I used to go to the football with enough Lire or Francs for a beer and the bus ticket home wrapped inside my ID card, house keys and a scarf in case it started raining tear gas... How things have changed! :D

Grant Shapps on TV this morning, claiming that the continued requirement to wear face coverings on all London transport services is exactly what the government was hoping for.

As the Guardian says, it does remain slightly unclear how if you have a rule in place that something must be done, the way to ensure that it continues to be done, because you want it to be done, is to remove the rule that it must be done. :)

I've been quick to criticise Scotland with travel stuff in the past, but, around continued mask use, some restrictions on gatherings in the home and some time restrictions on pins, no clubs etc...I think we have gotten the balance right at this stage.

That's not the general experience of football, or at least mine, I've got to say. I support a Club that's (currently) in the Premier League, having spent most of the last 10 years playing before capacity grounds at whatever level they've been at - which has been from PL to League 1. (Or Division 1 to Division 3 for those of us of a more senior disposition.)

I've very regularly waltzed into our home ground between 5 and 10 minutes before kick-off, having walked down from the pub, and never yet have I managed to miss kick-off. It really shouldn't be too hard for Clubs to put a flag into their database which shows that proof of vaccination has been seen and recorded against a season ticket number/membership, so whilst accepting there will inevitably be some short term disruption whilst all this is sorted out, it really shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to create an automated entry check.

Daily data:

Cases 42,302 (32,548 last Wednesday)
Deaths 49 (33)
People vaccinated up to and including 13 July 2021:
First dose: 46,037,090
Second dose:35,155,767

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 27.4% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 42.2%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 32.7 today. A data processing issue means the healthcare figures are not so far available today. It was widely reported earlier that 2/3 of the UK adult population is now fully vaccinated. Tomorrows update may be late as I will be in the air.

I have 66.7% with that figure so yes that milestone was hit yesterday.

59,000 first vaccinations and 158,000 second vaccinations were administered in the UK yesterday, continuing a period of relatively low numbers.

After a slow start to its own vaccination programme, the EU is now quickly catching up with the UK in terms of the proportion of its population that is fully vaccinated.

UK: 52%
Spain 47%
Germany 44%
Ireland 43%
France 39%

I can’t speak to the rest of Europe, but although other countries are indeed catching up as a proportion of people vaccinated, Germany’s rate of vaccinations has also slowed recently. A few weeks back there were sometimes 2-3 days a week with over a million doses administered; even the busiest days in the last week or two haven’t seen more than one million doses. As ever details are at https://impfdashboard.de/

I think in both cases, the UK and Germany, this is likely a case of many of the ‘low-hanging fruit’ having been vaccinated. We’re left with people who are less keen, or who have other barriers to vaccination (eg education, language, etc). That requires the long slog of continuous outreach work.

Germany's vaccination programme seems to be following a similar trajectory to the UK's, although they are currently still administering twice as many doses per day as the UK.

Whatever the reasons for the slump in the UK's vaccination rate (supply, hesitancy...), we're in a race against the delta variant and need to get more people - and younger people - fully protected.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c79717a877.jpg

I think that is to be expected. As far as I'm aware the rest of the EU countries are sticking to the 3-4 week gaps whereas the UK is 8 weeks, so they can gain fully vaccinated people quickly.

87.5% of the adult population has had one dose which is close to as good as it gets as even if demand follows the current downtrend there's still going to be a couple more million first doses given out over the summer. Having said that, there's a few percent who don't get the second dose so we'll have to wait a couple of months for fully vaccinated numbers.

One of the slightly odd things about Britain is that we breed rather a lot. So we are actually one of the youngest countries in the Western World, the median Brit is 7 years younger then the median German, and a couple of years younger than the median Canadian. So these numbers don't take account of a relatively large chunk of the UK population that will not be getting vaccines since they are just too young. So 66.77% of UK adults have had both doses, 87.44% at least one dose. Now one country has a very young population indeed, namely Israel, and while they have been vaccinating some children, that explains why on some indicators - not ones that should be used - the UK has apparently vaccinated a greater proportion of the population than Israel.

Indeed, so today I was stationed outside Tesco in Kingston Park, asking people if they have had their jabs as they came out. We had a pop-up clinic by the metro station. We did manage to get to another 45 people as a result, over a 5 hour period, whereas in the early days I would be vaccinating 45 people in an hour. We did get some people this way, including a 60 year old who had been putting her first vaccine off and off and off. She got done today thankfully.

I did have a Little Britain moment. One lass emerged, not wearing a lot, hair extensions, eye lashes, nails that went on and on. She was dragging a 6 year old rather loud lad with her, who had clearly inherited direct speech from mum. I asked her is she had had her vaccines, she looked slightly shocked and said "Errr, um, yes". At which point the shouty kid piped up for all to hear, "Oh no she hasn't, she's scared of needles!". "Shut up Troy" was her reply as she bundled herself off the premises.

at this rate of infection looks like immunity will take place one way or another even if ppl don’t get jabbed. I see the vaccine rates continuing to slow down as we are at a very high vaccination rate now, it’s mainly the younger ppl waiting for the 2nd doses. That’s why first dose counts are very low now

Wales will be lifting many restrictions on 7 August, but the wearing of face coverings will still be mandatory on public transport and in shops and other enclosed spaces.

The First Minister, Mark Drakeford, explained why Wales has taken a different path.Mr Drakeford said that England is "the outlier" on mask wearing and that it will be difficult for people in England to know exactly what is required of them after 19 July. He said that it would be simpler if the same face-mask rules were applied across the whole of the UK, and that it would be "simpler and clearer for everybody" if the UK government were to "bring itself in line" with Wales and Scotland on face coverings.

Covid: People coming into Wales on public transport 'must wear masks' - BBC News

Yes, I agree and this applies elsewhere too - including here in Germany which has bought itself some time by keeping Delta out as much as it can and with low baseline case rates. This won't continue, so we need to get more vaccinated to prevent significant difficulties in a month or three.

I really hope that everyone following this thread is encouraging the people they know, especially if those people are hesitant, to get vaccinated. People tend to pay attention to those closest to them - family members, close friends and so on - so if you know people who might be uncertain, please do try to encourage them.

Although incredibly resource intensive, I suspect this will be the main way in which the majority of the remaining people will be vaccinated. Do you have any sense on whether the diminishing returns we're getting, especially amongst younger groups, will put at risk the UK's ability to hit high enough targets for immunity at a population level? And if so, whether this makes it more or less likely for 12-18 year olds to be offered Pfizer to get the rates up?

This made me laugh out loud. Definitely not a shy bairn! Though it is a real shame she didn't take up the offer, and I wonder how many others are in similar positions.