April 12021

Police chiefs are concerned about the current rule of 6 which has caused a lot of confusion over its exact meaning. They say it will prove impossible to enforce. If it were only a matter of counting to 6 it would be easy, but it is difficult to establish people in the same households. A meeting of two households, each of 13 people , bringing 26 people together would be legal but certainly cause raised eyebrows, students living in households can often be 10 to a house.

Please do not forget if you have symptoms get a test done quickly and isolate until you have a result. You should do this even if you have been immunised. Recent evidence suggests far too many people are ignoring symptoms and not getting tested. There is also a lot of evidence that people are not properly isolating. Please do this properly. The whole idea is to prevent spread. Its not brave to go out and about giving it to others.

India is now in the middle of a massive vaccine roll out program. With a vast population to get immunised it’s a massive task. They are now at the stage of immunising everybody over the age of 45.The WHO are telling the EU that their vaccination programme is unacceptably slow and must improve. Just how they do that when in such disarray is unclear.

There is another EU study just released shows that persons were 100% protected from severe infection with just one dose and 95.3% protected from a severe infection, also from just one dose of the same vaccine. The reason for the discrepancy is the fact that the CDC have a different definition of severe infection compared with FDO definition. A lesson to be learn for the future is that the WHO or any successor body must have predetermined definitions, that are globally accepted, if we have a global pandemic again and I am sure we will, although not necessarily in our lifetime.

I have mentioned Gibraltar before, they continue to do very well, they are giving about 600 doses per day now. All their elderly have now had 2 doses, all other adults have had one dose. They have also immunised a large number of Spaniards who work on the island but live in Spain. The vaccine has been sent from the UK. They have had no hospital admissions for a while now, they have relaxed the use of masks and relaxed the restrictions. Spain is allegedly furious with the French as holiday makers are piling into Spain for Easter holidays. France is in the grip of a serious third wave and people should not be travelling for holidays. It is thought many are deliberately avoiding the compulsory testing on entering Spain.

A man has been jailed for 18 weeks for deliberately spitting at a bus driver in an attempt to give him a Covid infection.

Our statistics continue to show excellent progress with them all going in the right direction. There have been 1,266,685 tests done today and only 4,479 proved positive. This is down by 16.6% of the 7 day average and the rate of fall has picked up again, the positive rate is now 54.5/100k of the population. Deaths are recorded at 51. This is also a good drop of 38% over the last 7 day average. The death rate is now 0.5 per 100k of the population, or one death for every 200,000 of the population.

With our hospitals, only 3,957 people are hospitalised with Covid . 274 more were admitted on 28th March and only 547 required a ventilator.

With vaccinations, 31,447,444 1st doses done and 5,513,458 2nd doses done.

If we can continue at this rate our roadmap to recovery will be on track and on time. There are problems for many countries around the world. We must just stay focussed, remain robust and resilient. There is no option but to keep going and we must help one another all the way. There will be temptations this weekend but for the sake of everyone do your utmost to avoid them. This could well be the last Bank Holiday that we are in trouble, we must make sure it is .

I for one will enjoy another quiet weekend at home, using a good old fashioned telephone !

Please stay apart and stay safe.