Thread by @andrewflood

Jun 9 #Covid19 Cautious Reopening with todays cases lowest this year (but possible BH effect). Added as red dots
259 cases, 64% last Weds
76 hospital, 82% last Weds
27 ICU, 77% last Weds
All well below expected, doing a bit better now than so far so good /1

Also welcome news that Delta has only increased by 11 since last week so no increase in the rate of increase. England & Wales have seen cases double this week due to Delta & indoor hospitality having reopened. We could not afford that sort of rate of increase /2

Donnelly Tweeted an age incidence table that while showing vaccination protection of over 55s as he intended also revealed rising rates of infection in kids, teens & young adults. Almost no one in these groups is vaccinated or likely to be vaccinated any time before indoor pubs

The big danger is that Delta gets an in there and apart from causing some hospitalisations in those age group uses those infections as as way of infecting older adults not yet fully protected. This is a pattern we are arguably seeing across the Irish Sea /4

With the aim of doing 250-270k vaccine doses next week it also appears that the program has not accelerated as it would need to in order to reach the 80%+ of adults promised. This & Delta make the opening pubs indoors on July 5th risky unless cases continue to very low levels /5

Finally the low cases today & yesterday are very welcome but a note of caution is that the bank holiday would mean we should expect todays number to be lower than a normal Wednesday. We will see tomorrow if there is a return to above 400 cases per day /6