WITH government figures showing that 56 new people had a confirmed positive Covid test result on July 18, readers have been giving their reactions.

Between July 12 and 18, 360 people had a confirmed positive test result. This shows an increase of 85.6 per cent compared to the previous seven-day period.

In terms of vaccinations against coronavirus 48,309 people had been given a first dose by the end of July 17 and 38,943 people had been given a second dose.

Reader Stephen Snell posted: “Watch the numbers go up in next few weeks due to football and restrictions being relaxed. I predict we will beat our high of 527 cases achieved last July unfortunately.

“Ascot,Wimbledon and Wembley are partly to blame for huge increases in past few weeks, along with people not taking responsibility and not maintaining social distancing. I could go on.

“As for vaccination, not everyone has had it, with 86.7 per cent first dosage in Barrow.”

Greg Rose said: “Have you heard about the Delta variant? If that gets through the plaster which is the vaccine, we’re back to square one again and Johnson is to blame.”

Matt Waddington said: “What should we do then, live our lives in fear? Normal service needs to resume.”

Stephen Snell responded: “What is normal these days? Our government has made a very poor decision to relax restrictions when cases are climbing sky high.

“Death rates may be low but the NHS – already struggling with a near eight million waiting list – will collapse if this goes on.”

Matt Waddington replied: “What should we do then? There’s people out there with serious illness that have missed out on treatments due to this. If you all think the vaccine is top dollar what are you worried about?

“Life has to go on, ditch the masks.”

Carl Gaitskell said: “What should we do, hide away forever, live with lockdowns and restrictions forever?

“It’s a virus that’s never going away. We need to live life to the full – we only get one.”