"The environmental performance of water companies fell again last year despite industry investment.

8 of the 9 companies in England were rated as "poor" or "requiring improvement"."

Why are we not surprised?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw5ynxepy4gno

We also dug into the Bridges of Königsberg problem on yesterday's episode of the BBC World Service programme Unexpected Elements.

You can listen here, with my contribution starting at 14:00:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct8kd4

How did a puzzle about crossing seven bridges give birth to a whole new branch of mathematics?

You can read about about Euler, the Bridges of Königsberg, the Bridges of Kaliningrad and the origins of graph theory in my latest Substack post:

https://kityates.substack.com/p/mathematical-bridges

🦠🌊 Passionate about maths, physics and biology? Apply for our PhD project exploring how flow shapes the coevolution of viruses and their hosts.
Work across disciplines, develop cutting-edge models, and uncover the rules governing microbial life. 🚀
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/v8media/recruitmentsites/documents/studentshipprojects/Modelling_coevolution_in_aquatic_environments_shaped_by_flow_MOEBIUS_LSI_2027_(1).pdf

Don't forget the clocks go back this weekend.

But what are the pros and cons of daylight saving?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/28/eu-daylight-saving-british-summer-time-greenwich-mean-

A lack of PPE meant staff had to resort to workarounds, including bin bags, festival waterproof ponchos and painters' overalls.

The report is also critical of the way hospital COVID patients were moved to care homes to make space for others.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crje5dke7vgqo

When Matt Hancock said that the government had put a “protective ring around care homes from the very start” we all knew it was not true.

The Covid Inquiry has now backed this up criticising his claim as "unfounded".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cmy4xk1d8l53t

The Inquiry’s overarching judgement is that fragmented responsibility, ignored warnings, poor data and inadequate planning created conditions in which Covid could spread “like wildfire”. Social care’s neglect was longstanding.
During the pandemic, its consequences became catastrophic.

Routine inspections largely stopped, professional visits fell and families were excluded. That removed several layers of oversight simultaneously, increasing the risk that neglect, abuse, poor infection control and deteriorating health would go unnoticed.

Care workers were given guidance that was detached from reality, including advice to remain two metres from people while providing intimate care. PPE shortages left some working with unsuitable equipment or none at all. The report calls this “wholly unacceptable”.
10/10

Care homes were urged to accept admissions to free up hospital beds. The Inquiry finds that official wording could create false reassurance that untested or asymptomatic Covid-positive residents could be accommodated safely. Some managers felt they could not refuse.
9/10

Governments did not even know which care homes could isolate residents safely. Nor were alternative isolation facilities ready. Exercise Cygnus had identified the need for social-care capacity planning in 2016, but the work remained unfinished.
8/10

By mid-March 2020 there was enough evidence of possible asymptomatic transmission to justify a precautionary approach. The Inquiry says all hospital admissions to care homes should have been isolated. Scotland introduced this advice earlier.
7/10

The Inquiry accepts that hospitals needed beds. The damning failure was that England, Wales and Northern Ireland initially failed to advise isolation of everyone discharged into care homes. It calls this a “significant omission”.
6/10

Around 25,000 people were discharged from English hospitals into care homes between 17 March and 15 April 2020. Many across the UK were discharged without tests because testing capacity was inadequate.
5/10

Governments already knew care-home residents were exceptionally vulnerable to respiratory viruses. Yet protective measures were introduced long after Covid had taken hold. The Inquiry’s verdict is blunt: action came too late.
4/10

The Inquiry explicitly rejects the claim that a “protective ring” was thrown around care homes “right from the start”. It says that claim did not accurately reflect the lack of action in March and the first half of April 2020.
3/10

More than 43,000 deaths involving Covid were recorded in UK care homes between March 2020 and July 2022.
2/10

The Covid Inquiry’s Module 6 report is devastating. Its central conclusion: adult social care was treated as “something of an afterthought”, while “protecting the NHS” sometimes came at the expense of people receiving and providing care.
1/10

So there you go, coincidences are more likely than you might think - (or maybe the football Gods just choose to smile on us sometimes).

You can read more about seemingly surprising coincidences in my book - How to Expect the Unexpected.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Expect-Unexpected-Science-Predictions-ebook/dp/B0BJJJ9YVK
4/4