News today that the new Covid variant which started a few weeks ago in Kent is more deadly than the original. It is more contagious as it is now right across the country but it is also accounting for the great increase in deaths. Hospitals and staff are struggling to cope whilst more are dying. The age range most hit is now 55 to 60 so not just the elderly anymore.
Meanwhile new cases of Covid are slowly falling. Maidstone today was 462 per 100,000 which is just 10 above the national average.Still far to high but moving in the right direction. It’s unlikely that there will be any easing of the lockdown until at least the majority of the population are vaccinated. That could be well into the early summer.
We started at Blackthorn again today. Another change of layout but it is working well. Our expectation of 2000 vaccines over three days is now 1200 but that was only after Dr Hanrath negotiated with the NHS distribution people. They only wanted to give us 800. Still at least plenty has gone to help the over 80s elsewhere. Back tomorrow but as it was a slow take up tomorrow they are looking to do 80 vaccines per hour so we are going to be busy hopefully. I have now added an extra 11 new volunteers to my list following my Facebook post.
Sue and I had short bike ride to the farm shop for a bit of exercise today, it was a nice sunny day. Dry again tomorrow so after our early shift I might do a slightly longer run as the legs have had a good rest.
Main news today, our dishwasher is poorly. I have tried all the recommended troubleshooting stuff so now we have a NEFF engineer coming next Thursday. It is 10 years old and has been very good till now. However, the engineer might give it a new case of life, we must always look on the brightside!