this is bbc news. i m ben brown, building up to the latest coronavirus briefing from the government. the government confirms the remaining covid restrictions in england will be lifted next week. the health secretary says infections will rise but the nhs could cope because of the success of the vaccination programme. on the basis of the evidence in front of us, we do not believe that infection rates will put unsustainable pressure on the nhs. we ll be live at downing street at five o clock as the prime minister prepares to hold a news briefing on the lifting of england s remaining restrictions. as england prepares to lift the remaining restrictions, we ll speak to our correspondents in
this is the most responsible decision that we can take. this step forward is about balancing the harms that are caused by covid with the undeniable harms that restrictions bring. these restrictions were vital to protect the nhs. but we must be upfront about the impact of keeping them, just as we are about removing them. the rise in domestic violence, the impact on mental health, the undiagnosed cancer, to name just a few. so we will ease the restrictions next week while at the same time we will be maintaining the defences we have built against this virus. that was the health secretary in the commons. let s take a look at the latest coronavirus figures for the uk. there have been a further 34,471 new cases recorded
on the question you ask, there isn t a simple number where below it thinks are fine and above it there is a problem, things go up in stages. you start with the pressure on the general system, then you get to a point where there may be a need to a point where there may be a need to reduce elective care and there is a long waiting list so we want to try and avoid that, and then you get into things where you are reducing urgent care and start putting pressure on the wider emergency services. there is not cut off point. what we would hope is that the peak that we will see if people go carefully, if we all go carefully over the next period, will be significantly lower than the peak we saw injanuary, for example, which put huge pressure on the nhs. but to think we will not have any pressure on the nhs is not fully realistic point of the other think different this time round is previously we had done an intervention which has led to the whole country having a peak at roughly the same time and
rates start to go down? there cannot be certainty about this so we have inevitably, we can t be as confident on this test as the others. but at this point, modelling data and other data would imply that if we go slowly over the next stage of the road map, the expectation is that this will not reach the point where it is putting unsustainable pressure on the nhs, but to repeat the prime minister s points, there is an expectation that the number of cases and going into hospital will go up and going into hospital will go up and the number of deaths will go up in the current wave. the final test, the assessment, the risks are not fundamentally changed by a new variant of concern. the delta variant is now the dominant one in the uk, this is now the normal variant in the uk, so it is not a variant of concern any more, which is was when we first talked about it in one of these press
day. i think what we re looking for in this press conference is some kind of guidance about how many hospitalisations there will be because we know the modelling has been done, it ll be interesting to see how many cases are expected per day going into next month or two. because they are opening up because they don t think there will be an unsustainable amount of pressure on the nhs. i think some of those working in hospitals and doctors surgeries might be very concerned about that and on that point as well, the prime minister i think at one stage. he well, the prime minister i think at one state. . , well, the prime minister i think at one state. .,, ., ~ well, the prime minister i think at one state. ., ,, ., one stage. he was talking about the link, the vaccine one stage. he was talking about the link, the vaccine had one stage. he was talking about the link, the vaccine had severed - one stage. he was talking about the link, the vaccine had severed the i link, the vaccine had se