Yesterday July 19th 2021 was dubbed 'Freedom Day'. Almost all restrictions in England were dropped. Social distancing has ended, face masks aren't mandatory (except for on public transport) and nightclubs reopened.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are, thankfully, taking a less crackpot approach and still require masks to be worn in most enclosed spaces unless eating or drinking.
There appears to be no reasoning for opening up England apart from a summer cash grab for businesses who have been struggling since the pandemic started. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with the numbers of infected people as we continue to be one of the worst countries IN THE WORLD for the number of new infections.
Stats for today:
Chris Whitty reckons in around 5 weeks time we'll probably be up to 250 deaths per day. There are many countries around the world that haven't seen 250 deaths for the WHOLE PANDEMIC.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for getting back to normal. I've had my two jabs now and have some level of protection. Apparently I'm now less likely to require hospitalisation and much less likely to die, but there are still some double jabbed people on ventilators in the hospitals. But I'm not getting into a huge crowd of people who aren't wearing masks whilst numbers are still rising every day. The Delta variant is MUCH more transmissible and the high rate of infections means that the chances of a new variant coming out that is vaccine resistant is more likely which would send us back to square one. This government really is trying to kill off as much of the population as possible. There can be no other answer.
In the last few weeks we've had thousands of people mask free at Wimbledon and Wembley. Loads of people now have what they have termed the 'Wembley Variant'. We're also currently in the middle of a heatwave, so the beaches are rammed. And on top of that, as so many countries are still on the red list (which means that people have to quarantine upon their return) more people are flocking to the beaches and leaving SO MUCH LITTER. These people are selfish, fucking morons. It absolutely makes my blood boil. Broken glass, nappies, sanitary towels, plastic bottles, pairs of shoes, smouldering barbecues. MORONS! I can't even go the beach as it makes me so angry.
I can't even go down at 6.00am as the litter is often still there from the night before as the council don't start the clean up till 8.00am (I think!). I did have a nice walk around the Knap gardens early on Friday before it got too hot.
Currently it's 10.00pm. I've got every window in the house open and Hive tells me that the temperature in my lounge is currently 27.00 degrees. There's the slightest little breeze. I'm hoping it cools down a little before bedtime. I don't really like sleeping with the windows open because of the noise but it's a necessity. The bloody randy hedgehogs kept me awake snuffling and screeching in the flower beds last week.
The Met Office have issued their first ever amber heatwave warning for South Wales and the South West. It's not cooling down until Saturday when we're hopefully going to have some rain and thunderstorms. So three more days of hot, hot heat to go. Imagine having covid in this weather!! My poor friend's 80 year old dad is in hospital with breathing difficulties due to his COPD and an infection at the moment and he keeps ripping his mask. I think I would too!
Rant over for now. There are many, many other things I could moan about, boy racers, billionaires jetting off into space but not paying their taxes, Slimeball Dominic Cummings releasing snippets of how shit Boris Johnson every few days. Yes, we know he's shit and so did you you evil little turd, but you didn't bother doing anything about it when he was paying you. Ugh, god I hate them all. Our old Health Minister Matt Wankcock resigned after being caught snogging his aide in parliament (whilst social distancing measures were still in place) and we've now got Sajid Javid instead, but he's self isolating as he currently has covid. So Sunak, Gove and Boris are apparently self-isolating too, although they tried to wriggle out of it.
The whole world has gone mad. And don't get me started on Brexit. At least Boris can blame the shit state of the economy on Covid, in fact that's probably why he's trying to send infections soaring so that we can go into lockdown again and it will hide the Brexit shitshow for a little longer.