since. last winter we saw deaths rise again, although, to be clear, nowhere near as bad as it could have been. that s partly due to national immunity yes, but also because of way better testing, strict public health measures, masks, social distancing, and contact tracing. and then delta landed on our shores, and frankly a lot of people, myself included, were very worried about what things would look like. a few weeks ago it seemed like all of the progress of the spring maybe might be undone everywhere and we all base for this battle. vaccinations, public health, versus the incredibly contagious delta fire variant. and guess? what the vaccine walked. we did not see a massive spike in deaths this summer in new york city. that s what vaccine victory looks like. we did not even see anything close to the winter surge, let alone the deadly early days of the pandemic. you can see it on the charts. deaths have essentially
of a vaccine victory. what confidence can the public have that the latest round of measures abandoning all restrictions is not another reckless gamble in the face of an increasing transmission? it s clear from comments made by the chief medical officer, i the prime minister, - and secretary of state over the last 24 hours that is their view that it is better- to have a third wave of covid now than it is in winter- when the nhs is struggling. so could the secretary of state please confirm explicitly- whether that is the policy aim of the government, i and if so could he confirm how many excess deathsl and additional cases of long covid officials estimate thati third wave will result in? no one wants another wave of covid cases. and as the honourable lady would have heard, what is different this time, as we do see, sadly, cases arise is the vaccine. one of the local hospitals that affects my constituency tells me there something like 30% of doctors
Philip Stephens, the chief political commentator of the Financial Times, tells a wonderful story about how he was playing football in the playground at school – in those days playground football was with tennis balls – and a ball hit the Latin master as he was passing. The Latin master immediately clipped Stephens round the ears – which, these days, would no doubt have led to the master’s dismissal. Stephens protested: “It wasn’t me, sir.” To.