I write my report tonight wondering how many of you will be able to read it, and even if I will be able to complete it before we lose electricity or telephone internet connections. Both are above ground supplies and its common to lose supply in storms like this in my area. So far so good.
I do hope you are all safe and well in your homes when ever possible. For once it is not Covid keeping me at home.
The Government have done well today to collect the daily statistics on time. There have been just over 900,000 tests done on each of the last two days. Only 47,685 were positive today. It has been under 50,000 most days in the last week, which is encouraging, but remember if you do not test you cannot be found positive. The positive rate continues to drop and is now 565 per 100,000 of the population. There are 109,000 less positive results in the last week.
The number of patients admitted to hospital on 14th February was only 1,280, and 1,137 on the 13th. I doubt the slight rise is statistically significant especially as the total number in hospital continues to drop. Only 11, 555 were inpatients yesterday. There are 1,200 less in hospital today compared with a week ago. Only 331 patients are requiring mechanical ventilation.
The number of deaths is reported as 158. Again, that is a reduction of 340 in the last 7 days. The death rate now stands at just 1.5 per 100,000.
The vaccine statistics are still slowly improving. 91.45 of the population have had a first jab. 84.9% have had a second one and now 66% have had a booster dose as well.
At the European Union - African Union summit in Brussels today WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced the first six countries that will receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines on the African continent. Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia all applied and have been selected as recipients. This really is excellent news. As you are aware the overall protection from Covid in African countries is very poor. It is particularly sad that at the same time as this announcement it was announced that up to 50 million doses of Covid vaccine in Europe will go to waste as they expire at the end of this month. There is not the infrastructure to provide the logistics to get them into arms in Africa.
I am going to cut this report short tonight as all the news is about Eunice and the havoc it is causing today. Fortunately, we have plenty of warning about it. As it has been such an extraordinary day feel free to share your storm experiences as well as Covid related news. We continue on course to emerge from the pandemic. I need to check around my home for hazards before it gets dark.
Please stay safe from the storm as well as Covid.