Britain’s daily Covid cases hit 9,000 for the first time since February

Britain today recorded 9,000 daily Covid cases for the first time since February as the Indian variant continues to spread widely across the country.

Department of Health bosses posted 9,055 positive tests across the UK — up by a fifth on last Wednesday’s count. It is the highest toll since February 25, when 9,985 infections were registered.

Hospitalisations have also risen by 40 per cent in the space of a week in a clear sign that the rapid spread of the mutant strain has started to increase pressure on hospitals despite the success of the vaccination drive. Health officials recorded 173 admissions on June 12, the most recent day figures are available for. For comparison, the figure the previous Saturday was 123.

Despite the uptick in the number of infected patients needing NHS care, deaths remain flat. Another nine victims were added to the official fatality toll today, up from six last week — but the overall daily average for the past week has remained in single figures. 

But in a glimmer of hope the fast-spreading strain won’t force ministers into delaying Freedom Day again, figures also show Covid outbreaks appear to be flat or falling in Bolton, Blackburn and other areas that were the first to be hit by the Indian Delta variant.  

Fears are growing, however, that a shortage of jabs may force No10 to push back the final unlocking once again, with the pace of the roll-out having already slowed to around 450,000 a day — half of the speed seen during the best days of the programme.

Ministers have conceded supply of Pfizer’s jab is ‘tight’ while Moderna’s is also limited, and regulators have advised under-40s are not given the British-made AstraZeneca jab – the only other one available – because of its rare links to fatal blood clots, massively increasing demand for the other two options.

Boris Johnson stressed the urgent need to inoculate as many people as possible to finally end restrictions on July 19, insisting the four-week delay gave the NHS ‘more crucial weeks’ to protect Britons from the Indian variant. 

But government advisers have warned that some restrictions are likely to remain even after the final step of lifting lockdown has been taken, with social distancing and measures like work from home, face masks and test and trace continuing. Peaks of future outbreaks ‘would be much higher’ if all the advice was abandoned completely, scientists warned.

In other developments today:

• One of the country’s top scientists today insisted Britain’s Covid crisis ‘will be over’ if vaccines still keep people out of hospital even when they catch the Indian ‘Delta’ variant or future versions of the coronavirus;
• Sadiq Khan today called for ministers to send more Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines to London despite the UK having a ‘tight’ supply of both jabs; 
• Britain will not give coronavirus vaccines to children yet because No10’s advisors want more data on risks before expanding the rollout;
• Matt Hancock confirmed Covid vaccinations will be made compulsory for care home workers, despite backlash from unions and industry bosses that the controversial move would worsen staff shortages;
• Fewer than 40 per cent of care home staff in parts of London have been fully vaccinated against Covid, MailOnline analysis revealed;
• A leaked document gave a glimpse of the UK’s potential ‘new normal’ with facemasks, working from home and travel quarantine rules set to stay beyond July 19.; 
• Humiliated Matt Hancock insisted he ‘doesn’t think’ he is ‘f****** hopeless’ after Boris Johnson’s devastating private verdict on his performance was revealed in slew of extraordinary messages posted on social media by maverick ex-No10 chief Dominic Cummings.

Sir Andrew Pollard (left), one of the professors behind the Oxford jab, told MPs in a meeting about coronavirus: ‘We are going to have to live with it’. PHE’s Dr Susan Hopkins (right) said that all discussions about Covid now are about variants because almost none of the original ‘wild’ virus is left

Meanwhile, Britain’s Covid crisis ‘will be over’ if vaccines still keep people out of hospital even when they catch the Indian ‘Delta’ variant or future versions of the coronavirus, one of Oxford’s jab-makers said today.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, chief of the Oxford Vaccine Group that made and trialled the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, said that coronavirus would never go away but it wouldn’t cause disaster if the jabs continue to work.

Speaking in a meeting with MPs on the science committee in Parliament he said that, if vaccines break the link between infections and mass deaths, ‘we will reach a point where we stop looking at what’s happening in the community’.

He cautioned that there will be a constant stream of new variants in the coming years and that most will evolve to try and get past vaccine immunity, but jabs should still work and they can continue to be updated.

He said: ‘If that very high protection against hospitalisation continues, despite spread in the community, then the public health crisis is over. And so far, up to Delta, we’re in a very good position as long as we’ve got people vaccinated.’ 

Sir Andrew’s comments were latest in a line of scientific voices warning people that Britain must learn to live with the virus even in a post-vaccine world.

Despite this, leaked SAGE documents suggest that some social distancing and measures like work from home, face masks and test and trace will have to stay in place even after lockdown rules come to an end in July. Peaks of future outbreaks ‘would be much higher’ if all the advice was abandoned completely, scientists warned.

Dr Susan Hopkins, a Public Health England infectious disease expert, cautioned in the same meeting that the true number of daily infections in the UK right now could be as high as 25,000, much higher than the 7,500 average positive tests.

She said: ‘It doesn’t take very much double to get to large numbers… But what we hope we won’t see – and I think we won’t because of vaccines – is the same number of hospitalisations.

In one gloomy prediction Dr John McCauley, a flu expert at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said the Covid death toll could still be as high as 45,000 per year when lockdown rules have ended completely. He told the i newspaper: ‘There’s no inherent reason why the virus will lose its virulence.’ 

But Government minister Michael Gove said on Times Radio yesterday: ‘We have to accept that this virus will circulate and it will be the case, unfortunately, that in winters to come we will find that people contract it or subsequent variants and they will fall ill.’ 

Just two thirds of care home staff have had their first vaccination in Hackney, east London, official data has shown with uptake rates among staff lowest in the capital

The NHS figures going up to June 6 — the latest date data is available for — show uptake rates among care home staff are significantly lagging behind in London boroughs compared to the rest of the country

In the committee meeting this morning Sir Andrew, who was knighted last week for his work tackling Covid, said: ‘If we’re able to build immunity in our population and keep people out of hospital we will reach a point where we stop looking in this granular detail at what’s happening in the community because, if we do, we’ll just focus on it and worry because [the virus] will escape from vaccines… 

‘This will happen – it’s going to continue to happen. But in the end we’re going to have to come back to focusing on the really important public health issue, which is the hospitalisation and the death. 

‘If transmission is disconnected by vaccine immunity from severe disease to a large extent, then we’ll need to monitor new variants perhaps if we need to design a new vaccine and so on, but we are going to have to live with it being in our communities and transmitting.’ 

Learning to live with the virus spreading could involve carrying on with some of the behaviour changes brought in in the past year. 

Scientists on the SAGE advisory group said rules ‘are likely to be needed beyond the end of the current road map process,’ The Times reported, or resurgences of the virus could lead to a need to ‘reverse’ the reopening.

The Whitehall paper suggests that the government will stop short of urging workers to return to offices even after ‘Freedom Day’ finally arrives. There is also a suggestion that face masks will be needed in some settings long-term, as well as keeping post-travel isolation rules.

Anyone who has coronavirus symptoms will still be expected to isolate, according to the draft proposals. And fears have been raised that more restrictions will be needed if the disease surges again in the winter.

The document – seen by Politico – emerged as furious Tories predicted up to 70 MPs could inflict a bloody nose on Boris Johnson in a crunch lockdown vote tonight.

Professor Hopkins said on the future of social distancing: ‘This is a balance. In some countries like Sweden they have done a lot in terms of social responsibility. In other countries, they have legislated heavily. 

‘So I think there is a middle road, as we have vaccination heavily rolled out, that requires potentially in some areas where there is higher risk to look at them. And one might consider, for example, transport. For those of us that pack ourselves into the tube regularly, we may feel more comfortable if everyone else was asked to wear a mask as well for those very close encounters for potentially periods longer than 15 minutes. 

‘But in the more general societal areas, such as shops, it is going to come down to personal opinions and responsibilities rather than legislation for the longer term.’

Sir Andrew Pollard said it was inevitable that the coronavirus would continue mutating and that new variants would keep appearing forever as the virus adapts to the human immune system.

A virus can only keep circulating if it can be transmitted between living things and to do this it must be able to escape protections in the immune system, Sir Andrew said.

The vaccine chief told MPs: ‘What we’ve been waiting for over the last month with the Delta variant is to find out whether, with two doses of the vaccine, we have good protection against hospitalisation.

‘And the data that came out on Monday from Public Health England that show over 90 per cent protection against hospitalisation is incredibly reassuring in that regard.

‘That’s the key bit that we have to look at with future variants. If that very high protection against hospitalisation continues, despite spread in the community, then the public health crisis is over. And so far, up to Delta, we’re in a very good position, as long as we’ve got people vaccinated.

‘Of course, the WHO [World Health Organization] at the moment, with variants under investigation, we’re up to Kappa so there’s a lot more Greek alphabet letters still to go through. But hopefully we’ll still be in a good position when we get to Omega but we have to keep monitoring it because we don’t know yet.’

Dr Susan Hopkins said that all discussions about Covid now are about variants because almost none of the original ‘wild’ virus is left.

She said in the same meeting: ‘We’re living in a world of variants now. 

‘Everything we see is a variation of the original and, actually, everything we see that’s going to live and not become extinct very rapidly has either got to have a transmissibility advantage or an immune evading advantage.

‘So the challenge, always, is trying to understand which one of these is going to do something as it emerges. We start following and monitoring them when we get to about 30 cases that we can see in the genome sequencing, but that’s not enough to give us real-life data on the impact of vaccines [or] on the impact of transmissibility.’

She said there were more than 30 being investigated in the UK, as well as the four ‘variants of concern’ that are dominant.

And the transmissibility advantage of the Delta variant has led to thousands and potentially tens of thousands of new cases every day – significantly more than are being recorded by NHS Test & Trace, Dr Hopkins said.

‘What we are seeing at the moment are about 7,000 to 8,000 infections per day – that’s what we’re detecting,’ she said.

‘But we know that is less than half of what the true infections are in the community and we’ve measured that out in a number of ways. So the estimate for current infections today is probably in the order of between 15,000 and 25,000 new infections a day. 

‘It doesn’t take very much double to get to large numbers… But what we hope we won’t see – and I think we won’t because of vaccines – is the same number of hospitalisations. 

‘So we will have a much, much greater amount of infection in the community, without seeing the same impact on hospitalisations. But the more infections we do have, the more impact there will be. 

‘If we say 90 per cent [vaccine] effectiveness that means 10 per cent could actually come into hospital. So that means we do need to have some measures in place – both social responsibility measures and the measures that are in place right now to try and hold that peak down, so that we can get as much vaccine into the individuals to reduce symptomatic disease, reduce transmission, then clearly the severity and hospitalisation.’      

The Government advisers’ comments come after independent experts yesterday said achieving zero Covid deaths was ‘impossible’ and that the focus should be to bring them down to levels comparable with flu — which kills roughly 17,000 people in England annually and up to 50,000 in a bad year.  

Boris Johnson and England’s chief expert advisers Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance have all repeated the line that we will ‘have to learn to live with Covid’ this week, in what seems to be a concerted effort to take emphasis away from the daily death numbers. 

There has been fierce debate about what level of Covid deaths would be ‘tolerable’ when Britain emerges from the shutdown — but one of the Government’s top scientists, Professor Graham Medley, said it was ‘quite possible’ there could be hundreds per day after lockdown.  

Professor Karol Sikora, an expert in medicine at the University of Buckingham, told MailOnline: ‘All deaths are very emotional and upsetting… but it’s important we embrace Covid like we have other viruses because it will become a normal feature in society.

‘We should consider it a success if we bring it [Covid deaths] down to levels comparable with flu deaths every year. We will never achieve zero Covid.’ 

Cambridge University epidemiologist Dr Raghib Ali told MailOnline that once July 19 comes and most of the adult population have been given a vaccine: ‘It’s my view that we will be in as strong a position as we ever will be. Prolonging restrictions beyond that point doesn’t achieve much.’

Asked what an acceptable number of Covid deaths would be, he added: ‘If you look at deaths and excess deaths from influenza, the Government tolerates numbers up to about 50,000 [per year].’

Cabinet Office minister Mr Gove said: ‘Unfortunately there are respiratory diseases, including flu itself, which do every year result in an upsurge of people being taken into hospital, and in some cases suffering tragic consequences.’ In a separate interview with BBC Radio 4, he said ‘we’re going to have to learn to live with Covid’.

Learning to live with Covid could mean making some permanent lifestyle changes, SAGE files have revealed, with experts saying ‘baseline’ measures like mask-wearing and social distancing should remain for the long term.

Scientists on the advisory group said rules ‘are likely to be needed beyond the end of the current road map process,’ The Times reported, or resurgences of the virus could lead to a need to ‘reverse’ the reopening.

Covid has killed more than 150,000 people since the crisis began last spring, but the vaccines have shown to be extremely effective at preventing deaths – reducing fatalities by more than 90%.  Independent scientists seeking to manage expectations before restrictions are lifted told MailOnline that achieving zero Covid deaths going forward was ‘impossible’ and that the focus should be to bring them down to levels comparable with flu — which kills roughly 17,000 people in England annually (shown on graph). Source: Office for National Statistics and Public Health England

Michael Gove (today, left) said that while ministers need to do ‘everything we can to protect people’, it was important for the public to ‘accept’ that there would continue to be Covid deaths when the country unlocks on July 19. Boris Johnson (pictured today, right) said we will ‘have to learn to live with Covid’ at last night’s press conference

It is not clear what levels of Covid deaths the country can expect when lockdown is ended next month, and this has been made less clear due to the outbreak of the highly transmissible Indian variant.

That strain has proven to be at least 60 per cent more infectious than the Kent version and twice as likely to put unvaccinated people in hospital. 

But two doses of the jabs are extremely effective against the mutant virus, reducing hospitalisations by up to 96 per cent. 

The Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) warned there could have been 250 to more than 500 deaths per day in the third wave this summer if Step 4 of the roadmap out of lockdown went ahead as planned on June 21.

The group did not provide clear projections for what effect delaying the unlocking until July 19 will have on deaths, but its estimates around hospitalisations show the four-week gap could shrink admissions by more than half.

Prominent SAGE member Professor Graham Medley warned that, even with the extra breathing room the delay gives, Britain could still suffer hundreds of Covid deaths every day later in the year. 

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Reading University, said this was possible because there will still be millions of people who are vulnerable to the disease even when the entire country is vaccinated.

A small percentage of people who get the jab will still catch and die from Covid, usually because they are frail and have compromised immune systems.  

Dr Clarke told MailOnline: ‘Even if you’ve got a vaccine that cuts deaths by more than 90 per cent, that still leaves almost 7million people not protected.

‘Then there will be even more people who get infected but do not get seriously ill. So that still means lots and lots of virus circulating which poses a risk to those vulnerable 7m.’

But he said emphasis should be taken away from the Covid death figures and focused on NHS capacity, which he said was now the most important metric.

Keith Neal, a professor in infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham, said that once the adult population had been vaccinated with at least once dose against Covid it was no longer the Government’s responsibility to try to save every life.

‘We can’t stay in lockdowns forever, people need to make their own risk assessments. If people are worried about Covid or think they might be vulnerable, then they might decide not to meet up with others or socially distance.’

Backbench Tory MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May and Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG), criticised the Government for delaying the June 21 unlocking by a month, saying it was moving away from its goal of protecting the NHS. They said Britons had to learn to live with the virus.

However, other experts have said it is the Government’s duty to do prevent all ‘avoidable’ deaths and warned ministers against becoming cocky about the virus. 

Professor Gabriel Scally, a public health expert at the University of Bristol, told MailOnline: ‘What’s an acceptable level of road traffic accidents? We don’t accept those deaths we have inquests to find out what went wrong and how can we put it right.

‘Like any infectious disease it’s our duty to do whatever we can to protect people from it. If we don’t take sensible  action and people get ill then we’re being careless with people’s lives.’

Meanwhile, millions more people in the Midlands and North West of England are being urged not to travel or meet people indoors in an attempt to curb the spread of the Indian Covid variant.

In guidance released last night, roughly 3.6million residents in Birmingham, Liverpool, Warrington and parts of Cheshire were asked to minimise their movements in and out of the affected areas, which are recording higher than average levels of the mutant strain.

But Mr Johnson made no mention of the fresh advice in his dramatic Downing Street press conference last night, where he confirmed England’s final unlocking would be pushed back by four weeks amid fears the mutant strain could overwhelm hospitals.