People are waiting for Boris's statement tonight about new lockdown instructions, although Lois and I are sure we'll be in the "mild" tier, with just a ban on groups greater than 6, and pubs and restaurants closing at 10pm, neither of which will affect Lois and me at all, I'm glad to say!
The overall UK picture is quite striking at the moment, with the north of England, Wales and Scotland looking like the worst-hit right now, but of course London and the south-east suffered badly in the first outbreak of the pandemic.
Steve, our brother-in-law in Pennsylvania USA recently sent us an interesting article from "Nature Journal" suggesting that Neanderthal genes, absorbed into homo sapiens genes due to interbreeding 50,000 years ago, may be playing a part in susceptibility to the virus:
"Another trait that some people who develop severe COVID-19 seem to share: a cluster of genetic variations on their third chromosome.
And that DNA sequence likely derives from Neanderthals, says Hugo Zeberg of the Max Planck Institute. "It's quite striking this variant has lingered on for 50,000 years":
[NB fifty-thousand years ago is the approximate time humans and Neanderthals interbred. And over the millennia, these Neanderthal variants have become more common in some Homo sapiens populations than others. For example, 16 percent of people of European descent carry at least one copy of the Neanderthal stretch; half of South Asians do—and nearly TWO-thirds of Bangladeshis - Ed]
"And it's fascinating it is so high, which points to the fact that it must have been beneficial in the past. It's much higher than we expect. And then it's totally expunged in East Asia and China . So something has happened, driving the frequency up in certain places, and removing it totally in other places."
It's perhaps significant, according to the study, that in the U.K., people of Bangladeshi descent have twice the risk of dying of COVID-19 than the general population.
But as epidemiologist Keith Neal of the University of Nottingham has pointed out, people of African descent in the U.K. are also being hurt more by the virus—despite having hardly any Neanderthal genes.
Instead, it's perhaps most likely that it's social factors that dominate —like crowded, multigenerational households or working in front line jobs— and it's these factors that are more likely to be driving the trends seen in the U.K., thinks Andrew Hayward, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care at University College London.
So the jury's still out on that one. Let's hope the Neanderthal gene isn't the main factor - it would be a pity if the Neanderthals finally got their revenge on us for the "genocide" of 50,000 years ago. Let bygones be bygones, that's what I say!
I don't want to be blamed for the sins of my ancestors! I'm still hoping to have a statue dedicated to me in Cheltenham's Imperial Square, and I don't want any daft caveman protesters pulling it down or throwing it into the River Chelt, that's for sure!!!
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