Well, we've just experienced three storms in one week. Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. We had a red weather warning for South Wales and how I got through the week without losing any fence panels I'll never know. My neighbours weren't so fortunate. Next door lost 2, one of which dented another neighbour's car. The neighbour with the dented car lost 4 of his panels, so he really didn't enjoy Storm Eunice.
In pandemic news we discovered that the Queen tested positive for Covid last week. She has mild cold symptoms and is self-isolating (apparently).
Infections and hospitalisations are definitely on the down turn and so Boris announced today that as of Thursday February 24th people who test positive for Covid will no longer be legally required to self-isolate. However they will still be advised to stay at home and avoid contact with others for at least five full days.
They also announced that, from April 1st:
Free mass symptomatic and asymptomatic testing for the general public will end, and will instead be targeted towards the most vulnerable
People with Covid symptoms will be asked to exercise personal responsibility when deciding whether to stay at home - until then they are still advised to do so
Current government guidance on Covid passports will end and it will no longer recommend venues use the NHS Covid pass
Wales hasn't announced that it will be following suit yet, but the government have declared that we are moving into the 'living with Covid' stage.
Yes, it will be nice to be able to get back to normal eventually, but I do think they are being a bit eager. A girl in work tested positive for Covid just this morning. She is asymptomatic and so would have come into work and infected all of us if she wasn't doing weekly LFTs.
The daily figures for today looked like this. So, still an average of 143 dying per day.
It seems utterly ridiculous to be removing isolation laws this week and is surely only being done to try and save the PM's skin. The police are still investigating the numerous lockdown parties that were held at number 10 and we're not going to let him forget how angry we are.
In brighter news it looks like lockdown and mask wearing has eradicated one flu variant.
In other exciting news I went to the theatre for the first time in over 2 years last week. Alex and I went to see Mark Thomas at The Sherman. You had to wear masks in the auditorium unless you were drinking, which most people were, so I fully expected to test positive this week, but I didn't - hurrah!
It was so nice having a bit of normal. I've got four festivals booked for this year, so we can only hope that the virus continues to become less virulent and that we can finally get back to a life that resembles pre-Covid times. Keep those fingers crossed.
I'll still be wearing a mask out and about whenever I have a cold in the future though and if everybody does that maybe we can eradicate the common cold too. Just imagine!