If it's not the lockdown, why had the number of cases over 7 days started to fall from the 4th January (circa 480,000) to the current level (circa 225,000)?
Cases were already falling before 4 Jan; see other threads
Except the vulnerable won't be anywhere near "vaccinated" by March.
The top 4 most vulnerable groups are not yet fully vaccinated, ....
Sorry but this doesn't make sense; it's effectively like saying no-one is ever vaccinated against 'flu!
What matters is the efficacy; after 2-3 weeks efficacy of one dose, efficacy of the Oxford vaccine was found to be around 61% against symptomatic Covid and more importantly no-one died; admittedly it was small sample but it looks incredibly promising.
The second dose is more to boost longer term immunity ready for the 2021-22 winter season.
Whilst I agree with the sentiment that this constant yo-yo of restrictions is not acceptable whatsoever, the course of action that prevents the hospitals from being filled with unwell old people is probably the best route out.
The best way to keep people out of hospital is to give as many people as possible one dose before you start giving out the 2nd dose.
Moving on to 65-69 age range will have a far bigger effect on hospitalisations than giving people 70+ a second dose sooner. See the vaccination thread for more on this topic.
Whilst the risk to those in schools is generally very low, the issue is the risk it applies to everyone, so far the risk of dying from Covid-19 is about 1:700...
But the mean age is 82, while...
whilst the rate of dying from a road accident is 1:250.
..for this, the average age will be
far younger. I'm sure this has been raised in other threads.
Back on topic...
My Bad! I've just check the term dates I was thinking of and I'm a week out, the last day of term is actually the 1st April.
So 8th March gives 1 day short of 4 weeks worth of being "open" in one way or another.
In York it is only 3 weeks before the Easter break, but still worth going back for, in my opinion. I hope it's not delayed any further. The "Zero Covid" brigade who want to keep kids off school for the foreseeable future are an absolute disgrace and clearly have no idea of the terrible impact this is having on many children.
Some of the emails from parents that I have seen are frightening, such as previously happy kids who were model students who are now depressed and parents struggle to get them out of bed. We don't know what the long term damage will be until it's too late.