My experience of four trips within the last fortnight is that 95% were wearing masks - this was Liverpool Street to Gloucester Road, Gloucester Road to Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith to Heathrow T5 (with a brief wait at Hatton Cross) and T5 to Shoreditch (so a bit of Overground as well). I also try to sit as far away as possible from anyone that doesn't wear a mask to minimise risk as much as I can, and off that very limited sample my impression is that there's much better compliance than late last year when large groups clearly had no intention of complying.

But yes, there will sadly always be people who do things out of belligerence rather than careful thought of the possible consequences to others.

You must've been extremely lucky because in the past months my experience is very much in line with wilsnunn's, on trains but also in shops and supermarkets. The mask exemption thing is a farce, starting from UKBF and moving on to the "sunflower lanyard". It's really sad to see how many people can't even do this small gesture, all things considered, that could really save lives.

Daily data:

Cases 27,125 (15,810 last Friday)
Deaths 27 (18)
Patients admitted 304 (224 on the 21st)
Patients in hospital 1,795 (1,485 on the 23rd)
Patients in ventilation beds 300 (259 on the 24th)
People vaccinated up to and including 1 July 2021:
First dose: 45,013,503
Second dose: 33,241,265

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 74.2% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 11.8%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 17.6 today.

Up, up and away...
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2c69a54b17.jpg

To add a little perspective:


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c2e5f77e60.png

All those cases eh.......

Vaccinations have greatly weakened the link between infections and deaths but have not broken it: the average number of daily deaths is up by 140% in the past month and is continuing to climb as cases increase. Meanwhile, deaths in other countries are falling rapidly as their own vaccination programmes gather pace. At current trends, by the end of this month the UK will have not only the greatest number of new cases but possibly one of the greatest numbers of daily deaths too.

And yet we have people here just looking at the headline figure and saying there is nothing to worry about. You were saying that about the daily case figures just two months ago.

And exactly the same thing one year, you can go back and found the same persons saying that this is over, we should open, etc ...
The correct thing to do is to be prudent, observe and quickly adjust if necessary. The lessons of the last summer are quickly not learnt, the same mistakes are made. The vaccines are a barrier, not a cure. They need to be universally distributed to a high level before we can start really breathing.

Not what one would expect!! :D

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ine-to-divorce

Update: Turned up at Stansted to fly to Poznan this afternoon after having checked in online. Completely normal experience, and only a half-full FR flight so rather pleasant. Great crew.

One of the first off the bus at arrivals despite being in the centre exit row and second in the queue for non-EU arrivals (boooo). Passed a printout from the NHS app to the agent plus my passport as well as showing her my phone screen. She had a few runs through my passport, seemingly amused by the number of random stamps in there, smiled at me, stamped me in and wished me good day. I was on the bus into the city within a few minutes of scheduled arrival time.

So the whole Indian manufactured AZ thing is actually not an issue or I got lucky. I suspect most places accepting fully vaccinated Brits will just want to see a printout or the app and won't look at the batch numbers in detail, although of course YMMV.

Happy days. Now for a week of beer and old trains before heading on to Spain for more beer! 😁

Every country would kill for the vaccine rollout that the UK has shown and the subsequent effect on deaths and hospitalisations. Quite why you think the UK should wait for the others in the universe to catch up is beyond me. You should be pleased that some countries have shown the way and what vaccines can do and instead of saying we need to be prudent, say "well done". If I was in a country where the vaccine rollout was pedestrian the last thing that I would expect is for a heavily vaccinated country to wait until the slower countries had caught up. I wouldn't be that selfish.

yet thats exactly what you are though by saying "screw the other countries behind" which incidentally usually do not have the same infrastructure or health care systems to manage mass outbreaks. most continental countries are not far behind but the poorest across the globe are as you well know.

it sounds very much like those who were saying "i am going to mexico or the bahamas this winter to save those people working in tourism" last year by importing the disease. oh please.

while i agree that there should not be a fixation on case numbers but rather in the UK we should pivot to the success the vaccine has been in breaking the link while still warning there is a consequence of long covid for some, but life should resume to a certain extent and i've obviously been no fan of how our govt manages travel for fully vaccinated visitors or citizens/residents--it is a mess of politics while the continent continues to do their best on vaccinating ahead of delta as best they can so until they are comfortable with the risk analysis we are isolated. angela was a bit of hope today in terms of sensibility.

Almost every other developed country in the world has managed the crisis better than the U.K. and has a significantly lower death rate regardless of pace of vaccination.

It is not about the UK waiting for other countries to catch up, it is about waiting for everyone in the UK that wants to be vaccinated to actually be vaccinated. We are effectively moving back to the herd immunity strategy by removing restrictions so that young people get infected before they can be fully vaccinated. I can see the public health benefits in this approach, but while death is very very unlikely and hospitalisation very rare in young people, I'm not convinced the long term side effects are really 'nothing' in young people. I can't see an easy answer.

Also, I'm also still very angry at how the Government can impose some of the most draconian travel restrictions, deliver a very fast vaccine roll-out and still mess it all up because of political reasons about Boris's visit to India.

so im trying to parse what you mean here. if you are talking about restrictions in the country sure, i agree at this point. if beyond the uk, well other countries requiring us to quarantine have nothing to do with our government though. further you only have to have a few healthy young friends to see what actually happens unfortunately wrt long covid as many of my dr friends in nyc still suffer from today.


aaaand i just got a NHS notice to self isolate for just 4 days. is it based on the ten day model? if i count back ten days i was only in two places in durham that i checked in to. not helpful considering i did my grocery shopping and errands all day.

Yes, it counts back. That is what happened to my daughter. Notice late Thursday to isolate until midnight Monday, based on exposure last Friday. Meanwhile she has been all over the place since last Friday. (Not in a particularly reckless way, but she goes to work every day, went bowling with a few friends, went to her weekly riding class, and so on)