Boris Johnson could declare as soon as next week that Britain is back on track to lift the lockdown, after new figures showed Covid cases are still falling despite the Indian variant. The Prime Minister warned last week there was a ‘real risk of disruption’ to the roadmap out of lockdown because of the emergence of the fast-spreading strain. Yesterday he said the ‘wall of defences’ built up by the vaccination programme appeared to be limiting the impact of the variant, while warning that ‘a few more days’ of data were needed to be sure. But optimism among ministers was rising last night, buoyed by the sight of people queuing for jabs in hotspot areas such as Bolton, and official data showing that the epidemic is continuing to shrink.