Day 258 of self-isolation - An assortment of good news.

An assortment of good news.

In the UK, the R number is down to  between 0.9 and 1.0, and we can see that by the fact that new cases has fallen from a peak of 25000 to 16000 and falling.

Also, we're expecting the vaccinations to start in a two weeks or so.

And in the USA, the FDA is expected to approve a vaccine on December 10th, with 6.4 million doses to be rolled out the next day.

There's more good news. More than 2.5 million vulnerable people in England will be offered free Vitamin D supplements this winter. I'm already taking 2000 IU per day, as a precaution. But in the UK, especially in winter, many people are vitamin D deficient (especially if you have dark skin, because dark skin makes D more slowly). And if you've been locked down and indoors, you've got even less vitamin D. The recommended dose is 400IU (10 micrograms) per day.

It's about time this was made official - there is ample evidence that many people are D deficient, and we know that D is part of the immune response. And the pills are really cheap, and widely available.