RUSHES: Coronavirus: Downing Street press conference 19th May 2021

Coronavirus: Downing Street press conference 19th May 2021; Press conference part 1 of 13ENGLAND: London: Westminster: Downing Street:INTMatt Hancock MP (Health Secretary), Dr Jenny Harries (UK Health Security Agency CEO) and Professor Jonathan Van-Tam (England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer) into press conference / Matt Hancock MP (Health Secretary) statement SOT.Good afternoon and welcome to Downing Street for today’s coronavirus briefing.I’m joined by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, and Dr Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of UKHSA, the UK Health Security Agency.I’d like to update you on what we’re doing to fight this virus at home and abroad.First, to what’s happening here in the UK.I’ll ask Professor Van-Tam to set out the numbers and the details in a moment.Overall hospitalisations and deaths remain very low, meaning we’ve been able carefully to take away more restrictions this week as we’ve taken step 3 of the roadmap.But we must proceed with vigilance and everyone taking personal responsibility.We’ve always known one of the things that has the potential to knock us off track would be a new variant.That’s why we made the presence of a new variant that could do that one of our 4 tests when we set out the roadmap, which are the steps we must pass before going down each step of the roadmap.The early evidence suggests that the B.1.617.2 variant, first discovered in India, passes on more easily from person to person than the B.117 variant, first discovered in Kent.But as the Prime Minister said at lunchtime, we have increasing confidence that the vaccines are effective against it.That means our strategy is the right one: to carefully replace the restrictions on freedom with the protection from the vaccine.What it means is that it is even more important that people get vaccinated.Quick local actionAs I’ve reported to the House of the Commons, there are now 2,967 cases known o...