Afternoon summary
- The UK government has this afternoon tightened up its travel advice for Spain, saying it is advising against all non-essential travel to the country, including the Balearic and Canary Islands. At the weekend the islands were not included when the government advised against all non-essential travel to mainland Spain, and reimposed quarantine for arrivals from all parts of Spain, including the islands. Spain has said it is in talks with the UK about getting an exemption for the Canaries and Balearics. But government sources have indicated that no exemption will be granted soon and instead the latest moves shows the rules for the islands being tightened, not relaxed.
- The government has recorded just seven new UK coronavirus deaths on its daily dashboard - the lowest daily headline total since early March. See 5.06pm.
- Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said he is cutting short his holiday in Spain and coming home early following the decision to reimpose quarantine on arrivals from the country. He said this would allow him to get his period in quarantine over as soon as possible.
Grant Shapps told the Sun: pic.twitter.com/PAlFTJb8Au
— Jonathan Reilly (@thejonnyreilly) July 27, 2020
- Sir Mark Sedwill, the outgoing cabinet secretary, has said in a speech at Oxford University that “demoralising” anonymous criticism of government officials has “risen in the last few years”. He said:
Any kind of anonymous briefings and sniping is demoralising for people ... It’s not completely unique but it has definitely risen in the last few years.
Ministers were also victims of this sort of briefing, he said.
There’s nothing more destabilising for a senior cabinet minister to read a whole load of stuff in one of the newspapers about whether or not the skids are under them because of something that’s happened.
That’s all from me for today.
Our coronavirus coverage continues on our coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Grant Shapps to return home early from Spain following quarantine announcement
From the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves
Transport Sec Grant Shapps is cutting short his holiday in Spain to return to UK. He says he 'doesn't feel right' being on holiday when others are having theirs ruined by the change in quarantine advice. His wife and children will continue their holiday without him
— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) July 27, 2020
Updated
Today’s coronavirus dashboard also confirms that the number of new cases in the UK continues to rise. It is very gradual, but the graph is clearly edging up.
Here is the main graph.
According to the detailed chart, the rolling seven-day average for new cases was 662.3 on 23 July (the most recent date for which a seven-day average is published), compared with 546.1 on 5 July, its low point.
The ONS infection survey published on Friday (which measures the incidence of coronavirus in a different way – see 10.32am) said the decline in the number of people in England testing positive has “levelled off in recent weeks”. But the detailed data published alongside the report suggests the incidence rate is going up, from 1,900 new cases per day in England in mid June to 2,800 new cases per day in mid July. But these figures are based on a very small sample, and so there is a wide margin of error.
Updated
UK records just seven coronavirus deaths - lowest daily headline total since early March
The government has recorded a further seven UK coronavirus deaths in the latest daily update to its dashboard.
This is a Public Health England figure for the UK as a whole. It gets published on the government’s website. But, confusingly, the Department of Health and Social Care has given up publishing this figure as part of its only daily update, because it no longer views it as reliable.
The PHE figure is suspect because it includes people in England who tested positive for coronavirus and died - even if they died of something else.
But the main problem with the headline total is that it is an underestimate because it does not include people who died from coronavirus without testing positive. When these deaths are included, total UK coronavirus deaths are more than 55,000.
At seven, today’s daily total is the lowest on the dashboard since 13 March, when just one death was recorded.
Jet2 cancels flights from UK to mainland Spain
The airline Jet2 has cancelled all flights from the UK to mainland Spain up to 16 August after the government’s surprise imposition of mandatory quarantine on all arrivals from Spain.
Jet2 said it would contact all customers of its cancelled Spanish flights and holiday packages about refund options. The company is seeking clarification from the government before advising customers with holidays booked from 17 August.
Rival package holiday company Tui has also cancelled Spanish holidays, although airline EasyJet has continued to run a full schedule.
However, Jet2, whose parent company Dart Group is based in Leeds, said that flights would continue from the UK to the Balearic and Canary islands, including popular holiday destinations such as Mallorca, Ibiza and Tenerife. Travellers from the Spanish archipelagos must also quarantine under the UK restrictions, but the islands have a lower incidence of coronavirus infections than the mainland, and the travel industry is lobbying to have the quarantine restrictions limited to the mainland only.
A spokeswoman said:
Following the latest government advice regarding travel to mainland Spain from the UK, we have taken the decision to suspend our flights and holidays programme to Costa de Almeria, Alicante, Malaga and Murcia from 28th July up to and including 16th August.
We urge the government to provide the industry with clarity, so that we can keep everybody up-to-date and informed. We are continuing to operate flights and holidays to our destinations in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands as scheduled. Because the FCO travel advice to these destinations remains unchanged, our usual terms and conditions apply. This is a fast-moving situation, which we are continuing to monitor very closely.
Health minister says 'decisions people make' help to explain why poor have suffered most from Covid
During his statement in the House of Lords earlier Lord Bethell, the health minister, said that the “decisions that people make” helped to explain why people in poor areas were more likely to die from coronavirus than people in wealthy areas.
He was responding to a question from the former Labour cabinet minister Lord Reid, who asked about an ONS report published last Friday saying that in England the mortality rate for deaths involving coronavirus in the most deprived areas (139.6 deaths per 100,000) was more than double what it was in the least deprived areas (63.4 deaths per 100,000 population).
In response, Bethell said that this was a sensitive subject and that he felt emotional thinking about it. But he went on:
[Reid] is entirely right that those who are least advantaged in society are hardest hit by this disease, and by lots of other diseases.
And there are behavioural reasons for that, the decisions that people make about social distancing, about their own health decisions, and there are environmental reasons, about living conditions and the places in which they live, neither of which detract from the fact that this is a very sad and upsetting truth.
But we are extremely conscious of the challenge, as we are with all the health inequalities.
The particular lever that we are focused on is trying to get our message out to hard-to-reach communities who may not have heard the important messages on hygiene, on social distancing and on isolation, and we have in place a programme of marketing in order to reach these communities to communicate these important messages.
Bethell may subsequently decide that he did not phrase this very tactfully. One of the major “social distancing” factors that helps to explain why poor people have been much more likely to die from coronavirus than wealthy people is the fact that the virus is much more likely to strike people doing manual, customer-facing jobs (like social care or bus driving - see 11.42am) than professional or managerial jobs that allow people to work from home. Choosing a low-paid job may be a “decision” of sorts, but it is not necessarily a voluntary one.
Here is a chart from another ONS survey showing the death rates from coronavirus for working age men by profession.
In response to another question, Bethell said that the test and trace system on its own would not be able to prevent a second wave of coronavirus hitting Britain. He said:
Track and trace on its own, with or without an app, is not enough to prevent a second wave. The only thing that can do that are the behaviours of the British people themselves, and a commitment to hygiene, distancing and isolation are the best [protections] we have against this horrible disease.
And he said it would be “very difficult and challenging” to give the Balearic Islands an exemption from the quarantine rule for Spain as a whole. (See 2.22pm.) He explained:
Within individual countries there is no way for us to control intra-country transport. It is therefore very difficult and challenging to have a regional exemption list. That is why we have not been able to to give exemptions to the Balearics. And I say this with a personal interest in the matter.
Updated
Rishi Sunak is exploring plans for an online sales tax to protect high street shops amid mounting competition from internet retailers, my colleague Richard Partington reports.
Today, as part of its obesity strategy, the government has announced plans to abolish ‘buy one, get one free’ offers for unhealthy items of food (ie foods high in fat, sugar). But in his summer statement Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced an “eat out to help out” discount offer for restaurant meals in August, which will apply whether meals are healthy or not.
This might look like a contradiction, but at the Number 10 lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman denied suggestions that the government was sending out mixed messages. When this was put to him, he said:
The “eat out to help out” scheme applies to all restaurants and people will be able to choose a range of healthy options from the menus if they are trying to lose weight.
Updated
Gove says his own plans for holiday in Ibiza did not affect decision not to give Balearics quarantine exemption
Michael Gove has insisted the decision to impose a blanket 14-day quarantine on all travellers from Spain and its islands was based on the science, and not influenced by his own plans for an imminent holiday in Ibiza.
Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, said he chaired the emergency meeting on Saturday afternoon with the three devolved governments after the UK’s joint biosecurity centre warned about a sharp surge in Covid-19 cases in northern Spain, and was rising too in other regions.
Gove confirmed the meeting discussed different options but all the governments agreed unanimously a full, blanket quarantine rule was needed. He denied supporting that because excluding his holiday destination would be disastrous politically.
“No. We made the decision on the evidence,” Gove told reporters this afternoon during a visit to Scotland. He went on:
I did crack a joke at the end [about his planned holiday] against myself but the principle point was that this is a very serious situation. The incidence of the virus is higher in north-east Spain [but] it is the case that the incidence of the virus is rising across Spain.
The advice we were given from the chief medical officer and the joint biosecurity centre was pretty clear, that we needed to take action. There was an open discussion about both the speed with which we should take action and also whether or not the restrictions should apply to the Balearic islands and to the Canary islands as well.
And the consensus view, from all four administrations, was that it was better to take the most cautious approach in terms of public health at this point, and that was to extend the ban to all of Spain, and to do so at the quickest practical effective timescale. And that was a shared decision over all.
So the fact that I may now have to alter my holiday plans is irrelevant to this decision. It’s an inconvenience for me but that’s nothing compared to the importance of putting public health first.
Updated
And Wales has also recorded no new coronavirus deaths, according to the latest daily bulletin from Public Health Wales.
There have been no further coronavirus deaths in Northern Ireland, according to the latest daily bulletin from its Department of Health.
Sky’s David Blevins says Northern Ireland has now had two weeks without a coronavirus death.
For the 14th consecutive day, Northern Ireland has recorded no deaths from #COVID19.
— David Blevins (@skydavidblevins) July 27, 2020
NHS England has recorded a further 10 coronavirus hospital deaths. The full figures are here.
And here are some more lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, will not be exempt from the quarantine provisions when he returns from his Spanish holiday, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
- Only three fines have been issued at the border for non-compliance with the quarantine rules since they were introduced early last month, the spokesman said. He said there was “a high level of compliance” with the rules.
- The spokesman said that Boris Johnson shared Priti Patel’s view that grime artist Wiley’s antisemitic social media posts were “abhorrent”. He said:
Social media companies need to go much further and faster in removing hateful content such as this.
Patel, the home secretary, has written to Twitter and Instagram seeking an explanation and the government expects a full response, the spokesman said.
The message is clear: Twitter needs to do better on this.
Here is Patel’s tweet from yesterday.
The antisemitic posts from Wiley are abhorrent.
— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) July 26, 2020
They should not have been able to remain on Twitter and Instagram for so long and I have asked them for a full explanation.
Social media companies must act much faster to remove such appalling hatred from their platforms.
- But the spokesman defended Johnson’s decision not to join the 48-hour boycott of Twitter in protest, saying that the PM was still tweeting because of the need to communicate “important public health messages”.
Updated
No 10 says people who lose work through quarantine may qualify for help through universal credit
At the No 10 lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman also said that people who lost work because they have to quarantine may be eligible for help through universal credit or the employment support allowance. Asked why people in this category were not eligible for statutory sick pay (as the TUC is proposing - see 1.58pm), the spokesman said the government expects employers to be “flexible” in allowing staff to work from home while self-isolating. He went on:
Where this isn’t possible we would expect that many employers would have their own policies in place for quarantine and we know that some continue to offer full pay for all or some of the isolation period.
But if there are people who need urgent support then they may be entitled to the new-style employment support allowance or universal credit.
Pressed on whether ministers would review statutory sick pay eligibility, he said:
We always keep our response to the pandemic under review and we regularly assess the support available but there is support available for those in need.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman said that the decision to impose quarantine on holidaymakers returning from Spain was “announced straight away” after a decision was taken based on new data on case numbers. The spokesman explained:
We got new data from the Spanish health ministry on Friday and that showed that new cases reported across the Thursday and Friday were 75% higher than those reported on the previous two days.
This pace of increase, together with the high seven-day case rate for Spain and the picture of increasing cases across most regions, represented a significant change.
In response, Public Health England and the Joint Biosecurity Centre decided to undertake an urgent review and they updated ministers at a meeting on Saturday, and in light of that significant change ministers agreed urgent action was needed to protect the health of the UK public.
The change to our policy was announced straight away.
Boris Johnson was not on the call where the decision was made, but Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, was, the spokesman added.
Updated
Health minister tells peers that quarantine exemption for Balearics would be 'difficult and challenging'
Although the House of Commons is in recess, the House of Lords is still sitting, and Lord Bethell, a health minister, is answering questions on coronavirus.
He tells peers there is a “very thorough” system in government for reviewing quarantine rules.
But the situation is fast moving, he says. He says fast-moving decisions are not a sign of weakness.
Having a regional exemption list would be “very difficult and challenging” because it is not possible to restrict how people move within a country before coming to the UK. That is why an exemption for the Balearic islands was not possible, he says. And he says as someone speaking with a personal interest (ie, he had a holiday planned there, presumably.)
UPDATE: Here is the full quote from Bethell.
Within individual countries there is no way for us to control intra-country transport. It is therefore very difficult and challenging to have a regional exemption list. That is why we have not been able to to give exemptions to the Balearics. And I say this with a personal interest in the matter.
Updated
No new coronavirus deaths have been recorded in Scotland in the last 24 hours - the 11th day in a row without any fatalities, PA Media reports
The latest Scottish government figures show that 2,491 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for Covid-19. A total of 18,554 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by three from 18,551 the day before.
There are 270 people in hospital with confirmed coronavirus and two patients are in intensive care.
According to the Sun’s Jonathan Reilly, government departments are split over plans to adjust the Spain quarantine rule. He says that the Department for Transport wants to exempt the Canary and Balearic islands (which is what the Spanish government is pushing for - see 11.59am), but that the Foreign Office wants to actually tighten the rules as regards the islands, but urging Britons not to visit them. At the moment it is advising against all non-essential travel to mainland Spain, but not to the islands.
Quarantine chaos. Departments appear to be at total odds. Dep for Transport want new travel corridors to Balearics and Canary Islands. Now hearing the Foreign Office, which initially deemed the islands OK, is set to remove then from their safe list. What a mess.
— Jonathan Reilly (@thejonnyreilly) July 27, 2020
TUC demands support and protection for workers forced to quarantine and big increase in sick pay
The TUC has said that anyone unable to work from home because they are quarantining should be eligible for statutory sick pay - paid at a much higher level than present. In a statement Frances O’Grady, its general secretary, said:
It’s not holidaymakers’ fault that the guidance has changed. Wherever possible, employers should do the right thing and pay quarantined workers their full pay.
The government must also make it clear that people who can’t work from home during quarantine will be eligible for statutory sick pay.
And they should increase sick pay from £95 a week to at least the level of the ‘real living wage’ of £320 a week.
In addition, ministers should change the law to stop employers from sacking quarantined workers.
Michael Portillo, the former Conservative cabinet minister whose father came to the UK as a political refugee from Franco’s Spain, told Radio 4’s World at One that the government’s decision to reimpose quarantine restrictions on arrivals from Spain was “an aggressive and unwarranted act” which was “creating maximum confusion and economic damage”
He said that while it might be “reasonable” to impose quarantine on arrivals from Catalonia, because of the high number of cases there, blanket quarantine measures were unjustified. The Canary Islands were as far from Barcelona as Barcelona was from London, he said.
He also said that, because the quarantine rules were not being properly enforced, quarantine was “a political gesture” with no great health benefits. But it was damaging to the economy, he argued.
No evidence humans can get coronavirus from their pets, says chief veterinary officer
Pet owners should not be alarmed by the news that a cat has tested positive for coronavirus, the government says. This is from Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England:
This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm.
And this is from Christine Middlemiss, the chief veterinary officer for the UK. She said:
Tests conducted by the Animal and Plant Health Agency have confirmed that the virus responsible for Covid-19 has been detected in a pet cat in England.
This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days.
There is no evidence to suggest that pets directly transmit the virus to humans. We will continue to monitor this situation closely.
Here is more from the Defra news release about the pet cat testing positive for coronavirus.
The pet cat was initially diagnosed by a private vet with feline herpes virus, a common cat respiratory infection, but the sample was also tested for Sars-CoV-2 as part of a research programme. Follow-up samples tested at the APHA laboratory in Weybridge confirmed the cat was also co-infected with Sars-CoV2 which is the virus known to cause Covid-19 in humans.
Pet owners can access the latest government guidance on how to continue to care for their animals during the coronavirus pandemic.
The case has been reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health in line with international commitments. There have been a very small number of confirmed cases in pets in other countries in Europe, North America and Asia.
Updated
Pet cat becomes first animal in UK to test positive for coronavirus
A pet cat has tested positive for coronavirus, the government has said. It is the first case of an animal in the UK having the virus.
In a press release the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said:
The infection was confirmed following tests at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) laboratory in Weybridge on Wednesday 22 July.
Although this is the first confirmed case of an animal infection with the coronavirus strain in the UK, there is no evidence to suggest that the animal was involved in transmission of the disease to its owners or that pets or other domestic animals are able to transmit the virus to people ...
All available evidence suggests that the cat contracted the coronavirus from its owners who had previously tested positive for Covid-19. The cat and its owners have since made a full recovery and there was no transmission to other animals or people in the household.
Commenting on the case, Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said:
This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm.
The investigation into this case suggest that the infection was spread from humans to animal, and not the other way round. At this time, there is no evidence that pets can transmit the disease to humans.
In line with the general advice on fighting coronavirus, you should wash your hands regularly, including before and after contact with animals.
Other countries in Europe, America and Asia have already found cases of coronavirus in pets.
The World Organisation for Animal Health has produced a factsheet on animals and coronavirus here.
Police in England and Wales 'twice as likely' to fine young BAME men during lockdown
Police were twice as likely to fine young black and Asian men under the lockdown rules than their white counterparts, according to new figures that underline concerns about racial bias in policing. The statistics were set out in this report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. My colleague Matthew Weaver has the full story here.
Updated
More than a quarter of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) NHS staff are still waiting for a risk assessment for Covid-19, data suggests. Figures seen by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) suggest 73% of BAME staff had had a risk assessment in England by 17 July, but in some hospital trusts the figure was just 20%. As PA Media reports, NHS England recommended risk assessments for BAME staff as long ago as April and has now extended the deadline for them to be completed to the end of July.
Updated
Spain suggests talks with UK might lead to Canary and Balearic islands being excluded from quarantine rule
The Spanish government is hoping that continuing negotiations with the British government will soon pave the way for Britons to visit the Canary and Balearic islands without having to self-quarantine on their return.
At the moment, the UK government is advising against all non-essential travel to mainland Spain, but the Canaries and Balearics are exempt from the de facto travel ban. However, anyone visiting any part of Spain – including the islands – is currently required to self-isolate for a fortnight when they return to the UK.
“There have been conversations since the weekend with the British authorities about dropping quarantine for those visiting the islands as soon as possible,” Spain’s tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, said on Monday.
Maroto also said the government was providing the UK with epidemiological updates about each of Spain’s 17 regions, adding that six of them were currently in a better epidemiological situation than the UK.
“We’ll be talking to all the Spanish regions to see what they propose, and any proposals will be brought to the British authorities,” she added.
The autonomous governments of Andalucía and Valencia have already asked for their regions to be included in the talks on lifting quarantine restrictions.
Maroto said Spain was trying to be as open and transparent as possible when it came to sharing information. She went on:
We want to use that information to bring confidence and transparency when it comes to taking decisions.
Our opposite numbers around Europe are doing the same thing and keeping us informed about the outbreaks, which are happening across all European countries and not just in Spain.
We’re living alongside the virus but that doesn’t mean we can’t travel or enjoy some well-deserved holidays. But we need to be prudent and we need to respect the virus. But that doesn’t mean we can’t control it and enjoy a certain kind of daily life when living alongside it.
Updated
Earlier lockdown would have saved lives of London bus drivers, says report
Imposing an earlier lockdown in England would have saved lives, according to a report into the high death rate of London bus drivers in the pandemic by a leading expert on health and social inequalities. As my colleague Sarah Boseley reports, male London bus drivers aged 20 to 65 were 3.5 times more likely to die from Covid-19 between March and May than men in other occupations across England and Wales, says Sir Michael Marmot. Sarah’s full story is here.
Cancer Research UK has welcomed the government proposal to ban unhealthy food being advertised on TV before 9pm as part of its obesity strategy.
The UK Government has committed to introduce a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising, encouraging brands who've been advertising unhealthy food and drink before 9pm to promote a healthier product from their range instead. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/7FoIfmdpAs
— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) July 27, 2020
This is a huge landmark for the nation's health, as we know that being overweight or obese puts people at risk of many different diseases - including 13 different types of cancer - and disproportionately affects those from poorer backgrounds. (2/2)
— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) July 27, 2020
Quarantine U-turn for Spain 'hammer blow' for travel and tourism industries, says BCC
The British Chambers of Commerce has described the snap decision on Saturday to reimpose quarantine restrictions on travellers returning to the UK from Spain as a “hammer blow” to the travel and tourism industries. This is from the BCC’s director general, Adam Marshall. He said:
Abrupt changes to quarantine measures will be yet another hammer blow for the fragile travel and tourism industries, both here in the UK and overseas.
Firms will now have to manage the effects of this unexpected change as returning staff have to quarantine upon their return to the UK. Support measures should be extended to help firms and their employees manage the additional uncertainty generated by this and other government decisions.
Businesses will be asking why Spain was on the safe list on Friday, only to be taken off it on Saturday. Changes to quarantine rules must be communicated clearly by government with as much notice as possible. Continued improvement of the test and trace programme, alongside co-ordinated checks at departure and arrival airports, could alleviate the need for many of these restrictions.
Updated
London mayor urges government not to start scaling back furlough scheme from August
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has urged the government not to start scaling back the furlough scheme next month. From August employers using the scheme will have to start paying national insurance and pensions contributions. But Khan said some firms in London’s cultural and hospitality sector would not be able to cope, and that new figures from HMRC showed the number of workers in London being furloughed rising by 20% in June, taking the total to 1.3 million - 30% of the capital’s eligible workforce.
In a statement Khan said:
We want to do everything we possibly can to get our businesses and venues in London thriving once again, but many are on financial knife edge with social distancing rules meaning a return to normality is still a long way off. The current financial challenges for business in central London and the West End remain particularly acute.
For sectors such as creative industries and hospitality it is still too early for many businesses to pick up the cost of national insurance and pension contributions – I am deeply concerned this will simply accelerate a surge in unemployment in businesses already struggling to cover their costs.
The government must continue to invest in the furlough scheme now, or I fear we will see the tragic social and economic consequences of further unemployment.
Updated
In a briefing on the obesity strategy announced by the government today (see 9.14am and 9.54am), the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the tax and spending thinktank, says the government’s plan for a ban on TV and online adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt before 9pm might only have a limited impact. The IFS says:
It is unlikely that extending advertising restrictions would lead to such a large reduction in the amount of advertising for unhealthy food and drinks that people actually see. This is because firms could increase their advertising of these products after the watershed or on other types of media.
Research has shown that this happened before. Following the introduction of the 2007 ban on advertising food and drink products that are high in fat, sugar or salt during children’s television, restricted adverts were shifted from children’s television to unrestricted non-children’s television.
Updated
The Office for National Statistics has announced that its Covid-19 infection survey is going to be extended to cover Northern Ireland. The survey tracks the incidence of coronavirus not by counting the number of people who fall ill and test positive, but by sending out testing kits by a representative sample of people picked randomly, which means it picks up asymptomatic cases as well as symptomatic cases.
The Northern Ireland health minister, Robin Swann, said:
I very much welcome the fact that the Covid-19 infection survey is being rolled out to Northern Ireland. The research will complement studies already underway into antibody seroprevalence in different population groups.
The more we know and understand about Covid -19, the better equipped we will be to deal with it.
It is particularly important that we build up our knowledge on the spread of the virus within our population.
I would strongly encourage anyone who receives an invitation to take part in the survey to accept.
The ONS survey has already been tracking cases in England and Wales. Its latest report, published last week, estimated that around one person in 2,000 in England had coronavirus in the week from 13 to 19 July, the most recent for which data is available.
It also estimated that new cases that week were running at round 2,800 per day in England.
Updated
Siobhan Benita has announced that she is withdrawing as the Lib Dem candidate for London mayor because she cannot commit to campaigning for another year. The election was due to be held in May, but was postponed until 2021 because of coronavirus. She said:
The demands on a candidate are significant and an election of this scale, particularly in an unpaid role, means it’s really difficult to get other work.
And unfortunately with the delay due to the pandemic I’m simply not able to commit to another full year of campaigning and to leading the type of campaign that I really want to lead in London.
On the government’s tackling obesity strategy, these are from my colleague Peter Walker (who posted them on Twitter earlier before joining the 48-hour boycott organised as a protest against Twitter’s complacency in relation to antisemitism). Peter is something of a specialist on this topic, with a book out next year on the health benefits of exercise.
Before I vanish from Twitter for 48 hours, final note on obesity strategy:
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) July 27, 2020
• All the measures are perfectly good in themselves, but will have minimal real impact on obesity levels.
• If you do want better public health, it's *much* more about increasing activity levels.
(1/2)
• Encouraging people to exercise isn't enough – it must be about things like active travel.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) July 27, 2020
• BUT most people will not walk or cycle more unless it feels safe and is pleasant.
• Better health across the nation thus comes down to more human-friendly streets. It *always* does.
Updated
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Ben Quinn.
We have already posted Boris Johnson video about the importance of taking exercise (note the subtle “10” badge in the top left hand corner of the video, matching the logo on a face mask Johnson was wearing in Scotland last week - a sign perhaps that No 10 is not going to let Rishi Sunak win the Downing Street upmarket branding contest without a fight), and our story about the obesity strategy is here, but the full details are now on the government’s website.
Here is the full tackling obesity policy paper, here is the official news release about it, here is the government’s formal response (pdf) to its consultation on mandatory calorie labelling in restaurants and here is its equality assessment (pdf) of the calorie labelling plan.
Updated
The prime minister - who has previously been a prominent critic of state-backed measures to get people’s weight down - has claimed that the new “Better Health Strategy” would help people “not in an excessively bossy or nannying way”.
A video showing Boris Johnson walking the dog, to the strains of gentle classical music, has been posted on his twitter account, where he adds:
“We want this one really to be sympathetic to people, to understand the difficulties that people face with their weight, the struggles that everybody faces or many, many people face to lose weight, and just to be helpful.
Losing weight is hard but with some small changes we can all feel fitter and healthier.
— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) July 27, 2020
If we all do our bit, we can reduce our health risks and protect ourselves against coronavirus – as well as taking pressure off the NHS.
Our Better Health Strategy https://t.co/WdazXhuhRN pic.twitter.com/KZhW8p17FJ
This looks fairly synchronised. The government’s obesity plans also got some backing from chef Jamie Oliver, a longtime campaigner against child obesity, who tweeted this at around the same time as the Johnson tweet came out:
.@BorisJohnson has #AdEnough & has committed to reducing how many junk food ads kids see on tv & online by introducing a 9pm watershed!
— Jamie Oliver (@jamieoliver) July 27, 2020
Big love to all of you who have supported our campaign. Let's keep up the momentum so we can offer all kids a healthier and better future! pic.twitter.com/mdq9ESa9Q3
Updated
Here’s a quick look at how some of the morning newspapers treated the government’s announcement on travel Spain:
TIMES: Holidays in turmoil as quarantine is imposed #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/6eMgXkjJhE
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 26, 2020
GUARDIAN: Tourists may face more ‘handbrake restrictions’ #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/mwSTIGNpbi
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 26, 2020
EXPRESS: Millions facing holiday chaos #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/pD5sCUCJ5s
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 26, 2020
MIRROR: Holiday hell for millions of Brits #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/XIjdPSojt8
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) July 26, 2020
Ryanair has no plans to reduce flights to and from Spain
Ryanair will not reduce the number of flights to and from Spain, despite the British government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on visitors returning from the country, which the airline’s chief financial officer called “regrettable,” reports Joanna Partridge.
The requirement for all travellers arriving in the UK from Spain to self-isolate for two weeks came into effect at midnight on Sunday, only hours after it was announced.
“I think it is regrettable, very disappointing,” Neil Sorahan told Reuters in an interview after the release of the Irish airline’s quarterly financial results.
Ryanair has not followed the lead of Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday company, which has cancelled all Britons’ holidays to mainland Spain up and including 9 August.
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Travellers who are already there and those who were due to go on holiday in Spain this morning and the coming days have been airing their concerns on social media this morning, in some cases taking aim at the approach of individual companies.
@Ryanair so all our extended families flights have been cancelled with @easyJet & @TUIUK for a big family holiday we were going on to Spain 🇪🇸 on Sunday 2nd Aug. But not you, keeping our money when we can’t go due to work when we get back 👊🏼Pure greed.
— sharryn walters (@sharrynlucywalt) July 27, 2020
#jet2holidays absolute joke, can't amend your holiday within 48 hours of departure. Well 48 hours before I was due to go,(15:30 on the 27th) Spain was on the safe list but by the time I speak to someone I cant change anything, £2700 lost through no fault of our own
— Derek Thacker (@bubbat_69) July 26, 2020
Others have been putting forward a different take
Although I have some sympathy due to the UK governments crap handling of the whole #COVID thing. People on news moaning about not being able to afford 2 weeks quarantine, having been able to afford a holiday to Spain in the first place. 🤔 If you booked recently #MoreFoolYou
— James D (@ajimmydixon) July 26, 2020
Airline stocks plunge on fears of more UK travel restrictions
Airline and travel stocks have tumbled across Europe this morning, amid fears of further travel restrictions. British Airways owner IAG was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 index in London, down 9.5%, while easyJet lost 13% and Ryanair fell 8%.
Europe’s biggest holiday firm, Tui, lost 15% on the German stock market after its UK arm said it would cancel all holidays to mainland Spain up to 9 August, but maintained flights to the Balearic and Canary Islands. German flagship carrier Lufthansa fell more than 7%.
Tui UK’s managing director, Andrew Flintham, told the BBC:
“What we’d really like - and I think we are going to need this going forward as the world evolves - is a nuanced policy.”
You can follow updates on our business live blog here
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Quarantine re-imposed because cases rising 'very, very quickly in Spain', says minister
Health and social care minister Helen Whately has been responding to the question of why the UK government imposed a blanket country travel restriction in the case of Spain when the Balearic Islands have lower case numbers than large parts of Britain.
The UK took advice from scientific advisers that the best thing to protect the UK was to go for a blanket quarantine for those coming back from both Spain and the islands, where rates were rising.
On the Today programme the BBC’s Nick Robinson asked her why was it announced with a few hours of notice on a Saturday evening?
She said that the rates were going up “very, very quickly in Spain” to the extent that a fortnight ago there were eight cases per 100,000. That has gone up to 27, she says, and the trajectory is “rising steeply”.
So why not tell people in recent weeks, or allow it to be leaked after many people had boarded a plane or were packing for morning flights?
It took Robinson a second attempt to get an answer from Whately, who began by giving him an answer to a question which he didn’t ask, before she said:
What we have said throughout the time we have put in place the policy of travel corridors, the air bridges is that we would need to keep those under review, that we would need to monitor the rates in other countries. That is exactly what we have done in Spain, so we are enacting the policy that we are committed to doing.
Should people also be on notice for other countries? Keep an eye on the Foreign Office guidance and be mindful that we are in a global pandemic, she said.
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Labour criticises 'chaotic nature' of quarantine decision for Spain
Andrew Flintham, the managing director of Tui in the UK and Ireland, added that the travel industry has been asking the government for a more regionalised approach.
“We have called for a regionalised policy so that if there are areas of a country where the infection rates are lower and safe travel can go ahead then the quarantine would not apply,” he told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Everything in life has risk but it’s all about taking a proportionate risk-based approach,” he added.
Speaking earlier, the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, urged the government to introduce “smarter measures” at the border rather than a blanket quarantine for those returning from Spain.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, he said:
We certainly would be following the advice and introducing protective measures at the border if there are spikes in cases in other countries, absolutely.
But there are two serious questions around this. The first is why we are still employing the ... blunt tool of the 14-day quarantining rather than smarter measures and secondly the chaotic nature of the decision-making which certainly hasn’t bred confidence in the government’s approach.
I think you need a smarter set of quarantine measures at the airport. I’ve suggested this test, trace and isolate regime but you can also have temperature checking and other things - you look at a range of measures.
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Andrew Flintham, managing director of Tui’s UK and Ireland division, has been talking about how the holiday company responded to the news as it emerged on Saturday about the new two-week quarantine for those returning from Spain.
The travel industry had “breathed a collective sigh of relief on Friday” when Spain was not on a watchlist which the government would be expected to update by then.
To find then on Saturday evening was clearly quite challenging for us and everybody in the industry as we had flights leaving on Sunday morning, which we cancelled because we have a guarantee to customers that we won’t put them into quarantine.
The company has cancelled all holidays to mainland Spain up to 9 August (with full refund), though the situation regarding the islands is more nuanced. There, if they want to go Tui will bring them though if they do not want to go they will be treated as if the company has cancelled their holidays.
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Face coverings don't lead people to abandon hand hygiene - study
Wearing face coverings does not appear to lead people to abandon hand hygiene, researchers say, suggesting people may not trade off the benefits of one public health measure against another.
Face coverings are now mandatory in many parts of the world, and in England must be worn not only on public transport but also in many shops.
While there is little evidence that cloth face coverings protect the wearer from Covid-19, experts say a growing body of research suggests they help to reduce transmission, limiting its spread from wearers to others.
Some scientists have raised concerns that the use of face coverings could give wearers a false sense of security and make them less likely to engage in other behaviours that could reduce the spread of coronavirus, such as handwashing and social distancing – a phenomenon known as “risk compensation”.
However, researchers say they have looked at existing studies and found little sign that wearing masks reduces adherence to hand hygiene.
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Reaction has been mixed to the government’s new public information drive aimed at improving the country’s health after the pandemic.
Prof Andrew Goddard, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the approach to restrictions on advertising had not been as all-encompassing as some medics had hoped for, saying it had not taken fully into account how obesity was “the result of biological, genetic and social factors” and not just personal choice.
He said:
There is a risk that we once again fall into the trap of mainly focusing on individual responsibility. We’ve been down this path before and it doesn’t work. We know the key to success in addressing obesity and other health inequalities lies in shared responsibility between individuals and the state.
The decision to ban junk food adverts has been highlighted as a significant success for obesity campaigners. Unveiling the new package of measures, Boris Johnson and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, underlined how tackling obesity was a new front in the fight against coronavirus, warning that excess weight put victims at risk of more severe illness and death.
Almost two thirds of adults in England are overweight or obese, as well as one in three primary school age children.
Junk food adverts could be banned entirely online, after the government’s decision to bar any unhealthy food advertising before 9pm online or on television, as part of its strategy to tackle the “time bomb” of obesity.
The measures have been cautiously welcomed though some health experts are concerned they place too much emphasis on individual responsibility for obesity, rather than addressing health inequalities.
The government has said it will ban junk food adverts before 9pm and launch a short consultation on whether that should be extended to a blanket ban on adverts for sweets and fast food online.
Other measures include a ban on chocolates, crisps and sweets at the checkout and displaying calories on menus in restaurants and pubs, including for alcoholic drinks, which are estimated to account for nearly 10% of the calorie intake of those who drink.
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UK's full economic recovery could take until 2024, says EY report
The UK’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis could take 18 months longer than expected with hopes of a V-shaped recovery fading fast, according to a leading economic forecaster.
Britain’s economic output is not expected to return to its 2019 level until the end of 2024, the EY Item Club said on Monday in its latest projections on the health of the UK economy. It had previously expected GDP to match fourth-quarter 2019 size in early 2023.
EY is predicting that Britain’s economy will shrink by a record 20% in the April to June quarter, rather than 15% as it forecast last month. The economy expected to return to growth in the third quarter, with a quarterly expansion of around 12%.
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UK government could impose more 'handbrake restrictions' on countries
Holidaymakers have been warned the government could impose “handbrake restrictions” on more countries beyond Spain in order to stop the spread of coronavirus – with travellers unlikely to be given much warning if further quarantine measures need to be enforced.
The restrictions on travellers returning from Spain after the measures were announced overnight threw summer holiday plans into disarray for British tourists, and will raise fears among those travelling to other European countries that they could face a similar turnaround at a moment’s notice.
Government sources said it was prepared to act quickly to impose the new rules, if needed, on other nations – but said there were no plans for “air bridges” to be revoked with other European countries.
The snap decision to change advice for travellers has been criticised by Labour, who said the short notice would give tourists “a sense of panic and loss of control”. The party has called for the government to aid employees who must now tell their employers that they need to isolate, warning people could face financial hardship.
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Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog on UK coronavirus developments on a day when fears are growing that many more travellers could be caught up in sudden changes to quarantine restrictions implemented by the government.
With the holiday plans of large numbers of people already in Spain now in disarray after it was abruptly announced that they must quarantine for 14 days, the government in Madrid has pushed back by insisting that outbreaks of new Covid-19 cases are isolated and under control.
There’s also an expectation today that the government will issue advice to people who have returned from Spain since 23 July to get a coronavirus test immediately, even if they do not have symptoms.
Back in the UK, 21 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed at a Shropshire caravan park and overweight people are being asked to lose five pounds to save the NHS money and help lower the risk of dying from coronavirus as part of the government’s new obesity crackdown
This is Ben Quinn. You can email me or contact me on Twitter at @BenQuinn75 if you would like to flag up any stories which we may be missing
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