The Bird and the Bee

I was just about to settle down to watch the match of the day*, when I realised I hadn't taken a blip (*I obviously mean the return of Federer to Wimbledon after knee surgery). So I quickly nipped into the garden to see what I could take. Lots of bees, but poor things are so sluggish in the damp and cold. I also heard then spotted a different bird high up in the tree - I think it's a nuthatch, but difficult to tell from the angle. 

Day 470 / Day 44 of Step 3 of Roadmap Easing (for my record only)
Another day when new cases exceeded 20k (20,479 up 76% on a week ago). This exponential growth makes me uncomfortable despite it not impacting hospitalisations and deaths materially. New variants come from lots of virus in circulation, plus there's the as yet an unclear impact on Long Covid. It makes me uncomfortable seeing the crowds at Wimbledon sitting tightly packed without masks - you can go if double vaccinated OR having proof of a negative lateral flow test. My experience tells me that a self reported test is an extremely weak control and shouldn't be relied on if it has the potential to have a significant impact. I don't understand why they're not required to wear masks - madness. A Professor on a SAGE subcommittee has said the Govt's pilot events programme is a 'scandalous misuse of science as a cover for political decisions'. He said they were conducted when there was little Covid in circulation, represented an 'atypically compliant sub-sample' and only 15% of people before and after returned PCR tests - I agree with him. In certain circumstances, some company directors arriving in England can leave quarantine temporarily for work purposes if they are 'likely to be of significant economic benefit to the UK' - amazing that the virus agreed to not infect these people!!! The ONS reports that so far COVID reinfections are rare and milder than initial infections and on average people were reinfected after 115 days and only 21.8% of them reported symptoms. Horrific this morning to see phone footage of two idiot men harassing Prof Chris Whitty in public - I hope they get a significant fine.