Will the Covid lockdown end on June 21?

This comes after the number of people in the country with Covid-19 rose by 75 per cent,  with Brighton and Hove recording its highest daily coronavirus figure since March.

Multiple reports have also suggested plans to lift restrictions could be scaled down, with social distancing and the wearing of face coverings set to continue amid concerns the Indian variant is fuelling a surge in cases.

Coronavirus on the rise in the UK

In the 24 hours before 9am yesterday morning, 22 people tested positive for the disease in Brighton and Hove, according to figures published on the government's website.

The last time this number was reported in a single day was on March 21.

Yesterday, the UK recorded 6,238 cases, its highest number of new confirmed coronavirus cases since March 25.

Will restrictions be eased?

Epidemiologist Dr Adam Kucharski said the UK faced a different battle in the face of the dominance of the Indian variant, meaning it could be “hard to justify” easing further restrictions this month.

Asked whether the June 21 target for unlocking made him “nervous”, the Government adviser told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we have to accept the equation has changed here – we are not facing the virus that we were facing two months ago.

“If we were facing the B.117 (Kent) variant as the dominant one, the fact it (the vaccines) is working very well, case numbers are coming down nicely, we could have some more confidence that there could be reopening without seeing those surges.

“But we’re not. Everyone is tired of this pandemic, they want this transition back to normality and that will happen, the effectiveness of two doses of the vaccine will eventually get us there.

“But if say in two weeks we’re in a situation where hospitalisations have been rising, where local health systems are coming under pressure, I think it will be quite difficult to justify adding more transmission to that kind of situation.”

What about the vaccine?

However, the Covid-19 vaccine appears to have “broken the chain” between catching coronavirus and becoming seriously ill, the chief executive of NHS Providers said.

Chris Hopson said the number of people in hospital with the Covid-19 variant first detected in India, also known as the Delta variant, was not increasing “very significantly”.

He told BBC Breakfast that many of those in hospital in Bolton – which has the highest number of cases of the Indian variant in England – were younger than in previous waves of the pandemic.

Mr Hopson said on Saturday: “The people who came in this time round were actually a lot younger and were a lot less at risk of very serious complication, less at risk of death, and what that means is that they were less demand on critical care.

“What we think we can start to say now, based on that experience, is that it does look as though the vaccines have broken the chain between catching Covid-19 and potentially being very, very seriously ill and potentially dying.

“There were very, very few people who have had those double jabs and had been able to have that build-up of protection after those jabs.”