After dropping 0 cases last month, the UK has seen its contamination figures rise again, with an average of nearly 6,000 cases in seven days, a 65% increase from the previous week. The country has just returned to France, where the indicators continue to decline.

However, the British are widely vaccinated: about 77% of the population has received both doses. The revival of a pandemic that specifically calls into question the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is primarily used across the channel and has been found to have a protection rate of 25% lower than messenger RNA vaccines.

Should we be looking at the reason for this increase in pollution? “On a country scale, globally, it’s a huge 25%., recognizes Professor Cyril Cohen, Director of the Immunotherapy Laboratory at Bar Ilan University (Israel). Same story for Dr Philip Froguel, Professor at Imperial College London: “With two doses, we are very well protected with RNA vaccines, moderately with the AstraZeneca vaccine which was very important in England.”

But the AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t the only factor that could explain this new increase. The Delta version, formerly called the “Indian”, is also included. Very highly contagious, it is present exclusively in the United Kingdom and represents about 90% of new infections.

Even the government is contemplating postponing the fourth phase of deconfinement. Scheduled for June 21, it should allow the re-opening of nightclubs, concert halls in particular and the dismantling of distancing rules. According to timesPrime Minister Boris Johnson may delay the lifting of these restrictions by a month.

The British health agency Public Health England, however, judged “encouraging” To see if the progression of the variant is not accompanied by hospitalization in equal proportion. One thousand patients of coronavirus are currently in British hospitals.