Deputy chief medical officer Van Tam says UK covid cases are as low as they are going to get. Here is a visual reminder of where Israel and UK are at currently with cases (ours are just over 2,000 a day).

The briefing can be seen here:

26.50 Van Tam says: solid data on the way vaccine can cut household transmission.

This data is after *one* dose and transmission should be reduced further with two doses.

Estimates are conservative says Van Tam.

46:01 Van Tam: there are some twists and turns ahead... planned easements will increase R, at same time hope continued vaccine rollout will put downward pressure on R. Competing forces in next few weeks.

Van Tam: we need to go further than [42 year olds] to put us in a "sustainably safe place".

All the data we have so far is largely generated after Christmas, against the Kent variant, we are extremely confident our current vaccines work against dominant variant in the UK

Van Tam: other variants in headlines India, SA and Brazil. Those case numbers have grown... couldn't call them trivial. But .. I don't see them "rushing away" now or in next few weeks in terms of giving us a new kind of problem.

Van Tam: when lab-based neutralisation studies show that antibodies do not neutralise the virus that doesn't tell us that vaccines don't work...because doesn't look at T-cell immunity.

Van Tam: we do see level of neutralisation fall between Kent and SA variants with current vaccines. But we can't say what the true clinical impact will be.
Likely in my view, the first thing to go will be protecting against infection ...

..but I hope protecting against severe disease... will be solid and much more lasting.

Van Tam: but potentially need to vaccinate again, and possibly with variant vaccines.

Hancock: we no longer look at cases as an inevitable precursor to future hospitalisations and deaths.

That was a reasonable rule of thumb throughout the autumn, that is no longer the case.

We are going to have to live with coronavirus much like we do flu....

Flu is something we do something about, but it isn't something that dominates our lives.... that is the strategic goal.

JVT: if you need to boost in the autumn, do you give folks third dose of same vaccine... or do you give them someting different?

A study Cov-boost starting soon, people invited to different vaccines as booster, will get an idea of which give you the highest boost...

.. and which give the broadest boost to different variants.

(This is apparently complicating the question of what vaccine to donate because UK wants the optionality still to give different third doses).

JVT: if vaccine program continues well, third wave may be just third upsurge and much less significant because delinking to cases and deaths.

Inconceivable there will be no further bumps in road between now and next year. Anticipate this in autumn and winter.

JVT: So much depends on vaccination and getting to youngest and what the variants bring us, which is a "biological unknown at this point"