From Robert Boyle:

He's got to be part of Michael Gove's trial.

Today's top tip for the Telegraph: it's not a real paywall just an annoying message and if you disable javascript for the telegraph.co.uk domain then a side effect is that you can read the articles.

I look forward to Michael Gove being up in front of a judge and jury. What are the charges?

Incompetence and being a Chelsea supporter? :)

If incompetence were a crime...

Jokes aside, when Gove was pinged after having gone to indeed see Chelsea win one of the most boring CL finals in recent years a trial test programme popped up, by pure coincidence, by which he was able not to self isolate but instead he did LFDs every day for 10 days.

Sharma's situation highlights one point, though. For that minority of people who needs to be highly mobile, the current situation is maddening. I don't know what Sharma does and where he fits on the super competent - Shapps (SCS) spectrum; I certainly wish the COP26 to be a success and I hope it's a resounding success after the abject failure of the G8 in Cornwall, but that's not the point. There's a small amount of people who need to be constantly on the go and it's a pain for them. In my previous job I had to take an engineer from Norway to install an LTE and Ka-Band comms set (plus a shedload of various IT kit, cables and other bits and pieces) on a vessel that, like all vessels, had a bad habit of moving about. By the time all was said and done the poor engineer had chased the ship from Alesund to Bergen to Reykjavik to Aberdeen to Bermuda, had spent one month in various quarantines and had gone through a dozen PCRs. "I have nostrils the size of an elephant foot, enough!" was one of his messages on Slack.

Daily data:

Cases 31,808 (29,622 last Friday)
Deaths 92 (68)
Patients admitted 778 (927 on the 26th)
Patients in hospital 5,631 (5,916 on the 29th)
Patients in ventilation beds 871 (869 on the 29th)
People vaccinated up to and including 05 August 2021:
First dose: 46,961,830
Second dose: 39,047,529

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 6.2% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 18.3%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 85.0 today.

The Guardian reports that six EU nations have now fully vaccinated a greater proportion of their population than the UK, and that several more EU countries will be overtaking us very shortly.Six EU states overtake UK Covid vaccination rates as Britain’s rollout slows | Coronavirus | The Guardian

Does anyone know why Britain's vaccination rollout has slowed so dramatically? Is it supply? Vaccine hesitancy amongst the young? A combination? Or something else entirely?

It's not a good comparison basis. The main reason is that these figures are for the entire population, whereas the UK has one or the largest percentage (and number) of under 18 year olds in Europe. The UK median age is a full 7 years younger than Germany, and until recently we weren't allowed to vaccinate people under 18 years old unless there were other factors involved. It's also partly that the UK requires second vaccines to be after 8 weeks, whereas Europe is (largely) sticking to 4 weeks or so, so they get to 2nd vaccinations faster. I'm sure you know my views about that! But it's getting difficult to get past 89% of adults vaccinated with so many people under 30 years old, slow to get their vaccines is annoying a lot of us. Part of it is that some younger people were isolating, a heck of lot of them had COVID (and thus barred from the vaccine for 4 weeks), some were taking exams and so probably wanted to get past that first. It does seem to creeping up a bit, 62% of those 18-24 were vaccinated on 3 August compared to 50% on 3 July.

But we really could do with getting to 90% plus coverage. Vaccinations will rise in the next few weeks thanks to 16 to 18 year olds getting their jabs, but that's not going to effect the 88.8% figure on its own. Antibody levels are around 95% so perhaps it doesn't matter so much.

Snap! Same >2500 U/ml here. I had an Indeterminate Covid PCR result ~6 months ago (plus some blood tests indicating infection with something), so might have been previously infected (or perhaps even re-infected?!). Still not confident enough to go around licking lamp-posts, though.

It appears from news paper reports today that it is no longer necessary to isolate if someone on your flight tests positive for COVID:

Flight mode disables the app... Or is flight mode another ministerial exemption?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...-staff-member/

Daily data:

Cases 28,612 (26,144 last Saturday)
Deaths 103 (71)
Patients admitted 742 (912 on the 27th)
People vaccinated up to and including 06 August 2021:
First dose: 46,997,495
Second dose: 39,210,356

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 2.2% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 28.5%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 89.6 today.

At the moment, I’m worried what happens when the term starts. The decision on 16-17 years came late. No idea in my own mind how government should deal with the rest (12-15 is one big ethical dilemma). Hopefully Term doesn’t equate to an uptick in hospitalisations and deaths.

Other countries are vaccinating 12 year olds.

No it's not. Adolescents should be being vaccinated.

My thinking: The vaccination programme is the single largest medical experiment in history. As such, consent matters and the majority of people have granted that consent either out of self interest, for the greater good (or, more likely they simply didn’t know). Anyone under 16 doesn’t have the right of consent. Vaccination can be forced on them, or denied to them. Remember the bill of rights for your average British 15 year old might as well read “You have the right to do as your are told*,” with the quid quo pro being we’re not sending them up a chimney or down a mine, because that’s what being a vaguely enlightened society is all about.

* An exaggeration, but the difference in rights and responsibilities between two age groups is pretty stark.

I wasn't born here but aren't all newborns/toddlers vaccinated against hepatitis, measles and a few others?