Nice to hear you're all still OK. Not a bundle of laughs here. Furloughed the care team and isolated ourselves in order to shield our (disabled, vulnerable) son. So we're down by 200+ hrs of care per month, and they've shut the schools, obviously, so that's more "care" hours we don't have. So we're doing 168hrs a week, basically, for the foreseeable. No time for ourselves at all, no music, no TV, no going out. Just work. Shame, as I bought some new speakers just before all this went in the fan :-)

Sorry if that sounded more self-pitying than I intended. It is what it is. KBO, as Churchill used to say...

Pete

Thanks, Peter. As I say, it is what it is. It's the same for all of us; "what it is" for us is 7 nappies a day and no sleep.

But it's a wonderful world, and if you need proof of that then grab a hankie and watch this:

https://www.facebook.com/meadowgateacademywisbech/videos/what-a-wonderful-world/926377134448857/

Our son's school put this together for their "virtual assembly" last week; we all contributed bits. I wouldn't normally dream of posting something like this, but it's up in public on facebook, it's had something like 30,000 views and I think it's probably on the local paper's website as well. The school wants it to go viral...

By the way, Peter, I understand Don's keeping you posted on progress with the build. It's pretty much stopped at the moment, but at least we got the windows in and got the place more or less weathertight before the plug got pulled.

Best wishes to all

Pete

Two days of desperate shivering, temp of 38+ here. Definitely ticks the "flu-like symptoms" box.

Next challenge is to get my extremely vulnerable son done. He's eligible, as group 6 "16-64 with underlying health conditions". That's clear and unargued. Until he's vaccinated, or rather until 3 weeks after he's vaccinated, he's locked down, regardless of what the govt might proclaim in the way of return-to-school dates. It also means my wife and I are are still doing 24/7 with no respite.

The problem is that he's under 18. He can thus only have the Pfizer vaccine, as the AZ one is not approved for under-18s. People in group 6 are done by the "GP-led services", not by the big mass vaccination centres. But NHS England sends out batches of vaccine at random to the GP-led centres, so they never know whether they're getting Pfizer or AZ, and it's mostly AZ because of the storage issues.

So how do under-18s get vaccinated? Frankly, I'm effed if I know. Hats off to Jo Whiley, bless her, for getting LD (Learning Disability) onto the political agenda (and wasn't Jo's campaign a textbook example of how to run an effective media campaign?) but her sister was roughly her age and the NHS haven't addressed the issue of what to do with 16 and 17 year olds.

Anyone on here work for the NHS in a management capacity?

Pete

Edited by user 28 February 2021 21:08:54(UTC)  | Reason: Typos of the world, come to my keyboard....

How are things at the moment, Pete?