Holidaymakers have returned from France with minutes to spare before the imposition of quarantine measures at 4am, after thousands paid over the odds to pack out airports, ferry ports and train stations in a pre-dawn scramble to beat the deadline.
Following the highest daily rise in new UK coronavirus infections on Friday since mid-June, lockdown restrictions were further eased in England – with indoor theatre, music and performance venues allowed to reopen with social distancing, alongside casinos, bowling alleys and “close contact” beauty services.
As fury continued to boil over the decision to hand out A-level results based on a government algorithm, top medics, politicians and union leaders told The Independentof their fears of a “cover-up”, after it emerged that findings from a review into NHS staff deaths during the pandemic would be kept secret.
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As tens of thousands of British holidaymakers raced to beat the quarantine deadline, a ferry captain planned a record-breaking North Sea crossing and demand for private jets soared.
At 10pm on Thursday, the transport secretary announced that travellers arriving from France, the Netherlands and Malta after 4am on Saturday would need to go home and self-isolate for two weeks.
Coronavirus infection rates in those countries – as well as Monaco, Aruba and the Turks and Caicos Islands – were unacceptably high, said Grant Shapps.
Read more:
Soft play, bowling alleys and casinos open from today
A big day for tenpin bowling lovers, gamblers and parents with children climbing the walls – as bowling alleys, casinos and soft play centres are now permitted to open across most of England.
Music venues, comedy clubs and theatres can also throw wide their doors for the first time since March, after the government’s announcement on Thursday.
And wedding receptions with up to 30 guests can also take place as of this weekend as part of the easing of restrictions.
Except that is, if you live in the area covered by the northern lockdown.
Closures will remain in place in Greater Manchester, parts of east Lancashire and chunks of West Yorkshire until at least next week.
Cover-up fears as reviews of Covid-19 deaths among NHS staff to be kept secret
Cover-up fears have emerged overnight after it was revealed ministers would not be publishing the results of investigations into hundreds of health and social care worker deaths linked to coronavirus.
The Independent revealed on Tuesday that medical examiners across England and Wales have been asked by ministers to look into more than 620 deaths of frontline staff during the pandemic.
The senior doctors will review the circumstances in each case and attempt to determine whether the worker may have caught the virus during the course of their duties.
But now the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the results will be kept secret with the aim of helping local hospitals to learn and improve protection for staff.
That has sparked criticism from across the political spectrum with calls for more transparency.
Here’s the full story from our health correspondent Shaun Lintern…
Now, defective gowns recalled from hospitals
And another Independent exclusive: some 200,000 defective gowns supplied to NHS hospitals have been recalled by the government because of fears they could leave staff at increased risk of coronavirus infection.
The Department of Health and Social Care said tests carried out on the gowns, which were delivered in June, had shown that they did not meet the fluid-resistance standards originally claimed by the manufacturer.
It is the latest embarrassing blunder in the government’s attempts to secure a steady supply of PPE to hospitals – an issue that prompted major criticism during the height of the Covid-19 crisis, when many hospitals ran out of the life-saving equipment.
Full story here:
Coronavirus, vampires and sex siren pigs…
Comedians need live gigs like vampires need blood – or at least Shappi Khorsandi says she does.
The comic – and Independent columnist – has performed at drive-in shows during the coronavirus pandemic but says she cannot wait to get back to more traditional venues as restrictions are lifted from this weekend.
She explains why – via sex siren pigs, talking vegetables and Winchester Royal Theatre – here:
‘You’ve ruined my life,’ student tells government minister
Eviscerating stuff here.
An A-Level student whose results were downgraded from a predicted ABB to DDD, tells education minister Nick Gibb: “You have ruined my life”.
Nina Bunting Mitcham, from Peterborough, took the Tory to task after she missed out on a top veterinary school as a result of the shambles.
It comes after exam regulator Ofqual marked down 39 per cent of teachers’ assessed grades in England using a standardising algorithm which penalised students who went to historically underperforming schools.
More here:
‘The single biggest act of levelling down that this country has ever seen’: Andy Burnham furious over A-level shambles
Fair to say, Andy Burnham’s fury over the A-level results shambles has not been placated by a night’s sleep.
The mayor of Greater Manchester was absolutely spitting feathers in an interview with BBC this morning.
“It is,” he declared, “the single biggest act of levelling down that this country has ever seen.”
And he asked: “This is completely outrageous what’s been done. I’m absolutely furious about it. On what grounds can you say that a young person who goes to a sixth form college in Greater Manchester gets different treatment from someone who goes to a private school in Oxfordshire? On what grounds can you treat those people differently? On what grounds can you downgrade one but not the other?"
Watch him on the attack here:
A-level chaos to widen north-south divide
Mr Burnham’s outburst (below) comes after regional leaders and MPs said they feared the A-level catastrophe could widen the north-south divide.
Because students from poorer areas are more likely to have seen their predicted results downgraded by Ofqual, there are concerns the impact will be greater in the north where there are a disproportionate number of such deprived areas.
“We are concerned that the Ofqual algorithm may well have entrenched regional disparities,” said Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.
More here:
More than 100 pilots are set to be made redundant at the airline Jet2 after attempts to save jobs were rejected, a union has said.
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) union said the Leeds-based carrier had announced plans to cut pilots at most of its bases, despite a range of options which Balpa said it had offered, citing "enormous efforts".
"This will be a particular kick in the teeth as many of those who may lose their jobs have recently joined the airline after having been dismissed from Thomas Cook which went into administration last year," said Balpa general secretary Brian Strutton.
He added: "The government has a significant role to play in supporting the vital British aviation industry. Its quarantine changes keep throwing every restart plan into chaos.
"If these quarantines are really needed, the government must stump up the support to help the airline industry which is doing its best to get back on track but keeps being knocked back at every juncture."
Matt, a teacher from Manchester who did not share his second name, took his car on a Channel Tunnel train which was due to arrive back in the UK at 3.55am having brought forward tickets for Monday at a cost of £115, following a family camping trip in the Dordogne.
The family drove for 10 hours to Calais to catch the train and spent another £66 to stay at a hotel in the early hours before driving on to Manchester.
"We literally got on the last available train ... we'd been keeping up-to-date with the chaos at Calais so we were fearing the worst," the 40-year-old told the PA news agency. "Luckily, once we got to Calais we sailed through and actually got back at just gone 3am."
Matt said he did not want his family to be in quarantine on his daughter's eighth birthday next Friday, and the new measures would also have prevented a trip to see family in Scotland next weekend.
Asked about the government's timing over imposing the deadline, Matt said: "How much swearing are you allowed to include if I give you my honest views on the government?
"They're a complete shambles, beyond incompetent... they need to be clearer and give more warning. Is there a tipping point figure [of coronavirus cases], or do they just apply it as and when they feel like it?"
Another holidaymaker, Joe White from Surrey, said he had had booked his Friday night journey back to the UK early in anticipation of a rule change, but was still waiting for over two hours at the Channel Tunnel with next to no information.
"I think the government were pretty transparent that France was likely to be added to the quarantine list and I feel that anyone going away should have been prepared to take the risk that they might have to quarantine," the 31-year-old said. "If they weren't prepared to do so then should have stayed at home."
The government’s decision to review the deaths of more than 620 health and social care workers in England and Wales who contracted coronavirus is a welcome move. But its intention not to disclose the findings of NHS medical examiners is a mistake.
The priority will be learning the lessons locally. Of course, it is vital to maximise the chances of preventing more suffering and deaths during a pandemic which is far from over. But the government also has a duty to be straight with the public.
Some workers are bound to have caught the virus outside their workplace. Yet the public has a right to know whether the deaths of some who risked everything to work tirelessly on the front line might have been avoided if the government had ensured adequate provision of personal protective equipment.
If individual cases shed light on how the government fell woefully short at the start of the crisis, ministers should not hide behind a self-serving code of confidentiality.
A worrying pattern of behaviour is emerging.
Read the full editorial here with Independent Premium.
Furious students have marched on Downing Street in a second day of protests, carrying placards reading "trust teachers not Tories" and accusing Gavin Williamson of being "promoted beyond competence" - after the education secretary defended downgrading pupils lest they be "over-promoted" into jobs beyond their abilities.
A sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has said ethnic minority communities were being stigmatised and added: “This situation could be exploited by far and extreme right-wing groups”, our home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden reports.
The document was published on Friday but had been considered at a high-level meeting hours before tightened restrictions were announced for swathes of northern England on 30 July.
Matt Hancock announced the “northern lockdown” on the eve of the Islamic festival of Eid, sparking a frenzy on far-right social media networks as extremists blamed Muslims for spreading coronavirus.
“Given the current epidemiological trend of transmission concentrations within BAME communities, there is the risk of racial stigmatisation and discrimination,” said the statement by Sage’s SPI-B sub-group on local interventions, warning of “racial tensions and risks to social cohesion”.
Some NHS and care workers will still pay the ‘immigration surcharge’, prompting an accusation that Boris Johnson’s pledge to exempt them is “a cynical broken promise”, our deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports.
The controversial fees will be levied if staff take a different job within six months – hitting lower-paid cleaners, porters and carers, especially on zero-hours contracts, it is feared.
The prime minister made no mention of the loophole when he was forced, in May, to grant the exemption, after The Independent exposed Priti Patel’s phoney “review” into the controversy.
The public services union UNISON warned that “low-paid NHS and social care workers risk missing out on reimbursements”, after the detail was revealed, with its assistant general secretary telling The Independent: “This applies especially to those on zero hour contracts or who move jobs.
“Ministers say they'll get their surcharge fees back, but only after six months. This is no way to treat those who've been at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus from the off.”
And Holly Lynch, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, said: “It’s clear that it’s a million miles from the spirit of what the prime minister promised. This is a cynical broken promise. The government must honour its commitment to dedicated care workers who have put their lives on the line during this crisis.”
Masks are currently required outdoors in hundreds of French towns, but rules vary widely, with Paris police having stepped up mask patrols on Saturday as the French capital expanded the zones where face coverings are now required in public.
With cases in Paris rising particularly fast, police can now shut down cafes or any gathering of more than 10 people where distancing and other hygiene measures aren't respected.
In an appeal published in Liberation, a collective of medical workers urged a nationwide return to working at home, which France largely abandoned after two months of strict lockdown.
Additional reporting by AP
No-one in Scotland who has tested positive for coronavirus has died since 15 July, according to the latest figures, as the number of hospital patients with Covid-19 dipped to its lowest since such records began in March.
A total of 51 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, but the number of deaths in Scotland remains at 2,491, while a total of 19,289 people have now tested positive for the virus.
The 51 new cases is slightly down from the 65-case increase announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Friday, which came as the UK recorded 1,441 cases overall - it's highest daily increase in two months and some four times higher than a post-peak lull of 352 on 6 July.
NHS Grampian - the health board covering the Aberdeen outbreak - recorded another 25 cases on Saturday, while eight new cases were discovered in both Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire, four in both Lothian and Tayside and one additional case in Orkney.
As of Friday night, 244 people were in hospital with confirmed Covid-19, the lowest number since figures were first published on 27 March. Three of those hospital patients were being treated in intensive care wards.
