I hope reporters do their job and get us some leaks :D

No it doesn't unless you try to enlarge the photo of his Zoom call to see the faces!

I cannot find the document that was published, but the logic was that by taking strong action now against potentially vaccine-resistant variants the UK is effectively gambling that it will not have to lockdown next winter, when other countries will be overwhelmed. The cost is severely limited international travel now and potentially through summer. The high rate of sequencing is an advantage for this, and with the 100% sequencing of positive tests from travellers on day 2 and 8 the Government will be able to make decisions about countries based on actual information.

Personally from my point of view the logic is reasonable, however I do believe the costs outweigh the small chance of the benefits. I think that if Europe is overwhelmed this winter with a vaccine resistant variant we will not be able to stop it spreading in the UK in time for Boris to say world beating. However I can recognise that it is currently a political vote winner (with the vast majority of those against the restrictions unlikely to vote labour, the conservatives are not losing votes over this), however this may change by summer.

Nicola Sturgeon reiterates that, depending on data, dates for the easing of lockdown restrictions may be brought forward.

She tells the chamber: "We will consider between now and [next week] if the data allows us to bring forward any relaxation of the rules. I have always said if we can go further and faster, then we will not hesitate to do so."

That would be great to force Boris' apathy on lifting lockdown.

Another red letter day on today's stats, we had to double check some of the figures since they look implausibly good.

The big news is that the 14 day figure for confirmed infections per 100,000 population has now fallen below 200 to 194.56. Yesterday it was 200.9, last Tuesday it was 243.3. As those who have followed the weekly ECDC table in the Coronavirus forum under UK arrivals, 14 days is arguably a better figure than 7 days due to the way weekend data and one day variants can give the wrong impression. So a few days ago the 7 day figure looked like it was slowing down, the 14 day figure showed that the reductions were still coming through.

The 7 day figure is 80.50, yesterday was 83.64, a week ago 114.06. The 7 day over 14 day figure is 41.38%, which indicates a high decelaration momentum. Again per 100k population, and a week on week reduction of 22%.

Death rate is an average of 284 on a 7 day rolling average. This is the biggest one week fall (36%) in the pandemic's UK history. Yesterday it was 314, last week 444.

Patients in ICU now 1806, patients in hospital 12,748, roughly 22% down on a week ago.

great news! Can we open yet?

Are we nearly there yet? No. It's still way over 200 preventable deaths a day.

[And I am not in charge].

Do you know if they reached a conclusion on the Brazil/ZA variants? In terms of effectiveness of vaccines, gravity of the infection and so on?

If we keep dropping at 36% per week it’ll average 75ish a day in 3 weeks

Texas just opened 100% capacity and removed mask mandates. Come on Boris you can do it!

Yes I agree we've all done the same maths, so this should be before the end of March. Note CWS has mentioned this number of 200 deaths measure at least twice now, I wonder if it's a measure HMG are looking for too, maybe ease restrictions early if that's met?

they better. They always say ‘we are driven by the data’

Exactly not an immovable date on the calendar.

I would suggest that this may not be your strongest line of argument.

On the other hand, this could be.