The lack of vaccination in the rest of the world is far more important now than a few % points between European states but for those interested, Spain has now overtaken the UK on % of population fully vaccinated. Has best performance of 50 largest countries by population.
One of the reasons for that is that Spain already opens its vaccination programme to 16-17 year olds. They're planning to open to other teenagers before school resumes in September. Mirrors approach in several other European states- UK sticking with 18+
Assuming that continues to be the case and given so many others European states are doing the under 18s, over time is likely the UK will continue to slip down the table.
NEW: Ministers have decided that fully vaccinated people from the EU and US will be able to enter England without quarantine. Decision from Scotland and Wales to follow.
Of course, this doesn’t mean UK travellers can visit the US any time soon. Biden has maintained the Trump travel restrictions.
We’re expected to get more details on the England plans later this afternoon. Will update.
Extraordinary day of testimony from Capitol Police on Jan 6th attacks. Sergeant Gonnell: “All of them-all of them were telling us ‘Trump sent us.’” Officer Hodges: “It was a white nationalist insurrection.” Officer Dunn: police were subjected to repeated racial abuse, incl n-word
Officer Fanone on much of Congressional GOP: “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful. Nothing, truly nothing, has prepared me to address those elected members of our govt who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so, betray their oath of office”.
Officer Hodges repeatedly described the attackers as “terrorists.” When challenged as to why he did so, he said they fulfilled the dictionary definition of the term as someone who seeks “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
Licence fee barely moved for 10 years, something called for by lots of newspapers (indeed they usually want far more significant cuts) and then outrage as, guess what, the BBC can’t afford to do certain things. telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2021/…
In this case the IOC just did a deal with Discovery directly, didn’t even invite bids with traditional public broadcasters, who wouldn’t have been able to compete. BBC Sport directors have been warning about restrictive licence fee settlements affecting sports coverage for years.
Btw I‘ve no objection to it being on Eurosports so long as it’s free to air. I used to work for a commercial broadcaster and feel strongly about how important they are, just as I do about the BBC. It’s the hypocrisy about BBC inevitably doing less sometimes which is the problem.
NEW: UK Covid cases fall for the third day in a row.
Number of infections down by 15,000 or so compared with last Friday.
Picture in Scotland looks more positive still. Very clear sustained reduction in cases now. Number of patients admitted to hospital starting to reduce too.
Changes to restrictions on Monday in England won’t have def into UK numbers yet so this doesn’t tell us everything. But if it’s sustained it’s a better place to be and deal with any stage4 effects than we would have been otherwise.