so in 9 days everything open then?

do you think govt would speed up things in the light of better than expected news beyond their negative forecasts?

I think in 9 days you would start to have a legitimate argument that when we have bad flu episode we don't shut everything down. It is in the range of 6 to 10 days, so it could be sooner, let's hope it is. But we are not there yet, and if you look at the Israel recent data, they are still struggling to keep the infections under control. It's heading the right way here in the UK, abd we can make it happen sooner by making our own contributions to keeping the virus down. I'd rather you moan here than meet randoms in the pub.

lets hope it goes down really quickly so then the government runs out of excuses to have so many restrictions !

lets not forget the government plans on removing restrictions in 4 months!

I wanted to ask CWS exactly the same question - do you have an opinion on this? The road map is only a week old and already journalists are asking every day will lockdown be eased sooner, so when next Sunday the daily deaths are less than 100 the pressure will grow. Lets hope say 2 weeks after the schools go back there is no spike in cases as you can be sure a big spike is dialled into the pessimistic scientists forecasts, then there will be an even stronger argument. I note in Spain where they have had real problems, their 14 day rate has come down but is slightly higher than ours, bars are reopening their terraces next week, very envious.

And now another “variant of concern” has been discovered in England and Scotland.

Don’t expect travel bans for South America or Portugal to be lifted anytime soon ...

This is the Brazilian strain so aren't they all in hotel quarantine, DM saying they've flown in?

It looks like the cases arrived before the hotel quarantine. Three in Scotland and three in England. Five have recent travel to Brazil. However, the sixth does not and they have lost him/her. They are appealing to anyone tested on the 12/13th to come forward.

Ah, track & trace. What a success it's been!

In a democracy it's legitimate to challenge those in office, so I am sure yours won't be the only voice in the chorus. All I can say is that generally the public prefers caution (accepting there is a degree of hypocrisy here) and the government is having to ride between the various strands of opinion, along with the natural caution of public health experts. We are actually heading to a situation where the UK stats should dip below Germany, certainly for deaths and perhaps for infections, within the next few weeks. Germany is in a lighter version of lockdown to the UK, but by that point in time probably non essential shops will reopen in England, so we are edging slowly out of this mess. But for many people, the fact that schools are still closed is the bigger issue than going to Tenerife. Children are making a bigger sacrifice than thee or me.

I'm glad the kids are going back to school next week, its not just about going to Tenerife or wherever, we're desperate to see family who live too far away to meet on 29th March, I worry about the economy too, and its still a heck of a long time to normality which I consider largely is on 17th May.

You’re pushing hard for something that’s very challenging or close to impossible to predict.

AND so in the time you‘ve posted we are made aware of a potentially more infectious, variant found here and all the hard work can be undone as quickly as you see cases drop. People still traveling and potentially not bothering to follow guidelines and we ALL suffer.

BBC says the cases in question flew back via Paris and then onto Aberdeen. I assume this might be to avoid the guidelines and legislation around travelling. Sad to continually see selfish behaviour. If they are key workers and are unfortunate to pick up this mutation than it shows that we have a long way to go before restrictions are gone to the extent some are desperate to see the back of.

We really do need more patience. Besides we will also need some serious patience to navigate the after math economically in the next few years.

21st June is not the end date. It’s merely the beginning of a new era ahead in all walks of life.

I don't think there is any suggestion they sought to break any rules. It appears they travelled before the 15th. Direct flights had been banned for some time by then, so they would have had no option but to travel via somewhere else.

Lockdown has pushed down flu infections; and a number of those who might have failed to survive influenza have already fallen to Covid. But I suppose numbers of the more vulnerable are still falling sick and dying from flu - shouldn't we be adding those to workload of hospitals?

Over-egging the misery doesn't do much to help your case - May 17 is 11 weeks' away. By then restrictions will have been lifted to the extent that life will be essentially normal. OK, not normal-normal, but wonderfully-normal compared to right now :D.

Be patient!

I thought June 21 was when we were supposed to get back to normal. I know, rule of 6 in pubs from May 17 but the road map is full of words like could, might and hope to. That usually means it's not going to happen.