Once again the controversy over the OAZ vaccine has reappeared, both Canada and Germany have stopped giving it to the under 55 due to the incredible rare condition cavernous sinus thrombosis, a rare blood clotting at the base of the brain. There are estimated to be 2 cases per million of the population. There has been no evidence other than time to link the two events. Its not that long ago Germany banned it for the over 55s. It really is time all countries accepted the same policy based on the best available scientific evidence from the international array of experts. This is what the WHO would like and what our Prime Minister means when he calls on other leaders, particularly Merkle and Macron, in a post Covid treaty, to protect the health of future generations so that they can deal with future pandemics in a more coordinated way.
You might like to note that Lidl, Aldi, Morrisons and Waitrose are all going to be closed on Easter Sunday. It will give their staff a well earned rest.
The WHO are calling for yet more international cooperation and research into the origins of this current pandemic. A group of researchers have recently reported that they had failed to identify the source of the epidemic. They claimed to have ruled out an accidental release from a laboratory and were inclined to believe the infection spread to man through an intermediary animal host from bats. The wet meat market was clearly the centre. Dr Tedros the Director general of the WHO suggests that the report was not thorough enough or detailed enough and wants much more work done. He says all hypotheses must remain on the table.
The Indian health Secretary has sent a blunt message to all 28 Federal states to get a grip on their laws to control the pandemic. He says the Indian health Care system is overwhelmed right now. There were 56,211 new cases confirmed over this weekend.
France is also facing a significant third wave as figures rise rapidly. They have tried to keep schools open but today have had to close them in the Toulouse area, where the situation is critical.
In England after the death of a 28 year old nurse who died of Covid 19 less than 1 week after giving birth, an inquest was told she had multi organ failure due to Covid. The Coroner asked the Prime Minister to press ahead with his plans to hold a public inquiry as the nurse was a member of the BAME community originally coming from Ghana.
The Office for National Statistics have reported that 55% of the UK population now have some Covid antibodies. This continues to rise but we cannot afford to rest until it is 100%.
Again, the statistics remain very encouraging. 1,641,942 Covid tests have been done in the last 24 hours and only 4,040 were positive. This is a fall of 7.9% of the seven-day rolling average and the positive rate is 56.2/ 100 k of the population.There were 56 deaths recorded, Tuesday is often the highest number of the week because of stragglers from the weekend. This figure represents a further 35% fall of the 7-day weekly average and means the death rate is only 0.6 per 100k of the population. If you prefer it in another way only 1 person in every 125,000 is dying of Covid in the UK.
Hospital data is available again. There were 4,153 people in hospital beds on 28th March. The last figure for a daily admission had fallen to 289. There were 583 patients on a ventilator. Vaccinations continue steadily. 30,680,948 first doses have been given and 3,538,010 2nd doses.
We are at a point where things can go wrong as the easing of restrictions will inevitably see a small rise. We must ensure we stay in control of it. We have hopefully now broken the link between the number of cases in the community and the number needing to go into hospital with some dying. We must expect to tolerate more cases generally milder but be on the look out for more virulent mutations which could still be catastrophic.
We cannot afford to relax our borders and we do not want our case number to rise significantly.
Please do not make a dash for the coast on every warm summers day, do not get involved in demonstrations, wherever possible we must still stay apart and stay local. Holidays are still not allowed.
If you are going to follow Boris with his exercise plans try to avoid crowded spaces, choose where and when you do it carefully.
Above all stay safe .
Kenneth Hines' WordOfWisdom 