun.

I've learned a couple of German tunes from a harpist called Merit Zloch. The link below opens on  Merit playing an original composition inspired by the Jim Henson movie, Labyrinth called Harfe: Reise ins Labyrinth which demonstrates some amazing sounds that can be made with a harp by somebody who is so musically creative. Merit comes over with other musicians and often teaches at Halsway Manor, the National Centre for Folk Art. Her live streamed workshop on Facebook was brilliant (and I might add the tunes she taught us were nowhere near as complex as the Labyrinth tune I've linked to here!). She should have been in the UK when this Coronavirus hit.

People are being very creative. Today I participated virtually to a great workshop by Ben from Shoot Gardening on how to get the most out of their their garden database, tools and planner. I've got a 5 year subscription to this but have hardly been using any of the features. Now that we are all homebound, I plan to really get into it. The workshop was really good - I took lots of notes.

Last night I woke up at about 1:10am and tossed and turned for a bit. When I did eventually get back to sleep I had odd dreams. I've read that this is not unexpected in this strange and rather surreal existence we are living. Talking to my friends in the orchestra, few of them have even left the house since the lockdown started last monday (possibly none of them apart from me).

On the news they are suggesting that this situation might persist for up to 6 months. I do hope not, but if it does, I guess we shall cope

The daily coronavirus update has just started on TV. Listening to it in the background while typing this. I guess this has become part of my daily routine.

Day 6 of UK Coronavirus lockdown

The UK has been on lockdown since last Monday. People seem to have slowly got used to things. I thought it might in interesting to redeploy my chicken blog to capture thoughts and experiences as we pass through this extraordinary period in history.

The guidelines are to stay at home, emerging only to buy food, for one exercise per day or to go to work if you are unable to work at home. As the week has gone by, shops have introduced measures - distancing using black and yellow tape on the floor, limiting the number of shoppers able to go in at any one time. Yesterday we went out to Tesco in Kingston Centre for the first time since last Saturday before the restrictions had been imposed. Last week, there had been huge panic buying with the shelves first cleared of loo roll and hand sanitiser, then more things such as pasta, rice, tinned tomatos, baked beans, everything from the freezer section. It had got quite worrying, but we figured that fresh food still seemed to be available so we wouldn't starve, so we didn't panic buy.

Yesterday at Tesco things were very different. Very calm. There were blue plastic gloves to pick up as you joined the back of the queue. There was tape on the ground to keep the queuing people 2m apart. As you approached the store, a lady cleaned the handle of the trolley and you were only allowed in if you were wearing blue gloves. Once inside the shopping experience was very calm. There was lots of produce on the shelves, but still no loo paper. I think to get loo paper, you'd need to go at 10am. Shops are limiting the 9am to 10am slot for the vulnerable and health workers.

I'm sat here now, at 4pm, watching the daily coronavirus update on TV. This feels very much like those films of families during the 2nd world war, gathered around their wireless radios. The Govt are trying to put financial support systems in place very fast to help people and businesses.

Locally, many of our local businesses are trying to diversify. The restaurants are doing meal delivery. Tonight we plan to have a take-out curry and watch a movie. We wandered down to the village and went into the Nonna's pop up store. Lots of eggs (currently in short supply). Lovely Italian restaurant. Hope it keeps going. They were clearly selling italian stuff that they had to make meals out of - big tins of tomatos etc, but had also sourced cleaning products and other useful things. At £5.50 per teeny slice, I thought the chocolate brownies were rather expensive - I guess they were made in house and that was the price you'd pay if you bought them for pudding at the restaurant.

Spending more time at home has its upside. I've planted lots of vegetable seeds and am spending lots more time with my chickens. I've made a few videos which I plan to upload to the blog. The chickens are becoming super super friendly - but are hardly laying any eggs! You'd think having chickens during a time of egg shortage would give me an advantage!  Lazy little creatures.

The scary thing is that each day we get an update on how many people have died of the virus. Over 1000 today with the biggest daily increase so far. The prime minister tested positive yesterday after having symptoms. The chief medical officer as well, and the health minister. Hope they have it mildly as they are criticial to us getting through this.

Chicken pedicures

So, it is that time again. Despite my best efforts, my three little sabelpoots have got mud and poop all stuck around their little feet and their foot feathers. I decided to make a video of how I sort this out. In fine weather, it is actually quite nice. I'm sure it helps the chickens bond with me, the more handling the better. Enjoy the video

Chicken Foot Bathing