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In the meantime you can catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.
Back to Boris Johnson:
Jim McMahon MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, commenting on claims TfL workers have been part of the same pilot scheme for Covid testing that the Prime Minister claimed to be in, has told the Guardian:
The Government’s claims that TfL workers are part of a pilot scheme seem premature at best and were clearly rushed out to provide cover for the wishes of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.
Rail services across the country are being cancelled precisely because so many staff are being forced to self-isolate. Ministers were warned the situation was reaching a critical point days ago.
The reality is, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been caught red-handed trying to get round the rules they expect everyone else to follow.
They must now apologise for their contempt for the British public and for needlessly dragging hard-working transport workers into their farcical cover-up.”
A further 1,179 cases of Covid were reported in the Republic of Ireland today.
As of Sunday, there were 91 patients in hospital with coronavirus, including 22 in intensive care.
Brazil recorded 948 new Covid deaths and 34,126 more cases, according to data released by the country’s health ministry on Sunday.
The Reuters news agency reported that Brazil has now registered a total of 542,214 coronavirus deaths and 19,376,574 total confirmed cases.
Unions have lashed out at the UK government for “sowing chaos and confusion” by claiming that rail and tube staff are taking part in a pilot scheme cited by ministers as the reason why Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson could avoid self-isolation.
The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said the claims made on Sunday morning that a scheme existed that could allow rail staff to continue to work despite test-and-trace alerts were “totally untrue”.
Transport for London also denied claims made by the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, on Sunday that it was part of a pilot scheme.
An RMT spokesperson said workers had been asking how they could join a scheme that did not exist at a time when shortages due to the “pingdemic” have seen services cut due to lack of staff. The Metropolitan line into London was closed on Saturday as signallers were forced to self-isolate.
Team GB’s preparations for the Olympics have been plunged into chaos after six athletes and two staff members from the athletics squad were forced to self-isolate after coming into close contact with a member of the public who had Covid-19 on their flight to Tokyo.
The news, which broke late on Sunday afternoon in Yokohama after the athletes had finished training for the day, stunned officials who immediately rushed to ensure that the athletes and staff members were confined to their rooms.
All eight must now pass two PCR tests over the next 48 hours before being allowed to mingle with other members of the squad again. One source described a sense of shock when hearing the news.
But another said they had been prepared for such an incident arising, and “it would have been naive to think there were not going to be issues”.
The athletes concerned have not been named at this stage.
Updated
Covid cases are increasing in every state in the United States, while millions remain unvaccinated against the highly contagious Delta variant, warns the US surgeon general.
Dr Vivek Murthy raised concerns today over the fact that nearly all coronavirus deaths now are among the tens of millions of people who haven’t received shots.
This is despite widespread vaccine availability across the States, reports the Associated Press.
Dr Murthy told CNN’s State of the Union:
I am worried about what is to come because we are seeing increasing cases among the unvaccinated in particular.
And while, if you are vaccinated, you are very well protected against hospitalisation and death, unfortunately that is not true if you are not vaccinated.
Covid cases in the US increased by 17,000 last week over a two-week period for the first time since the autumn.
Saudi Arabia has been left counting the cost of the second pared-back hajj in as many years.
Tens of thousands of vaccinated Muslims circled Islam’s holiest site in Mecca on Sunday - but it is an event which has previously attracted 2.5 people.
The pilgrims remained socially distanced and wore masks as they walked, the Associated Press reported.
The scaled-back hajj means only Muslims from Saudi Arabia can take part and it has been hit by financial losses as a result.
In pre-pandemic years, the state took in billions of dollars as the custodian of the holy sites.
Meanwhile, the United States confirmed it has now given 337,740,358 doses of Covid vaccines as of Sunday morning,
The latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show figures up from the 337,239,448 jabs that had been given by yesterday.
The figures include both doses of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s single jab.
A breakdown of the figures show 186,038,501 people have received at least one dose while 161,232,483 people are now fully vaccinated.
A sharp increase of Covid cases, exacerbated by the Delta variant, has led to residents of Los Angeles County in the United States being required to wear masks once again.
The new mandate began late last night, according to the Associated Press, with people forced to wear masks indoors again even if they have received both coronavirus vaccine doses.
In a county of 11 million people, it is understood the majority of new cases are among people who have yet to receive their first vaccination.
LA County supervisor Hilda Solis told ABC’s This Week show:
I’m not pleased that we have to go back to using the masks in this matter but, nonetheless, it’s going to save lives.
And right now that to me is what’s most important.
California reopened its economy fully on 15 June, removing restrictions on capacity limits and social distancing. Cases have been continuously rising ever since.
Updated
Questions are growing over the UK’s workplace pilot scheme, which allows certain government departments and other public bodies to avoid isolating after exposure to Covid.
Downing Street was accused of sowing confusion and a sense of “one rule for them” on the eve of so-called “freedom day” by saying Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak would continue with “essential government business” while having daily rapid tests.
They performed a U-turn less than three hours later, with one Whitehall source suggesting the chancellor put pressure on No 10 to back down.
They said:
Sunak knew how this would go down with businesses, which are having to shut because their staff are being pinged
Updated
The Delta variant is continuing to spread rapidly in France, as the nation registered more than 12,500 new Covid cases today.
It is the third day in a row that the daily case figure has exceeded 10,000, the Reuters news agency reported.
But the French health ministry said the 12,532 new cases reported on Sunday, which took its total to 5.87 million, included data not published the day before.
In a note on its website, it said:
The daily figure published today (+12,532) should therefore not be interpreted as an exceptional increase in the number of daily cases, in a context nonetheless of strong dynamics in the evolution of the number of cases.
France was hit with 10,949 cases on Saturday and 10,908 on Friday.
It also has some 891 people currently in intensive care units with the new coronavirus on Sunday, up one from the previous day, while the total number of deaths in hospitals rose by five to 111,472.
People in Australia believe individual states have handled the pandemic better over the course of the past year, compared to the national government, new research shows.
The findings are contained in a paper published by the Australia Institute which has been polling voters about the level of government they think is doing a better job of managing the Covid-19 crisis since August last year.
While the states were viewed as doing the better job at the outset, 31% compared to 25% for the federal government, the gap has substantially widened in recent months.
Bill Browne, senior researcher in the Australia Institute’s democracy and accountability program, said:
Australia’s states are sometimes disparaged as relics or mendicants, dependent on the federal government, and unnecessary for a country the size of Australia.
However, the states and territories have shone during the Covid-19 crisis with strong, strict and decisive responses, which have in turn won popularity with the public.
The unprecedented support for Australia’s premiers is one of the standout stories of the pandemic.
Hospitals in the Spanish region of Catalonia could face “severe pressure” as Covid infections peak while some staff are off on holiday.
The head of the Catalan regional health service, Gemma Craywinckel, told RAC1 radio the region could see as many as 500 people in intensive care over the next fortnight.
The Associated Press news agency reported today:
She said the Catalan public health system is already “under a lot of strain” due to a surge in infections blamed on the Delta variant.
Craywinckel said authorities had failed to convey to local people the danger that the Delta variant represented. She also criticized people who have confronted police officers enforcing a night-time curfew.
Updated
Here is the full video of Boris Johnson setting out the reasons for his latest U-turn and decision to self-isolate after he was pinged by the NHS Covid app.
The UK prime minister followed it up with a call for the public to “stick with the programme”. He said:
The reason for that is we are going tomorrow into step four, we are doing a big opening up and that’s quite right - if we don’t do it now then we will be opening up in the autumn, the winter months, when the virus has the advantage of the cold weather.
We lose the precious firebreak we get with the school holidays, if we don’t do it now, we have got to ask ourselves ‘when will we ever do it?’ but we have got to do it cautiously.
Updated
Protestors in Thailand attempted to march on the office of the prime minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, today to demand his resignation, Reuters reports.
The Thai leader has faced fierce criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent impact on the Asian country’s economy.
It is understood police used teargas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse protesters.
Reuters reports:
Some protesters attacked police and eight police officers and at least one reporter were injured during the clashes, police said. Police did not say if any protesters were injured, but said 13 protesters were arrested.
Protest organisers called for the demonstration to end just after 6pm but a stand-off between the police and hundreds of protesters continued for several more hours before the police dispersed the crowd just before the start of a 9 p.m. curfew that is in force in the Thai capital.
More than 1,000 people had joined the demonstration.
Thailand reported 11,397 infections and 101 deaths on Sunday, bringing its overall total to 403,386 cases and 3,341 deaths - most of which are a result of an outbreak in April this year.
Updated
On the matter of the test-and-trace pilot scheme, Labour leader Keir Starmer has been particularly scathing of the UK prime minister for the handling of his latest U-turn today.
He told BBC News:
Yet again it is double standards from the government. The prime minister is causing utter chaos with his reckless decision-making and that means infection rates are going through the roof, hundreds of thousands of people are having to self-isolate and they are doing the right thing.
What happens when the rules apply to the prime minister? He tries to wriggle out of them and pretend he’s on some pilot scheme that exempts him. I’m afraid that, yet again, we see it is one rule for them and another for everybody else.
The leader of the opposition added that the only reason Boris Johnson has reversed his decision not to self-isolate is because “he has been busted” and says it is “contemptuous of the British public”.
Updated
Transport for London (TfL) has contradicted claims by the UK’s communities minister, Robert Jenrick, that it is taking part in a test-and-trace pilot scheme.
The government minister claimed TfL was one of 20 public bodies taking part in the scheme, which would see daily testing replace self-isolation.
But a TfL spokesperson said:
The current test-and-trace rules on self-isolation have led to vital control room staff being unable to come to work, causing disruption on some tube lines.
The government has indicated that we could be part of a trial whereby daily tests would replace the need for self-isolation. We are still waiting for formal notification from them that we are part of this trial so that we can brief our trade unions and put this into effect.
No 10 is also briefing that Network Rail is part of the same pilot - which would have allowed Boris Johnson to skip self-isolation after being pinged by the NHS Covid app – but there has been no confirmation from Network Rail either.
A bit awkward for Downing St...
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) July 18, 2021
A claim by Communities Minister Robert Jenrick that TFL were one of 20 public bodies taking part in a pilot which Boris Johnson & Rish Sunak were going to use to avoid self isolation has been flat out contradicted by TFL pic.twitter.com/YZOpYGgHkL
Updated
Another 48,161 positive tests and 25 Covid deaths in UK
A further 48,161 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK over the past 24 hours, according to the latest government figures.
The data released today also shows 25 people have died from the virus in the past day, while 740 patients were admitted to hospital.
The government also published the latest daily vaccination data, with 67,217 more first doses given, as well as another 225,214 second jabs.
This brings the total number of first doses given to UK adults up to 46,295,853, while 35,970,849 second jabs have now been given.
#COVID19 VACCINE UPDATE: Daily figures on the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been given in the UK.
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) July 18, 2021
As of 18 July, 82,266,702 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given in the UK.
Visit the @PHE_uk dashboard for more info:
▶️ https://t.co/cQkuLQglz1 pic.twitter.com/UTLi7XU9ji
Updated
Johnson says he only ‘briefly’ considered not isolating
Boris Johnson says he only looked “briefly into the idea” of avoiding self-isolation through a daily contact testing pilot after being pinged by NHS test and trace.
After announcing he would isolate following contact with Sajid Javid, who has tested positive for Covid-19, the prime minister addressed criticism of his previous plan in a video on Twitter.
He said:
We did look briefly into the idea of us taking part in the pilot scheme which allows people to test daily, but I think it’s far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules.
That’s why I’m going to be self-isolating until 26 July.
I really do urge everybody to stick with the programme and take the appropriate course of action when you’re asked to do so by NHS test and trace.
Like so many people I've been pinged by NHS Test and Trace as I have been in contact with someone with COVID-19, and I will be self-isolating until Monday 26th July. pic.twitter.com/X57gDpwDqe
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) July 18, 2021
Updated
Britain’s Covid vaccination programme for children could initially be restricted to those with underlying health conditions or who are about to turn 18, a government minister has suggested.
Robert Jenrick said children aged 12 or over who live with vulnerable people would also be at the front of the queue if ministers give the green light to vaccinating under-18s. The Department of Health said no decision had yet been reached.
Amid splits between scientists and growing pressure for a decision on the issue, the communities secretary said the government would receive advice soon from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). This is understood to be expected within days.
Responding to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, Jenrick told Sky News:
We will be looking carefully at their advice when we receive it – we expect it very soon – on whether or not we should open up the vaccine programme in the first instance to children who are just short of their 18th birthday, to those children who have particular vulnerabilities, and those children who are in households where there are people who are particularly vulnerable.
That seems like a sensible way for us to proceed but ministers will need to make that decision when they’re armed with the final advice from the JCVI, our expert advisers, and I expect that we will be receiving that advice very soon.
The JCVI’s main consideration is whether the benefits of children receiving the vaccine outweigh any possible risk. This includes a deliberation on whether the benefits extend beyond the protection afforded to adults by reducing spread of the disease from younger people.
One of the academic studies understood to have been considered by the JCVI concluded that Covid was “very rarely fatal” in under-18s, even among those with underlying health conditions. It calculated that Covid had a mortality rate of two in a million among children and young people, after an analysis of all deaths of under-18s in England in the first year of the pandemic, suggesting that giving all children the vaccine may not be worth any possible risk.
Read the full story here:
Indonesia has reported more daily Covid-19 infections than India and Brazil as the Delta strain sweeps across south-east Asia, placing intense pressure on health systems.
Most countries in the region are experiencing their worst outbreaks since the pandemic began, fuelled by the emergence of more aggressive variants and a lack of vaccines.
In Malaysia, shipping containers have been sent to hospitals because their morgues are so overwhelmed. In Thailand, field hospitals are being built at the capital’s two airports. In Myanmar, social media has been inundated with desperate pleas for oxygen.
In Indonesia, the worst hit, volunteer undertakers visit homes, collecting the bodies of people who were unable to access treatment.
On Saturday, Indonesia reported 51,952 cases and 1,092 deaths, higher than India and Brazil for a third day running. More than 72,400 people have died, according to official records. Only the UK – which has a far higher rate of testing – recorded more new infections on Saturday, 54,674.
Health experts believe Indonesia’s figures are a severe underestimate. “The centre [of the pandemic] in Asia is already in Indonesia right now, but if we have more testing capacity we are already the epicentre of the world,” said Dr Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist at Australia’s Griffith University.
“We miss many cases and we don’t identify maybe 80% of these cases in the community … In Indonesia the testing is passive, it’s not active. The one who comes to the healthcare facility is the one who gets tested if they show symptoms, or if they also identity as the contact,” he said.
Indonesia has one of the world’s weakest testing systems, performing 55.89 tests for every 1,000 people since the start of the pandemic, according to Our World in Data. This is a lower testing rate than in India, with 318.86 swabs per 1,000 people. The UK, which has one of the highest rates, has conducted 3,311.03 tests per 1,000 people.
Read more here:
Following the announcement of stricter social distancing measures being introduced in Vietnam’s capital city, the country’s health ministry has confirmed that daily Covid cases have reached a record high.
The country reported 5,926 cases on Sunday, according to Reuters, as the country battles its worst outbreak so far. Vietnam has reported 53,830 cases overall, with 254 deaths.
Tony Blair has called on ministers to drop the requirement for people who are fully vaccinated to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, PA Media reports.
The former prime minister said the current system was “not rational” and he understood why people were deleting the NHS Covid app from their mobile phones.
He told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One:
We’re at risk of moving in two contradictory directions.
On the one hand we’re going to open everything up, free restriction altogether, and on the other hand we’ve still got this pinging track and trace system where people have got to go into complete isolation if they’re pinged in circumstances where probably the vast majority of those people do not need to do so.
Blair said Boris Johnson should not be having to self-isolate after he met with the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who has since tested positive.
He said:
I don’t want the prime minister of the country to be in isolation at the moment, I need him at his desk doing his job.
He’s double-vaccinated, he’s actually had Covid, he’s testing and presumably the tests are coming back negative. The point is to do this for everyone.
Updated
Domestic flights to and from Bangkok and other provinces classified by the Thai government as high risk from Covid-19 will be suspended starting 21 July, the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) said on Sunday.
Exceptions are being made for medical flights, emergency landing aircrafts and flights in connection with the government’s tourism reopening programs, the announcement said.
Other domestic fights can only fly at 50% capacity, Reuters reports.
Updated
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been forced into a U-turn and will self-isolate after coming into contact with the health secretary, who has contracted Covid-19.
The UK prime minister and chancellor had initially tried to avoid isolation by saying they were part of a pilot testing scheme, prompting an outcry from members of the public and backbench Conservative MPs.
Their U-turn came after only three hours amid chaos at No 10 over plans to drop many Covid restrictions for “freedom day” on Monday, and minutes after the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, had defended their plans to continue working from Downing Street.
It means the prime minister, chancellor and health secretary will all be isolating, along with hundreds of thousands of others due to exposure to coronavirus, when restrictions are dropped across England from Monday.
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The prime minister has been contacted by NHS test and trace to say he is a contact of someone with Covid. He was at Chequers when contacted by test and trace and will remain there to isolate. He will not be taking part in the testing pilot.
He will continue to conduct meetings with ministers remotely. The chancellor has also been contacted and will also isolate as required and will not be taking part in the pilot.
Sunak tweeted: “Whilst the test and trace pilot is fairly restrictive, allowing only essential government business, I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong. To that end I’ll be self-isolating as normal and not taking part in the pilot.”
Javid tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday. The prime minister is reported to have had a lengthy meeting with him at No 10 on Friday.
Downing Street earlier confirmed Johnson and Sunak were part of a pilot scheme that allows certain people to have daily rapid flow tests instead of having to self-isolate. “They will be conducting only essential government business during this period,” said a spokesperson.
Reaction to the news was rapid and furious, with instances on social media of people reporting they were going to delete the NHS Covid-19 app from their phones.
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said many people across the UK would be dismayed by the “special, exclusive rule” for Johnson and Sunak.
“There will be parents across the country who have struggled this year when their children have been sent home because they were in a bubble and had to self-isolate,” he told Sky News.
Read the full story:
It will take three weeks before the impact of lifting coronavirus restrictions in England is known, with it being “almost inevitable” that case numbers will rise, a government scientific adviser has warned.
Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said infections would “almost certainly” reach 100,000 daily cases, with the potential for double that figure, PA Media reports.
Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on the eve of Covid measures being relaxed in England, Ferguson also warned that half a million more people could develop long Covid in the future.
Answering questions on the trajectory of the pandemic, he said:
It’s very difficult to say for certain, but I think 100,000 cases a day is almost inevitable.
Ferguson highlighted that the relaxation of measures coincided with the start of school holidays, which will probably see contact rates among teenagers “tick down”.
While emphasising it was “very difficult to make precise predictions”, he added:
It’ll almost certainly get to 100,000 cases a day. The real question is, do we get to double that or even higher? And that’s where the crystal ball starts to fail. We could get to 2,000 hospitalisations a day, 200,000 cases a day, but it’s much less certain.
Ferguson also said high levels of infection rates could push up the number of people suffering from long Covid.
“We know now that probably around a quarter of people who get symptomatic Covid – get symptoms – have those symptoms for a long period of time,” he said.
He added that according to Office of National Statistics figures “about a million” people had long Covid and this could “go up to another half million on top of that”.
If hospital admissions reached the 2,000-a-day level – about half of that seen in the second wave before Christmas – there could be “major disruption” to the health service, Ferguson warned.
But he added that it looked like people being admitted to hospital were not as severely ill as those in December and January, with the mortality rate “much, much lower”.
Ferguson said “success” would be “keeping hospitalisations at around 1,000 a day level and then declining, case numbers maybe peaking a little over 100,000 a day and then slowly declining”.
Asked how long it would be before it was known whether the pandemic strategy was going to work in terms of getting towards herd immunity, Ferguson said:
We’ll know it’s worked when case numbers plateau and start going down, we know then hospitalisations and deaths will take some more weeks.
The best projections suggest that could happen any time from, really, mid-August to mid-September. So, we will have to be patient.
It’ll also take us three weeks before we know the effect of Monday, of relaxing restrictions, and what that will do to case numbers. So, it’s going to be quite a period of time.
Ferguson said he “can’t be certain” over whether the country will need to lock down again before Christmas, but said there may be a need to “slow spread” under a “worst case scenario” of 2,000 to 3,000 hospital admissions per day.
He added:
Fundamentally, this will be a different wave from the previous two. The previous two peaked because we introduced lockdown measures, and that’s the only reason.
This time if we don’t have to change course, then it will peak because herd immunity is being reached, and then it overshoots and you still get infections beyond that point, but the epidemic will be in decline.
Asked if high levels of people with sufficient antibodies could be reached without children being infected in large numbers or being vaccinated, Ferguson replied:
We’re already seeing very high numbers of cases in teenagers, and we won’t be able to reach herd immunity without significant immunity in basically people under 18.
Updated
Deaths of doctors from Covid-19 in Indonesia rose sharply in the first half of July, according to the profession’s association, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus fuelled a surge in infections across the country, Reuters reports.
A total of 114 doctors died from 1-17 July, the highest number reported for any period of similar length and more than 20% of the 545 total doctor deaths from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, officials from Indonesia’s doctors association (IDI) said during a virtual news conference.
Mahesa Paranadipa, a senior IDI official, said the association was concerned the health system may not be able to cope, according to a recording of the event.
Paranadipa said:
We are worried about the potential of a functional collapse. This is the reported data, not yet data that may not have been reported to us.
Doctors’ deaths have increased in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation, despite a 95% vaccination rate among health workers. This has prompted the government to use a batch of Moderna vaccines as booster shots to China’s Sinovac for healthcare workers.
Fuelled by the spread of the more virulent Delta variant, Indonesia has reported more new coronavirus cases than any country in the world in recent days, data from the latest seven-day average from a Reuters tracker showed. It was second only to Brazil in terms of the number of deaths.
Updated
Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, will implement stricter social distancing measures from Monday as the city experiences a rise in coronavirus cases, the authorities said in a statement on Sunday.
All non-essential services will be halted until further notice, public passenger transport services to and from affected provinces will also be suspended, the statement said.
Citizens are urged to stay at home and leave only when necessary, it added.
Updated
Scientists in the UK have strongly endorsed the continued wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces over summer. As Covid-19 cases continue to spiral, face coverings offer people the most robust way of limiting the spread of the disease in cafes, theatres and restaurants, they said last week.
Rates of new Covid-19 cases in the UK topped 50,000 a day last week, leading scientists and health experts to warn that the country could be forced into a lockdown later this year as rising numbers of infections look likely to continue until autumn. In these circumstances, they said, wearing of masks should be continued despite the government’s refusal to make such a move official.
“If you don’t wear masks, the virus will spread further. It is as simple as that,” said Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at Leicester University.
Tang said masks clearly limit the spread of viral particles from an infected person and also cut a wearer’s chance of picking up an infection from someone else. “Masks work both ways,” he told the Observer.
He said:
If you assume that a mask at least halves transmission, that means that for every 1,000 virus particles an infected person breathes out, only 500 will leave your mask. Then, when those particles reach someone else, similarly their masks will ensure at least a twofold reduction in the number of viruses reaching their mouths or noses. In other words, of the 1,000 virus particles an infected person has breathed out, only 250 or so will reach another person. That should reduce infection rates, and that is why masks are important.
This point was backed by Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia.
He told the Observer:
Most studies are observational and prone to all sorts of biases, but taken together there is a consistent finding towards face coverings having benefit both in protecting others if the wearer is infected and also to protect the wearer from others.
Estimates vary but they probably reduce transmission somewhere between 10 and 25%.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Commenting on news that the prime minister and chancellor planned not to self-isolate after being pinged by NHS test and trace, Lobby Akinnola of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said:
It’s like this government has learned nothing since the Barnard Castle debacle.
People all over the country are making huge sacrifices. They’re isolating when pinged because they know how important it is to protect people. But apparently Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak think the rules don’t apply to them.
The group added that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were supposed to be “leading by example”.
Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, said the British government was in “chaos”.
He said:
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following don’t apply to them.
Sir Keir Starmer: “This Conservative Government is in chaos. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following don’t apply to them.” pic.twitter.com/zERvOF9Srf
— Sophia Sleigh (@SophiaSleigh) July 18, 2021
Here’s some reaction from politicians and political commentators to the -turn from Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
Dominic Cummings has offered his thoughts on the reversal of plans for the prime minister and chancellor to skip quarantine after being potentially exposed to coronavirus.
In a tweet (which resembles a word salad), he said being forced to U-turn “by your [chancellor] is what happens when this PM tries to be ‘my own chief of staff’.”
Being forced to u-turn by your CHX is what happens when this PM tries to be 'my own chief of staff'. DanR & Carrie stopped staff arguing with the PM & telling him 'you're wrong/no'. Dan spins this as 'order'. It isn't. It means bedlam & terrible decisions https://t.co/5P4U5O1dTV pic.twitter.com/vhfqBb08N2
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) July 18, 2021
David Gauke, the former lord chancellor, posted a series of tweets predicting the U-turn and saying he sympathised with Robert Jenrick, who was doing the rounds on TV defending Johnson and Sunak earlier on Sunday.
My guess is that the PM and Chancellor will be self-isolating by the end of the day.
— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) July 18, 2021
I should have said ‘within the hour’.https://t.co/Y96kU0FHEg
— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) July 18, 2021
In my day, we did our U-turns over a few days, sometimes even over a few weeks.
— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) July 18, 2021
I, for one, can empathise with Robert Jenrick.
Labour MP David Lammy said it shouldn’t have taken public pressure for the government to do the right thing.
It shouldn’t take public pressure for the Prime Minister to follow the same rules he is setting for everyone else.@BorisJohnson shouldn’t need to perform a screeching U-turn to do the right thing.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) July 18, 2021
Meanwhile, Mikey Smith of the Mirror had this take:
Not seen a pilot U turn that fast since Priti Patel got sacked by Theresa May
— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 18, 2021
Updated
Boris Johnson was at Chequers when he was contacted by NHS test and trace which is why he will self-isolate there, Downing Street have confirmed.
In a dramatic turnaround Downing Street said the prime minister and chancellor Rishi Sunak would be self-isolating rather than taking part in a daily contact testing pilot as had previously been announced.
A spokesman said:
The prime minister has been contacted by NHS Test and Trace to say he is a contact of someone with Covid.
He was at Chequers when contacted by Test and Trace and will remain there to isolate. He will not be taking part in the testing pilot.
He will continue to conduct meetings with ministers remotely.
The Chancellor has also been contacted and will also isolate as required and will not be taking part in the pilot.
Updated
U-turn: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will now isolate
Boris Johnson is to isolate at Chequers and will not take part in the pilot daily testing programme, a Downing Street spokesman said.
Rishi Sunak, who was also pinged by NHS test and trace, will self-isolate rather than taking part in the daily testing pilot, contrary to a statement released by Downing Street earlier on Sunday.
The announcement that the pair were abandoning their heavily criticised plans came less than three hours after the initial statement was released.
The chancellor said on Twitter:
I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong.
Whilst the test and trace pilot is fairly restrictive, allowing only essential government business, I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) July 18, 2021
To that end I’ll be self isolating as normal and not taking part in the pilot.
Updated
If coronavirus cases continue to rise in the UK, they could still yet place a “significant burden” on the health system, Prof Neil Ferguson warned.
The government scientific adviser told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that a level of 2,000 hospital admissions a day was “roughly half what we got to before Christmas with the second wave”.
He said:
There you are talking about major disruption of services and cancellation of elective surgery and the backlog in the NHS getting longer and longer.
Ferguson said it looked like people currently being admitted to hospital were not as severely ill as those in December and January, with the mortality rate “much, much lower”.
He said:
Still, if you have enough cases you can still have quite significant burden on the healthcare system.
Asked what success at this stage of the pandemic looked like, Ferguson said:
Success would be keeping hospitalisations at around 1,000 a day level and then declining.
Case numbers maybe peaking a little over 100,000 a day and then slowly declining. It is likely to be a slow decline.
Updated
South Africa have confirmed three positive Covid-19 cases in their soccer squad for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, including players Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi.
Video Analyst Mario Masha also tested positive on arrival in Tokyo as the team prepares to face hosts Japan on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Team manager Mxolisi Sibam said in a media release from the South African Football Association on Sunday.
We have three positive cases of Covid-19 in the camp here, two players and an official.
There is daily screening … Masha and Monyane reported high temperatures and positive saliva tests, and were then taken to do the nasal test … and they unfortunately tested positive for Covid-19. Mahlatsi is the latest player to go through the same process.
He said as a result, the team has been quarantined until cleared to train, waiting for results from tests earlier on Sunday.
He said:
This unfortunate situation has made us miss our first intensive training session last night.
Mexico and France are also in South Africa’s first round group.
Updated
It is “almost inevitable” that coronavirus infections in the UK will reach 100,000 daily cases alongside 1,000 people admitted to hospital a day, a government scientific adviser has said on the eve of restrictions being lifted in England.
Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that these these figures could double, but this was “much less certain”.
Asked where the country was heading amid the lifting of restrictions, Ferguson said:
It’s very difficult to say for certain, but I think 100,000 cases a day is almost inevitable.
He highlighted that the relaxation of measures coincided with the start of school holidays, which will probably see contact rates among teenagers “tick down”.
While emphasising it was “very difficult to make precise predictions”, Ferguson said:
I think it’s almost certain we’ll get to 1,000 hospitalisations per day. It’ll almost certainly get to 100,000 cases a day. The real question is, do we get to double that or even higher? And that’s where the crystal ball starts to fail. We could get to 2,000 hospitalisations a day, 200,000 cases a day, but it’s much less certain.
Updated
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said Boris Johnson still retained the ability to “join a Zoom call” and could work from home, following news that the prime minister has avoided a period of self-isolation.
He told Sky News:
I’m not sure how the prime minister joining Zoom calls in the flat above Downing Street inhibits him doing his job, to be frank.
He’ll still be able to use the telephone, he’ll still be able to use a computer and he’s still able to join a Zoom call, as lots of us have had to do in these past 16 months throughout the crisis.
Meanwhile, Damian Green, the Conservative MP for Ashford, has supported the prime minister’s decision to take part in a pilot scheme allowing him to work from No 10 rather than self-isolating.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Green said:
It’s not clear who has got access to it but I think in practical terms allowing the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer to work as normally as possible is actually quite sensible.
I hope one of the effects of this is to accelerate the pilot scheme, and indeed the analysis of the pilot scheme, because this might be a way out of the current problems of people not being able to go to work.
Updated
Nigeria has put six states on red alert after recording a “worrisome” rise in Covid-19 infections, a government official said, urging people to curb gatherings and hold prayers outside mosques during this week’s Muslim festival of Eid-el-Kabir.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is like most parts of the continent facing a third wave of the virus after detecting the more transmissible Delta variant, Reuters reports.
The head of the presidential steering committee on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, said Lagos, Oyo, Rivers, Kaduna, Kano, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory had been placed on red alert as part of preventive measures against the pandemic.
A red alert allows authorities in the states to restrict celebrations and gatherings to a minimum.
Mustapha said in a statement:
These steps are critical as we begin to see worrisome early signs of increasing cases in Nigeria.
Mustapha said there was potential for wider spread of the virus during the Eid-el-Kabir gatherings and said Friday prayers should be held outside local mosques.
He also suspended Durbar, an annual Muslim festival in northern Nigeria, which is marked by colourful horse riding events watched by large gatherings.
Last week, Nigeria, which has recorded 169,329 cases and 2,126 deaths said it expected to receive nearly 8m additional doses of vaccines by the end of August, including from a US government donation.
Updated
The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.
CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the “disinformation dozen” have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen. Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this week as a driving force of the virus spreading.
On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content, though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies. And 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on these platforms were not removed.
Among the dozen are physicians that have embraced pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot, and, most notably Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy who has also linked vaccines to autism and 5G broadband cellular networks to the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more here:
Here’s a piece on the late change to Monday’s new Covid rules in England by colleagues Kim Willsher and Mark Townsend on the Observer:
The government was embroiled in a rancorous diplomatic standoff with France on Saturday night after its surprise decision to continue imposing a 10-day quarantine on fully vaccinated people returning from the country.
French officials seemed baffled by the move, suspecting UK ministers may have based it on rising cases on the French island of Reunion – nearly 6,000 miles from Paris.
On Friday, the government announced the end of quarantine for vaccinated British residents returning from countries on the “amber” list, but said this would not apply to France because of the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa.
The variant accounts for about one in 10 new infections in France, but the data includes its Indian Ocean territories of Réunion and Mayotte, where the variant is almost dominant.
Prominent French-based British journalist Alex Taylor was among those to ridicule the move, saying it appeared Boris Johnson “doesn’t understand La Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean are part of France”.
Earlier, the Department of Health and Social Care said its decision was made “following the persistent presence of cases in France of the Beta variant”. As the Observer went to press the department had yet to respond to requests for an explanation on its decision-making. The Beta variant is reported responsible for a small number of France’s average 5,000 daily cases, according to a French government app.
Gisaid, a website that tracks Covid variants, says the Beta variant represents 3.4% of cases in France with the majority on Réunion. The French consul-general in London said the “scientific justifications don’t always spring immediately to mind”.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Russia reported 25,018 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, including 4,357 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 5,958,133.
The government coronavirus taskforce said 764 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 148,419, Reuters reports.
Updated
UK communities secretary Robert Jenrick has said the current wave of the pandemic may not peak until September.
He told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme:
Cases are still rising, hospitalisations are increasing and we won’t really expect this wave of the virus to peak until late August, maybe even early September.
There are going to be some quite challenging weeks ahead.
Jenrick defended the decision to go ahead with lockdown lifting in England on Monday.
He said:
We will all need to exercise good judgment. We are moving from that time when the state told you what to do, things were mandated as a matter of law, to one which had to come at some point where we trusted people, we trusted businesses and organisations, and gave them the information they needed to make good judgments.
Updated
Dr Ellie Cannon, an NHS GP and Mail on Sunday columnist, has criticised the government after it was announced that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak do not have to isolate after being pinged by the NHS test and trace app.
She wrote on Twitter:
There have been low points in this pandemic. And then there have been lower points.
Perhaps the lowest point for me was watching the funeral prayers of an acquaintance who died in particularly difficult circumstances …
Their own child, mourning their parent’s sudden death, was not allowed in the place of worship with family because they were contact isolating from school.
No one found special pilot schemes for them.
Updated
Responding to reports Boris Johnson will not need to self-isolate, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said:
It is one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. How about the school teachers, transport workers and health workers getting a chance to be part of this test pilot or is it only for the privileged few?
People have stuck to the rules and done the right thing, Boris Johnson is taking them for granted.
Meanwhile, the deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, has criticised the government, saying they are “fraudsters and grifters conning the public”.
She wrote on Twitter:
Sorry for the unparliamentary language but this just takes the p***.
Not following the rules that they created and which they expect my constituents to follow.
This government treats the public with contempt and think they are above the law and that the rules don’t apply to them.
A VIP lane for PPE contracts, a VIP lane for testing contracts and now a VIP lane for getting pinged but not having to isolate.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) July 18, 2021
A government of fraudsters and grifters conning the public. https://t.co/XqKUksYXT2
The co-leader of the Green party, Jonathan Bartley, said “anger doesn’t begin to cover it”.
He wrote on Twitter:
Hundreds of thousands of young people, including my children, had their education and lives repeatedly turned upside down again and again after dutifully and responsibly isolating. And now this.
Anger doesn’t begin to cover it.
Updated
Boris Johnson not having to self-isolate will make people think there is one “special rule” for him and a different rule for the rest of us, Jonathan Ashworth, of the UK Labour party, said.
The shadow secretary of state for health and social care told Sky News:
There will be parents across the country who have struggled this year when their children have been sent home because they were in a bubble and had to self-isolate.
There will be workers across the country that have to isolate because they’ve been pinged, including in public services, including the NHS.
For many of them, waking up this morning to hear that there is a special rule, an exclusive rule, for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, they will be saying that this looks like one rule for them and something else for the rest of us.
This looks like one rule for them and something else for the rest of us. Nobody understands how you can get access to this special VIP treatment where you don’t have to isolate yourself.
If it is a pilot, why can’t employers apply for their workforce to be members of this pilot? Why can’t schools apply to be part of this pilot test? I really do think a lot of people are going to be looking at this and thinking, What on earth is going on?
He added:
We need to maintain confidence in the isolation policies because taking yourself away from society, if you’ve been in contact with someone who’s got the virus, is one of the key ways in which we break transmission, and of course we know that infections arising at the moment.
Updated
Here’s some initial reaction to the news that the British prime minister and his chancellor will not have to self-isolate after being pinged by NHS test and trace.
Labour’s David Lammy called it a “sleazy, duplicitous joke”.
530,126 people were told by NHS Test and Trace that they had to isolate last week.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) July 18, 2021
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak won’t because they believe the rules all of us follow should not apply to them.
This government is a sleazy, duplicitous joke.
Stewart Wood, a Labour peer, said:
It’s as though the prime minister & chancellor have sat down & thought: “Our biggest weakness is an angry British public thinking it is one rule for them & a different rule for us. How could we make that even worse? I know …”
Kay Burley of Sky News questions the impact it will have on the public following the guidance.
There is NO legal obligation to self-isolate if you are pinged by the NHS app, but it is government guidance. Will Brits be thinking twice about following the guidance now?
— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) July 18, 2021
ITV deputy political editor Anushka Asthana says Downing Street is one of 20 organisations taking part in a pilot that allows those who are pinged to carry on working.
She adds: “Difficult framing for freedom day – soaring cases, positive test for the health secretary, the PM and chancellor on a special scheme that means they get round the rules that most have to follow, and tens of thousands holidaymakers plans ruined by restrictions on travel to France.”
Who knew that Downing Street was one of 20 organisations taking part in a testing pilot that would allow you to carry on working even if pinged. The PM and Chancellor will both be able to work- but will self isolate outside work. Network Rail, Border Force & Heathrow also have it
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) July 18, 2021
Updated
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak “will be conducting only essential government business” while taking part in a daily contact testing pilot after being pinged by NHS test and trace.
The British prime minister is reported to have had a lengthy meeting with the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who has tested positive for Covid-19, at No 10 on Friday.
Instead of having to self-isolate, they will be taking part in the pilot that allows him to continue to work from Downing Street.
A spokesman said: “They will be conducting only essential government business during this period.”
There will be relief in Downing Street that Johnson will not be confined to home on so-called “freedom day” on Monday when most statutory lockdown restrictions end in England, PA Media reports.
However, the disclosure that the prime minister and chancellor have avoided the requirement to quarantine is likely to anger thousands of people being forced to miss work after being “pinged” by the NHS Covid app.
Updated
Two athletes became the first to test positive for the coronavirus in the Tokyo Olympic Village, officials said Sunday, Reuters reports.
Less than a week before the Olympics is due to begin, the cases will heighten concerns over the event.
Organisers have described the Games as the world’s “most restrictive sports event”, but it faces opposition in Japan after a resurgence in new coronavirus infections and worries that an influx of foreign visitors may help turn it into a super-spreader event, which in turn could put further strain on the country’s already stretched medical system.
A daily tally of new cases revealed two athletes tested positive in the village and one elsewhere. They come a day after an unidentified person, who was not a competitor, became the first case in the village.
Toshiro Muto, the chief executive of the Tokyo Olympic organising committee, confirmed on Saturday that a visitor from abroad who is involved in organising the Games had tested positive. He would not reveal the person’s nationality, citing privacy concerns, but said they had been placed in a 14-day quarantine.
The positive cases will be a concern to organisers and the IOC, which had promised the village would be the “safest place” in Tokyo.
Updated
The British prime minister Boris Johnson and the chancellor Rishi Sunak have been have been contacted by NHS test and trace as contacts of someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, Downing Street said on Sunday.
The announcement follows the news that Sajid Javid, the health secretary, tested positive for the virus on Saturday.
Downing Street said in a statement:
They will be participating in the daily contact testing pilot to allow them to continue to work from Downing Street.
They will be conducting only essential government business during this period.
I’m Nicola Slawson and I’ll be taking you through the day’s events today. Do drop me an email on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or find me on Twitter (@Nicola_Slawson) if you think I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions.
