If Hammersmith isn't too hard to get too, I've seen a few walk-ins available at the vaccine centre at the Novotel in Hammersmith (right beside Hammersmith station) over the past few weeks - announcements on their twitter (as well as at other locations - https://twitter.com/lbhf).

Same here and I think that this ‘awareness’ is at least a really valuable lesson learnt. My last common cold/flu like symptoms were in late February 2020 (and with hindsight I’m not sure if it might even have been Covid-19...).

Also, I agree that face masks will have a place in certain situations for a very long time to come. I can no longer imagine standing squashed in a 8.30am central London bound Piccadilly line train or sitting 10-abreast with new friends from all over the world at “the back of the bus” for hours.

Hi,

another bad day for cases in Scotland at 1104 . However no deaths

Dundee now seems to have the highest incidence of new cases now.

Suspect another high level of cases for the uk when announced later.

Regards
tbs

Ps sky has just announced 8125 cases and 17 deaths

The number of reported new cases is over 8,000 today. Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are all up significantly on last week. Amongst unvaccinated people in their 20s, the increase in cases is exponential.

This is not the time to be throwing all restrictions aside.

I would agree that a short delay, or more phased approach (e.g. phase 4a and 4b) seems the most sensible. I see lots of people cleverer than me crunching the numbers and trying to balance flattening the wave through the summer, but trying to avoid a winter crisis again.

The only certainty seems to be that the vast majority will get antibodies against covid. I hope most get them the easy way with the vaccine. By delaying reopening by 4 weeks hopefully the over 50's will have better protection from the vaccine. I am not sure of the morality of relaxing or even keeping current restrictions in the knowledge it means most young people will get covid-19, but at least from a public health point of view I think it is reasonable.

The very good news is that the vaccine significantly reduces hospitalisation and death. This does mean that in the next few months, even with the current restrictions we are likely to see large case numbers, but with only a moderate increase in hospitalisations and deaths. The high case numbers will likely have implications on which countries accept UK travellers.

Daily data:

Cases 8,125 (6,238 last Thursday)
Deaths 17 (11)
Patients admitted 173 (123 on the 31st)
Patients in hospital 1,058 (954 on the 2nd)
Patients in ventilation beds 158 (134 on the 3rd)
People vaccinated up to and including 10 June 2021:
First dose: 41,088,485
Second dose: 29,165,140

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 58.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 10.9%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 8.7 today. The only good news here is that we are at least over the 70 million mark on jabs.

And in a way, you are lukcy to get it in summer, making things easier and having a R0 reduction due to the weather. In continental Europe we will have the same wave in September/October with possible worse effects due to a lower vaccination rate (France starts to hit the ceiling, demand is now lower than offer) and a less clement weather meaning more people inside.

Various media outlets are reporting that the lifting of lockdown in England will be delayed by four weeks, to 19 July.

Edited to add: The only original source of this story seems to be The Sun: the other sources I've seen seem only to be reporting that the Sun is reporting...

The leaking has begun. There’s little prospect of what you posted above being proved wrong :-).

Now all we need is Auntie Nicola north of the border to pop up with some announcement over the weekend to get ahead of BoJos announcement on Monday and it will all be a foregone conclusion

Nicola is presiding over a reported Covid case rate double that of England - where are the scientists lining up to criticise her inaction? She doesn't pay the furlough bill, so has pretty much a blank cheque to spend on this...

GB News starts tomorrow Sunday 13th June, they will have something to say about it I am sure.

Common sense is on the side of The Sun: not an everyday observation :D

Relaxing restrictions in the face of accelerating infections, hospitalisations and deaths would be reckless. Fate rarely rewards making the same mistake more than once.

Hopefully the company BJ is currently keeping will isolate from the loons among his back benchers.

Presumably that the blame lies squarely with Black Lives Matter, the EU and Harry & Megan…

It's tempting to think that restrictions achieve good outcomes because of their harshness, but I find this difficult to agree with. Really, keeping extraordinarily expensive restrictions that result in significant collateral damage in place, where all the restrictions do is delay the inevitable, seems to be equally reckless.