because of covid cases. australia take a 2—0 lead over england in the ashes, after completing a 275 run victory in the second test in adelaide let's return now to the growing pressure on the government to announce whether it will be extending covid restrictions to try to stem the spread of the omicron variant. earlier, the deputy prime minister, dominic raab, said the government "can't make hard, fast guarantees" that there will not be a christmas lockdown. what we don't know is the severity of it. none of the scientist can tell us that definitively. i have heard that from chris whitty and patrick balanced themselves. we are relying on real—time data that comes in from the nhs, hospitals and the like. that is the thing that we still have uncertainty around. the most important thing we are doing right now is boosting the vaccine roll—out. the third dose, 53% of adults have now had it. on saturday,