Nicola Sturgeon says that Scottish lockdown restrictions will likely be maintained for a further three weeks from June 28th (when restrictions were supposed to be eased) so as to "buy time" to fully vaccinate more Scots.
All adults in England are expected to be offered a Covid vaccine by the end of the week. The Chief Executive of NHS England hopes that two-thirds of all over-18s will be fully vaccinated by July 19th.
Progress in reducing deaths from breast cancer has been put at risk by lockdown, with more than 10,000 fewer patients in England alone having started treated for the disease in the past year compared to the year before.
Boris Johnson has extended lockdown by four weeks to vaccinate more Brits and prevent "thousands more deaths". He says July 19th will be a "terminus date", but notes that a "new variant" could warrant further delays.
The Prime Minister will have to put his updated lockdown roadmap dates to a vote in the Commons before the end of June – a vote which he will likely win, but not without a swell of opposition from his own MPs.
All adults in Wales have been offered the first dose of a Covid vaccine, and zero deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test have been reported on 10 of the 13 first days of June. So why the slow unlock?
The PM has yet to formally announce a four-week delay to the end of lockdown in England, but Government figures have already hinted that restrictions could be extended beyond July 19th and into the month of August.
The number of passengers travelling through U.K. airports fell by 223 million in 2020 because of travel restrictions, a decline of 75% from 2019.
Extending lockdown by four weeks could cost the economy £4 billion and put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk – not to mention the costs to other aspects of our lives. But the Government seems poised to do it anyway.
The Government believes that on the "balance of probabilities", Covid did not leak from a lab, according to Dominic Raab. The Foreign Secretary says it is more likely that the virus "jumped" from animals to humans.
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