Has Covid-19 evolved to become less deadly?

Covid deaths

Has Covid-19 evolved to become less deadly?
— Global infections reached a new peak on 29 May, with 125,473. The daily average for the past seven days is 108,965, 36% higher than in the week beginning 14 April.
— However, deaths peaked at 8,429 on 17 April. The daily total for the past seven days is 3,902, 43% lower than in the week beginning 14 April.
Source: Worldometers

Quiet hospitals

How did NHS activity change in the last quarter of 2019/20 compared with a year earlier?
Hospital admissions -9.6%
Elective admissions -9.7%
GP referrals -13.9%
Other referrals -8.3%
Source: NHS England

Busy beaches

Beaches were packed, leading to fears of social distancing. What are the most popular beaches in Britain (to judge by Instagram posts)?
Luskentyre, Isle of Harris 2,080
Tenby, Pembrokeshire 7,605
Rhossili, Gower 9,101
Blackpool 11,116
Weymouth 14,390
Porthmeor, St Ives 15,961
Porthcurno, Cornwall 21,962
Bournemouth 69,164
Durdle Door, Dorset 117,734
Brighton 480,267

Plastic art

The Bulgarian artist Christo, who was famous for wrapping buildings, bridges and in one case a stretch of coastline in plastic, died aged 84. To put his plastic consumption in context:
— When he wrapped the Reichstag in 1995 the project used 100,000 m of heavy polypropylene fabric.
— A heavy polypropylene fabic weighs around 235g per sq m. Christo therefore used around 23,500 kg of material.
— A typical supermarket plastic bag weighs 30 g, or 0.03 kg. The material he used therefore contained as much plastic as approximately 780,000 single-use supermarket bags.
— Before the plastic bag levy came into force in 2015, Britons were using 8.5 billion plastic bags per year — just under a million per hour. The Reichstag project, therefore, consumed less plastic than British shoppers used in an hour.