{"id":1740,"date":"2021-02-08T21:08:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T21:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2021-02-08T21:20:22","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T21:20:22","slug":"monday-8th-february-2021-day-329","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2021\/02\/08\/monday-8th-february-2021-day-329\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday, 8th February, 2021 [Day 329]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ‘Beast from the East’ more properly known as Storm Darcy was still very much in evidence this morning. Actually, it felt a tad less\u00a0severe than yesterday and when the gusts of icy wind abated, there were hints of spring sunshine but we are having to get\u00a0accustomed to sub-zero temperatures. The BBC\u00a0weather app says ‘heavy snow showers and a\u00a0gentle\u00a0breeze’ for my postcode area but in practice there was only the slightest hint of a few flurries of snow in the wind which you would not have\u00a0described as ‘gentle’. Nonetheless, we collected our newspapers and trudged up to see our friend in the park who had thoughtfully already dried the park bench for us with a\u00a0towel he keeps for the purpose (and we ourselves have an tea towel\u00a0reserved for park\u00a0bench drying duties in our rucksack) We chatted for a little while mainly about the rugby (about which our friend is much more knowledgeable than are we – but then he used to play rugby in his younger days) Eventually, the cold got the better of both of us so we bid each other adieu and headed homewards for a cup of warming soup. Lunch consisted of chicken\u00a0breasts which were seared and then add to the remains of the\u00a0tomatoes\/peppers\/onions\/sauce mixture left over from yesterday. This was delicious,\u00a0particularly when complemented by baked potato\u00a0and\u00a0some freshly prepared\u00a0greens.<\/span><\/p>\n

This afternoon, after a good newspaper read, I promised myself that I would go through a pile of newspapers and other mailed items that I had promised myself I would read and then sort out. I notice that at this time of year, the newspapers seem to be full of supplements along the themes of keep fit\/coping with the pandemic\/ensuring your mental health (which\u00a0are really inter-connected themes when you\u00a0think about it) So\u00a0eventually stuff either got\u00a0thrown away or filed or put into the ‘books I got for\u00a0Christmas which I haven’t had time to read yet’ \u00a0pile.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is quite a degree of concern that the South African variant of COVID-19 has popped up in various places throughout the UK including an area in\u00a0North Worcester\u00a0which is just about 15 miles\u00a0south of here in Bromsgrove.\u00a0The variant of the virus has differently\u00a0shipped ‘spikes’ enabling it to lock onto human cells more\u00a0easily and this makes it more infectious (although the severity of the disease does not appear to differ) The AstraZeneca vaccine seems to have limited power to\u00a0vaccinate against this variant- the figures quote as ‘22% effective’ but I am not sure what this actually means. Does it mean that only 22% of\u00a0viral particles are treated by the vaccine and\u00a0the 78% escape the\u00a0bodies immune system? The Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine is slightly less effective against the South African variant but certainly more than the AstraZeneca version. This situation is a little\u00a0confused not to say worrying. The\u00a0Government’s has been has been keen to\u00a0stress all day that the AstraZeneca vaccine – the most popular one – is effective but it is in the public\u00a0domain that it\u00a0doesn’t to appear to stop mild or moderate versions of the disease in younger population. This leaves\u00a0open the question of how effective it is against more severe infections of the virus? There seems to be quite a degree of ‘radio\u00a0silence’ on\u00a0this point but\u00a0there is talk, not\u00a0particular reassuring, that the vaccine is being ‘tweaked’ and that a third dose might be offered to people ‘in the autumn’ None of this, I must say, do I\u00a0find\u00a0particularly\u00a0reassuring but I keep saying to myself that as it is two weeks since the initial jab and about another nine weeks to go before the final one, that I must take pains to be especially careful in the few weeks ahead of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

We bumped into some of our church friends as well as our Italian friend on the way down into town – she was muffled up to the eyeballs both against the cold and also with her face\u00a0mask so we only recognised her at the last moment. I am promised to a bottle of\u00a0wine as soon as conditions permit by way of thanks for taking her to be vaccinated. This bout of bad\u00a0weather is due to\u00a0last for several days and Meg and I have acquired some sniffles and cold-like symptoms after braving the weather. We will have to make a\u00a0careful judgement whether it is\u00a0with while venturing out tomorrow but the\u00a0weather is so changeable that when you set forth it\u00a0does not seem too bad and then can take a turn for the worse. \u00a0Whilst our daily walks probably do us more good than harm, it will be frustrating for us if our little sniffles turn into a full scale cold. We are taking some cold-and-flu preparations when we go to bed as a precaution in any case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ‘Beast from the East’ more properly known as Storm Darcy was still very much in evidence this morning. Actually, it felt a tad less\u00a0severe than yesterday and when the gusts of icy wind abated, there were hints of spring sunshine but we are having to get\u00a0accustomed to sub-zero temperatures. The BBC\u00a0weather app says ‘heavy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}