The NHS cannot cope with the lifting of Covid restrictions in England, argue Diana Mallinson and Alan Walker. Plus letters from Joy McLaughlan, Mary Smith and Mark Russell
Christina Pagel explains why the NHS will struggle to cope with the increasing rate of hospitalisations due to Covid-19, when the government abolishes all restrictions in England on 19 July (Boris Johnson gave two reasons for lifting all restrictions. Both are wrong, 13 July). There is another reason why the government should have delayed: it is not going to meet one of its vaccination targets, that of offering all adults their first dose by 19 July.
The first dose vaccination coverage for the 18 and over population in England at 12 July was 87%, only 1% higher than the coverage seven days earlier, at 5 July. At this slow rate of giving first doses, 12% of adults will be completely unvaccinated at 19 July – people in whom the virus will be able to spread unchecked, resulting in more variants of concern, more cases of long Covid, more admissions to hospital and more deaths.
