A further 7,742 confirmed cases in the UK were announced by the government on Monday.
That figure keeps us on 25th February … :!:
Currently, that equates to 250,000 new cases per month … :shock:
Lifting of restrictions to be delayed by four weeks until 19 July - PM
As expected, Boris Johnson has announced the 21 June reopening date is to be pushed back, saying we have not met all four tests for proceeding with the original date.
The new date is now expected to be 19 July, with a review period after two weeks.
He says the link between cases and hospitalisations has been “weakened” but not completely severed, so more time must be given to get more people jabs.
Delaying the date will allow more time for people to be given jabs given the dangers of the Delta variant, the PM says.
Over-40s will only have to wait eight weeks rather than 12 weeks for their second jab, he says, while 23 and 24-year-olds will start to be offered a vaccine from tomorrow.
And he has brought forward the commitment to offer every adult a jab from the end of July to 19 July.
Let’s hope that BJ doesn’t let another variant in … :!:
A more sensible approach in my opinion would be to allow the younger people to go back to work and their businesses, because they don’t suffer the same debilitating and life threatening symptoms as the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. Of course there would be some casualties, but now we know what we are faced with, the elderly could be protected more efficiently.
I don’t believe the NHS is ‘More efficient’ Donkeyman, if you look at the number of postponed operations and delayed cancer treatments. In fact, there will probably be lots of deaths as a result of covid, but not covid associated. Not to mention the amount of suicides and mental disability born out of the covid crisis. So are we actually saving lives at all…
Some reporters now believe restrictions could last into next spring. Covid will eventually become a global endemic.
This last bit is a very sobering thought, Foxy. 
I’m a bit lost as to what the restrictions are at the moment. No nightclubs and weddings limited to 30? People can go to the pub and have meals of six friends at a table. You can go to gyms and the hairdresser. It just doesn’t feel like any kind of lockdown. Some people are very happy with the wedding rules because they are saving heaps of money getting married now.
BJ for one … 
A quick trip to the local church and a barbie in the back garden … 
The prime minister says he is determined the remaining coronavirus restrictions in England will be lifted on 19 July, despite concern that a rise in deaths could force a change of plan.
Boris Johnson said the measures must remain in place until then because of the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
However, some Conservative MPs are concerned they could remain for longer.
It comes as a scientific adviser warned there could be a return to hundreds of deaths a day.
Prof Graham Medley, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that numbers of deaths are low at present, but “everyone expects that they will rise”.
“The question is really as to what level they will rise,” he said. It is possible we could end up with a situation whereby the numbers of people going to hospital, really mean that the government have to take some kind of action that they don’t want to."
Nick Triggle
Infections are currently climbing sharply and modellers believe this could realistically top 1,000 hospital admissions a day later in the summer. That is equivalent to what the NHS would face for all types of respiratory illness in the middle of a bad winter.
The hope is that in a couple of weeks infection levels will have started to flatten, and maybe even fall, as the virus hits the wall of immunity built up by the vaccination programme. But there are no guarantees of that.
In 4 short weeks we’ll know … :shock:
A further 7,673 confirmed cases in the UK were announced by the government on Tuesday.
That figure keeps us on 25th February … :!:
Currently, that equates to 250,000 new cases per month … :shock:
ednes
A further 9,055 confirmed cases in the UK were announced by the government on Wednesday.
That figure takes us back to 22nd February … :shock:
Hospitalisations are increasing.
haha yes true although have heard he is short of money at the moment, too many owl lamps and gold wallpaper
This is alarming why is it rising ?
That might just have something to do with the relaxing of the lockdown that has happened so far. Also there is the Delta variant which is, we are informed, 40% more infective than the previous variants. This is also reckoned to be responsible for 90% of new cases.
What will happen when the lockdown is relaxed completely is anyone’s guess! Although by then with more people having had both vaccinations and others having had one, the outcome will be probably very difficult to assess until then.
I believe the infection figures will climb to previous levels once the effects of lockdown are no longer being felt. However, I don’t expect to see as many deaths and hospital admissions due to the vaccines and a better knowledge of what we are dealing with.
That’s just as well with the tremendous backlog of operations that were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. There was a TV programme just last evening showing how much all this has had to be juggled around. People have been waiting years in pain now, they want and deserve their procedures but are still having to wait. It is reckoned the backlog could take five years until things are back to where they were.
Edited to add:
Programme on Ch5 right now, eleven-and-a-half hour wait for a bed on a ward after going through A&E, appalling isn’t it!!
Lucky that we are mostly tolerant and understanding isn’t it! 
Delta variant: Fact-checking claims about Covid and borders
The governhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57500637
The government’s border policy and whether it contributed to the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus dominated exchanges between Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
First identified in India, Delta is now the dominant Covid-19 variant in the UK (responsible for 96% of new cases). Mr Johnson cited its spread when he announced a four-week delay to the lifting of restrictions in England.
And India was added to the red list, of countries with the government’s strictest travel restrictions, on 23 April 2021 - two weeks after neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.
We’ve looked into some of the claims.
Johnson: ‘We put India on the red list on 23 April and the Delta variant was not so identified until 28 April’
Public Health England declared Delta a “variant under investigation” on 28 April (although it was not named Delta until the end of May).
Starmer: ‘20,000 people came into the UK from India’
The Labour leader said this number had arrived in the UK in the month before India was put on the red list.
And according to the Civil Aviation Authority, a total of 42,406 people travelled between India and the UK in April.
It does not say how many of these were arriving or departing.
Johnson: ‘He [Starmer] was attacking quarantine only recently and saying it was a ‘blunt instrument’ and that it should be lessened’
We looked for recent examples of Keir Starmer saying this and found one - from a year ago. But his position on quarantine for arrivals has hardened since.
In the first two months of this year, he raised it three times at Prime Minister’s Questions. And for months, Labour has been calling for a “comprehensive hotel quarantine system for all arrivals into the UK”.
Starmer: “The rate of the Delta variant is much higher here than in other countries… tragically, the UK has - once again - the highest infection rate in Europe”
Labs around the world analysing the virus’s genetic material have been sharing their findings on a global database. And this appears to show the UK has more cases of the Delta variant than most of the rest of the world.
On the question of whether the UK has the highest rate of infections in Europe overall, the data does suggest that, although it is hard to make such comparisons because different countries count cases differently.
What we can say at the moment is cases in the UK and Portugal are rising while many of their neighbours are seeing cases falling.
So, BJ lies outright (again) while Starmer’s claims are (at least) within the realm of possibility.
A further 11,007 confirmed cases in the UK were announced by the government on Thursday.
That is a MASSIVE increase and the figure takes us back to 16th February … :shock:
The rise is being drive by the North-West - 14,418 cases in the last 7 days; next highest is London with 6349 … :!:
Deaths and Hospitalisations are increasing.
UK has highest Covid case rate in Europe as Brits again excluded from EU travel list
The UK now has a rate of 82.7 cases per 100,000 people and is, again, expected to be excluded from an expanded EU travel list because of the exponential growth of infection caused by the Delta variant.
The EU says non-essential travel is safe to and from Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Lebanon, the US, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and China, all of whom are on a “white list”.
All thanks to BJ’s balls-ups and the alleged “genius” of “Soapy” Hancock … :roll:
Good grief, this is ridiculous! (as I have said so many times now!) I have no other words (polite ones anyway) which would convey how utterly incompetent this government is. We must be a laughing stock.
Indeed we must - and the current “surge” is forecast to get worse in the next few weeks …
Chief medical officer Chris Whitty said the current surge would “definitely” translate into hospital admissions and “undoubtedly” further deaths. And Professor Graham Medley said it was “not impossible” restrictions would have to be brought back in if hospitalisations started to rise.
Meanwhile, an internal NHS email seen by Channel 4 indicates that hospitals have been told to brace themselves for a likely third peak in early August. It warns “we are preparing for a third wave” and adds “the peak is expected to be 1 August”.
:shock: