Just five weeks after the ending of Covid safety restrictions on July 19, Covid cases and deaths are rising sharply in Britain.

Public Health England data for the seven days to August 19 found that two thirds of England’s local authority areas saw a week-on-week rise in Covid infection rates. Of England’s 312 local authority areas, 210 (67 percent) saw a rise in infections. The new cases sent the total number infected with Covid past 6.5 million since the start of the pandemic—almost a tenth of the population.

Schools across the UK are set to return, with scientists warning this will result in a surge in cases and illness. Schools returned in Scotland last week, with evidence already emerging that they are fuelling a surge in Covid cases.

On Wednesday, the UK recorded 149 Covid-19 deaths and a further 35,847 cases. This followed the 174 deaths reported Tuesday. More than 100 deaths a day on average are due to Covid. The 743 deaths recorded in the last seven days are an increase of 14 percent on the previous week. This week’s cases already stand at just short of 100,000. In the last seven days 236,796 new cases were recorded, up 14 percent on the previous week.

Total deaths stand officially at 132,003 according to the government’s manipulated figures. But when Covid is listed as a cause of death on death certificates the figure is now 155,000, an increase of more than 17 percent.

Hospitalisations are on the increase. On August 21, the last date for which data is available, 859 patients were admitted to hospital with Covid, taking the seven-day total to 6,172—up nearly 10 percent on the week prior. Nearly 1,000 people (942) are in hospital classified as in a serious/critical condition.

On Wednesday, Scotland recorded a record high of 5,021 new cases—the first time daily cases have passed 5,000. This topped the previous record of 4,323 hit 24 hours earlier, itself an increase on the record 4,234 daily cases reached earlier this summer. At a Covid briefing Tuesday, Scottish National Party First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has marched in lockstep with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in abandoning safety measures, declared, “New cases in Scotland have more than doubled over the past week, and that is one of the sharpest rises we have experienced at any point during the pandemic.”

She said of the grave situation resulting from the herd immunity agenda her government has overseen, “If this surge continues and accelerates and we start to see evidence of substantial increase in serious illness, we cannot completely rule out having to reimpose some restrictions.”

On Wednesday, SNP deputy first minister, John Swinney, was forced to acknowledged that the return to classrooms beginning the week of August 16 was a factor in the surge in cases. Of the new cases, the under-19s age group accounts for a third. School children are entirely unvaccinated, with just 42 percent of 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland having had their first dose of a vaccine. Swinney said, “Undoubtedly the gathering of people together in schools will have fuelled that to some extent, and you can see that in the proportion of younger people who are testing positive.'

The overriding concern was still to keep parents working in factories and offices and the children in school, with Swinney insisting that school closures must be avoided “at all possible costs.” According to this agenda, Covid will be able to circulate unhindered in schools for two months, with the autumn half term break not scheduled until mid-October.

At the World Socialist Web Site hosted online discussion “For a Global Strategy to Stop the Pandemic and Save Lives!,” held Sunday, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker described the herd immunity agenda of the Johnson government as an “almost barbaric experiment on the British people.”

The lifting of restrictions took place amid government and media lies that the threat of Covid was largely over, with much of the population vaccinated. Incessant propaganda was spread backing up claims that it was safe for people to meet up in crowded settings.

New data from a series of monitored large scale events, including concerts and sporting events, reveal that thousands of people were infected even among those who were double vaccinated. Some of the 37 “mass participation” events included the Wimbledon tennis tournament, Royal Ascot horseracing, the Download music festival and the Open Championship golf tournament. The largest of these was the British Grand Prix, held at Silverstone, Northamptonshire, from July 14-18 and attended by 350,000 people.

As part of government’s Event Research Programme, 40,000 people attended the Latitude Festival, held in Henham Park in Suffolk, England from July 22 to July 25. To gain entry, people were required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test or be double vaccinated. Data released by Suffolk County Council confirms that 1,051 people tested positive for Covid in the days after the event. Of these the majority (619 people) were infected while at the festival, with 432 found to be infectious when they entered the festival site, despite testing negative.

According to Public Health England, thousands of already infectious people attended the soccer Euro final at Wembley in London on July 11, eight days before lockdown restrictions were lifted. At least 2,300 people were “likely to be infectious” with the coronavirus on entering the stadium and 3,404 people at the game developed Covid-19 shortly afterwards, with PHE finding they were likely to have contracted the virus while attending the game.

The government gave the green light for mass participation events to go ahead based on lies. Since then, the Boardmasters music and surfing festival held in the Newquay area of Cornwall from August 11 and 15 resulted in nearly 10 percent (4,700 cases) of the 50,000 people attending being infected with Covid.

According to local health officials, three-quarters of the infections were among those aged 16 to 21 and, given the wide geographical spread of those who attend festivals, most infections were spread across the country, while 800 of the new cases lived in Cornwall. The mass infections occurred despite those who attended being required to show a National Health Service Covid Pass as a condition of entry. Even more infections would have taken place at the Boardmasters Festival had 450 people 'who would otherwise have been at risk of passing on the virus' decided not to attend or left the festival early. In the latest available figures from Public Health England, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly have the second highest rate of Covid infection with 4,129 new cases recorded—a rate of 717.4 per 100,000 people.

An even more dangerous situation is posed in the weeks and months ahead, with research published Wednesday finding that protection against Covid infection after two vaccine doses falls within six months, with protection levels even projected to reduce to as low as 50 percent by winter.

Researchers at King's College London analysed PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test results from more than a million people who had been fully vaccinated. Those who had received two doses of Pfizer decreased from 88 percent protected at one month to 74 percent at five to six months. For those double jabbed with AstraZeneca, effectiveness dropped from 77 percent to 67 percent at four to five months.

Another study, published Tuesday, found that four in 10 people who have weakened immune systems show “low or undetectable” levels of Covid immunity after being double vaccinated. The OCTAVE study by the universities of Glasgow and Birmingham found that some of the people with weakened immune systems failed to generate any antibodies four weeks after receiving the second vaccination.