COVID-19 death rates have fallen dramatically in the last few weeks, with just three people registered on Monday as having died after testing positive in the last month.

At the peak of the pandemic, the number of people in hospital reached 38,000; hospitalisations on Monday were 1089 across the whole of the UK, which has a population of 66 million.

The proportion of the adult population fully vaccinated reached 56.9 per cent on Monday, while 79 per cent of adults had received a first dose, which Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said reflected take-up rates, particularly in London, that “many countries would dream of having at this point in time.”

The delay in allowing mass events and nightclubs to reopen coincided with new data from Public Health England showing the vaccines were highly effective against the Delta variant.

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The data shows the Pfizer vaccine is 96 per cent effective against hospitalisation and AstraZeneca is 92 per cent effective – but only after two doses.

Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s Chief Scientific Adviser, said Britain was no longer facing a future of more lockdowns, but was now locked in a race against the virus outbreak.

“The vaccines we’ve got are spectacularly more effective than we ever dared hope – they really are very good,” he said.

“We’re in a race against the virus and the vaccines need to get ahead of it and if you’re in a race with somebody you don’t suddenly assist them in putting the afterburners on so they can outpace you.”

Whitty said Britain was trying to strike a balance in averting avoidable deaths from coronavirus and not trying to eliminate the virus which he said would circulate around the world forever.

“We will have to live with this virus which will continue to cause severe infections and kill people for the rest of our lives,” Whitty said.

While people in England have been free to travel around the UK, go to restaurants and mix indoors in groups of six and outdoors in groups of 30 for the last month, the announcement will disappoint the theatre and nightclub industries, which were last in line to be given the green light to reopen.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has previously threatened to open his theatres for the premiere of his new musical Cinderella regardless of whether the restrictions were extended, but the Prime Minister sought to reassure the composer by saying special arrangements, possibly a pilot of a mass indoor event subjected to testing, would be allowed for opening night.

Caps on the number of people who can attend weddings and funerals will also be lifted, although social distancing must be observed.

The opposition’s health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth said the delay was a direct result of the Prime Minister’s delay in requiring hotel quarantine for arrivals from India.

“This was predicted and sadly predictable,” he said.

“Boris Johnson left borders as secure as a sieve allowing this dangerous variant to reach our shores.”

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