DaveS

Daily data:

Cases 41,648 (57,623 last Monday)
Deaths 35 (45)
Patients admitted 1,413 (1,711 on the 1st)
Patients in hospital 12,357 (14,237 on the 4th)
Patients in ventilation beds 416 (474 on the 4th)
Vaccinated up to and including 13 February 2022:
First dose: 52,514,094
Second dose: 48,758,907
Booster: 37,786,235

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 30.0% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 27.2%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 177.6 today.

Internaut

Patients on ventilation beds lower than 400 by next week?

corporate-wage-slave

Northern Ireland is removing most restrictions from tomorrow, according to the Health Minister Robin Swann, who ironically enough is isolating from Covid-19. This removes the requirement for face masks in most settings (inlcuding in clinical settings), restrictions on business (such as gathering contact details), and Covid passports for nightclubs. In its place will be guidelines, so hospitality businesses can impose their own restrictions, including Covid passports, if they wish.

The restrictions remaining in place relate to the requirement to self isolate and assist contact tracing. The law for that expires on 24 March, but the Minister is seeking a 6 month extension to enable that, though that doesn't mean those requirements will be in place for all or possibly any of that time. This is a bit sticky since Stormont's power-sharing government has collapsed and the Health Minister is UUP, not part of the 2 largest parties in Northern Ireland. However there seems to be cross-party support for this and endorsement from the Chief Medical Officer.

Dan1113

More pressure on Wales and Scotland to do the same I guess.

Misco60

There are, of course, practical issues when you have an open border with a larger country whose covid rules are more relaxed, but I believe that most people here in Wales, while looking forward to the end of restrictions, do not yet feel that the time is right for us to abandon all of them.

We are aware that the proposed changes in England are a result of the PM's political difficulties and that there has been little obvious enthusiasm from Sage, the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser.

KARFA

when do you feel the time would be right?

13901

I don't know about you folks, but over here in London it feels as if Covid's done for. Mask wearing continues in some places but, frankly, it's always been sporadic. Besides that... what else remains? Piers Corbyn defying the law and not much else methinks.

NewbieRunner

Chester FC with its car park in England and the pitch in Wales was in the news earlier this year for potentially breaking Welsh Covid rules.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59906505

I agree that there is more public confidence in the Welsh government’s handling of the pandemic than in England. It seems ironic that Northern Ireland is relaxing the rules when it has a higher infection rate than Wales and most parts of England and Scotland.

dnajockey

Plenty of disruption in the HE sector with multiple staff and student absences

Silver Fox

It's over as far as London is concerned. Every time I go there it is less and less obvious covid ever existed. People are not working at home to any great degree any longer, tourists seem to be increasing, some half hearted attempts at mask wearing but diminishing rapidly. Pubs and clubs are just as normal. Same with sporting events.

Professor Yaffle

Totally agree, except for good old Southern Trains, who are still using it as an excuse to run a very skeleton service. Muppets.

DaveS

Daily data:

Cases 46,186 (66,183 last Tuesday)
Deaths 234 (314)
Patients admitted 1,110 (1,344 on the 4th)
Patients in hospital 12,304 (13,959 on the 7th)
Patients in ventilation beds 393 (443 on the 7th)
Vaccinated up to and including 14 February 2022:
First dose: 52,522,201
Second dose: 48,777,079
Booster: 37,818,285

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 26.6% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 37.5%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 166.1 today.

alex67500

For people who regularly have a look at the gov.uk covid dashboard, there's a survey until the end of the week here: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/COVID-19dashboard/

the810

Not as much nonsense as what happens in Denmark where it works in the reverse - CPH still maintains a mask mandate as pretty much the last non-medical facility in the country, but airlines don't require masks on board intra-Scandinavian flights (except for Ryanair). That means that you have to wear a mask while walking around the airport with lots of space and usually no close contact and then you remove it once you get crammed into a full A320 with several people close to you for an hour (or more). The same applies in reverse - you arrive mask-free, then have to put a mask on for those 10 minutes while you walk through the terminal and once you cross the magic white line (which designates the part of terminal where masks are required), you remove it and never put it on again during your stay in Denmark. Ridiculous.

Speaking of Scandinavian flights, this could also be a solution for BA and other carriers - mask rules don't need to be uniform across the network. They could follow what Nordic airlines do - don't require masks on routes to places where they aren't required (or recommended) by local authorities but keep them on other routes. At the moment, this would mean no masks on routes to England, Wales and Scandinavia. Ultimately I think this will be what European airlines choose to do - keeping mask mandates won't be sustainable on European flights for much longer but removing them on Asian routes could be tricky.

Also, flying to countries that have domestic mask mandates doesn't necessarily mean you have to require them on board as most countries (US being a notable exception) don't really extend these mandates to (foreign) planes. Flyr removed its mask mandate network-wide, so it is perfectly possible to fly with them to mask-heavy destinations like Italy or Spain without wearing a mask on board. But this would be more problematic for airline like BA, which operates beyond Europe.

IAN-UK

​​​​​​UK covid-related regulations are fractured along national borders, and those national regulations shift frequently. You’ll have noted Northern Ireland ditched its mask mandate the day after your post, underlining the awkwardness of attempting to delineate the policy of each UK nation when the situation relevant to a specific component nation are the focus of discussion.



As a Scot now marooned in Yorkshire I recognise the sensitivities of the devolved nations to English hegemony, but I also recognise referring to each nation’s volatile variations in policy when responding to the concerns of a contributor based in one of the nations as clumsy and serving little purpose, beyond the woke.