The schools returning was all but announced from the government
in a release last night, confirming that the first step of releasing lockdown (i.e. schools going back) would go ahead as planned on 8th March. Nadim Zawahi has also been on the media rounds this morning and confirmed this as well. I'm in two minds on the big bang approach. There's already such a huge percentage of school kids in which is rising as time goes on anyway, I doubt everyone going back would make a massive difference anyway at this point.
Have to say I'm a bit gutted at having to wait until the end of March to socialise outside again, especially after SAGE member
John Edmunds was saying it's pretty safe. I do worry people will just ignore the rules (as let's face it they have done anyway), and just socialise in a more at risk indoors setting out of view instead making the situation worse than if we were legally able to be outdoors.
It would appear anything else past the 29th March is the press filling in the blanks at the moment based on the wildly differing dates between different outlets. Word is that the dates for the next steps are "earliest possible" dates and aren't set in stone.
It'll be interesting to see some of the other stuff coming out today as well. New Public Health England data on the impact of vaccines is being release, as well as data and suggestions from SAGE being released which will show the options for lifting lockdown they suggested versus what the government have ultimately gone with. It'll be interesting to see case numbers at 4pm as well, considering yesterday saw the first sub 10k day in a while too.
In terms of the vaccine, we're now heading into what's likely to be a bit of a drop in first doses administered as first dose recipients will be getting their second doses within the 11-12 week period. Hopefully as more supply comes on by mid march, we'll be back to increasing numbers. Considering there was the announcement of end of July for everyone to be have received their first dose over the weekend, I'd assume that they're relatively confident on supply so I wouldn't panic too much over the possibility of a few weeks of decreased numbers incoming.