Edit; just seen the post above!

Todays death figure under half of the same day last week, encouraging.

Given there was plenty of talk that cases would rise again after schools reopen, is there reason to be optimistic that there has been a small drop (albeit 2%) this week instead? Any predictions on how this plays out in the coming weeks?

Was hoping for a bigger jump in vaccinations today, but based on the above posts I assume that might come tomorrow.

Yes, for various reasons, Monday injections effectively belong to the previous week's allocation, since deliveries are often made or released the day before vaccination. So tomorrow I think will be higher, ditto the next few days.

On the stats
7 day infection rate per 100k, 59.63 (yesterday 60.34, last week 60.79)
14 day infection 120.42 (122.07 / 141.29)
Death rate, daily averaged over last 7 days: 128 (145 / 190)
First vaccines 46.87% adult population (46.14% / 43.04%)

[And Northumberland below 50 on 7 days at long last!]

Yes deaths down 52% on last week amazing. I too was disappointed when I read the vaccs number but understand the CWS explanation, hoping for a big number tomorrow!

Northern Ireland update

22 March - partial school return continues (P4 to P7)

1 April - outdoor individual sport such as golf allowed, garden centres can do click and collect, outdoor socialising 10 people from 2 households.

12 April - "stay at home" becomes "stay local", more schooling resumes (primary schools), outdoor sport restrictions part lifted, all retail can do click and collect.

So NI probably has the slowest release from Lockdown of all the UK nations. and less detail on the medium term.

Deaths are falling quicker than expected? Also for all the protesters out there it’s confirmed you are allowed to protest once stay at home is lifted March 29
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7fa0029973.png

This is a bit worrying, is she just being typically negative about travel as usual or should we read more into it that the 17th May date will slip, there will always be new variants coming along, do we prevent international travel for ever ? Package holidaymakers will not book if rigorous testing still in place at large costs :

"However, Ms Sturgeon warned that international travel would not be possible until at least mid-May due to the risk of importing new cases of the virus.

She said that "our view is that it may well not be possible for a further period after that" - and that pre-departure and post-arrival testing would likely remain in place "for some time to come".

I think all you need to read into anything she says is that there is an referendum on Scottish independence election in a few weeks or so.

Hi,
6th of May for the Scottish Government elections.

Regards

TBS

Hopefully this is more about managing expectations beyond the borders and across the entire island. As I imagine there would be a influx of people from England/Wales to Glasgow and Edinburgh if she committed to opening international travel before Boris says or does anything. Better to announce what steps the nation is doing internally and then together the Kingdom will hopefully announce an overall plan regarding anything beyond all of our borders.

I have kept tabs on this and I think the FCDO were correctly advised. The relevant décret has been updated online, though you may need some strong café to untangle it.

So we are looking at
Décret n° 2020-1262 du 16 octobre 2020 prescrivant les mesures générales nécessaires pour faire face à l'épidémie de covid-19 dans le cadre de l'état d'urgence sanitaire

This has been amended a lot, but a recent version for 57-2 used to say:
My bolding. So allowing travel to France the EEA and a few non EU territories such as Andorra. There was and remains exceptions for French citizens and so on.

This now reads

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/..._selection=all

It is rather easy to read if you read the consolidated version. Thankfully, the legifrance site is pretty good at providing consolidated versions. They had this one up the very day the amending decree was published.

What I was wondering is whether there is some other decree somewhere that contained other restrictions as I seemed to remember that the previous set restrictions regarding third countries nationals/residents back in November were not all in there but I could not find any so perhaps it was my memory which was the failing bit in this. If all there is is the 2020-1262 Decree (as amended), then this clearly allows anybody to travel from the UK to France regardless of nationality or residence (other than standard non covid-related immigration restrictions).

Since when has she cared about announcing anything before Boris, she has constantly beaten him to it over the last few months, but I agree I presume her hands are tied on this as it involves UK borders.

You could just take the statement at face value... both Governments currently in agreement that it will not be before May 17 at the earliest; the Scottish Government flagging up an indication that in line with its strategy, it doesn’t think May 17 is necessarily doable, but that it’s too early to say because we need to wait and see how some of the major domestic steps between now and then go, as well as continuing to monitor developments overseas, over which neither government has any control.

Sensible and honest expectation management if that’s the case I’d say.

Yes but I don't think Nicola can do anything about it. She tried it with quarantine hotel for all UK arrivals to differ from the UK programme. She just a la carte changes the rules from England to make it look different, I don't see how she has any influence whatsoever in UK borders.

I would take what she says very lightly and not seriously, as HMG said it will be April 12 when we will know more about foreign travel, I just see it going to 'travel corridors' depending on what's going on in the world, it won't be everything open. US will be much better this year due to high vaccination rate though, which I think will be the major difference as last year USA was quarantine the whole time.

The question of borders is indeed reserved to the U.K. Government. That is to say that Scotland cannot regulate for a separate immigration regime - if you land at GLA, it is up to the U.K. whether you are admitted to the country or not.

Public health is devolved, however, so Scotland can (and has) legislate separately for what happens to you after the U.K. Government has admitted you to the country.

It can also legislate for public health reasons to prevent people currently in Scotland from travelling.

And it can legislate to prevent people from crossing the land border if necessary for reasons of public health (accepting that enforcement is a different question).

So I would not say that it is quite as straightforward as you suggest.