So Christmas is cancelled

[davidgillon]

Not so much mine, because I already wasn't planning to travel, but Boris just held a press-conference and they've just cut a five day national travel window (due to start in four days) and up to three households together for Christmas, to one day and two, and that only if you don't live in Kent (where I am), London and parts of the South East, which are back into full lockdown now christened Tier 4, with no set expiry.

The reason is a new Covid variant that seems to have evolved in Kent in September, and is already running at over 60% of cases in the South East due to increased transmissability, seemingly about 70% above the common strain. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be any more lethal, but it pushes R up by about .4 from what it was.

That short notice is going to be awkward for people who weren't planning on Christmas at home, but fortunately for me I'm well stocked, and I have another food delivery due on the 28th that I can tweak as needed.

But in better news, my mother just had the vaccination about an hour ago, and so did a whole bunch of her cronies. From her description, it was even less of an event than getting the flu vaccine, apart from needing to hang around for 15 minutes afterwards in case of allergic reaction. Boris mentioned that around 350,000 people have already had it, so they're definitely not hanging around.

 

Comments

[davidgillon]

And Wales has now said it's going into lockdown from midnight, while mainland Scotland will go into lockdown from Boxing Day, and has effectively closed the border with England (not that there actually is any kind of physical border).

Scotland also said its schools will go online for at least the first couple of weeks after Christmas and you can bet that is going to make Boris squirm, because he's nailed his flag to the mast of keeping schools physically open, at a far higher level of infections than Scotland has. His plan for keeping them open was putting mass testing of pupils in place over Christmas/New Year, but the teaching unions had already told their members not to cooperate.

[rmc28]

Teen's school already has

a. all but two year groups remote for first week (and expecting synchronous attendance, sigh, that's going to make working much harder for me with Teen needing support at home)
b. emergency extra teacher training day first day 'back' so they can train up on the alleged mass testing

[davidgillon]

(and expecting synchronous attendance, sigh

That does seem to be making an unnecessary rod for parent's backs, as well as ignoring the advantage of online learning desynching the teacher's effort and the kids and letting everyone plan their day to suit individual circumstances. And its assuming everyone has a computer available for every kid during the working day.

[rmc28]

It's so bizarrely un-inclusive of this school (which was quite cool with "attend when you can" during the spring + summer) that I would put money on it being a government directive. Like their weird resistance to learning at home last term, which also turned out to be due to government pressure.

[davidgillon]

Like their weird resistance to learning at home last term, which also turned out to be due to government pressure.

Ah, I did wonder about that.

[hilarita]

I'm glad you're OK for this. It's going to screw some people over, but less than happened for Eid. And it could have been prevented by harder measures earlier.

[davidgillon]

It doesn't mess my plans up, so I have it easy. I do recognise there's a lot of families will have had their plans significantly messed up by this.

I think it's necessary, and that we came out of the November lockdown early, but I've just been pointing out to one of the local Labour councillors on twitter that it's probably unreasonable to expect the significance of the new variant to have been spotted much sooner* when Sheppey, then Medway didn't become an anomaly until we were well into the November lockdown, and even then everyone locally assumed the issue on Sheppey was it was in the prisons.

* He thought if it was spotted in September then the alarms should have rung then, I had to explain it was new variant+increasing rates of infection that was significant, not just the new variant on its own.

[rmc28]

Yay for your mum and cronies. It really is cheering, all these little nuggets as people I know mention people they know getting the vaccine.

My mum has been told to expect to get summoned towards the end of January. Really hoping that pans out.

[davidgillon]

Yeah, it's good that it's started, but we really need that supply to keep coming. The prediction is that Oxford/AstraZeneca will be approved by the 28th, which will significantly increase the mass vaccination potential.

[sovay]

But in better news, my mother just had the vaccination about an hour ago, and so did a whole bunch of her cronies.

I am glad to hear this part of the update. And frankly also glad to hear about the cancellation of Christmas, although not about the mutation that prompted it. *hugs*

[davidgillon]

Thanks. It was clear from the graphs we should never have come out of the November lockdown, it only knocked about two weeks increase off the figures and they'd been increasing for two months. But there's a big chunk of Tory backbenchers are almost as bad as Republicans for opposing lockdown and Boris has clearly been compromising things to keep them on board because he's not strong enough a leader to tell them to back him or he'll withdraw the party whip.

The mutation is definitely a worry. I need to pick up a prescription on Monday, and after that I'm not going out for a month.

And it's definitely a relief to hear my mum got the vaccine yesterday. Amongst other things it'll give my sister one less thing to worry about when she goes to see her.