this has been driven partly by an increase in cases of the variant first identified in india, known as delta. a lot of that has focused on places with high rates, like blackburn and bolton, but now public health england says the delta variant is the most widespread across the uk. the big question, though, is what does this mean for the next step along the roadmap to reopening in england? there isn t anything yet in the data to say that we are definitively off track, but it is too early to make the decision aboutjune 21. he says yet because there s still so much uncertainty. we know this variant spreads more quickly, but we re not sure exactly how fast. scientists think it could make people more likely to need a hospital stay, but they re not certain. we know, at the moment, that the delta variant, the indian variant, is doubling across the country about every nine days,
but now, public health england says the delta variant is the most widespread across the uk. the big question, though, is, what does this mean for the next step along the roadmap to reopening in england? there isn t anything yet in the data to say that we are definitively off track, but it is too early to make the decision about 21stjune. he says yet, because there s still so much uncertainty. we know this variant spreads more quickly, but we re not sure exactly how fast. scientists think it could make people more likely to need a hospital stay, but they re not certain. we know at the moment that the delta variant, the indian variant, is doubling across the country about every nine days, with some variability from place to place, but we haven t fully seen the effect of what happened from 17th may, step three, the relaxation of restrictions, coming through into that data,
uncertainty. we know this variant spreads more quickly, but we re not sure exactly how fast. scientists think it could make people more likely to need a hospital stay, but they re not certain. we likely to need a hospital stay, but they re not certain. likely to need a hospital stay, but they re not certain. we know at the moment that they re not certain. we know at the moment that the they re not certain. we know at the moment that the delta they re not certain. we know at the moment that the delta variant, - they re not certain. we know at the moment that the delta variant, the i moment that the delta variant, the indian variant, is doubling across the country about every nine days, with some variability from place to place, but we haven t fully seen the effect of what happened from step three, 17th may, the relaxation of restrictions, coming through into that data, so we expect that to accelerate even more. ministers will u date accelerate even more. ministers will update peo
to remove the country from the green travel list. ministers say they know holidaymakers may be disappointed, but they re concerned about a new covid variant linked to nepal. holiday makers in portugal now face a race against time to book covid tests and flights home to beat the mandatory quarantine period that will come into force next tuesday. airlines are putting on extra flights to get tourists back to england. our business correspondent katy austin reports. today, the news that portugal is heading off the green list was sinking in. it meant a sudden change of plan for some travellers. we didn t want to cancel our holiday so last year two of our holidays got cancelled so we were really looking forward to this one, as soon it got put on the green list, booked it, and then yesterday we found out it was amber. got the kids in the car, just waiting for a test. simon and his family are in the algarve visiting their villa. he is desperately searching for a covid test appointment so that t
the r number is now estimated to be above one and indeed many experts believe that notjust scotland but the uk is now at the start of a third wave of covid. underlying this andindeed third wave of covid. underlying this and indeed driving all of this is the new delta variant which now makes up the majority of all new cases in scotland. this variant is thought to be quite significantly more transmissible than even the kent variant we dealt with at the turn of the year. as you may have seen reported, there is early data suggesting that all else being equal it may increase the risk of hospitalisation. hopefully vaccines are reducing overall the risk of hospitalisation but even if it is a lower risk the early data suggests the new delta variant has a higher risk than the variants that went before. it is important to say that thatis before. it is important to say that that is something that is still