Surprising Boris

 It's no good.  I've had to resort to a second bar of chocolate.  The general feeling of anxiety is getting to me.

There has been speculation upon speculation about whether the Prime Minister would announce that his planned for 'Freedom Day' would go ahead.  Many scientists and data crunchers were concerned.  They were frantically trying to do the maths.  It was like one of those GCSE problems where they haven't given you all the information.

"If 68% of the population has Covid antibodies from having caught the virus and 79% of the population have had one dose of vaccine with 56% being fully vaccinated and one dose of the vaccine is 33% effective against new variants and two doses are 90% effective, then what's the likelihood that there will be a bed for Susan if everyone who can catch this new virus gets it at the same time?  Give your answer in interpretive dance."

I'll be honest.  I've been watching the data and I'm not sure if they can afford to ease restrictions even more.  I want that to be wrong but wanting it doesn't make it true.  Yes, only a few people are dying at the moment but the hospitalisations are rising, even though people in the NHS are saying that they are determinedly not admitting Covid patients.  It's pants but I think the constant assertions that he, "sees nothing in the data to not keep to the June 21st date," was irresponsible.  

However, this is what I'd like Boris to come onto the TV at 6pm tonight and say.

"I'm sorry.  We messed up.  The Indian/B.17.213/delta variant won't go away no matter how often we change it's name.  We should have shut down flights from India sooner but we didn't and now something has to be done.  The truth is, this is a very clever virus.  Certainly more clever than me.  It's main symptoms in England in June are now exactly those of hayfever.  As I said, it's a slippery little sucker and we have lost all hope of controlling it with any of the measures we have tried so far.  It's too late, the little blighter is here to stay.  We are sorry that we terrified you.  Most people won't even know they've got it, so you don't need to worry.  Yes, you could give it to your 92 year old granny and she might die but you could give her a cold and the same would happen.  She's old, her organs are failing, she's going to die one day.  So, instead of punishing you even further while I have hugging beach parties and dancing at my wedding we are taking a different approach.  We are stopping all flights until everyone is vaccinated.  We are going to dedicate everything to the vaccination programme and sort out some of those snotty receptionists that are making it hard to access for some people.  We're going to put a shed load more money into the NHS and make it fit for purpose.  We're going to stop paying our mates for jobs they don't do.  We are going to get everyone back to doing what they love to do.  Life has been a bit shit for most of you, it's my fault and I'm sorry."

It's unlikely to happen and it is such a shame beacause it's all spoiling my enjoyment of how funny people are when they have been captioning the photos from Cornwall on Twitter.