Are hospitals filling up and will freedom be delayed?

Q Are Covid-19 hospital admissions rising?

A On Thursday, Public Health England published data revealing a slight increase in Covid19 hospitalisations over the previous two weeks. Last week, there were 923 patients in hospital due to the virus in the UK, up from 895 two weeks ago. The number of people seriously ill on ventilators also rose across the same period, from 124 to 136. It was always expected that these figures would increase when lockdown eased, as a significant number of people have yet to be vaccinated.

It is only if these figures were to rise substantially that the Government would worry that the vaccine rollout is not proving as effective as hoped at keeping people out of hospital. There is no sign of that happening just yet.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Government would continue to keep a close eye on hospital figures. He added: ‘The vaccine breaks that link [between cases and hospitalisations]. The question is how much the link has been broken.’

Q If the majority of vulnerable people are now vaccinated, why would we need to delay ‘freedom day’ beyond June 21?

A Last week marked another major milestone for the Covid vaccine rollout: more than half of UK adults have now had two doses.

Perhaps more importantly, though, more than 90 per cent of Britons over 60 – those most at risk of serious illness and death – are now fully vaccinated.

Given that the justification for lockdowns and restrictions was to protect the vulnerable, it is easy to see why talk of delaying the removal of all restrictions beyond June 21 has left many confused.

If the UK were still dealing with Covid in its original form, then it’s likely there would be no need to push this date back. However, scientists say the Indian variant, also called the Delta variant, has dramatically changed things. Studies suggest the variant may be 70 per cent more infectious than the Kent variant, which itself was 50 per cent more infectious than the initial virus that arrived in the UK in January 2020.

Experts believe that if the Delta variant is allowed to spread, it is likely it will reach those who are unvaccinated. On Thursday, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said that while there was nothing in the data to suggest the road map out of lockdown may have to be adjusted, ‘the next 12 days are going to be really important to see what the virus is doing’.