Early evening summary
- The UK’s daily coronavirus case count has risen by a quarter in 24 hours, reaching 17,540. (See 4.29pm.) The figures were published a few hours after a health minister said hospitals in England were only 10 days away from reaching a critical point if the virus was not contained. (See 11.27am.) Boris Johnson is now expected to announced further restrictions for England shortly, which could see pubs and restaurants in the worst-affected areas facing full or partial closure.
- The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care in the north of England will surpass the April peak in 22 days if infections continue rising at the current rate, MPs have been warned in a briefing chaired by Chris Whitty and a minister.
- Ministers are facing open revolt from leaders in northern England over fresh coronavirus restrictions due to be announced within days, as mayors, MPs, and council leaders, vowed they would fiercely oppose any new measures without substantial financial support.
- Just 150 of the 1,000 academic mentors promised as part of the government’s £1bn education catchup plans will be in schools in England by the end of the year, the Guardian has learned.
- The government faces a potentially serious rebellion over its plans to centralise and accelerate the housebuilding process in England after Theresa May led a string of senior Tory MPs in expressing opposition to the proposals in parliament.
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Post-Covid rise in unemployment could lead to 900,000 people developing chronic health conditions, report says
The coronavirus crisis could result in 900,000 more people in the UK developing chronic health conditions through reduced employment, according to an expert report.
Public Health Wales published the report looking at how the economic impact of Covid could affect people’s health.
It is well established that unemployment can have a long-term impact on health, and the figures in the report are based on the assumption that unemployment in Wales could rise from 3.8% last year to 7% (a figure based on a Bank of England projection).
Rajendra Kadel, a public health economist at Public Health Wales and the lead author of the report, said:
A 1% fall in employment in working-age people may be associated with about a 2% increase in chronic health conditions. Coronavirus could result in 900,000 more working-age people in the UK developing chronic health conditions due to reduced employment.
According to our forecast, the increase in the percentage of adults with limiting longstanding illnesses [osne that limit people’s day to day activities] could be greater, compared with adults with any longstanding illnesses, suggesting implications for population health and productivity, as well as pressures on health and social care services.
The report suggests that, with unemployment rising in line with the projection, the proportion of people in Wales with a longstanding illness could increase from 46.4% before the pandemic to 50.3% in 2022-23.
For adults with a limiting longstanding illness, the impact would be more extreme, the report says. It says the proportion of adults with a limiting longstanding illness could rise from 18.1% before the pandemic to 24.4% in 2022-23.
A UK government report (pdf) on the possible long-term direct and indirect health impacts of coronavirus, released earlier this year along with other documents from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said there could be “18,000 excess deaths as a result of the medium-term mortality impacts of the lockdown-induced recession, occurring two to five years following the lockdown”.
Updated
The tourist hotspots of Santorini and Zante are among Greek islands being added to England’s travel corridor in a rare boost to holidaymakers’ plans, meaning visitors returning from there will no longer need to quarantine for a fortnight.
Lesbos, Serifos and Tinos are also being added to the list of locations exempt from Covid-19 quarantine restrictions, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has announced. The new changes, prompted by a decrease in confirmed coronavirus cases, come into effect from 4am on Saturday.
But plans for people travelling to Italy have been dealt a blow after the country – which is still on England’s travel corridor list– introduced compulsory Covid testing for UK visitors.
Italy’s minister of health, Roberto Speranza, announced that arrivals from countries deemed “at greater risk” for the virus, including the UK, France and Spain, must now provide evidence of a negative test taken in the 72 hours before travel.
TRAVEL CORRIDOR UPDATE: We are ADDING Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Santorini and Zakynthos to the #TravelCorridor list this week.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) October 8, 2020
From 4am Saturday 10th Oct, if you arrive from those Greek islands, you will NO LONGER need to self-isolate.
We are not REMOVING any countries.
Updated
The Scottish government has recorded 1,027 new coronavirus cases and five new deaths, with 13.5% of tests returning positive results. The details are here.
The figures for new cases in Scotland are slightly below yesterday’s (1,054), but much higher than this time last week (668).
Public Health Wales has recorded 638 new cases and one further death. The details are here.
The number of new cases in Wales is down on yesterday (752) but much higher than the day before (425).
And in Northern Ireland the Department of Health has recorded 923 new cases (up from 828 yesterday) and one further death (the same as yesterday). The details are here.
Updated
The public appointments commissioner, Peter Riddell, has labelled “authoritatively inspired” reports floating former newspaper editors Charles Moore and Paul Dacre for top jobs at the BBC and Ofcom “extremely unhelpful”, warning they risk prejudicing the recruitment process.
It emerged last month that ex-Telegraph editor, Moore, was Downing Street’s choice to be the next BBC chairman although he has since ruled himself out. Former Daily Mail editor Dacre was also said to have been approached by Boris Johnson to become chairman of the communications watchdog, Ofcom.
Referencing the reports concerning Dacre, Moore, as well as Robbie Gibb, who ran No 10’s press team under Theresa May and is now reportedly a frontrunner for the BBC role, Riddell was asked whether he was concerned individuals were apparently being lined up for the roles before the recruitment process had begun.
In response, Riddell told the public administration and constitutional affairs committee this afternoon:
I think the word ‘lined up’ is the key one in your question ... Under the code, ministers are perfectly entitled to make suggestions to an appointing panel of candidates they like, who they would like to be interviewed and so on. And it’s up to the assessor panel, the interview panel, to decide whether to interview them and if they don’t want to, they have got to explain to the minister why not.
However, I think it extremely unhelpful to have apparently authoritatively inspired stories about the names you say. I make no comment on the individuals, that’s a matter for ministers … By allowing the stories, however accurate or otherwise, to float I think there are dangers of prejudicing a fair and open competition.
He further said that the effect would be to deter strong candidates. Two potentially strong candidates for the BBC contacted him last week to question whether it would be a fair and open competition, he said.
He added: “I think to appear to give, which the stories have done, a kind of official sanction that someone who’s lined up, in the phrase you’ve used, is very unhelpful to the process.”
Updated
Five more Nightingale courts, with 16 additional courtrooms, are due to open by the end of the month to boost capacity to hear cases during the pandemic. (See 2.52pm.)
Confirming the scheduled expansion of emergency sites, a spokesperson for HM Courts and Tribunal Service said:
There are positive early signs stemming from our efforts to keep the justice system moving during the pandemic. The number of outstanding magistrates’ cases are falling and more hearings are being listed in the crown courts.
To support this recovery we are investing £80m in courts, recruiting 1,600 new staff, opening more Nightingale courts, and will shortly have even more rooms available for jury trials.
As leaders in northern England vow to fiercely oppose any new restrictions, like pub closures, without substantial financial support, it’s worth clarifying exactly what the Scottish government is offering to businesses that are being forced to shut down from Friday.
Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, announced a £40m fund for those affected, but many in the sector have warned that this won’t even cover the required furlough contributions for the period, never mind ongoing fixed costs and stock.
Today, Sturgeon said that the fund would take the form of grants and also a discretionary fund for those impacted, even if they were not required to close. But also added, apropos the ending of the furlough scheme: “We cannot plug all the gaps that are the responsibility of the UK government.”
Updated
Covid ICU cases in northern England could pass April peak in 22 days, MPs told
The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care in the north of England will surpass the April peak if infections continue rising at the current rate, MPs have been warned in a briefing chaired by Chris Whitty and a minister. My colleagues Helen Pidd and Josh Halliday have the story here.
Covid hospital admissions in England pass 500 a day, latest figures show
Here are more figures from the government’s coronavirus dashboard.
- The UK has recorded 77 further deaths. This is the highest daily figure since early July, seven more than yesterday’s figure (70) and 18 more than the figure a week ago today (59). It takes the headline total to 42,592. But this only counts people who died within 28 days of testing positive. The dashboard says the total number of deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate, registered up to last Friday, is 57,347.
- Hospital admissions in England have now passed 500 a day. On Tuesday, the last day for which figures are published on the dashboard, 524 coronavirus patients were admitted to hospital in England - up from 472 the previous day.
- There are now more than 3,000 patients in hospital in England with coronavirus. Yesterday the figure was 2,944, but now it’s 3,044.
- But the number of hospital patients in England on mechanical ventilation has fallen slightly from 376 yesterday to 368 today.
Updated
Daily coronavirus cases up by a quarter from yesterday to 17,540
The government has updated its daily coronavirus dashboard. And the key figure is startling.
- The UK has recorded 17,540 more coronavirus cases. That’s a new daily record (excluding the Sunday figure inflated by the addition of cases that went missing) and an increase of more than 3,000 - or around 25% - on yesterday’s total (14,162). These figures are far higher than any recorded positive case figures at the peak of the epidemic in the spring. That does not mean that overall case numbers are comparable, because much more testing is taking place now, and the overwhelming majority of positive cases in March and April were never picked up by the figures. But the speed of the increase shows why ministers and health officials are so worried about what will happen if the virus is not contained.
Pubs and restaurants linked to more than 30% of Covid infections amongst under-30s, MPs told
At a briefing for MPs from the north of England and the Midlands earlier, Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, presented data showing that pubs and restaurants are implicated in more than 30% of coronavirus infections amongst the under-30s - the group amongst whom the virus is spreading most quickly, according to HuffPost’s Arj Singh.
If you include not just customers in pubs and restaurants, but people who work in them, the figure for under-30s reaches more than 40% of cases.
149 MPs from the north and Midlands have been shown data by CMO Chris Whitty which suggests more than 30% of coronavirus exposure is in pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes. pic.twitter.com/GEGKq2Zv4Z
— Arj Singh (@singharj) October 8, 2020
Many MPs have been questioning restrictions on pubs, particularly the compulsory 10pm closing time, on the grounds that other data implies they play a limited role in the transmission of the virus. For example, this chart, from a Public Health England surveillance report (pdf) published last week, suggests that when people who test positive are asked what they had been doing in the days before getting ill, that might have led to them catching the virus, shopping came top, followed by eating out.
Amongst all age groups, the chart Whitty presented to MPs suggests around 24% of Covid cases are linked to people visiting pubs and restaurants - or 30% if staff are included.
Updated
At FMQs, Nicola Sturgeon went into some detail about yesterday’s Scottish government evidence paper (pdf) which showed that both the R number and the growth rate of infection in Scotland was the highest in the UK.
The R value is thought to be less meaningful when there is not widespread community transmission and where the rise in cases is driven by clusters, which can make the value much higher.
The rate of positive cases by health board for the week ending 5 October was 146.1 per 100,000 for Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, the highest in Scotland, while in Manchester local authority, another area currently threatened with pub closures, it is 512.4 per 100,000.
Responding to a question about whether she had made a strategic error in trying to drive the virus as low as possible over the summer. She said:
If you look at the figures across the UK right now we have a R number – and R numbers are not perfect ways of describing the virus – that is marginally above other parts of the UK, and we have a growth rate that is marginally above the rest of the UK. But our case numbers per 100,000 on both a seven-day and 14-day rolling average are the lowest in the UK and that is the benefit of having driven the virus low. So even though it is spreading again it is doing so from a much lower base.
Updated
Allegra Stratton, the former Guardian, BBC and ITV journalist who currently works at the Treasury as Rishi Sunak’s communications chief, has been appointed as Boris Johnson’s new press secretary, the BBC’s Vicki Young reports. Stratton will be fronting the new daily televised press briefings that No 10 plans to launch soon. She has been seen as the favourite to get the job for some time.
Allegra Stratton is Downing Street’s new Press Secretary. Former Guardian, BBC, ITN journalist and most recently working for Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
— Vicki Young (@BBCVickiYoung) October 8, 2020
Updated
NHS England has recorded 43 further coronavirus hospital deaths. There were 13 in the north-east and Yorkshire, 11 in the north-west, 10 in the Midlands, six in London, two in the east of England, one in the south-east and none in the south-west. The details are here.
Today’s total is below the figures for Tuesday and Wednesday (50 and 54 respectively), and one lower than the figure for last Thursday (44).
But these headline figures only include patients who tested positive. The NHS England bulletin for today also records another eight deaths where a positive test was not received but Covid was mentioned on the death certificate. This time last week there were five deaths in this category.
Updated
More than 500,000 court cases waiting to be heard as Covid backlog lengthens, figures show
The backlog of criminal cases waiting to go to trial continues to lengthen due to the pandemic, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Justice.
Figures to the end of September show that there were 509,347 outstanding cases in the magistrates’ courts, and 48,713 outstanding crown court cases.
Although the backlog declined very slightly in the lower courts, delays have increased significantly in crown courts.
Some trials are already being postponed to 2022 because of problems hearing cases when the courts cannot work at full capacity under coronavirus-safe conditions. Lawyers point out out that the backlog was already growing before the pandemic because of austerity cuts to judges’ sitting days.
The Ministry of Justice has established a number of emergency, socially distanced Nightingale courts in alternative locations, such as theatres, offices, council chambers and decommissioned courts. Labour has criticised the measures as inadequate.
Responding to the latest figures, Amanda Pinto QC, chair of the Bar Council, said:
These latest figures make depressing reading for the British public, victims of crime and those involved in the justice system.
The government must focus its energy on what is, or is not, happening in our courts; rather than blaming others it must take responsibility and do what is necessary to rescue the whole system now by injecting the significant investment it needs.
Law and order means keeping the public safe as well as ensuring access to justice. We have seen what lack of funding for law and order achieves – rising crime, but low detection rates; long delays to cases, with many collapsing before they get anywhere near a court; and all because government after government has failed to invest in justice.
Updated
Updated
In response to the figures out this morning showing a huge increase in the number of patients waiting for tests and treatments as a result of the backlog created by the coronavirus crisis (see 11.04am), the NHS says it is seeing three times as many patients for surgery now as in April. A spokesperson said:
Hospitals are carrying out more than a million routine appointments and operations per week, with around three times the levels of elective patients admitted to hospital than in April, as they continue to make progress on getting services back to pre-Covid levels, including scanning services which are delivering millions of urgent checks and tests. It is obviously vital for patients that this progress continues, and isn’t jeopardised by a second wave of Covid infections spiralling out of control.
It also says that, between April and August, the number of hospital patients being admitted for non-urgent treatment increased by 300% and between April and September the number of diagnostic tests being carried out was up by 150%.
These figures partly reflect the fact that much non-urgent hospital work ground to a halt in April because at that point the pandemic was at its peak.
Updated
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, restated his criticism of the government for its failure to implement new restrictions in partnership with local authority leaders. He said he still did not have clarity on what was planned.
What they are doing is imposing rather than negotiating and there is a very big difference, when we know millions of people’s lives will be affected by these ratings. If the support package isn’t good enough that will mean restrictions without the help people will need. That will just cause massive damage to people’s lives here across the north of England.
If we have a tier system imposed without the levels of support, we will be levelled down throughout this winter, not up. I cannot accept that and I am sure no other northern leader can accept that. This has got to change.
He said the government was “losing the dressing room” in the north.
I have heard it said so many times in the north this week, the government are losing the dressing room and they are.
Updated
At the Downing Street lobby briefing we did not learn any more about the plans to implement a three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions in England next week. The prime minister’s spokesman did not challenge the reports about what is planned (which all broadly say the same thing - see 9.35am, 10.14am and 12.36pm) but he would not confirm them either. He just said:
We are seeing coronavirus cases rise across the entire country but they are rising faster in the north-east and the north-west.
We are keeping the data under close review and we are considering a range of options to reduce the spread of the virus in order to protect communities and to protect the NHS.
But the spokesman did provide figures showing why action was needed in the north-east and the north-west.
In the north-east, hospital admissions are up by 35% from 65 to 88 in the seven days to 1 October, in comparison to a peak of 507 on 1 April.
There were 69 patients on ventilators on 1 October compared to 43 on 24 September and a peak of 302 on 11 April.
And in the north-west, admissions are up 60% from 80 to 128 in the seven days to 1 October, compared to a peak of 477 on 9 April.
There were 89 patients on ventilators on 4 October, compared to 60 on 24 September and a peak of 350 on 18 April.
Updated
Starmer says Labour won't vote against 10pm compulsory pub closing time next week
Labour will not vote against the 10pm compulsory pub closing time next week, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Last week he called for a rethink of the rule. And at PMQs yesterday Starmer challenged Boris Johnson to publish the scientific evidence justifying the rule before MPs voted on it. This has not happened.
But today, as Arj Singh reports at HuffPost, Starmer said Labour would not vote against the rule because it was a simple yes/no vote on a set of regulations, and it did not want to vote down the entire package. Starmer said:
The problem with the vote next week is it’s an up-down, take-it-or-leave-it vote and therefore if you vote down the current arrangements there won’t be any restrictions in place.
That’s not what we want so we won’t vote down the restrictions that are in place.
But we do say to the government: reform the 10pm rule, show us the evidence, do it in a much smarter way.
Updated
At FMQs in the Scottish parliament Ruth Davidson told Nicola Sturgeon it was “beyond belief” the first minister did not recall an initial meeting about complaints against Alex Salmond, as she said in her evidence – published yesterday - to the Holyrood inquiry investigating her government’s botched handling of sexual harassment complaints against the former first minister.
In angry exchanges, Davidson, the Conservative leader in the parliament, said that the SNP took people for fools:
You have a chief executive [Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell] who texted a colleague calling for pressure to be put on the police and then saying he didn’t mean it; we have the first minister attending meetings about the Salmond case and then omitting them from her diary and claiming she’d forgotten all about it; and we have a Scottish government wilfully obstructing an inquiry by the parliament and then attacking anyone who points it out.
Sturgeon countered that she would focus on the pandemic until she’s called under oath to the inquiry, where she would “relish” giving evidence after having “all sorts of nonsense levelled against me”.
Sturgeon was challenged by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard about why trade bodies and unions say there was no consultation before announcing a crackdown on indoor drinking and a full hospitality shutdown for central Scotland.
Sturgeon said that her government regularly consulted with stakeholders and updated the Scottish public, but added:
These are not normal times or decision-making processes ... I don’t expect these decisions to be welcome or popular but ... everyday right now we are facing decisions where we have lives in one hand and jobs in the other. It is an impossible, almost, balance to strike.
The argument over where the north of England starts and ends is a hardy perennial. But the leak to the Times and Sun this morning (see 10.14am) announcing the closure of all hospitality in “the north” has turbo-charged this debate, with leaders across the regions arguing against being lumped in with any new restrictions imposed across England’s upper half.
In Lancaster in north Lancashire — where cases are still under the national average at 33 per 100,000 people and no infections at all have been reported in the last two days — council leader Erica Lewis said she couldn’t support any additional measures which would affect residents’ wellbeing and livelihoods, without guarantees of government help. She said:
If we are asking people to restrict their movement, to not work, to close their businesses, the government needs to find ways to provide both economic support and social support.
The idea that everybody can just be connected to friends and family via the internet isn’t true for everybody. If we are going to go into those levels of restrictions then we need to make sure people have access to food, that as it gets colder and darker people can afford heating. One of things we have all learned through this crisis is that the government likes to make big announcements but often hasn’t thought through the detail.
Charlotte Nichols, the Labour MP for Warrington North, said the government was making arbitrary decisions about geography. “For 16 days now in Warrington we have been lumped in with the Liverpool city region and been subject to two different sets of restrictions, despite the fact Warrington is in Cheshire,” she said.
In Cumbria, Simon Fell, the Conservative MP for Barrow-in-Furness, said he and local leaders had agreed to ask government for restrictions on household mixing to be put in place in Barrow but not across the whole county.
At the moment we are on about 200 cases per 100,000 in Barrow, but we are going the wrong way. What we are seeing is not localised outbreaks, not things that can be traced back to a single pub where because of a single person 15 people were infected. It’s in the community.
Agreeing on the geography of lockdowns was not easy, said Fell, noting that many people from Ulverston – which is in the council district of South Lakeland – work in Barrow at BAE Systems, making nuclear submarines. “We would be in the danger of erecting false walls,” he said.
MPs to vote on compulsory 10pm closing time on Tuesday
MPs will get a vote on the 10pm compulsory closing time for England on Tuesday next week, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, told MPs this morning. He said:
I am very glad to say that we now have a system where issues of national significance will be debated on the floor of the house.
And I would note on the 10pm curfew, it is a nationally significant measure, and even though it is not strictly caught by the health secretary’s commitment last week, the government took the decision to move the debate to the floor of the house in recognition of the level of the demand for the debate.
So we are being responsive to what is being asked for and ensuring proper scrutiny.
Scottish publicans fear 16-day shutdown could last longer
Speaking to more bar and restaurant owners, especially across the central belt, this morning, it becomes clear that there’s a real loss of faith in government messaging and a fear that this 16-day shutdown will go on for longer.
Making the announcement yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon left her options open. She said:
Our intention is that these additional measures will be in place for just over two weeks, incorporating three weekends ... However, we will keep the situation under review between now and then, and keep parliament updated.
James Rusk, who owns a chain of high-end restaurants in Glasgow, told me just now: “It’s a bitter pill to swallow when your employees hear what is happening to them from a government announcement.”
He said there was “fear and panic” in the trade that the restrictions would last longer, and argued that a full shutdown was a blunt tool to sanction such a diverse range of businesses. “The Scottish government are basing things on assumptions, and we’re being treated like we can’t manage our way through this ourselves.”
Boris Johnson contacted the Irish prime minister on Sunday night to express concern the republic was about to impose a near lockdown across the country, putting it out of kilter with looser arrangements north of the border.
The call, reported in the Irish Times, comes amid alarm in the Irish government that Northern Ireland has become a hotspot for Covid, with the number of cases in the Derry and Strabane area now higher than anywhere in England.
The area is currently experiencing 636 cases per 100,000 compared to Liverpool, at 552 cases per 100,000.
Liverpool’s #covid19 rate of 552 per 100,000 is the highest in England
— Darran Marshall (@DarranMarshall) October 7, 2020
Derry & Strabane is currently sitting at 636.5#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/W8oxmD6dEe
The high incidence of Covid in Donegal, the Irish county to the west of Derry, has been the cause of concern for some weeks with rates now at over 300 per 100,000 partly put down to cross-border working and shopping.
📈 HPSC data puts Ireland at 124.4.
— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) October 8, 2020
Ten counties with Incidence rates above 100 - it was four a week ago.
Donegal - 312.2
Monaghan - 257.4
Dublin - 171.4
Roscommon - 170.4
Clare - 157.4
Longford - 154.1
Cavan - 144.4
Cork - 118.8
Limerick - 107.7
Offaly - 105.2#covid19 pic.twitter.com/4NEWAj0oeA
The taoiseach told fellow politicians on Wednesday night that he had spoken to Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill and one of the concerns was they did not have the same tools as other parts of the UK to introduce curbs.
The Northern Ireland executive was not in a position to offer the same financial incentives to affected businesses and vulnerable entities because of budgetary constraints, he said.
This is from Prof Tim Spector from King’s College London who runs the Covid symptom study (CSS), which uses self-reported information from an app to track the spread of coronavirus.
Todays CSS infection survey shows national rates still rising slowly but Yorkshire NE and NW still accelerating. Nottingham Sheffield and E. Renfrewshire identified as the hottest areas. Before shutting pubs and restaurants- Are the 288000 infected people really self isolating? pic.twitter.com/3gB9qYueFW
— tim spector (@timspector) October 8, 2020
The Home Office has received more than 4m applications for settled status, the post Brexit immigration status available to EU citizens currently in the country.
Latest monthly statistics show 2.1m have received settled status and 1.6m pre settled (for those with fewer than five years in the country).
Campaigners have observed the number of refusals has gone up 60% in a month, from 10,900 to 16,600.
The Home Office will not provide breakdowns until next month’s quarterly figures are published but sources say most of the refusals are down to “eligibility” rather than suitability which includes serious criminality.
Commenting on the latest test and trace figures (see 12.12pm) for Labour, the shadow health minister Justin Madders said:
It is now clear that the government has lost control of contact tracing with the system failing just when we need it most.
The government should have fixed test and trace when infections were lower over the summer. The government must act urgently to ensure the country doesn’t pay a terrible price over the winter because of this failure.
The president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Prof Neil Mortensen, has said the NHS waiting time figures published today (see 11.04am) show the need for regular testing of NHS staff. He said:
Today’s data show what a mountain the NHS has to climb to get on top of the immense backlog of planned operations, with more than 100,000 people now having waited longer than a year for treatment.
Huge efforts are being made to keep in touch with patients, monitor their conditions and to get surgical services going again after the Covid stoppage. It is welcome to see a slight drop in the number of patients who have waited longer than 18 weeks, reflecting what trusts are doing to get people seen and treated.
But the continued recovery of surgical services cannot be taken for granted. Winter pressures from a flu outbreak, along with a resurging incidence of coronavirus, will put the fragile recovery of planned surgery at risk. Action is needed right now to ensure staff are Covid-tested regularly, and beds are ring-fenced for patients who really need their operation.
It is also of critical importance that patients continue to come forward to their GPs for referral if they are unwell; early detection of disease always makes for more effective treatment, so people must not be deterred because they know waiting lists are long.
Three-tier lockdown system to start on Wednesday, but toughest rules yet to be finalised, leak suggests
The government’s new three-tier lockdown regime will be announced on Monday and come into force on Wednesday, according to a leaked document reported by the Nottingham Post.
But the leak also suggests ministers have not yet decided how strict the rules will be in tier three - the places with the highest number of cases.
Kit Sandeman, a BBC local democracy reported working with the Nottingham Post, says in his story that Nottingham is set to enter level two. And he explains in his story what that will mean. He reports:
All of the county and Nottingham city would go into ‘Level Two’ of a new traffic light system for local lockdowns due to be announced next week.
The documents, which have been sent by the government to senior figures in the city and county, show that people can still go on holiday outside of your area, but you should only do this with people you live with or have formed a support bubble with.
In addition, they say meeting people from other households in private dwellings will not be allowed
Visiting indoor hospitality, leisure and retail settings will be restricted to one household, meaning two households must not meet in these settings unless those two households are in a support bubble.
Sandeman’s story also quotes from the document, which says the government has yet to decide exactly what restrictions will apply in the areas subject to the tightest ‘Level Three’ rules. The document says:
The secretary of state wants to be in a position to move across to the new tiering approach, now called local risk levels, in one step next week.
There will therefore be no announcements of the local risk levels from central government this week and we are currently seeking to clarify whether or not the watchlist [a Public Health England list of local authority areas that might need Covid interventions] will be published this week accordingly.
Our current expectation is that the approach will be announced on Monday, October 12 with the new standardised regulations coming into force on Wednesday October 14 ...
Level One and Two measures have now been signed off by Covid O [operations] committee but there is further work ongoing on Level 3.
Updated
NHS Test and Trace records worst week for reaching contacts of positive cases, figures show
NHS Test and Trace has seen its worst week on record for the proportion of contacts it manages to trace, PA Media reports.
Some 68.6% of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England were reached through the system in the week ending September 30, the lowest weekly percentage since test and trace began, and down from 72.5% in the previous week.
For cases handled by local health protection teams, 97.1% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to September 30.
For cases handled either online or by call centres, 62.4% of close contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate.
A total of 51,475 new people tested positive for Covid-19 in England in the week to September 30, according to the latest figures.
This is an increase of 56% in positive cases on the previous week and is the highest weekly number since test and trace was launched at the end of May.
ONS quashes claims Covid less deadly than flu
Earlier this week Donald Trump claimed on Twitter that in most populations coronavirus would be “far less lethal” than flu.
Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020
That is probably a minority view in the UK - and even in the US too - but this morning the Office for National Statistics has published a report that should settle the matter. It compares deaths from Covid with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, and coronavirus is easily the more lethal killer. It says:
Of all death occurrences between January and August 2020, there were 48,168 deaths due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) compared with 13,619 deaths due to pneumonia and 394 deaths due to influenza.
Influenza and pneumonia was mentioned on more death certificates than Covid-19, however Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in over three times as many deaths between January and August 2020.
This means that in England and Wales (which the report covers) the death toll from flu (influenza) has been less than 1% of the death toll from coronavirus. Even if Trump was muddling flu with pneumonia (an understandable mistake - flu can cause pneumonia), he was still wrong. Deaths from pneumonia are less than a third of deaths from Covid.
This is from Saul Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS.
More than three times as many deaths were recorded between January and August this year where Covid-19 was the underlying cause compared to influenza and pneumonia.
The mortality rate for Covid-19 is also significantly higher than influenza and pneumonia rates for both 2020 and the five-year average.
Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death records began, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in the first eight months of every year have been lower than the number of Covid-19 deaths seen, so far, in 2020.
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Hospitals 10 days away from 'critical' stage because of rising Covid admissions, health minister says
Nadine Dorries, the health minister, has said that hospital admissions are just 10 days away from reaching a “critical” stage because of rising coronavirus case numbers.
Those who now claim that further measures are not needed, will in about ten days from now, when hospital admissions are at a critical stage argue that we didn’t do enough. We must do all we can to prevent our ICUs #NHS from becoming overwhelmed #COVID19
— Nadine Dorries 🇬🇧#StayAlert (@NadineDorries) October 8, 2020
Yesterday Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts, said some hospitals in the north if England were now seeing admission levels equivalent to those in the spring, when the epidemic was at its peak.
Liam Fox out of race to be next head of WTO
The World Trade Organization is set to be run by a woman for the first time in its 25-year history after it was announced that the final choice to be its new director-general will be between South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee and Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, my colleague Larry Elliott reports.
That means Liam Fox, the UK candidate and former international trade secretary, failed to make it to the final shortlist. He has posted this video saying he is disappointed.
I am proud to have been nominated by @BorisJohnson as the 🇬🇧 nominee for the position of Director-General of the @wto. I am of course naturally disappointed not be continuing further in this contest. It has been an honour to take part in this selection. Full statement👇#WTODG pic.twitter.com/6krs2U0E00
— Dr Liam Fox MP #LiamFoxForWTO (@LiamFox) October 8, 2020
Some hours after details of likely new local lockdowns were leaked to newspapers, the government is to brief MPs representing constituencies in the Midlands and north of England. These MPs have been summoned to a video conference from 11.30am, which will be led by health minister Edward Argar. It’s fair to say that the MPs attending are hoping to hear both details and timelines – but are not completely optimistic they will.
Prof Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, told BBC Breakfast this morning that he hoped coronavirus case levels in Scotland would be falling in three weeks. Asked what would happen if there has been no change at the end of the 16-day indoor pub drinking ban starting on Friday in Scotland, Leitch said:
I’m very hopeful that something will change, that the numbers will begin to move.
Now, remember, this virus isn’t norovirus, you don’t know you’ve got it tomorrow and you’re sick - it takes seven to 10 to 14 days to show, so we are not going to be completely out of the woods at 16 days.
But the earlier restrictions that we’ve had in households, in other places in the last few weeks, the work we’ve done in student halls, those restrictions are beginning to show their effect.
Another three weeks from now, two-and-a-half weeks from now, I’m hopeful that the numbers will have begun to fall, and we’re going to do work in this time to just check the guidance, check the mitigations are as strong as they can be, talk to the stakeholder groups, the sectors, make sure we’re doing everything we can to allow them to open safely.
Number of patients waiting three months for tests 40 times higher than last year, latest NHS figures show
NHS England has released a slew of performance figures today - covering diagnostics, A&E attendances and admissions and the ambulance service. They show that the coronavirus pandemic continues to have a severe impact on the service.
The backlog created by tests being cancelled means that waiting times for key diagnostic scans etc are now massively higher than they were a year ago. Waiting times for operations are also significantly higher than in 2019.
Meanwhile, the service is still not operating at the level is used to. Hospital operations, GP referrals and A&E attendance are all well below pre-Covid levels.
Here are the key figures.
- The number of patients in England waiting more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test is more than 10 times higher than it was a year ago, the figures show. In August a total of 472,088 patients were waiting for one of 15 standard tests, including an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy. The equivalent number waiting for more than six weeks in August 2019 was 42,926.
- The number of patients waiting more than 13 weeks for a key diagnostic test in August was 239,920 - more than 40 times more than in August 2019 (5,284).
- Almost 2m people had been waiting more than 18 weeks in August to start hospital treatment. The figure (1.96m) was around three times higher than the figure for August 2019 - but slightly down on the figure for July 2020 (2.15m).
- 111,026 people had been waiting more than a year in August to start hospital treatment - the highest monthly figure since September 2008.
- The number of people admitted for routine hospital treatment in hospitals in England in August was 155,789 - 43% down on the figure for August 2019. That 43% year-on-year decrease compares to a 55% on in July, and a 67% one in June.
- There were 169,660 urgent cancer referrals made by GPs in England in August 2020, down from 200,317 in August 2019 - a fall of 15%.
- A total of 1.7m A&E attendances were recorded in September 2020, down 20% from 2.1m in September 2019. That 20% year-on-year fall in attendance compares with falls of 19% in August, 30% in July and 33% in June.
- Emergency admissions to A&E were down 9% year-on-year, from 529,903 in September 2019 to 479,800 in September 2020.
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A hike in coronavirus fines and extending the places where face coverings are mandatory will be considered by Stormont ministers later. As PA Media reports, the justice minister, Naomi Long, is due to present the outcome of a rapid review into penalties and enforcement of the Covid-19 regulations at this afternoon’s executive meeting.
It is understood a proposal to increase the fine that accompanies a fixed-penalty notice for a rule breach from £60 to £200. The executive office is also due to present proposals around extending the public settings where face coverings should be mandatory. If agreed, this would see the law widened to cover places such as office spaces, banks and building societies. Coverings are already mandatory in shops and on public transport.
The meeting at Stormont comes as Northern Ireland continues to experience rocketing coronavirus infection rates.
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'Deeply disappointing' newspapers told about new measures before local leaders, says Liverpool metro mayor
Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor of Liverpool city region, has now issued this statement saying it is “deeply disappointing” that he is having to find out about new restrictions facing Merseyside from the newspapers. (See 10.14am.)
It is deeply disappointing to wake up to reports that new lockdown measures affecting our area could be in place within days.
— Steve Rotheram (@MetroMayorSteve) October 8, 2020
Once again, we are finding out because ministers are choosing to brief newspapers rather than local leaders. pic.twitter.com/H9dwIMVutE
We have not had confirmation from the government yet as to what is planned for England next week, but there is a lot of reporting in the papers this morning all pointing in the same direction.
The Times today (paywall) is saying that pubs and restaurants in the north of England will be closed on Monday. It says:
The prime minister signed off on the lockdown last night alongside new financial support and a simplified system of restrictions in England.
The measures will include wage support for employees of businesses that were forced back into lockdown three months after opening. The new system of restrictions divides England into three tiers of escalating severity.
And the Sun gives this explantation of how the new, simplified three-tier system of restrictions may work.
In plans signed off at a ministerial “gold command” meeting last night, Tier 1 will see current social distancing measures, the “rule of six” and a pub curfew of 10pm enforced.
Areas in Tier 2 will have the same restrictions plus a ban on households mixing.
Vast swathes of the virus-hit north-west and north-east would automatically fall under Tier 3, in which pubs, restaurants and other hospitality businesses will be shut.
People will not be able to mix households – except those with exemptions – and will have to abide by the national social distancing laws, such as wearing face masks.
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Boris Johnson spoke to President Trump yesterday. We haven’t had a readout from No 10, but Trump has tweeted about the call.
Just spoke with Prime Minister @BorisJohnson of the United Kingdom. Very thankful for his friendship and support as I recovered from the China Virus. I am looking forward to working with him for many years to come, a great guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020
The outcry over the nationwide crackdown on indoor drinking in Scotland – where the central belt of the country now has the toughest restrictions in the whole of the UK – continues this morning, with industry bodies warning that the measures will devastate the sector.
Nick Wood of the Scottish Hospitality Group told BBC Radio Scotland: “I think we’re being used as a scapegoat. The proof isn’t there but we are the ones being blamed.”
Although Nicola Sturgeon said in her statement to Holyrood yesterday that one in five people contacted by test and trace had visited a hospitality setting, Wood said that bars and restaurants had been working hard and invested heavily to maintain controlled and hygienic environments.
James Rusk, owner of the Butchershop Bar and Grill in Glasgow, said that bringing in such severe restrictions without consultation had caused “fear and panic”. He pointed out that the effects would be felt more widely.
We’ve got a massive supply chain and we can’t keep stopping and starting. The people making the decisions don’t employ our teams, they don’t have to look after the supply chains, they’re not the ones sitting on thousands of points of stock, they’re not farmers, importers, delivery drivers. It’s devastating. You can’t just tell people on a Wednesday, hey you’ve got to shut down at 6pm on Friday for a couple of weeks.
But deputy first minister John Swinney, also speaking on Good Morning Scotland, said that the Scottish government had “dug deep” to provide a £40m support fund for hospitality. “We have to take action to stop the opportunities for interaction where the virus can spread.”
Asked if it didn’t make more sense to enforce household visiting restrictions, Swinney said there was a real risk of the virus accelerating to a point similar to where it had been in March and a multi-pronged approach was needed.
Swinney said that Sturgeon’s statement yesterday had also included a warning to the retail sector to enforce 2 metre distancing, which had become more relaxed in recent months.
Asked about those who had already booked holidays for the October school break, Swinney said: “Yes, all holiday plans can take their course, but people must exercise the greatest of care.”
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Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, was doing the morning interview round for the government this morning. As my colleague Josh Halliday reports, he admitted that so far local restrictions have only had a limited effect.
Jenrick refused to confirm that new restrictions would be imposed on Monday. Asked about the government’s plans, he just said:
It is correct to say the number of cases in the north-west and the north-east and a number of cities, particularly in the Midlands like Nottingham, are rising fast and that is a serious situation.
We are currently considering what steps we should take, obviously taking the advice of our scientific and medical advisers, and a decision will be made shortly. But I’m not able to give you right now exactly what is going to happen.
But Jenrick did signal that the government would announce extra financial support for the hospitality sector alongside any new measures. Asked about pubs and restaurants, he said:
There is support in place, but I completely understand that we may well need to go further because those businesses will be placed in a really difficult, intolerable position if they are asked to do more.
Local government leaders condemn government over handling of lockdown plans
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and David Mellen, the Nottingham city council leader, are not the only local government leaders angry about lack of consultation from the government over lockdown measures. (See 9.35am.) This is from Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP and Sheffield city region mayor.
Recklessly irresponsible to brief the papers but not leaders in the North who’ll somehow have to make this work. Get a grip @BorisJohnson. https://t.co/WNUc5Xf5DI
— Dan Jarvis (@DanJarvisMP) October 7, 2020
Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor of Liverpool city region, told Good Morning Britain this morning that there was “an ever widening north-south divide” in what was happening and that he was concerned that the north was being treated like “a petri dish for experimentation”.
🗣️"What we've seen is an ever-widening North/South divide in measures being taken. Quite simply the North should not be a petri dish for experimentation by central government."
— Steve Rotheram (@MetroMayorSteve) October 8, 2020
From this morning's interview on @GMB ⬇️pic.twitter.com/3oxvsM2IAc
And Nick Forbes, the Labour leader of Newcastle city council, issued a statement last night saying that, instead of being offered partnership from central government, northern cities were instead getting “diktats announced without notice”.
My statement tonight on the offer of help to Government being made by the Leaders of Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. We want to fix the broken system, but need a new relationship based on cooperation and trust @cllrjudithblake @SirRichardLeese @mayor_anderson pic.twitter.com/dLJz6RfRJB
— Nick Forbes (@nick_forbes) October 7, 2020
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Delaying new restrictions creates risk of 'party weekend', ministers warned
Good morning. Ministers are getting read to announce new restrictions in England, which could see pubs forced to shut in the areas with the highest rates of coronavirus, but it is being reported that the measures may not take effect until next week and this has only fuelled the anger that local leaders already feel about how the government is handling this. Nottingham, which now has the fifth highest Covid rate in England, was expecting new restrictions today. But David Mellen, the Labour council leader, told the Today programme that he now thought they would not happen until next week.
It seems like we’re victims of a government change of approach. And therefore, even though we’ve got very high numbers that we’ve known about since the beginning of the week, we’ve got til next week for government to bring in what we expect will be restrictions in Nottingham.
He also said this meant there was a danger that people might treat this weekend as a chance to party because of the delay. Asked if he feared residents might have “one last blowout”, he replied:
Absolutely. That is our concern, absolutely. This has happened very quickly. We were hampered by 660 people who were positive not knowing their results for a week because of the glitch. Obviously they might have two or three contacts each – lots of people going around the city, going about their ordinary life, without isolating when they should have been if they knew their results and their contacts had been traced.
Yes, there is a chance this weekend that people will think: ‘This might be the last chance before Christmas, so let’s go out and party.’ And we can’t have that.
Mellen is not the only local leader who is furious. Last night, responding to a report in the Times saying pubs in the north of England would be forced to close on Monday, Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said the government was “impossible to deal with”.
No discussion. No consultation.
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) October 7, 2020
Millions of lives affected by Whitehall diktat.
It is proving impossible to deal with this Government. https://t.co/1lcRRNvptd
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS is due to publish reports comparing Covid deaths with flu deaths, looking at Covid and the non-UK workforce, and the economic impact of the crisis.
10.30am: Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, makes a Commons statement on next week’s business.
11am: NHS Test and Trace is due to publish its latest performance figures.
Around 11.30am: MPs begin a general debate on the government’s plans to reform the planning system. More than 50 MPs are due to speak, many of whom are unhappy about the proposals.
12pm: Downing Street holds its lobby briefing.
Politics Live has been doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog for some time and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and where they seem more important and interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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