England To Lift Covid Restrictions July 19, With A Surge Expected After

NPR: Boris Johnson Announces England Will Lift Most COVID Restrictions By July 19
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has outlined plans to formally end nearly all of England's remaining coronavirus restrictions by the end of July, even as the nation is experiencing a surge in new cases from the highly transmissible delta variant. In a press conference from London on Monday, Johnson said the success of the nation's vaccination rollout has put it on course to further relax restrictions starting July 19, though the prime minister said a final decision would not be made until July 12. (Breslow, 7/5)

AP: Johnson Says Restrictions To Ease, UK Must Live With Virus
Britain plans to scrap laws requiring face masks and social distancing later this month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Monday, even as he acknowledged that lifting the restrictions will drive surging coronavirus cases higher. Johnson said legal controls will be replaced by “personal responsibility” when the country moves to the final stage of its lockdown-lifting roadmap. That’s scheduled to happen on July 19, though Johnson said a final decision would come on July 12. (Lawless, 7/5)

Bloomberg: U.K. Says Covid Cases May Reach 100,000 A Day As Rules Relax
U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned that new coronavirus cases could rise to 100,000 a day over the summer as the country prepares to relax rules and “get back to normal” on July 19. “By the time we get to the 19th, we would expect case numbers by then to be at least double what they are now, so around 50,000 new cases a day,” Javid said on the BBC Radio “Today Programme” on Tuesday. “As we ease and go into the summer, we expect them to rise significantly and they could go as high as 100,000 case numbers.” (Donaldson and Morales, 7/6)

In other covid news from Europe —

Bloomberg: Scotland Tops Europe’s Covid Hotspots as Delta Infections Surge
Scotland is recording the highest rates of coronavirus cases in Europe a little over a month before the government plans to lift most restrictions on society and the economy. The regions covering the cities of Dundee and Edinburgh were top of the World Health Organization’s latest heat map, the BBC reported, as the delta variant rips through the country. Scotland last week reported daily infections exceeding 4,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic. (Jefferson, 7/5)

AP: Spain Restricts Nightlife As Virus Surges Among The Young
Faced with soaring numbers of new coronavirus infections among unvaccinated young people, some Spanish regions are reinstating curbs on nightlife only weeks after dropping them. Fearing that the surging contagion could strain health care services as stressed employees try to go on summer holidays, health officials in several parts of the country are also rushing to get COVID-19 vaccine shots to people under 30. (Parra, 7/5)

Axios: Italy Holds Overnight Vaccine Drive For Homeless People, Undocumented Migrants 
Health authorities in Italy are attempting to vaccinate "people on the margins of society, the most fragile," by holding overnight vaccine drives in the Lazio region, which includes Rome, the New York Times reports. Why it matters: Italy's National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty has estimated there are at least 700,000 people in the country who are not registered with the national health service and may lack access to the country’s coronavirus vaccination campaign. (7/5)

The New York Times: Luxembourg’s Prime Minister In ‘Serious’ Condition With Low Blood-Oxygen Levels 
Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg, who is suffering from Covid-19 symptoms, was in “serious but stable” condition on Monday at a hospital, the State Ministry in Luxembourg said. The prime minister had low oxygen levels in his blood, an acute concern for people with Covid-19. (Hassan, 7/6)

In other news from across the pond —

CBS News: Researchers Deem Four-Day Workweek Trial An "Overwhelming Success" In Iceland 
Trials of a four-day workweek in Iceland were called an "overwhelming success" by researchers on Sunday. The Association for Sustainable Democracy (Alda) in Iceland, along with the UK-based thinktank Autonomy, published their findings of two large-scale trials of the program undertake from 2015 to 2019 of a reduced working week with no cut in pay. ... Workers who participated in the trials worked 35-36 hour per week. According to Alda, "worker wellbeing dramatically increased across a range of indicators, from perceived stress and burnout, to health and work-life balance." At the same time, "productivity and service provision remained the same or improved across the majority of trial workplaces." (Howard, 7/5)

Stat: Many European Countries Don't Ensure That Clinical Trial Data Are Available
Amid ongoing concerns over clinical trial transparency, a new report finds “notable gaps” in the quality and availability of clinical trial data in a European registry, pointing to inconsistent and often inadequate oversight by regulators in individual countries. (Silverman, 7/4)