Spot on. It's as though you not allowed to get covid even if it only gives you a runny nose. If deaths were following the same trajectory (blah blah yeah yeah always a lag as the doom and gloom brigade will say) there might be a case. Quite why the utterly overhwelming majority of people that are not going to die from this need to be locked up, or on restrictions, any longer is just wrong.

Numbers of cases were always going to go up again as we ease lockdown, regardless of variants. It would have been bizarre if they had not. It isn’t a cause of concern in itself. It spreads by human contact and we have more of it now compared to January-March.

Bear in mind cases now are lower than the best projections by SAGE.

Also bear in mind hospitalisations and death are not rising significantly, and very few cases of people being in hospital when they have been vaccinated - I have seen figures in the 10% or so region.

Fundamentally vaccination is breaking the link between infections and hospitalisations. It’s still not complete yet and I think around 25% of adults have yet to get a first dose. But we are close to stopping this being a problem in the UK - just as Israel has done since they have fully vaccinated.

Edit

the UK.gov list seems to still consider all of them as Red and thus banned.

Red, amber and green list rules for entering England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

There is a difference between the Red list and the (smaller) list of countries from which direct flights are banned.

As others have noted, cases up is expected. Deaths and hospitalisations are down. This just means the vaccines are working and any third wave will be manageable (if still bad for those who get it, and then have long COVID).

Sadly, there's a minority who think that all risk must be eradicated from life. Quite how they manage to cross the road unaided (perhaps they don't) is beyond me. That said, the MSM brainwashing has been relentless.

Is it just a function of allowing inbound passenger flights but still putting the passengers in hotels? Especially given the T3 dedicated red list terminal that’s actually a far safer option (note I disagree with the entire concept but if hotel quarantine is going to exist, then banning passengers and forcing them to route through hubs with a bunch of green/amber list passengers makes no sense).

EDIT - not that I trust the Sun but...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/1515...ed-list-trial/

currently some of the red list countries also have a direct inbound passenger flight ban

It sounds like they are just planning to remove the direct flight ban from some/all of these so you can fly in directly but all other restrictions (enforced hotel quarantine & post arrival testing) will remain.

It looks like all the direct flight bans are gone. It will be interesting to see how many people this brings in and if it makes T3 financially viable without the government blank cheque.

Is it being used for departures?

It will be interesting to see if June 21st holds. Looking at the freedoms we have right now, I’m not sure I’m bothered either way vis-à-vis hold vs delay. I’m more concerned with rolling back what we have. If cases continue to rise very rapidly while severe cases continue to rise very slowly, I would treat further restrictions, and the motivation behind them, with a degree of scepticism.

Arrivals only at the moment. The assumption is that departing passengers are no additional risk.

Thanks KARFA wilsnunn and KSVVZ2015 for the precisation, I'd forgotten about the difference between red countries and, erm, even-more-red countries.

With regards to T3, it's interesting to see what BA is doing with Indian and Pakistani arrivals: they are all seemingly landing into T5 and from there arrivals are bussed into T3 while connections, well, connect. Departures too are from T5 (OH checked today's BOM and tomorrow's DEL and LHE).

Paging CWS
I had my first AZ on 18th of April, and right after booked second one for 3rd of July.
Today I received a text from my GP inviting me to book second one for tomorrow or Monday. That is less than 8 weeks. I know you've said 8 weeks should be minimum and I'm in no hurry. What I would like to know is it going to cause me any issues if I ignore this text and just keep my original appointment?
TIA

CWS will obviously have the medical answer and probably one for the appointment. Just to flag however that an increasing number of countries have different travel restrictions for fully vaccinated travelers so if you have travel plans or want to make them, that is a consideration. See eg France.