davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)

I checked the main covid map earlier, and my home town, Bishop Auckland, where my mother and sister are, has dropped down to 177 cases/100k (from a high of 531 in early November). Well, that's good, I think. (Chatham Central where I am is at 875 and rising rapidly)

Just checked twitter, and @CovidGenomicsUK have posted a snapshot map from their database of where the new variant is known to be in the UK. And I look at it and think, that spot just above the 'd' in 'United Kingdom' is awfully close to Bishop. So I follow the link and wait for the project to load, which then lets you zoom in the map. And it's not just close to Bishop, it's in Bishop. Bugger. So I've just had to message my sister to tell her to be even more careful than she's already being. Link to the data: https://t.co/AywK4Can02

Just being able to do that made me reflect that Vernor Vinge totally called it when he had 'Rainbows End' open with hobbyists spotting a new respiratory bug from online data.

In other covid news, the government has apparently abandoned plans for mass lateral flow testing given the accuracy (or lack of) of the tests. A DHSC spokeswoman defended the test by saying it had a sensitivity of 57% and 84% in people with high virus loads. *headdesk* its the ones who don't have high viral loads yet it was supposed to catch. They might as well flip a coin, it's almost as accurate, and a whole lot cheaper;.

davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)

I'd seen the news about France and Belgium stopping HGVs bound for the continental warehouses, which is worrying, but I was still surprised to see a sign in the window of the chemist/post office when I went to pick up my prescription saying "We are currently unable to accept any packages for Europe, including Eire". I'd guess the post office is worried they won't have the warehouse space to store them until things open up.

The irony is we're now seeing the potential effects of Brexit, but before Brexit actually kicks in. They've already opened Manston Airport as an HGV park, and that was only meant to happen in a worst case Brexit (Manston's runway was built in WWII as a diversionary field for shot-up bombers returning from the Continent that needed somewhere to crash-land, so its runway is incredibly wide and can park over 30 rows of HGVs down its length).

And despite being Tier 4 and Ground Zero for the hot zone, there were still between 30-50% of people not wearing masks on the street..

* Riffing on the famous 19th Century Times Headline "Fog in the Channel, Continent Isolated".

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davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
David Gillon

March 2025

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