Thread by @Telegraph

🦠 Is a third wave inevitable?
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

📈 The raw data does not look good. Cases of the delta variant have been growing exponentially from a low base since early May, and for the past seven days have averaged about 5,000 new cases a day

💉 Cases, are only a worry if they lead to hospitalisations – and this time around we have vaccines to protect us.

📊 But the latest Public Health England data put the vaccine's effectiveness against symptomatic disease at 33 per cent after one dose and 81 per cent after two

🏥 It will be the number of hospitalisations that determines if the roadmap ends up having to be reversed and a new lockdown imposed.

📉 The last set of modelling, published in May, contained projections for what might happen if a new, more transmissible variant broke loose

👀 But we may yet get lucky. The delta variant remains unevenly spread across the country, with cases still concentrated in about a dozen areas and there are very early indications is growth is slowing.

🔗 Read @PaulNuki's full analysis:
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…