Covid:(

[Graham Lawrie]

Alas it has reached my village:(
https://www.nhshighland.scot.nhs.uk/New ... narea.aspx

[pvolcko]

Trust it didn't spread further than the hotel? My area has seen a pretty good uptick in cases. We were holding pretty steady at 11 cases/day detection rate for the whole summer, which is entirely manageable. Hospital load was way under capability. Death rates dropped off significantly from their highs in May (which were very small for the size of my county). But in the last month and a half the case rate has increased, and in the last two weeks the case rate has gone up to an average of 30+ cases/day, with some days showing a 100+ case increase as pockets of infection are discovered and traced. Recovery rate and active rate are diverging and hospitals are starting to pick up a load now. Death rate is still effectively 0, but undoubtedly that will increase slowly as active case count increases, despite better treatment protocols and medicines now compared to in the spring.

This area has maintained high compliance with mask use and physical separation in public spaces, high use of work from home when possible, etc. since mid-March. While the guard has been let down on small private family/friends gatherings, this has been the case throughout the summer and there was no increase in rate. The increased case rate matches up with two things: 1) return to school for college and primary school kids (some on learn from home, some on hybrid, some on full time school schedules) and 2) beginning of fall, colder weather, less intense sun exposure. There have been some clusters detected in college settings, but not many and little evidence to suggest these clusters are leading to broader community spread. There have also been very few cases detected in primary school settings. Leading me to believe this comes down to weather and sun exposure changes more than anything else. This is unfortunate, because our long cold winter has just barely gotten going here. It also suggests that the May 2020 reduction in cases may have had a lot more to do with weather changes than the effects of lock downs and other preventative measures.

[Graham Lawrie]

Yes , we were lucky very small and we are facing similar as you Paul as a country, however due to my location we are pretty safe, geographically x