That’s all from the UK blog today, you can keep following our coronavirus coverage over on our global blog.
Thanks for reading along.
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest developments across the UK today:
- Fauci apologises after implied criticism of UK’s ‘rushed’ Covid vaccine approval. America’s leading infectious diseases scientist, Anthony Fauci, has apologised for implying he thought Britain’s drug regulator had rushed through its coronavirus vaccine approval, as European politicians defended the bloc’s slower approach.
- Experts question claimed accuracy of Covid-19 saliva tests. Saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.
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R number in UK falls to between 0.8 and 1. The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is now between 0.8 and 1. Last week, the R number was between 0.9 and 1.
- People in Wales urged to avoid travelling to England to shop or drink. The first minister, Mark Drakeford, made the plea as tougher restrictions on the hospitality sector came in across Wales, with pubs, bars and restaurants unable to sell alcohol and forced to close at 6pm.
- London at risk of being placed in Tier 3 as cases “still far too high”. Prof Kevin Fenton, London director for Public Health England, said the north-east of the city has the highest levels of transmission but “even in those areas that have had the biggest declines, rates are still far too high”.
- Cinemas reopen in England but streaming threatens recovery. The first of more than 150 cinemas will reopen in England this weekend in a final attempt to cash in on festive moviegoing cheer, but plans by Warner Bros to stream new films including Dune and the next Matrix sequel at the same time as theatre premieres next year threatens to undermine a post-Covid box office revival.
- Lloyds to move 700 staff into full-time homeworking roles. Lloyds Banking Group is redeploying 700 staff into full-time homeworking roles from 2021, in the latest sign that big banks are embracing remote working even as vaccines put the end of Covid restrictions in sight.
- Calls to investigate possible link between menopause and Covid risk. A possible link between the menopause and Covid-19 needs to be investigated, researchers have said, with some evidence suggesting that falling oestrogen levels could leave older women at increased risk from the disease.
Updated
More than 500 further coronavirus deaths recorded in UK
The numbers of new daily coronavirus cases and deaths in the UK have increased again – there have been a further 504 deaths within 28 days of a positive test and 16,298 confirmed cases.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,690,432.
The numbers are up from Thursday, when the UK reported 414 new deaths and another 14,879 cases.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 76,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
Updated
As England navigates the Covid-19 tier system, spare a thought for one Yorkshire couple for whom it is anything but straightforward.
Sheila Herbert and her husband, Philip, from the picturesque market town of Otley, live in a house in tier 2, while their garden is tier 3.
“It’s all one big conundrum,” said Sheila, 74, explaining that their quiet cul-de-sac home of 18 years was built over a culvert, which runs directly under their garden, with the underground channel of water acting as the official boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.
“Our house is in Harrogate and our garden is in Leeds. The culvert cuts right through my garden. In fact, it goes right underneath the corner of the conservatory,” she told the local paper.
Under government restrictions it means that though, under tier 2, the couple should be able to meet people in their garden, under tier 3 they are prohibited.
Updated
The future of a museum that tells the astonishing story of the British “father of immunology” is hanging in the balance because it has been forced to close throughout the Covid crisis and faces uncertainty over how it will operate in the post-pandemic world.
Edward Jenner’s former family home in Gloucestershire has been shut since February, and the decision has been taken to keep it closed until spring, meaning it will lose more than a year’s vital admission fees.
Supporters of Dr Jenner’s House, which bills itself as the birthplace of vaccination, have pointed out the irony of it facing financial crisis in the year when its subject matter is so pertinent.
Owen Gower, the museum’s manager, said Jenner’s work had taken on a new relevance in 2020. “But unfortunately we’ve had to close our doors for it,” he said.
Experts question claimed accuracy of Covid-19 saliva tests
Saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.
Two members of the Royal Statistical Society’s working group looking at the accuracy of Covid tests have questioned the results and the way they have been evaluated.
Prof Jon Deeks from Birmingham University and Prof Sheila Bird, formerly of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University, say the tests perform poorly where people have low levels of the virus, which is often the case in people without symptoms.
They say the discrepancy in the figures is because the evaluation used “spiked” samples – saliva to which the virus has been added in the lab. Those manufactured samples were picked up efficiently by the test, but “real world” samples from people with asymptomatic Covid were not.
People in Wales urged to avoid travelling to England to shop or drink
People in Wales should not travel to England to do their Christmas shopping or for a drink in a pub, first minister Mark Drakeford has said.
The Welsh Labour leader’s plea comes as tougher restrictions on the hospitality sector came in across Wales, with pubs, bars and restaurants unable to sell alcohol and forced to close at 6pm.
But a relaxing of travel restrictions in Wales means people will be able to go between the country and areas of England under Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Drakeford urged the Welsh public not to use the new freedoms to travel across the border for Christmas shopping deals or in search of a drink in areas where pubs and restaurants can sell alcohol.
Asked whether people can go Christmas shopping in border areas such as Hereford or Oswestry, which are in Tier 2, Drakeford said:
The law in Wales will not prevent people from going there.
The advice from the Welsh Government is not to do it, because the further you travel and the more people you mix with elsewhere, the greater the risk you pose.
This is a year to go Christmas shopping in Wales, and close to home. Because in that way you can both celebrate Christmas, and you can do it without posing a risk to yourself and others.
Asked what is stopping people in Wales flocking into English cities and towns where they would be allowed to drink alcohol, Drakeford said: “The law would not require people in Wales not to travel to a Level 2 or Tier 2 area outside Wales.
“The clear and unambiguous advice to people is not to do it. Because to do it is to add to the risks that we are already facing, and those risks are already driving coronavirus rates rapidly upwards.
“So please, don’t do it. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for anybody you know, it’s not good for the rest of the population of Wales.”
Drakeford added there is “a very big difference” between a person travelling a long distance to a pub or bar in England and going to one on a person’s doorstep near the border.
Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands region, said he had discussed vaccine distribution with Dr David Rosser, the chief executive of England’s biggest acute trust, University Hospitals Birmingham.
He said:
The decision about which locations will be used has not been made public.
The distribution to all regions of the UK will be at the same time.
The idea was a fair share of vaccination would be sent to every region – the implication was [it would be on] the same day.
It’s been said by some leaders across the country today it will be on Tuesday, but I do not believe that has been formally confirmed.
Updated
The first of more than 150 cinemas will reopen in England this weekend in a final attempt to cash in on festive film-going cheer, but plans by Warner Bros to stream new films, including Dune and the next Matrix sequel, at the same time as theatre premieres next year threatens to undermine a post-Covid box office revival.
Hollywood studios have seized on theatre closures during the pandemic to experiment with digital releases, infuriating theatre owners who rely on the once sacrosanct model of big screen exclusivity for months to make their finances work.
Warner Bros’ move is unprecedented. All 17 of the films it will release next year, from The Suicide Squad and Godzilla vs Kong to Tom & Jerry, will stream on its HBO Max service for the first month when they also premiere in cinemas.
The company has described the decision as a one-year plan, limited to the US, to maximise profits as the Covid pandemic is expected to cut cinema attendance significantly for the foreseeable future.
Other Hollywood studios will almost certainly look to adopt similar plans, which, if successful, would mark the moment the global streaming phenomenon broke the traditional cinema model.
Updated
Stocks of coronavirus vaccine have arrived in Northern Ireland, PA Media reports.
The initial batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were transported overnight from England and taken to a central storage facility, the location of which is not being disclosed.
The delivery means Northern Ireland remains on track to start administering the vaccine to healthcare workers next week.
Updated
There have been a further 1,471 cases of coronavirus in Wales, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 85,432.
Public Health Wales reported another 33 deaths, taking the total in Wales since the start of the pandemic to 2,671.
Across the world, offices would normally be gearing up for their annual Christmas party. But like many things this year, plans have had to change in these extraordinary times.
Hilary Osborne and Kalyeena Makortoff report on what UK firms are doing to keep the holiday spirit alive:
The dancefloor may be swapped for the kitchen, and the buffet for a box of breadsticks and some mini bottles of booze, but the office Christmas party is set to go ahead this year – and there may even be some star guests.
With the latest restrictions and working-from-home making the traditional Christmas staff get-together a no-no, companies are turning to virtual celebrations for this year’s festive season.
One tech firm is sending out virtual-reality headsets to staff, so they can “see” each other while they celebrate. Elsewhere, online games and karaoke are on the cards, along with classes in crafts and cooking – with some firms sending ingredients round in a box and bringing in household names to host.
Lloyds Banking Group is redeploying 700 staff into full-time homeworking roles from 2021, in the latest sign that big banks are embracing remote working even as vaccine candidates begin to put the end of Covid restrictions in sight.
The UK’s largest domestic lender – which has 50,000 of its 65,000 employees working from home because of the pandemic – temporarily shifted about 1,000 workers from Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland branches to customer service teams in order to cope with a surge in demand in areas such as telephone banking and video chats during the outbreak.
The Guardian understands about 700 staff will be permanently moved, making it the largest tranche of Lloyds workers to ever be shifted into homeworking roles full-time.
Updated
Government ministers should stop politicising the Covid-19 vaccine by boasting about being the first to license it, the head of a leading research group has said.
Heidi Larson, the director of the London-based Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP), said the government should instead focus on building support for the jab or it will lose the confidence and trust of the British people.
“I don’t think it is in the interest of the government to be racing along without building the ground,” Larson said. “Unfortunately it feels like announcements are made more politically.
“The message – ‘We are the first ones in the world to get there’ – may be a message to other countries but that does not matter if you don’t have your public behind you.”
Larson, an anthropologist, said she did not think the British public were overtly against taking a Covid vaccine but, having announced the licensing of one, ministers needed to explain “what it will look like between now and April”.
“[We need] the longer term plan rather than bit-by-bit headline news. Telling the full story will be important.”
Updated
There will need to be a “sustained fall” in coronavirus cases across Wales before restrictions on hospitality are eased, the first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said.
He told a press conference the number of infections would need to “come more into line” with levels used to determine tier 2 in England and level 2 in Scotland.
If that were to be the case then the flow of people into our hospital system – and the pressures that are currently being created there – would be being mitigated.
Those are the sorts of things that we would need to see before we will be in a position to do anything to lessen the restrictions that we have to have in place in Wales in order to bring the virus under control, to see the number of people who are dying from it decline, and to allow our health service the room it needs to deal not just with coronavirus but with all the other things that we rely on it to respond to in our lives.
Updated
R number in UK falls to between 0.8 and 1
The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is now between 0.8 and 1, the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have said.
Last week, the R number was between 0.9 and 1.
R represents the average number of people each Covid-19-positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially.
An R number between 0.8 and 1 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 8 and 10 other people.
Updated
Scotland’s clinical director, Jason Leitch, has said there are “too many unknowns” to give a date for when the Scottish government expects to have vaccinated all adults.
Yesterday, the health secretary, Jeane Freeman, said the first phase of vaccinations would be completed by next spring, with the rest of the adult population following “as quickly as possible thereafter”.
But at today’s briefing, Leitch said that across the UK the aim was to reach all over-50s and those with pre-existing conditions by the summer, which “allows us to remove 99% of the mortality” of the virus.
The deputy first minister, John Swinney, used the briefing to emphasise that new quarantine exemptions for business travellers did not apply to Scotland and that the Scottish government continued to advise “very strongly” against international travel.
Updated
Downing Street has joined in the defence of the UK’s medicines regulator after it faced criticism from America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, who said the UK had “rushed through” its approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
A spokesman for the prime minister told reporters: “You will have seen that he [Dr Fauci] has now withdrawn those comments and apologised.
“I would just point to the fact the MHRA is a world leader in its field and has followed rigorous international standards in terms of its assessment of the vaccine to ensure it meets the standards of safety and effectiveness and quality.
“The CEO of the MHRA has been quite clear that no corners have been cut at all.”
Updated
The coronavirus situation in Wales remains “very serious”, with almost two-thirds of local authorities seeing a seven-day incidence rate of 150 cases per 100,000 people or higher, the first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said.
Drakeford told a press conference that Neath Port Talbot and Blaenau Gwent had rates that exceeded 400 cases per 100,000 people.
He said that Wales was experiencing an “unmistakable rise in coronavirus once again” following the reduction in cases from the country’s 17-day firebreak lockdown.
Every day we are seeing more and more people admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms.
In the last week we have seen a record number of coronavirus-related patients and these numbers are increasing.
Many of these patients will be in hospital for three weeks or longer.
The epidemic is putting our health service under a significant and sustained pressure.
Updated
Covid cases no longer falling in Wales
In Wales, the percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 is no longer falling, the ONS said.
An estimated 18,100 people in private households had Covid-19 between 22 and 28 November - the equivalent of 0.60% of the population.
This is up slightly from an estimated 16,400 people for the period 15 to 21 November, or 0.54% of the population.
Because of the relatively small number of tests and low number of positives in its Wales sample, results should be interpreted with caution, the ONS added.
There were an average of 25,700 new cases per day of Covid-19 in private households in England between 22 and 28 November, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This is down from an estimated 38,900 new cases per day for the period 8 to 14 November and is the lowest estimate since the end of September.
The figures do not include people staying in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.
An estimated 521,300 people in private households in England had Covid-19 between 22 and 28 November, the ONS said.
This is the equivalent of around 0.96% of the population. The figures represent a drop from 633,000 people, or 1.16% of the population, who were estimated to have Covid-19 in the period 15 to 21 November.
The proportion of people testing positive for Covid-19 is estimated to have decreased in all regions of England except the north-east, where rates appear to have levelled off, the ONS said.
Yorkshire & the Humber has the highest rate (with an estimated 1.7% of people in private households testing positive for Covid-19), followed by north-east England (1.6%) and north-west England (1.6%).
Eastern England has the lowest rate (0.4%).
A possible link between the menopause and Covid-19 needs to be investigated, researchers have said, with some evidence suggesting that falling oestrogen levels could leave older women at increased risk from the disease.
Men are at greater risk of severe Covid, and dying of the disease, than women but recent research has suggested that in women, infections and long-lasting symptoms might be more common among those who have gone through the menopause.
Such findings have raised the question of whether hormones such as oestrogen might play a protective role – hormones that are at higher levels in women than men, but wane as women go through the menopause.
“It’s a good question about whether hormones could play a part, or other differences with age and gender – such as the immune response,” said Dr Claire Steves, a member of the Covid symptom study app team at King’s College London.
In one study based on reported symptoms, yet to be peer reviewed, Steves and colleagues found post-menopausal women were at greater risk of having Covid than non-menopausal women of similar age and body mass index. There are also some hints that the former may be at greater risk of more severe symptoms.
New daily cases of Covid-19 in the UK are continuing to fall, but cases in Scotland and Wales have plateaued, a survey suggests.
There are 20,497 daily new symptomatic cases of the virus in the UK on average over the two weeks up to 29 November, excluding care homes, according to the Zoe Covid Symptom Study UK Infection Survey.
This compares to 29,311 daily new symptomatic cases a week ago and more than 42,000 six weeks ago, the researchers said.
They say the UK R value is 0.8 - the official R value from the government office for science will be announced later.
The survey found that daily new cases are continuing to decrease in every region across England.
The Midlands saw a dramatic decrease in daily new cases since the middle of November with an R value of 0.7, the researchers said.
In Scotland, cases have fallen to the same levels of the end of September, but recently plateaued and there are still around 40,000 infectious individuals, according to the survey.
In Wales, cases have fallen to around the same level as the end of the September but have started to rise again.
Tim Spector, lead scientist on the Zoe Covid Symptom Study app and professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said it was “encouraging” to see the falling rates but warned against complacency.
It’s encouraging to see rates are still falling across most of the UK, and we’re now below 21,000 cases, less than half the peak of the second wave we saw in October.
However, while we are also seeing steady falls in admissions now, it’s important that we aren’t complacent.
Even though the UK will start the vaccine roll out next week, many of us won’t be getting one for a few months, so keeping the numbers low and under control is really important for the NHS.
I’m confident that Zoe’s app data really is the most up-to-date picture we have.
The Zoe Covid Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures are based on around one million weekly reporters and the proportion of newly symptomatic users who have positive swab tests.
The latest survey figures were based on data from 11,124 swab tests done between 15 to 29 November.
For this year’s Guardian and Observer’s charity appeal, we’ll be raising money for three charities that support young people - UK Youth, Young Minds and Child Poverty Action Group.
Here, editor-in-chief Katharine Viner explains how young people’s life chances are in danger of being blighted by the pandemic and how you can donate.
Updated
Wetherspoon is to keep eight of its pubs open in Wales from Saturday, the company has announced.
The move follows a meeting between Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin and members of the Welsh parliament who are opposed to pub closures.
Wetherspoon said pubs will effectively trade as cafes in Cardiff, Newport, Caernarfon, Cwmbran, Mold and Wrexham.
Tim Martin said: “I met with Conservative leader of the opposition Paul Davies MS and Conservative chief whip Darren Millar MS at our pub, The Mount Stuart, in Cardiff earlier this week.
“They are opposed to the Welsh pub closures and were keen for Wetherspoon to keep some of the company’s pubs open.
“As a result we have decided to keep eight of the pubs open from 8am to 6pm throughout the week.”
From 6pm on Friday, licensed pubs, cafes and restaurants in Wales will have to stop serving alcohol on their premises, although those with an off-licence can sell alcoholic drinks to be taken away.
The regulations will be reviewed on 17 December.
Lidl has become the latest supermarket to agree to hand back business rates relief - it will repay £100m to the government.
The German discounter’s UK business said it has “brought forward plans to return the relief” after growth in store footfall meant the business is now well-placed to manage any further impact from the pandemic.
Around £2bn is now to be refunded to the state following similar moves by Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi, B&M and Pets at Home.
Christian Hartnagel, chief executive officer of Lidl GB, said:
The business rates relief that was provided to us, and the rest of the supermarket sector, came with a lot of responsibility that we took extremely seriously.
We’ve been considering this for some time and we are now in a position to confirm that we will be refunding this money as we believe it is the right thing to do.
We feel confident that the business is well positioned to navigate and adapt to any further challenges brought by Covid-19.
Updated
The owner of Primark has revealed that the latest wave of Covid-19 lockdowns cost the fashion chain £430m in lost sales but that it has experienced a “phenomenal” jump in sales this week since stores were allowed to reopen.
Associated British Foods’ finance director, John Bason, said that trading across reopened Primark stores in England, Ireland, France and Belgium had been better than predicted.
“Our trading before the lockdown and now our trading these first few days after lockdown [is] way higher than we had previously expected,” Bason said.
“It is phenomenal, in some cases we haven’t seen anything like it,” he said.
Primark reopened all 153 of its English stores on Wednesday after a month-long lockdown, with extended trading hours in an attempt to recoup some of its lost sales. Eleven stores stayed open overnight, resulting in a 40-hour trading marathon, with hundreds of shoppers queueing to get into the shops in the small hours of Thursday morning.
A new episode of Anywhere but Westminster is here. This time John Harris and John Domokos revisit parts of the Midlands and north-west England they’ve been chronicling for years, and talk to people about the aspects of the Covid era that can’t be captured in charts and graphs – from mental health to the silencing of musicians, to life without work.
Updated
London at risk of being placed in Tier 3 as cases "still far too high"
London is at risk of being placed in Tier 3 restrictions as declining transmission rates stall across the city and the number of new cases are “still far too high”, according to the capital’s public health chief.
Prof Kevin Fenton, London director for Public Health England, said the north east of the city has the highest levels of transmission but “even in those areas that have had the biggest declines, rates are still far too high”.
He continued:
The promising reductions we had begun to see with the recent national restrictions across the capital have also shown signs of slowing in recent days - a stark reminder of just how delicate our situation is.
If we want to avoid being placed into Tier 3, it is vital we keep transmission down.
Our actions over this weekend and in the weeks ahead will make a big difference to our outlook over the festive period and into the New Year.
After rapidly falling transmission rates in mid-November, the seven-day infection rate in the capital has remained largely unchanged for four days, with 155.8 new cases per 100,000 population in the week to 28 November.
It was 154.3, 154.5 and 156.1 for the previous three days.
Updated
On the front page of the Guardian today: NHS staff will no longer get the coronavirus vaccine first after a drastic rethink about who should be given priority, it emerged last night.
The new immunisation strategy is likely to disappoint and worry thousands of frontline staff – and comes amid urgent warnings from NHS chiefs that hospitals could be “overwhelmed” in January by a third wave of Covid-19 caused by mingling over Christmas.
Frontline personnel were due to have the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine when the NHS starts its rollout, which is expected to be next Tuesday after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved it on Wednesday.
However, hospitals will instead begin by immunising care home staff, and hospital inpatients and outpatients aged over 80. The new UK-wide guidance on priority groups was issued by the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation (JCVI) amid uncertainty over when the rest of the 5m-strong initial batch of doses that ministers ordered will reach the UK.
Britons are drinking rosé all year round and firing up their barbecues in the depths of winter, according to a report on how food and drink trends have been “fundamentally reshaped” by the pandemic.
Cooking at home has even become the new commute, providing a clear separation between work time and home time, the study claims, while more than half of households have been more carefully planning recipes and meals and intend to carry on.
The annual food and drink report from Waitrose also underlines the “seismic” shift towards online shopping triggered by the initial lockdown – a trend it says is clearly set to stay.
A quarter of consumers shopped online for food for the first time this year, while one in 10 of us now shop for food only once a fortnight, with 60% of us intending to stick to this pattern. More than half of respondents even admitted they secretly enjoyed not having to go out as much.
We are rediscovering shopping as a social activity under Covid restrictions – but only the government can give retail a chance, writes Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff.
When all this is over, what I want more than anything else is to be in a crowd. Any crowd, really. Parties would be the dream; a joyfully sweaty crush with barely room to reach the bar, and the promise of drunken dancing to follow. But at this stage, even the collective hush when the lights dim in a packed cinema would do.
Yet even with the vaccine coming, it may be months before much of this is wise. So for now, the safest substitute available to most of us is going shopping. Just mooching from store to store under the twinkly Christmas lights, chatting to a friend, in a way I’d mostly given up before the pandemic.
Retail therapy isn’t really my thing, but months of nervously steering clear of big cities has been a reminder of the lost pleasures of shopping in person: actually feeling the fabric of clothes, sneakily reading the first few pages of books, rummaging through junk for treasures, trying lipsticks on the back of a hand in the hope of one day not having to wear a mask.
A top public health expert has said the prime minister was wrong to accredit the fall in infection rates in Liverpool to the mass testing scheme, and claimed the trial results of lateral flow tests had been “falsely represented”.
Dr Angela Raffle, a consultant in public health and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Bristol, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is very concerning to me that, with these lateral flow tests, the evidence on how they perform in the field has actually been kept hidden and falsely represented by the government.
“When the Porton Down results (into the lateral flow test trials) came out, it was reported that they showed that the results were highly sensitive and specific, but actually they were only 58% sensitive in the trial that used quickly-trained staff.”
Her comments come amid concern in some parts of the care home sector over the use of lateral flow tests, with homes in Greater Manchester urged not to use them to allow visits.
Dr Raffle, a member of the National Screening Committee, said in Liverpool “30% of the tests that were ‘very infectious’ were missed”, adding: “The infection rate in Liverpool has come down no quicker than in many other places that haven’t got mass testing and we haven’t yet seen a proper evaluation report from Liverpool.
“So the claims that the prime minister and the secretary of state for health are making that there has been a three-quarters drop in Liverpool because of mass testing are completely false.”
Updated
Coronavirus cases increased in 20 of Wales’s 22 local authority areas on Thursday, with a “rising tide” of infections seen in both urban and rural areas, health minister Vaughan Gething said.
He told Good Morning Britain the Welsh government is acting on scientific evidence in imposing a ban on pubs, restaurants and cafes serving alcohol from 6pm on Friday.
He said a £340m package, in addition to measures taken by the UK government, is being provided to support hospitality businesses that will be “hard hit” by the restriction. Gething said:
I won’t pretend this won’t have a really significant impact on those businesses, at pretty much the worst time of the year for them as well, and I really do recognise that.
But if we don’t act on the evidence, then I’m afraid we won’t be meeting our responsibilities to keep Wales safe and to keep people alive.
Alok Sharma defends UK's rapid approval of Covid vaccine
Good morning, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the liveblog today.
The government has again defended the UK’s swift approval of a coronavirus vaccine amid global criticism of the speedy process.
Business secretary Alok Sharma this morning said the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is “very much regarded as the gold standard by international scientists” and has been “absolutely meticulous in this whole process”.
“The MHRA is of course independent and people should feel entirely confident that this vaccine is safe. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have been approved. It wouldn’t have got the clearance from the MHRA,” he said.
His comments came as Anthony Fauci, the US’s leading infectious disease scientist, apologised for remarks that appeared to criticise the UK’s approval process.
Fauci, who leads the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, initially said the UK “ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile” and it had “rushed through” approval of the vaccine
He also said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been careful to avoid “cutting corners” because it did not want to fuel vaccine scepticism.
However, Fauci later told the BBC he did not mean to imply “any sloppiness even though it came out that way” and said: “I have a great deal of confidence in what the UK does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint.”
Sharma also said said he was “very confident” 800,000 doses of the jab would be available for the start of the rollout next week and he hoped “we will have some millions” by the end of the year.
Any comments, suggestions or personal experiences you would like to share, drop me an email or tweet.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
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