Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday revealed plans to lift most of England’s legal coronavirus restrictions, including face masks and social distancing from July 19, urging personal responsibility rather than government edict. Johnson had initially aimed for a full reopening on June 21, but was forced to push back the date because of a surge in the highly contagious Delta variant. That variant now accounts for nearly all new Covid-19 cases in Britain, and infection rates have soared, sparking concern. But mass vaccinations have stopped a resultant surge in hospital admissions or deaths. “This pandemic is far from over, it certainly won’t be over by the 19th,” warned Johnson. “We must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from Covid. “There’s only one reason why we can contemplate g...
Italy reported 459 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 505 the day before, the health ministry said. The daily tally of new infections increased by 19,037 from 18,040 the day before, taking the total number of cases since Italy’s epidemic began to 2.02 million. Italy on Thursday became the eighth country in the world to exceed 2 million officially recorded cases. The number of swab tests carried out in the past day was 152,334 from a previous 193,777, the health ministry said. The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has reported 71,359 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, the highest toll in Europe and the fifth highest in the world. Patients in hospital with COVID-19 stood at 23,402, down by 668 from the day before. The current number of intensive care pa...