The U.K. has passed the milestone of fully vaccinating 25 million adults against Covid, with the figure for first doses nearing 40 million. Also on Sunday, the slight increase in positive Covid tests has been offset (yet again) by the low number of reported deaths (just six).
Despite all this, uncertainty remains about whether the country will unlock on June 21st. Sky News has more.
Another 3,240 coronavirus cases were recorded [on Sunday] and the latest statistics showed 39,259,168 people have had a first dose of a Covid vaccine.
A total of 25,332,851 have had two jabs.
The latest coronavirus R (reproduction) number is estimated to be between 1.0 and 1.1 – up from between 0.9 and 1.1 last week.
This means that, on average, every 10 people infected with Covid will infect between 10 and 11 other people.
The Government is now considering making Covid vaccinations compulsory for NHS workers, while an expert has warned there still remains “an awful lot of uncertainty” over whether England can proceed with its planned relaxation of Covid restrictions on June 21st.
Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) Government advisory panel, was asked on LBC if the country was on track to reopen by that date.
He said: “I think at the moment there’s quite a lot of uncertainty around that.
“We are starting to see signs of course that cases are going up, but at the moment we’re still obviously reporting hospital admissions and deaths at very low levels.”
Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi says that no final decision will be made (or, at least, announced) on the fourth and final step of the roadmap out of lockdown until June 14th.
The Sky News report is worth reading in full.
