Not the kind of race you want to win

My sister posted a link to me at the weekend, to an article saying my home town had had the second highest number of coronavirus deaths in the country (or more specifically England and Wales). I chased the figures down and it was right. According to the ONS, Bishop Auckland Central and West had the second highest number of deaths per "Middle Layer Super Output Area" - which breaks the country into roughly equal sized blocks by number of households (about 7200 of them, average population 7200). The figure was 32, add in the rest of town and it went up to 38 (though this was substantially better than for the worst MSOA which was 67 IIRC). She just sent me another link after it was leaked today that 27 of those deaths were at a single care home - almost a third of its 90 residents. For several months there's been a media focus on another care home a few miles away in Durham with 23 deaths as reportedly the worst in the country, turns out the worst is even closer to home - under half a mile on foot from my mother's and sister's front doors - and was keeping things quiet (though there were rumours). Ironically it sits across the road from the hospital - with discharged patients as the likely infection vector.

The home disputes the figure and says it reported a lower number of deaths to the CQC, but won't actually say how many (which is disturbing).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-53579462

In other life in a time of plague news I had a trip up to the local supermarket today to pick up a click and collect order*,  and the supermarket car park was pretty much full, even at 3PM, which makes it pre people getting out of work. Looks like that's pretty much back to normal.

*Deliveries are still difficult, but click and collect now seem reliably available at two days notice - as far as I can see they just won't take them for the next day - rather than the 'maybe in a fortnight if you book right after midnight' we started with)