Hints and tips:
...Many discount chains have thrived in recent years but Wilko struggled in the face of increased competition from rivals such as B&M and Home Bargains....
...One thing it avoids is the B word. “We debated long and hard about bringing Brexit into it,” Beaufoy says....
...Next to it sits The Hall at Bolton Abbey, its extraordinary ancestral house....
...The coronavirus variant first identified in India — known as B.1.617.2 — has taken a grip on Bolton, nearby Blackburn and the town of Bedford near London....
...The “b” was a mystery.) Until I could fix this, I had to negotiate to get anywhere....
...One of the big unknowns in recent weeks is what impact the highly transmissible variant first identified in India — B.1.617.2 — would have on the course of the pandemic although initial data suggests two...
...UK, with 483 of those cases identified within Bolton and Blackburn....
...It has also introduced increased vaccinations in B.1.617.2 hotspots such as Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen....
...In the seven days to May 21 infections in Bolton rose to the equivalent of 452.1 cases per 100,000 people from 300.8 the previous week....
...Hancock said the priority was to get first jabs into the arms of people who had declined to have a vaccination, pointing out that they formed the majority of B.1.617.2 seriously ill cases in Bolton....
...A surge in UK cases of the B.1.617.2 variant, first identified in India, is forcing the government to rethink its vaccination plans....
...Fast growth in cases of the B.1.617.2 variant in several locations across England, including Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, has cast doubt on whether the government can stick to its plan to lift all coronavirus...
...Matt Hancock admitted however, that the government “did not yet” have a full answer on the effectiveness of vaccines against the B.1.617.2 variant first identified in India....
...Rapid growth in cases of the B.1.617.2 variant in several locations across England, including the town of Bolton, has cast doubt on whether the government can stick to its plan to lift all coronavirus restrictions...
...In contrast, in Bolton the variant accounted for 289 out of 337 cases....
...The UK health secretary on Wednesday said that surge testing and increased vaccinations will be offered to residents in potential Covid-19 hotspots in England in an attempt to contain the B.1.617.2 variant...
...announced that cases of the variant first identified in India had risen to 2,323, up 76 per cent since Thursday, and that 86 local authorities had reported more than five cases of the strain, known as B....
...infections were not confined to Bolton and the north-west....
...John Edmunds, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC that the B.1.617 variant was likely “to become dominant soon”....
...But he raised concerns about the spread of the new variant, B.1.617.2, which is believed to be more transmissible than other strains....
...PHE said the cases discovered so far were spread across the country, but with the majority in two areas — the North West (predominantly Bolton) and London....
...In Bolton, cases are rising fastest among young, mostly unvaccinated groups, with rates relatively flat among older and vaccinated populations....
...Cases of the B.1.617.2 variant are mainly focused in hotspots such as Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen, and Bedford, although most parts of the country now have small numbers of cases, said Public Health England...
...Cases are clustered around Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen, Bedford and London and some parts of the Midlands, where the number of cases associated with other strains has continued to fall....
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