Yahoo Finance Evening Standard Comment: Covid cases are falling but caution is needed
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is to take good news where we can get it.
Covid cases in Britain have fallen for five successive days, from 48,161 on July 18 to 29,173 on Sunday. That is the first such extended drop since February, and the first time ever this has happened without a national lockdown.
Vaccines continue to demonstrate that they have weakened the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
The latest data shows there were 5,000 patients in hospital with Covid on July 22. While that is an increase on the low of 871 on May 27, it remains significantly under the 39,254 peak during the winter wave on January 18.
However, the virus has also educated us on how not to take any progress for granted. While cases are down, so too is testing. Then there are behavioural changes that may have contributed to fewer interactions, the better summer weather, the start of the school holidays and the end of the European Championships. And of course, the recent falls do not take into account July 19’s reopening.
The key period is likely to come in the autumn, as students go back to the classroom and our cities reconvene. Hence the need for vaccine passports. For the vaccine-hesitant, it is a message that to get back to something like normality, you will need to get jabbed.
Vaccine passports are our path to freedom and sustained economic recovery. Surely those Conservative MPs decrying them should be in favour of them?
The Government must stop dithering and get on with it.
Read More
Balearics ‘cause for concern and Italy could go on amber plus list’
Students may need jabs for uni lectures or living in halls, No10 says
Rail disruption as services are cut back thanks to pingdemic
