Do you know what kind of research Theodora's lab is actually doing? (She doesn't have a surname on Twitter so I can't find her). But I imagine research into spike protein mutants could just involve synthesising spike protein that has mutations and assaying the binding affinity of antibodies to the synthetic spike protein – not necessarily creating mutated viruses.

(undergrad biochemistry was a long time ago. I could well be wrong)

I also don't understand her comments about the peptide 'not neutralising COVID in cell [culture]' - why would it? The peptide is just an antigen to get the body to raise an immune response; on its own it doesn't kill COVID.

Not the OP so can't answer for him, but qualitatively the second (November) lockdown was quite different from the first (March) lockdown - much more leeway given on exercising outdoors, workplaces largely stayed open (even if people were working from home). In March, police officers would move people along if they were sitting on a park bench (as that's not exercise); the second time round things were much less strictly enforced. Rules around forming 'bubbles' with other households also didn't exist in March.

Tier 4 is essentially the same as the November lockdown but you can meet one other person outdoors.

Cases went from about 20 on September 1 to 370 in  mid November.  Then they *dropped* to 213 before jumping up to 500.

The UK had a national lockdown in November, and lifted it at the start of December.

Amazing how it differs by region. Here in the UK, anecdotally tests are pretty easy to come by and turned around rapidly - but are still restricted only to those with canonical COVID symptoms (fever/cough/change in sense of smell or taste).

Meta: anyone else getting a bunch of broken images in this post?

Thanks for the well-written and well-reasoned response!

Thanks for putting these updates together! :)

Um, isn't that basically a wiki?

Just picking up on this one point - I've used a bunch of personal wikis in the past; they just haven't stuck for me. Roam has some nice features around this, like backlinking (so just by idly putting something in [[brackets]] you're starting to collate a list of pages under that term) and searching through text to find 'missing links', neither of which I've seen in wikis.

Some thoughts:

• buy nice homeware. The temptation is always to scrimp, but you're going to be using this stuff regularly for at least the length of your lease, and maybe years beyond that, so splash out on nice kitchenware (knives, nonstick pans, chopping boards, a rice cooker) and bathroom stuff (especially towels).
• similarly, if there's stuff that needs fixing, do it right away - then you get the benefit of it for longer. For example, use draft excluder tape to seal the gaps around doors, fix radiators that don't work, rearrange furniture if you don't like the way it currently sits.
• put your phone to charge somewhere away from your bed. (I've yet to be able to make this one stick, but maybe being somewhere new will help!)

Mostly moving into a new place really reveals the holes in my time (especially if you don't have a TV or haven't set one up yet), so try to be aware of where your time's going before you develop a routine and stop thinking about it critically.