If there was any doubt that we are heading towards a third wave then Wednesday's daily infection total should go some way towards dispelling those uncertainties.
The trend upwards has been exponential. Since May, the Delta variant has been driving a surge in COVID infections.
That is why the prime ministerwas forced to delay "Freedom Day". The spike was expected to continue upwards and it has.
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'Save summer,' Starmer tells PM
The question being asked is what it means in terms of hospital admissions and deaths. The short answer is both will follow.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said so last week when he stood next to Boris Johnson at the Downing Street briefing.
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There is usually a 10-day lag between infections and hospitalisations. We are already seeing hospital admissions rise in some areas of the country.
But let us keep this in some context. We are unlikely to see the numbers reach the levels of the first and second waves. We can thank the vaccine programme for that.
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The modelling presented to Boris Johnson predicted a surge big enough to put pressure on the NHS, if he went ahead with his original date of 21 June to remove all restrictions.
But we must also recognise that every hospital admission means a bed taken up and capacity reduced.
Coronavirus restrictions in England have been extended until 19 July as MPs voted in favour of a four-week delay to lockdown easing.
Boris Johnson faced a rebellion from some Conservative MPs who disagreed with the measures being continued into next month, but the regulations passed by 461 votes to 60.
Fifty-one Tory MPs rebelled by opposing the regulations, but Labour backed the plans.
It means the next, and final stage, of unlocking will now take place in just over four weeks.
Image:Boris Johnson said the four week delay will allow more people to receive two COVID jabs
Opening the Commons debate on the extension of the coronavirus regulations, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Delta variant, formerly known as the Indian variant "has given the virus extra legs".
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The new variant "spreads more easily" and a four-week delay is necessary "to get those remaining jabs into the arms of those who need them", Mr Hancock added.
But some Conservative MPs have expressed their concern at the deviation from the government's roadmap which had planned for all remaining restrictions to be removed on 21 June.
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Conservative former minister Mark Harper, who chairs the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group expressed his "worry" that "we're just going to be back here all over again extending the restrictions".
But the health secretary said the country must learn "to live with this virus" after the four week "pause".
Fellow Conservative Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) added that the restrictions were never proportionate "even from the outset".
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PM: Delay will save 'thousands of lives'
"I always thought it was wrong for them to take our freedoms, even though they believed that they were acting in our best interests in an emergency, but by any measure that emergency has now passed and yet freedoms are still withheld, and the government will not allow us to assess for ourselves the risks that we are prepared to encounter in our ordinary everyday lives," he said.
Conservative former Cabinet minister Karen Bradley called on the government to "take advantage of the vaccine programme".
"With a heavy heart, I'm afraid to say to the minister that I cannot support the government this evening, because I cannot find a way to explain to my constituents why the things they are looking forward to getting back to doing have to wait," she said,
"We have to accept that we cannot save every life - I might have been able to be persuaded if the government was able to support those businesses that are unable to open but that support is simply not there.
"I will not be able to support the government, although I will on procedural matters."
Conservative Peter Bone simply stated that he will be voting against the government as they have "got it wrong", adding: "I don't think the government has made the case for putting off unlocking."
Image:Health secretary Matt Hancock 'confident' restrictions will be removed on 19 July
And Tory John Redwood said: "It is time to trust people more, it is time to control people less."
But trying to assure potential Conservative rebels, Mr Hancock said he has "a very high degree of confidence that we can deliver the vaccines that we think are needed in order then to be able to take step four on 19 July".
Earlier, Labour had given its support - with shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth saying: "Delaying the road map by four weeks will hopefully relieve the pressure on hospitals...
"I think if we lifted all the restrictions now I fear that that could be akin to throwing petrol on a fire at this moment."
Earlier on Wednesday during PMQs, Tory backbencher Philip Davies called on the PM to listen to his "Conservative instincts" and trust the country's vaccination programme instead of listening to "communist scientists" who want to see restrictions "forever".
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Johnson puts 'freedom day' back four weeks
Fellow Conservative MP William Wragg asked for an assurance that the easing of lockdown measures will not be delayed once more beyond the new 19 July date.
Mr Johnson reiterated he believes the four-week delay will save "many thousands more lives" and that restrictions will not be in place "forever".
"Nobody, least of all I or [Conservative MP Mr Davies] want to see COVID restrictions last forever, nor do I think that they are going to last for ever.
"Because, as I made clear earlier this week, I think we can have a high degree confidence that our vaccination programme will work and I think we need to give it a little bit more time - as I have explained - to save many thousands more lives by vaccinating millions more people," the PM told MPs.
MPs also voted to extend virtual participation in the House of Commons until July 22 - the start date of the summer recess - by 588 votes to 563.
The latest figures show 1,136 patients with COVID-19 were in hospital in the UK on 13 June, an 18% rise from the previous week.
The government has said the proposed extension will be reviewed to see if action can be taken two weeks sooner on Monday 5 July.
However, confirming the delay earlier this week in a Downing Street press conference, the PM did announce some changes including scrapping the 30-person limit on weddings from 21 June as planned and removing the requirement for care home residents to quarantine for two weeks after day trips.
In a 7,000 word blog, Mr Cummings accuses Mr Hancock of trying to rewrite history at a select committee session last week.
Care homes
The PM's former top aide also takes aim at Mr Johnson, claiming that he had also "lied about failures" during the government's initial response to the pandemic.
"If No 10 is prepared to lie so deeply and widely about such vital issues of life and death last year, it cannot be trusted now either on Covid or any other crucial issue of war and peace," writes Mr Cummings.
Mr Hancock denied lying to the prime minister about the testing of hospital patients discharged to care homes at the start of the pandemic in a four hour rebuttal of Mr Cummings's testimony to the committee.
Commenting on Mr Cummings' latest allegations, a source close to Mr Hancock said: "The health secretary answered many of Mr Cummings' claims at a lengthy session in front of MPs.
"Mr Cummings has still failed to provide evidence to substantiate his claims.
"The health secretary continues to work with the prime minister on the vaccine programme and getting us out of this pandemic as quickly as possible."
Testing capacity
Mr Cummings, who was forced out of Downing Street last year, claims the version of events given to the committee by Mr Hancock was "fiction".
The former aide appears to have kept WhatsApp messages from his time in government and selects six to share with readers of his blog.
One of them appears to show an exchange between Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings on 27 March last year.
Mr Cummings highlights the ramping up of testing capacity in the US and criticises Mr Hancock for saying he was "sceptical" about meeting a target.
Mr Johnson purportedly responds: "Totally [expletive] hopeless."
Mr Cummings also published another private message about the struggle to procure ventilators for Covid-19 patients.
"It's Hancock. He has been hopeless," a contact appearing to be Mr Johnson replies on 27 March last year.
In another message, on 27 April last year, the prime minister appears to call the situation around personal protective equipment (PPE) "a disaster" and alludes to diverting some responsibilities to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.
"I can't think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on," Mr Johnson apparently adds.
Mr Johnson's official spokesman said he was "not going to be drawn on these claims", adding that the PM has "worked very closely with the health secretary and continues to do so".
Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told Mr Hancock in a Commons debate that he had been "forever branded Hopeless Hancock by his own leader".
The government's record on protecting the UK's borders and allowing a new coronavirus variant to "take off", meant many people would "no doubt repeat the prime minister's expletive-laden sentiment about the secretary of state," he added.
Mr Hancock had earlier responded to a reporter who shouted "are you hopeless?" at him, as he sat in his ministerial car, saying "I don't think so" as he sped off.
Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said a public inquiry into the pandemic promised for next Spring was now needed "as quickly as possible".
In his blog, Mr Cummings suggests any inquiry would not "start for years" as it was "designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone".
"Unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not 'go on and on'," writes Mr Cummings.
But with the Conservatives riding high in the opinion polls, there is no incentive for the party's MPs to move against Mr Johnson, despite the "systemic incompetence" surrounding him, he adds.
Downing Street rejected the claim that Mr Johnson planned to stand down after the next election, saying: "The PM has actually been asked this before and said it's utter nonsense, so that still stands."
Let's start with a quick political quiz.
Q: Who has the safest job in cabinet?
A: Matt Hancock
Q: Why?
A: Because Dominic Cummings wants him sacked.
Boris Johnson's spokesman said the PM had full confidence in the health secretary.
He could say little else - as he won't be sacked him at the urging of a disgruntled former aide.
If he did, that would suggest that Dominic Cummings was right, about what he thinks were failures over PPE, ventilators and testing, early in the pandemic.
And if Mr Hancock goes now, Labour would ask why he wasn't dismissed sooner.
Mr Cummings makes serious allegations about the handling of the Covid crisis.
But by continually suggesting that Matt Hancock is the very personification of government errors, he may be making it a little too easy for his detractors to portray his interventions as a grudge match.
And by denouncing not just the Department of Health and Social Care but the Cabinet Office too, you get the impression that Mr Cummings felt that very few people could come up to his standards.
But his latest dossier does raise questions of ministers well ahead of the formal inquiry, and provides ammunition to an opposition which has questioned the pace at which the government moved.
At his appearance last week before the joint health and social care and science committee meeting, Mr Hancock said he had seen no evidence to suggest any medical staff had died because of a lack of PPE.
In his blog, Mr Cummings accuses the health secretary of trying to blame NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the Cabinet Office for last April's "PPE disaster".
"The lack of PPE killed NHS and care home staff in March-May," he writes.
He claims Number 10 and Mr Hancock, had "repeatedly lied about the failures last year" and accuses them of now trying to "rewrite history".
"The PM is trying to influence officials/advisers to support the re-writing of history and is encouraging ministers to give false accounts to Parliament," he writes.
'Let's take it offline'
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Mr Cummings has already declared Boris Johnson "unfit for the job" of prime minister - and he takes further swipes at his former boss's management style in his latest blog.
In one striking section, he contrasts Mr Johnson's approach with that of Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who stood in for the PM when he was in hospital with coronavirus.
"Under Raab, the meetings were less pleasant for everybody but much more productive because unlike the PM a) Raab can chair meetings properly instead of telling rambling stories and jokes, b) he let good officials actually question people so we started to get to the truth, unlike the PM who as soon as things get 'a bit embarrassing' does the whole 'let's take it offline' shtick before shouting 'forward to victory', doing a thumbs-up and pegging it out of the room before anybody can disagree."
Downing Street said it was "not going to engage" with this claim.
Mr Cummings published the alleged leaks on Substack, an online platform that allows people to charge for newsletters.
He has said he plans to charge subscribers for insider information on subjects other than the pandemic.
Some 972,000 text messages are being sent out, inviting them to schedule appointments for both doses via the national booking system.
And those aged 18 to 20 are expected to be invited to book their appointments by the end of this week.
There had been fears that younger people, who face a far lower risk of severe illness from COVID-19, might be reluctant to get inoculated.
But Sir Simon Stevens, NHS chief executive, said that the response had seen these fears "blown out of the water".
Image:People aged 21 and 22 are now eligible to book both doses of a coronavirus vaccine
Health Secretary Matt Hancock also confirmed coronavirus vaccinations will be made compulsory for care home staff, and the government is consulting on implementing the same policy for NHS workers.
Dr Susan Hopkins told the parliamentary science and technology committee: "We're living in a world of variants now, so everything we see is a variation of the original."
She said eight variants are "under investigation", along with the 25 that are being monitored.
Dominic Cummings has published expletive-laden messages apparently from Boris Johnson, in which the PM brands the health secretary "hopeless".
It is the latest salvo in a bitter war of words between Mr Cummings and Matt Hancock over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Downing Street did not deny the authenticity of the messages.
But the PM's official spokesman insisted Mr Johnson has full confidence in the health secretary.
"Our focus is not examining those specific images but delivering on the public's priorities," added the spokesman.
In a 7,000 word blog, Mr Cummings accuses Mr Hancock of trying to rewrite history at a select committee session last week.
The PM's former top aide also takes aim at Mr Johnson, claiming that he had also "lied about failures" during the government's initial response to the pandemic.
"If No 10 is prepared to lie so deeply and widely about such vital issues of life and death last year, it cannot be trusted now either on Covid or any other crucial issue of war and peace," writes Mr Cummings.
Mr Hancock denied lying to the prime minister about the testing of hospital patients discharged to care homes at the start of the pandemic in a four hour rebuttal of Mr Cummings's testimony to the committee.
Testing capacity
Mr Cummings hits back at Mr Hancock in his blog, calling his version of events "fiction".
The former aide appears to have kept WhatsApp messages from his time in government and selects six to share with readers of his blog.
One of them appears to show an exchange between Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings on 27 March last year.
Mr Cummings highlights the ramping up of testing capacity in the US and criticises Mr Hancock for saying he was "sceptical" about meeting a target.
Mr Johnson purportedly responds: "Totally [expletive] hopeless."
Mr Cummings also published another private message about the struggle to procure ventilators for Covid-19 patients.
"It's Hancock. He has been hopeless," a contact appearing to be Mr Johnson replies on 27 March last year.
In another message, on 27 April last year, the prime minister appears to call the situation around personal protective equipment (PPE) "a disaster" and alludes to diverting some responsibilities to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.
"I can't think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on," Mr Johnson apparently adds.
Mr Johnson's official spokesman said he was "not going to be drawn on these claims", adding that the PM has "worked very closely with the health secretary and continues to do so".
Mr Cummings, who was forced out of his role as chief aide to the prime minister at the end of last year, also claims a promised public inquiry into the Covid crisis would not fix the problems.
"It will not start for years and it is designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone - unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not 'go on and on'," writes Mr Cummings.
But with the Conservatives riding high in the opinion polls, there is no incentive for the party's MPs to move against Mr Johnson, despite the "systemic incompetence" surrounding him, he adds.
Downing Street rejected the claim that Mr Johnson planned to stand down after the next election, saying: "The PM has actually been asked this before and said it's utter nonsense, so that still stands."
Let's start with a quick political quiz.
Q: Who has the safest job in cabinet?
A: Matt Hancock
Q: Why?
A: Because Dominic Cummings wants him sacked.
Boris Johnson's spokesman said the PM had full confidence in the health secretary.
He could say little else - as he won't be sacked him at the urging of a disgruntled former aide.
If he did, that would suggest that Dominic Cummings was right, about what he thinks were failures over PPE, ventilators and testing, early in the pandemic.
And if Mr Hancock goes now, Labour would ask why he wasn't dismissed sooner.
Mr Cummings makes serious allegations about the handling of the Covid crisis.
But by continually suggesting that Matt Hancock is the very personification of government errors, he may be making it a little too easy for his detractors to portray his interventions as a grudge match.
And by denouncing not just the Department of Health and Social Care but the Cabinet Office too, you get the impression that Mr Cummings felt that very few people could come up to his standards.
But his latest dossier does raise questions of ministers well ahead of the formal inquiry, and provides ammunition to an opposition which has questioned the pace at which the government moved.
At his appearance last week before the joint health and social care and science committee meeting, Mr Hancock said he had seen no evidence to suggest any medical staff had died because of a lack of PPE.
In his blog, Mr Cummings accuses the health secretary of trying to blame NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the Cabinet Office for last April's "PPE disaster".
"The lack of PPE killed NHS and care home staff in March-May," he writes.
He claims Number 10 and Mr Hancock, had "repeatedly lied about the failures last year" and accuses them of now trying to "rewrite history".
"The PM is trying to influence officials/advisers to support the re-writing of history and is encouraging ministers to give false accounts to Parliament," he writes.
PA Media
'Little grenades'
Labour's shadow health minister Justin Madders said: "This is more evidence that the Conservatives were too slow to lockdown, too slow to deliver PPE and too slow to protect our care homes.
"With this evidence that even the PM thinks Hancock is useless, why in the worst pandemic in our history has he left him in charge?"
But Conservative business minister Paul Scully dismissed the leaked messages as "little grenades" that were only of importance to the "Westminster bubble" and suggested they may have been the prime minister "letting off steam".
Asked on the BBC's Politics Live if he thought Mr Hancock was "hopeless", he said: "Absolutely not."
Mr Cummings published the alleged leaks on Substack, an online platform that allows people to charge for newsletters.
He has said he plans to charge subscribers for insider information on subjects other than the pandemic.
There are 25 coronavirus variants "under monitoring", Public Health England's strategic COVID-19 response director has told MPs.
Dr Susan Hopkins told the Science and Technology Committee: "We're living in a world of variants now, so everything we see is a variation of the original.
She said eight COVID-19 variants are "under investigation", along with the 25 that are being monitored.
Image:Dr Susan Hopkins has been addressing MPs on the Science and Technology Committee
"All of them have mutations that we're concerned about, but mutations alone are not enough to predict whether it's really going to impact on our journey through vaccines and impact on the public health risk of hospitalisation," she added.
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Dr Hopkins explained how every variant that does not go "extinct very rapidly" is either going to have a "transmissibility advantage or an immune evading advantage".
The 25 variants under monitoring appear to be higher than the most recent technical briefing from Public Health England on 11 June, which showed 13 variants under monitoring, eight under investigation and five variants of concern.
Dr Hopkins also told the committee that if the Delta (Indian) variant was "unmitigated", left to spread without any lockdown restrictions, the R number could become "greater than five and maybe up to seven".
R is the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.
"We're seeing it as much greater transmissibility than Alpha, which had greater transmissibility than the viruses that had gone before unmitigated - so if we were in the real world where we had none of the measures that we were seeing right now - we would estimate R greater than five and maybe up to seven," she told MPs.
She went on to stress the importance of getting vaccinated, saying it is a "clear mitigation measure".
Earlier today, Whitehall sources said the government is to make coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for care home staff who work with elderly and vulnerable people.
