Britain reports steep rise in weekly Delta variant cases

Pedestrians walk past an electronic information board displaying a Covid-19 information relating to a 'variant of concern in the area' in Blackburn, north west England

Britain has reported another steep rise in the weekly reported cases of the Delta coronavirus variant, Public Health England data showed on Friday, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to delay the final lifting of lockdown restrictions. PHE said there had been 33,630 new cases of the Delta variant first identified in India in the week to June 16, taking the number of confirmed cases to 75,953, a 79% increase on the previous total. ‘Cases are rising rapidly across the country and the Delta variant is now dominant,’ said Jenny Harries, Chief Executive, UK Health Security Agency. ‘It is encouraging to see that hospitalisations and deaths are not rising at the same rate but we will continue to monitor it closely.’