That’s all from the UK blog today, you can keep following the latest coronavirus developments over on our global blog:
Summary
It’s been a huge day for coronavirus developments in the UK, with the news of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine having up to 90% efficacy and the announcement of a new three-tier lockdown plan for England over the winter.
Here’s a quick round up of the key stories from the last few hours:
- ‘Vast majority’ of vulnerable people could be vaccinated by Easter, the prime minister said. ”With a favourable wind, we should be able to inoculate - I believe, on the evidence I’m seeing - the vast majority of the people who need the most protection by Easter,” Boris Johnson said during this evening’s press conference. However, he said Britain still faced months under coronavirus restrictions, as he told people that Christmas will be the season to be “jolly careful”.
- New rules may be impossible to enforce, the Police Federation claimed. Leaders of rank and file police officers have warned the new rules announced by the prime minister may be virtually impossible for them to enforce.
- The UK recorded 15,450 Covid cases - the lowest daily total for six weeks. The daily total has not been this low since 12 October, when it was 13,972. Daily figures are subject to considerable variation, but in recent day the rolling seven-day average for new cases has been falling sharply.
- England’s workers told to work from home until April if possible. Boris Johnson confirmed that under every tier of new restrictions, workers in England who can work from home should continue to do so. The rules under the new three-tier system will last until at least the end of March if voted through by parliament.
- The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine ‘likely first to be widely used in UK’. The Oxford vaccine is likely to be the first Covid jab that large numbers of Britons receive, despite Pfizer’s candidate already being analysed by the medicines regulators, experts say. The fact that the Oxford vaccine can be kept in normal fridges, whereas Pfizer’s product has to be stored at -75C , may see it enter widespread usage ahead of the latter.
- Swale in Kent becomes England’s Covid hotspot after cases rise. A district of Kent has become England’s worst-hit Covid hotspot, with local leaders putting the jump in cases down to deprivation and a “wilful disregard of the rules”. Swale reported a rate of 631.7 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days to 18 November, according to government figures – up from 425.8 per 100,000 over the previous seven days.
Updated
Andrew Pollard said although none of the Covid vaccines “are likely to protect everyone [...] they do seem to have stopped hospitalisations and severe disease”.
He said it is harder to prevent milder cases of the disease.
The Guardian’s health editor Sarah Boseley asked: “Is there a possibility [vaccinations] could become compulsory in order to access certain places?”
The prime minister said the Covid-19 vaccine will not be made compulsory but said he rejects anti-vaxxers and urged everyone to get a vaccination when it is available.
There will be no compulsory vaccination. That’s not the way we do things in this country.
I totally reject the propaganda of the anti-vaxxers - they’re wrong. Everybody should get a vaccine.
Updated
'Vast majority' of vulnerable people could be vaccinated by Easter, PM says
Boris Johnson said the “vast majority” of vulnerable people who need a Covid-19 vaccine the most could be vaccinated by Easter.
With a favourable wind, we should be able to inoculate - I believe, on the evidence I’m seeing - the vast majority of the people who need the most protection by Easter. That will make a very substantial change to where we are at.
However, he also admitted rolling out the vaccine for Covid-19 was a huge logistical challenge and said it would take “a long time” before everyone who needs the vaccine gets it.
A large number of partners will be coming together to deliver [the vaccine] - the NHS, local authorities, the armed services, Public Health England, we will all be working together, there’s a huge, huge effort to go and that’s why it’s such a big logistical challenge.
It will take a long time before we can get the shots in the arms where they’re needed.
Prof Chris Whitty also stressed that the regulators still need to consider all the evidence and declare the vaccines to be safe before they can start being rolled out.
Updated
The prime minister said there are no plans to close schools a week early so children can safely visit elderly relatives over Christmas.
“We believe education is of huge importance, we want to keep kids in school as much as we can,” he said.
Andrew Pollard said the Oxford vaccine, which has 70% efficacy and up to 90% efficacy if a lower first dose is used, “has the potential to have a really important impact on the pandemic”.
He said the efficacy is “like we get with flu vaccines” and in the trials they saw “no one go into hospital with disease or develop severe disease, if they had been vaccinated”.
Johnson said at last “an end goal” is in sight, despite the tough weeks ahead.
At last, if the promise of the vaccines is fulfilled, we do have a something to work for, a timescale which businesses can begin tentatively to plan around.
Prof Chris Whitty also said it will be “a long haul” but thanked the volunteers across the country who have contributed to trials to help develop a vaccine.
The prime minister said the government will utilise “tiering, testing and the rolling out of vaccines” to protect the population over Christmas and into the new year, but again stressed the importance of caution over the festive period.
This is not the moment to let the virus rip for the sake of Christmas parties.
It is the season to be jolly but it’s also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives.
He again promised a relaxation of restrictions over Christmas, although details have not yet been finalised with the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Updated
Johnson stresses that the country is “not out of the woods yet” while hailing the recent scientific breakthroughs of effective Covid vaccines.
We are not out of the woods yet. We can hear the drumming hooves of the cavalry coming over the brow of the hill, but they’re not here yet.
Even if all three vaccines are approved, even if the production timetables are met [...] it will be months before we can be sure that we inoculated everyone that needs a vaccine, and those months will be hard, they will be cold and they include January and February, when the NHS is under its greatest strain.
The total number of Covid deaths passed 71,000 on Monday.
The combined death toll as counted by the UK’s three statistical agencies - which count all deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate - currently stands at 65,911 deaths.
But the government’s dashboard shows that a further 5,251 people have died since the latest statistical releases, bringing the total number of Covid-related deaths to 71,162.
The government’s Covid death toll- which stood at 55,230 as of 5.30pm on Monday - only counts people who have died within 28 days of testing positive.
However, the three statistical bodies, the Office for National Statistics, which covers England and Wales, the National Records of Scotland and NISRA - compile separate figures based on mentions of Covid-19 on death certificates.
Figures released by the ONS last week indicate that, in the majority of cases where coronavirus is mentioned on a person’s death certificate, Covid-19 is the underlying cause of death in around 90% of cases.
Boris Johnson leads press conference on England's new three-tier system
The prime minister is leading a press conference about the government’s new Covid-19 winter plan, which will divide England into three tiers of restrictions over the coming months.
He’ll be speaking alongside England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, his first press conference appearance for a while, and Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group - today it announced its vaccine had up to 90% efficacy.
Johnson is still self-isolating so will be appearing via video link. He’s likely to offer a message of hope on the back of the vaccine news, but urge caution over the next few weeks and emphasise the importance of following the new rules.
Updated
Theatres and live events venues will likely remain closed under the government’s new tier system, the UK’s media and entertainment union has said.
Head of Bectu, Philippa Childs, said:
The vast majority of theatres and live events venues have had their doors closed since March, and even at a 50% capacity in tiers 1 and 2 areas it will remain impossible for most to reopen. For those in tier 3, the prospect of reopening is as distant as ever.
The government knows that social distancing has a disproportionate impact on many cultural venues, and without a plan to exit the cycle of lockdowns and tiers, many are beginning to fear the worst for the future.
The government must get round the table with unions and business groups to establish a new plan to support these industries in the medium to long term.
Under the new rules, live performances in tiers 1 and 2 will be restricted to 50% capacity or 1,000 people indoors (whichever is lower).
Updated
Relatives of care home residents in England will be able to hug their loved ones before Christmas if they test negative for coronavirus and wear protective equipment, the government has pledged.
The government said it is committed to providing twice-weekly testing to up to two visitors by Christmas, and care home staff will receive twice-weekly tests by the end of December.
And testing of residents will be increased in December to once a week.
Currently, staff are tested weekly and residents are tested monthly, with a pilot scheme in around 20 homes in England seeing visitors receive regular tests. The government has previously said it aims to expand the pilot across England before Christmas.
Its winter plan, published on Monday, reads:
The government is committed, by Christmas, to providing twice weekly testing to enable all care home residents to have regular visits from up to two visitors.
If a visitor has a negative test, is wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and follows other infection control measures, then it will be possible for visitors to have physical contact with their loved one, such as providing personal care, holding hands and hugging.
Care England chief executive Prof Martin Green said: “The news about visiting is positive, but again an array of issues that need to be thought through and we cannot be too hasty with people’s lives at stake.”
Updated
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has responded to the government’s Covid Winter Plan, urging the prime minister to allow the capital’s businesses to reopen and to scrap the curfew for pubs and restaurants (under the new rules, hospitality venues in tiers 1 and 2 must stop taking orders at 10pm and close by 11pm).
Allow businesses to open safely, scrap the 10pm curfew and make sure Londoners’ sacrifices don’t go to waste.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) November 23, 2020
⬇️ My full statement following the Prime Minister’s announcement today. pic.twitter.com/lsqT1CiO8t
Thousands of tests have yet to be delivered to an area of England with one of the highest Covid-19 infection rates, Boris Johnson was told this evening.
Labour MP Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) told the Commons: “Hull has had the highest Covid infection rate in the United Kingdom, and two weeks ago Hull was promised 10,000 lateral flow tests, but today they have still not arrived.”
The prime minister said he would “take up immediately” the point raised about Hull and “try to understand why they haven’t got the lateral flow tests she rightly wants to see”.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be steering the liveblog for the next few hours, as Boris Johnson prepares to lead a press conference at 7pm alongside chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty and Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.
They’ll be discussing the new three-tier system for Covid restrictions in England, and today’s announcement that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine has up to 90% efficacy.
Feel free to get in touch at jessica.murray@theguardian.com.
Updated
Away from coronavirus, ministers have made a fresh concession over Huawei ahead of the introduction of telecommunications security bill tomorrow as No 10 seeks to calm the Conservative’s increasingly restive back benches.
Members of the Huawei interest group of MPs have been told that the government will introduce a date to ban installation of any Huawei 5G kit - potentially prior to the next election in 2024 - on top of already announced restrictions.
One MP on the group said that a concession would be “very welcome as it was a point of discussion and concern”.
Previously Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, announced in July that mobile phone companies would not be able to buy new kit from the Chinese manufacturer from the end of this year, although that prompted concerns it could be stockpiled and used for years to come.
Updated
In the Commons Jason McCartney (Con) gets to ask the final question to Boris Johnson. He asks for more help for the hospitality industry.
Johnson says the chancellor will be listening keenly to these points. The government wants to support the hospitality industry, he says.
That’s it from me. My colleague Jessica Murray is taking over now.
Updated
US president-elect Joe Biden has been personally thanked by the EU for his backing in the row with Boris Johnson over the internal market bill.
In a call on Monday, the European Council president Charles Michel both invited Biden for a summit in Brussels next year and raised the issue of the UK’s plan to break international law by unilaterally rewriting the withdrawal agreement.
According to a statement issued after the call, Michel thanked Biden for his “support regarding the implementation of the withdrawal agreement the EU concluded with the UK last year. This agreement preserves peace and stability in Ireland and fully respects the Good Friday agreement.”
Following the tabling of the internal market bill in September, Biden had warned against any steps that would undermine the Good Friday agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.
Julian Bird, chief executive of the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, said today’s announcement will damage an “already fragile” theatre sector. In a statement he said:
Today’s announcement of new restrictions for performing arts venues in all tiers has shaken an already fragile sector.
Closure of venues in tier 3 areas will mean cancellation of pantos and other shows, risking organisations’ long-term survival and leaving theatre freelancers adrift with no compensation.
The capacity constraints in tiers 1 and 2 will lead to financial problems for venues and disappointment for audiences.
It is unclear why these have been instituted in a sector with no known spread of the virus.
How government will decide which areas goes in which tier
In the Commons Boris Johnson (and Matt Hancock, when Hancock was standing in for Johnson) have repeatedly been asked what criteria will be used to decide which area goes into which which tier.
The fullest answer is in government’s Covid-19 winter plan (pdf). It says:
The government will announce later this week which tier will apply in each area from 2 December, based on analysis of the most up-to-date information. Decisions will primarily be based on five key indicators:
a. Case detection rates in all age groups;
b. Case detection rates in the over-60s;
c. The rate at which cases are rising or falling;
d. Positivity rate (the number of positive cases detected as a percentage of tests taken); and
e. Pressure on the NHS, including current and projected occupancy.
The government will need to maintain some flexibility to weight these indicators against each other as the context demands. For example, hospital capacity in a given area will need to be considered in the light of the capacity in neighbouring areas and the feasibility of moving patients. Case detection rates will need to be weighted against whether the spread of the virus appears to be localised to particular communities. Given these sensitivities, it is not possible to set rigid thresholds for these indicators, as doing so would result in poorer quality decisions. The government will, however, be transparent about the decisions that it takes and make available the evidence informing those decisions. The movement of areas up and down tiers will also be informed by broader economic and practical considerations, such as the anticipated movement of individuals between areas.
Updated
MPs may not vote on the new rules until next week. In a statement Mark Harper, the former Tory chief whip who chairs the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, signalled that they would wait until they found out which areas were going in which tiers before deciding how to vote on the measures. He said:
Many will hold their judgment on these measures until we know which areas will go into which tiers. The full detail hasn’t been published yet but I think that if your area ends up being put in tier 3 you’ll struggle to spot much of a difference from the lockdown.
What 70 of us wrote to the prime minister over the weekend asking for is that for each restriction being proposed, the government should publish its assessment of the impact ministers are expecting it to have on dealing with Covid, but also the non-Covid health impact and the impact on people’s livelihoods.
We have to be convinced that these government interventions - which will have such a huge impact on people’s lives, their health and their businesses - are going to save more lives than they cost, and I look forward to discussing this directly with the prime minister.
Updated
Johnson says the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, will be making an announcement about testing and quarantine rules for travel “very shortly”.
In the Commons Vicky Foxcroft (Lab) says she asked the PM six weeks ago if he would arrange for a sign language interpreter to be present at his press conferences. At the time the PM said he had registered the point, she says. But she says No 10 is still not providing sign language interpretation.
Johnson says he will see what can be done.
Updated
The Sage documents also consider the possibility of reducing quarantine time from the current 14-day period, with the team suggesting a shorter duration might be better if it means more people attend testing and self-isolate.
Among the possibilities they say, is combining self-isolation for 10 days with a test.
According to the modelling teams, for a given compliance rate, “there would be little loss in effectiveness if a move was made from a 14-day isolation period to one with release following a negative lateral flow test on day 10”.
While the team add that quick lateral flow tests are now growing in availability, they say it is not known what ability they have to detect infection at different points in the infection cycle.
Meanwhile, another document noted that duration of self-isolation is not the main reason people give for not complying with current rules, while the team also pointed out that there could potentially be downsides to reducing quarantine, including that it might reduce perceptions of the risks of infection and the importance of quarantine in general.
Updated
Documents released by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on Monday included an analysis of the pre-lockdown tier system. Among their conclusions, experts on the modelling team said that moving from tier 1 to tier 2 might reduce R by 10%, but that this did not reduce spread.
“Tier 1 measures alone are not enough to prevent the epidemic from growing rapidly,” Sage says in one document (pdf), adding their analysis suggested tier 2 was not a reliable intervention to maintain, let alone gain control over, transmission.
Tier 3 reduced transmissions, with the team noting modelling suggests tier 3 might reduce R by somewhere between a quarter and a half compared with tier 1, but they say it is unclear if such measures were enough on their own to bring R below 1.
The documents call for the consideration of restrictions, post lockdown, that are more stringent than the pre-lockdown tier 3 for some areas - something they called “tier 4”.
“This will be particularly important in the run-up to the winter festive period if relaxation of measures is under consideration,” the team write, adding that the allocation of tiers should be based on both prevalence of infection, and growth rate.
Updated
New rules may be impossible to enforce, Police Federation claims
Leaders of rank and file police officers have warned the new rules announced by the prime minister may be virtually impossible for them to enforce.
The Police Federation of England and Wales said it could mean travelling to visit someone could break the rules one day, but not the next. The federation, which represents 120,000 officers said more clarity was needed.
Ché Donald, national vice chair of the federation, said:
A potential short-term relaxation of Covid-19 regulations and a return to the tier system represents a unique challenge and will be next to impossible to police.
We will not be trying to spoil people’s fun or ruin Christmas - we’re trying to stop this deadly virus taking more lives. The vast majority of the public understand this and support us.
However, we’ve also been criticised by some for enforcing too much – while others have said it’s not enough.
Once again, the government has introduced changes to the lockdown restrictions and it will be my colleagues who will have to enforce these new rules. A limited break in restrictions may also introduce scenarios where travelling across the UK to visit family could be a breach of regulations one day and not the next.
My colleagues will step up to this challenge - as they have many times since the lockdown began in March.
But our message to the government is police officers need clearer and more consistent rules which can be enforced fairly, and the public need clearer instructions so that they know what they are allowed to do within the law.
In the Commons Sir Desmond Swayne, a lockdown-sceptic Tory, says the last national leader to try to ban Christmas was Oliver Cromwell. He says it didn’t end well for him.
Johnson says Swayne is right in his instincts. But the government has to act to protect people’s health, he says.
Bob Blackman (Con) asks what will decide what tier London goes into - the situation in the worst borough, or the best.
Johnson says the government will announce the decision on Thursday. In London it is hard to differentiate one bit of the city from another, he says.
Updated
In the Commons Boris Johnson is back - not in person, but in the sense that his video sound is working again, and he is responding to questions again.
UK records 15,450 Covid cases - lowest daily total for six weeks
The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key figures.
- The UK has recorded 15,450 more cases - its lowest daily total for six weeks. Yesterday the figure was 18,662 and a week ago today the figure was 21,363. The daily total has not been this low since 12 October, when it was 13,972. Of course the daily figures are subject to considerable variation, but in recent day the rolling seven-day average for new cases (the thick blue line in this chart) has been falling sharply.
- The UK has recorded 206 further coronavirus deaths - the lowest daily figure for more than a week. Yesterday the figure was 398 and a week ago the figure was 213. This is the lowest daily figure since 15 November, when it was 168.
- The most recent week-on-week hospital admission figures for the UK show a decline. Until recently they have been rising week-on-week. But today the dashboard records 1,628 admissions on 19 November, the most recent date for which a UK figure is available. In the week to 19 November there were 11,653 admissions, a 3% decline on the previous week.
Updated
Pubs face possible 'carnage' from new rules, industry warns
The embattled pub sector expressed its disappointment with confirmation of further restrictions in the run-up to Christmas – its key trading period.
Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said:
Our sector has been singled out by these new measures which unfairly target pubs. The additional restrictions will destroy our sector if they go ahead as proposed. Whilst the review of curfew is overdue the relaxation of the 10pm curfew is meaningless if most pubs are rendered unviable or forced to close under tiers two and three.
We’re calling on the government to provide the evidence behind its decision to single out pubs. If these tighter tier restrictions are forced upon us, far more government financial support will be needed to avoid the resulting carnage. In tier two alone, the new restrictions will mean 90% of pubs will be unviable and will only be able to operate at a loss. In tier three, no pub is viable if restricted to takeaway only. This will also mean our brewing businesses will be hugely damaged too.
James Calder, chief executive of the Society of Independent Brewers, dismissed the announcement as “a sucker punch” for the industry.
The tougher restrictions being imposed on pubs at tier 2 and tier 3 mean that trade will be a trickle of what businesses need to survive the critical Christmas period. Wet led pubs, by definition cannot offer a substantial meal.
Small breweries have lost the vast majority of their sales with the closure of pubs and now they have little hope for the Christmas period. Throughout the initial tier lockdown and national lockdown 2 we were seeing increasing numbers of breweries close for good. Without immediate government support including business rates holidays, direct grants and compensation for spoilt beer, many more will follow.
Here is the moment Boris Johnson’s microphone cut out.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, tells MPs they are still hoping to reconnect with the prime minister at some point.
(It is not obvious they need to bother. Matt Hancock seem to have a better grasp of the detail than Boris Johnson normally does, and he is answering the questions with more frankness and less bluster than his boss.)
Back in the Commons, Sir Graham Brady (another Tory lockdown-sceptic) asks if the government will published the data used to decide which area is going into which tier.
Hancock says the government will publish the data on which the decisions are based. But he says sometimes other factors are taken into account. For example, in one case a high Covid rate was wholly explained by an outbreak in a barracks. That made it look as if the area had a general problem, but it didn’t, he says. It was entirely localised.
Updated
Full guide to what's allowed in tiers 1, 2 and 3
Here are some charts from the Covid-19 winter plan explaining how the new three-tier system for England will work.
Updated
Barry Sheerman (Lab) says he thinks the PM is making a mistake. The national lockdown should continue for longer, he says. He says the local system failed to cut Covid rates in his constituency, Huddersfield, but the lockdown was working.
Hancock says this plan is based on evidence of what will work.
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, says Wales should receive a supply of vaccine based on need, not on per head of population. It has a higher than average older population, says says.
Hancock says the vaccine will be distributed throughout the UK on the basis of need. That has been agreed, he says.
Sir Edward Leigh (Con) says he likes to start the morning swimming in the Serpentine and going to mass. He says the government has banned both, unnecessarily.
Hancock says he hopes another national lockdown won’t be needed.
Updated
In the Commons the DUP’s Sammy Wilson says the new policy will drive millions into poverty.
Hancock says the first duty of any government is to keep people safe.
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks for an assurance that no care home will be forced to take a resident from hospital who has tested positive.
Hancock says anyone who goes to a care home who has tested positive will have to be accommodated in safe conditions. He says sometimes hospital is not be best place for these people.
Updated
The Commons is back, but not the PM.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is responding to Mark Harper. He says the government is aware of the costs of lockdown.
Updated
This is from the Tory MP Steve Baker, who leads the Covid Recovery Group with Mark Harper. (See 4.18pm.)
Last week, Covid Recovery Group gave Gov a list of things we were concerned about, which included:
— Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) November 23, 2020
🍻 10pm curfew
⚽ Outdoor sport
🏋️♀️ Gyms
🛍 Covid-safe retail
Welcome there’s going to be relaxation in those areas.
Every restriction needs evidence 📊 pic.twitter.com/BZNtont8CD
Commons suspended after PM's sound cuts out
Mark Harper, the former Conservative chief whip who is now a leader of the Tory lockdown sceptic Covid Recovery Group, asks if the PM will meet him and Steve Baker to discuss their demand for a cost/benefit analysis of the new system.
Half way through his answer, the PM’s sound cuts off.
(Johnson is, of course, participating virtually because he is still self-isolating in No 10.)
The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, invites Matt Hancock to take over. Then he suspends the chamber for three minutes.
Updated
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks about the self-employed who are not getting the help available to others. (See 1.01pm.) He says 3 million people are excluded from help. Will they get help in the spending review on Wednesday?
Johnson says the government is doing whatever it can to help the self-employed. People in the arts sector will benefit from the investment it is getting, he says.
He says the best thing for people in all sectors is for the economy to bounce back.
Updated
Summary of new three-tier system for England
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about the new rules.
And here is Peter’s explanation of the new rules.
When the four-week national lockdown across England ends on 2 December, non-essential shops in all areas can reopen, as can gyms, hairdressers and other personal care businesses, with the formal instruction to stay at home coming to an end. The “rule of six” will again apply for outdoor gatherings.
In tier 1, the rule of six will be the same both indoors and outdoors, allowing people from across households to see each other indoors. In tiers 2 and 3, such meetings will only be allowed outdoors, with no household mixing inside, beyond the expected relaxation of rules over Christmas.
Places of worship will also open and weddings will be allowed within local restrictions. Limited and socially distanced numbers of spectators will also be allowed at both indoor and outdoor sports events, although not in the more stringent tier.
For hospitality businesses in tier 2, alcohol can only be served with a “substantial meal”, while in tier 3 all pubs, restaurants and cafes must close apart from for delivery or takeaway.
Downing Street has also confirmed the change to the previous 10pm closing time for pubs and restaurants. Instead, they must stop serving at 10pm, but people can stay until up to 11pm, to stagger departures times and avoid overcrowding.
For sports events outdoors, in tier 1 up to 4,000 people or 50% of the usual capacity can gather, whichever is smaller, while in tier 2 the number is 2,000 people, or 50% of usual capacity. With indoor events, the ceiling is 1,000 people.
Here is the full text of the government’s Covid-19 winter plan (pdf). It runs to 64 pages.
Johnson says he cannot tell if Starmer is supporting the measures or not.
Another lockdown would not be right, Johnson says.
He says the announcement about which regions goes where will come on Thursday. He says the government needs to see the up-to-date data.
He says those areas that went earlier, and were most collaborative [another example of Helen Pidd’s point – see 3.39pm] did best.
On test and trace, Johnson says it has helped indisputably.
Science is beginning to ride to our rescue, he says.
He says he is grateful to Labour’s support, although he says Labour’s support is a bit “now you see it, now you don’t”.
Updated
Starmer says for test and trace to be effective, it has to be tracing 80% of people.
It is nowhere near that, he says.
He says the chances of getting the virus under control when so many people are not self-isolating who should be are very low.
The PM was supposed to use the lockdown to fix test and trace, he says. But that did not happen.
He says introducing a three-tier system without an effective test and trace system is a “major risk”.
How confident is the PM that this new system will keep R below 1? That is the million dollar question, he says.
He say he would like to be able to support the plan.
But there are huge gaps in it. Labour will need to study it carefully, he says.
Starmer says returning to three-tier system is 'risky'
Sir Keir Starmer starts by pledging Labour’s support to roll out the vaccine.
But he says a return to a three-tier system is “risky”.
He says the previous three-tier system did not work. Areas kept going up into higher tiers, without coming down.
He asks if areas will be consulted about which tier they go into.
How long will areas stay in a tier?
And will there be a new economic package for firms in the new tiers? He says there is particular concern about tier 3.
Johnson ends by saying this will still be a hard winter.
But we have turned a corner and the escape route is in sight.
He says the country needs to make one final push until the spring, when there is every reason to believe our scientists can defeat the virus.
Johnson says the government has ordered 100m doses of the Oxford vaccine, and 350m vaccine doses in total.
That is enough for everyone in the UK, and in the crown dependencies and overseas territories, he says.
Johnson says two scientific developments should eventually make the tier system redundant.
As soon as a vaccine is approved, it will be supplied as quickly as possible, he says.
And, because this cannot happen immediately, the government will also roll out mass testing, he says.
All council areas in tier 3 will be offered a mass testing programme, he says.
People who test negative should be able to face fewer restrictions. For example, they could meet up in some places with other people testing negative.
Johnson says the government is working with the devolved administrations to allow people to meet at Christmas.
Johnson says this time around the tier system will be uniform; the rules will be the same for all places in one tier.
(Previously the government treated tier 3 as a baseline, with slightly different rules for the different tier 3 areas.)
And he says he expects to announce which regions will be in which tier on Thursday.
Johnson says new tiers will be tougher than before
Johnson says he has had to ask more of the public than any other peacetime prime minister.
We are not there yet, he says.
He says the lockdown for England will end next week. From Wednesday next week people will be able to leave their homes. Shops will be able to reopen.
But he says he will not replace the national measures with a “free-for-all”, because if that happened, the virus would surge again.
He says the previous tiers were not enough. So they will have to become tougher, he says.
He says in the new tier 1 people will have to work from home if they can.
In the new tier 2 pubs will only be able to serve drinks with a meal.
And in tier 3 indoor entertainment and hotels will close, and restaurants and pubs will only be able to serve takeaway food and drink.
Updated
Johnson says for first time way out of Covid crisis now visible
Boris Johnson is starting his statement now on the government’s “Covid winter plan”.
For the first time since the “wretched” virus started, we can see a way out, he says. He says the scientific cavalry is here.
From the Guardian’s former deputy editor Paul Johnson
AstraZeneca
— Paul Johnson (@paul__johnson) November 23, 2020
‘’We promise to ensure broad and equitable access to the vaccine at no profit for duration of the pandemic’
-Admirable
And the share price: pic.twitter.com/qsRLeWoeFF
In one of the more surprising developments of the pandemic, Liverpool has become the pet city of the Conservative government in recent months. (see 10.06am.) It was the first to agree to the tightest “tier 3” restrictions and was recently chosen as the site for the first mass testing pilot in England.
But the government will have a fight on its hands if it tries to put Liverpool back into a heavy local lockdown on 3 December.
The city’s Labour mayor, Joe Anderson, is now agitating for pubs and restaurants to reopen when the national lockdown ends, with the infection level now down to under 200 per 100,000 people (down from 700 six weeks ago). He said:
The pressure is off hospitals, they’re down to around 80% occupancy in the Covid wards and round about 80% in the ICUs. So we see real promising signs. So looking at the figures as they are today, I’d be arguing that we are in tier 2 territory.
In tier 2, as was, hospitality businesses were allowed to open but people could not socialise with anybody outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting.
But Anderson thinks Liverpudlians should be able to meet friends and family for a drink or a meal without shivering in the beer garden. He said:
Most of our pubs and certainly restaurants made themselves Covid-safe. If you go into a pub and four strangers can sit spaced out then what’s the difference [if they’re your friends]?
Face coverings should be worn in all areas outside classes in secondary school and colleges, the Welsh government has said.
Previously the government asked local authorities and schools to make the decision but now it is saying nationally face coverings should be worn in the following places:
- in all areas outside the classroom by staff and learners in secondary schools and colleges.
- on dedicated school and college transport for learners in year 7 and up.
- by visitors to all schools and colleges, including parents and carers dropping off and picking up children.
Boris Johnson's statement to MPs
Boris Johnson will make his statement to MPs on coronavirus at 3.30pm.
Mostly he will be explaining the new rules that will apply for England when the lockdown ends on 2 December next week. England will return to a three-tier system, but the rules that will apply within each tier will not be the same as before. The new tier 3 will be significantly stricter than the old tier 3.
When the first lockdown ended in the summer Johnson said it would be replaced with a “whack-a-mole” strategy that would see local restrictions being used to tackle local spikes. As it became clear that “whack-a-mole” on its own was not working, in September Johnson announced the rule of six. The following month he announced the three-tier system, a tougher approach that was intended in part as an alternative to the “circuit breaker” lockdown proposed by Labour. But the first version of the three-tier system only lasted for three weeks before it was replaced by the month-long lockdown which is currently still in force.
In a speech this afternoon Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, said it was unbelievable that the government was planning to freeze public sector pay. She said:
Freezing the pay of firefighters, hospital porters and teaching assistants will make them worried about making ends meet ahead of Christmas.
That means they’ll cut back on spending and our economy won’t recover as quickly.
Our high streets and small businesses would suffer. That would mean yet more job losses, when we’ve already seen a record number of redundancies thanks to the Chancellor’s constant chopping and changing.
Penny-pinching for those on the front line. But profligacy, when it comes to doling out billions of pounds to a select group of contractors.
And in Northern Ireland 280 further coronavirus cases have been recorded, and three further deaths.
A week ago today the equivalent figures were 331 and 14.
The Department of Health #COVID19 dashboard has been updated with latest data.
— Department of Health (@healthdpt) November 23, 2020
280 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. A further 3 deaths have been reported.https://t.co/YN16dmGzhv pic.twitter.com/xkYbaRfuQN
The Northern Ireland government has announced a £300m support package for businesses and groups affected by Covid-19 restrictions.
The announcement on Monday came in advance of fresh restrictions on Friday, when non-essential businesses and shops must close for two weeks.
The Stormont executive said about £200m of the support will go to businesses, including a £95m voucher scheme to encourage shoppers to buy locally, £20m to extend a rates holiday for manufacturers and £10.6m for drink-only pubs that have been shut since 16 October.
Another £98m is to be given to vulnerable groups, said Conor Murphy, the Sinn Fein finance minister.
Public Health Wales has recorded 892 further coronavirus cases. That is up from 808 yesterday and the same as the total for a week ago today.
And nine further deaths have been recorded – down from 11 yesterday but up from two a week ago today.
Updated
NHS England has recorded 178 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.
That is down from 222 deaths announced yesterday and 190 announced a week ago today.
Covid cases falling in all but two regions of England, latest figures show
Covid-19 case rates have started to fall in most local areas across England, latest figures show. As PA Media reports, in only two of the nine regions are a majority of areas recording a week-on-week rise: London and south-east England.
Here is more from the PA Media analysis.
South-east England: This is the region that now has the highest rates in England. Swale is top of the list, where the rate is currently 631.7 cases per 100,000 people, up from 425.8. The rate is rising in 34 out of 67 local authority areas in south-east England.
Yorkshire and the Humber: Rates are falling in almost every area of Yorkshire and the Humber – a turnaround from last week, when most areas were recording a rise. In the latest figures, just three out of 21 areas showed an increase: Craven, North Lincolnshire and Selby.
North-west England: Rates are up in only three of the 39 areas in north-west England: Carlisle, Hyndburn and South Lakeland. Hyndburn saw the biggest rise, from 382.5 to 487.4. This is also the highest rate in the region. Lancaster has the lowest rate: 119.1, down from 149.3.
North-east England: Every one of the 12 local authority areas in north-east England recorded a fall in rates in the latest figures. The biggest drop was in Gateshead, down from 468.2 to 320.7.
East Midlands: Case rates are up in only three of the 40 local authority areas in the East Midlands, all in the south of the region: Harborough, South Northamptonshire and Wellingborough. East Lindsey is the highest in the region, where the rate is currently 515.8, down very slightly from 517.9. The biggest week-on-week drop was in Bolsover, down from 480.4 to 340.1.
West Midlands: Just five of the 30 local authority areas in the West Midlands recorded a rise in the latest figures: East Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Nuneaton and Bedworth, and Wolverhampton. Of these, Herefordshire recorded the biggest jump, up slightly from 153.0 to 165.5.
London: Along with south-east England, London is one of only two regions where a majority of areas have recorded a rise in the latest figures. Of the 32 areas in London, 20 showed an increase, the biggest jumps being Havering (up from 309.4 to 386.0), Enfield (up from 175.6 to 230.4) and Redbridge (up from 249.0 to 300.4).
South-west England: Bristol continues to have the highest rate in south-west England, but the rate has fallen, down from 485.6 to 434.4. A total of 20 of the 29 local authority areas in the region are now recording a drop.
Eastern England: Seven of the 10 lowest rates in England are in Eastern England, including the lowest of them all: Mid Suffolk, where the rate has fallen from 76.0 to 56.8. A total of 27 of the 45 local authority areas recorded a fall in the latest figures.
Updated
No 10 urges Ipsa to abandon planned £3,000 pay rise for MPs
The Downing Street lobby briefing is over. The main line is that Boris Johnson is now urging the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to abandon its plans to award MPs a £3,000 pay rise.
Asked if Johnson thought the pay rise should go ahead, the prime minister’s spokesman said the PM did not believe MPs should be getting a pay rise this year.
He said the PM has control over pay for ministers, and that their pay has been frozen. Ipsa is independent. The spokesman said the PM was opposed to the pay rise announced for next year, but he said he did not think the decision was final.
But the spokesman would not say what, if anything, the government would do if Ipsa went ahead with the pay rise anyway. Ipsa was set up after the MPs’ expenses scandal to stop MPs voting on their own pay, and the government would have to pass legislation to over-rule it.
The prospect of MPs getting a pay rise has become an acute political embarrassment following reports that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is planning to announce a pay freeze for the public sector in the spending review.
A district of Kent now has the highest Covid-19 rate in the country amid concerns that people are showing a “wilful disregard of the rules”, PA Media reports.
An emergency meeting is being held today to discuss why Swale has overtaken Hull as having the highest rate in England.
The seaside borough reported a rate of 631.7 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days to November 18, according to analysis by PA. This is a sharp jump from the 425.8 cases per 100,000 reported for the previous seven days.
UK risks double-dip recession amid second Covid lockdown
The first snapshot of the UK economy during England’s four-week lockdown has shown evidence of a looming double-dip recession as tougher restrictions took a toll of large chunks of service-sector output, my colleague Larry Elliott reports.
From the Times’ Steven Swinford
Sounds like sport is back from Dec 2:
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) November 23, 2020
Tier 1
4,000 spectators/ 50% capacity for outdoor events, whichever is lower, and 2,000/ 50% capacity for indoor
Tier 2
2,000 spectators/50% capacity outdoors, whichever is lower, and 1,000/ 50% indoors
Tier 3
Ban on spectators remains
Boris Johnson has been accused of double standards after writing to ministers and senior civil servants claiming there is “no place for bullying” in the wake of a damning investigation into the home secretary, Priti Patel, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.
The interim analysis of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine says it has a 70% efficacy rate - but 90% for those given a half dose and then a full dose, rather than two full doses like the others. Explaining why this might be the case, Prof Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told Sky News earlier:
There is a well-known phenomenon which is called high-dose tolerance. This is a live vector, rather than just an antigen. It could be that it is inducing what we call regulatory T-cells , so that these T-cells could be putting a brake on the system if you go in too hard to begin with.
The immune system is a very complicated thing. It has to balance up the, sort of, go pedal and the stop pedal, and get the two just right. So there’s certainly something about the immunology of this that will explain it. It is not unprecedented at all.
Sturgeon tells Scots not to expect easing of restrictions for Hogmanay
Nicola Sturgeon has warned that any easing of Covid-19 controls over Christmas will not last into Hogmanay and the new year period in Scotland, despite Hogmanay’s cultural significance.
She said that while no final decision had yet been taken, she expected the Covid physical distancing travel, shopping and hospitality regulations will be reimposed after they are briefly eased over Christmas.
She confirmed the UK’s four governments are close to announcing a UK-wide easing of the restrictions for a limited number of days over Christmas, involving a maximum of three families, and some potential relaxation of travel rules. But it would not include New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
She told the briefing:
I do not expect that we will be announcing any particular relaxations over the new year period. Why not? Because we can’t do everything. The Christmas thing is hard enough.
Why Christmas and not new year? Well maybe Christmas is a more important time for kids. I think for most of us, even if we value New Year, Christmas is still the time when families are more likely to not want to have somebody on their own.
People really just have to understand that Christmas may be a big enough ask for us and may involve difficult enough decisions without that extending to another part of the festive period.
If people were allowed to mingle at Christmas, it increased the risks the virus would spread if Hogmanay events went ahead too, she said.
While its importance has been diluted over recent decades with the surge in the popularity and commercialisation of Christmas, the Hogmanay period has historically been of greater social significance in Scotland.
The period is marked in Scotland by large New Year’s Eve parties and family gatherings, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay festival and fireworks, and mass participation events such as the Loony Dook sea swim near the Forth bridge on New Year’s day. These organised events have already been cancelled.
Updated
Micheál Martin, the Irish taoiseach (PM), told reporters this morning that he was “hopeful” that the outline of a UK-EU trade deal would emerge by the end of this week. He said:
President Ursula Von der Leyen [the European commission president] did say to the EU leaders last Thursday night that there are texts now on all areas.
I would be hopeful that by the end of this week we could see the outline of a deal. That remains to be seen. It’s down to political will. One must remain hopeful that a deal can be arrived at.
Updated
The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has raised the prospect of a new Covid tier system being introduced in Wales.
Following its 17-day “firebreak” lockdown, the Welsh government brought in a national set of Covid restrictions, arguing this was better to have one system for the whole of Wales.
But speaking at the Welsh government’s press conference, Gething suggested there might advantages to be common approaches across the UK not just over Christmas but in the run-up to the festive period.
He did not say there would definitely be a tiered system but posed the question: “Would there be a benefit for all of us having a more common set of measures ahead of Christmas?”
Asked about a rise in Covid cases in Cardigan, south-west Wales, which has been blamed by the local authority on parties and pub crawls, Gething said: “The challenge is not to think we can go back to the old normal.”
Updated
Boris Johnson to hold 7pm news briefing after Commons statement in the afternoon
Boris Johnson will make a statement to MPs in the Commons at 3.30pm about coronavirus, and the new rules for England when the lockdown ends next week.
Downing Street has just announced he will also hold a press conference tonight, at about 7pm. Johnson will appear with Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.
Updated
Sunak urged by Commons Treasury committee to expand support for self-employed
Many self-employed people are still not getting the help they need from the government’s various job support schemes, the Commons Treasury committee has said today.
In an open letter to Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, Mel Stride, chair of the Tory-dominated to the said that although the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) and self-employment income support scheme (SEISS) were welcome, many self-employed people were missing out. Stride urged Sunak to consider copying initiatives in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland. He said:
We note that the Scottish government has set up a newly self-employed hardship fund administered by local authorities.
In addition, the Northern Ireland executive has set up an individuals emergency resilience programme and ring-fenced some further amounts to assist individual artists/freelancers in the arts industry. It has also set up a Covid restrictions business support scheme. This scheme aims to help small businesses that do not have premises, such as driving instructors, mobile hairdressers, and also businesses, such as cleaners and caterers, that have not been forced to close but act as part of the supply chain to businesses forced to close.
At her news briefing Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has just said that the Scottish government will not be announcing any specific easing of coronavirus restrictions for Hogmanay (the new year). And she said she did not expect the four nations agreement for Christmas to cover Hogmanay.
“We can’t do everything,” she said, when explaining why there would not be specific concessions for Hogmanay. She acknowledged that this was particularly important holiday in Scotland. But she said Christmas was probably a more important event for families with children.
Updated
Priti Patel kept her job as home secretary last week despite No 10 publishing the findings of a review that found that her conduct as a minister had at times “amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying”, even if it were unintentional. But, according to a report in the Daily Mirror, 12 officials in the Home Office have been sacked in two years for “bullying, harassment, discrimination or offensive behaviour”.
The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has highlighted a concerning increase in the rise of the number of younger people infected with Covid in Wales.
At the Welsh government’s coronavirus briefing Gething said that the rate for under-25s fell during and after the Welsh firebreak but that it had started to rise again. He said the pattern was that infections of younger people quickly worked though to older men and women.
Gething said that while the whole-Wales rate was “stable, there were “worrying” rates in particular areas in the south of Wales – Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Torfaen and Caerphilly.
Here's the graph 👇 pic.twitter.com/xMhI5WzoRs
— Welsh Government (@WelshGovernment) November 23, 2020
Sturgeon says the rules for Christmas will involve “a small number of households” being able to mix for “a small number of days” over Christmas. But she says the idea of allowing four households to mix has not been discussed.
She also points out that the different nations of the UK use different definitions of households.
Sturgeon says plans for 'slight and careful' easing of rules over Christmas to be announced this week
Sturgeon says later this week she will be announcing plans for a “slight and careful” easing of restrictions over Christmas.
The four nations have the UK have been making progress towards a common position, she says. But she says the details have yet to be finalised. She hopes to be able to announce firm conclusions later, she says.
She says public opinion is mixed on what the government should do. Although some people want the rules to be relaxed, there is also a lot of anxiety about the potential risks, she says.
She says it is “likely” that some households will be able to form larger bubbles with others over Christmas.
But she says any relaxation of Christmas comes with additional risk. “I’m afraid the virus won’t take Christmas off,” she says.
Sturgeon says, when the government sets out the rules, it will give advice on precautions to be taken too.
And she says just because people might be allowed to mix, that does not mean they have to.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is holding her daily coronavirus briefing now.
She says there have been 949 further cases. That is an increase from 844 yesterday, and 717 a week ago today.
She says there are 1,208 coronavirus patients in hospital in Scotland – an increase of 38 from yesterday. And there are 84 patients in intensive care – down 11 from yesterday.
And she says that no additional deaths were recorded yesterday, but that registration offices are closed at the weekend and so the Monday figures are always artificially low. Since Friday a further 44 deaths have been recorded, she says.
Updated
From Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser
“Congratulations to the great teams who have worked on the @UniofOxford @AstraZeneca vaccines. It is great to have another positive readout for a vaccine against #COVID19. This is a huge achievement” - PV
— Sir Patrick Vallance (@uksciencechief) November 23, 2020
Johnson tells ministers there' 'no place for bullying' in government
Turning away from coronavirus for a moment, Boris Johnson and Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, have written a joint letter (pdf) to ministers and heads of government departments reminding them that there is “no place for bullying” following an investigation into home secretary Priti Patel’s conduct.
In a ministerial statement, Johnson said:
This letter sets out the paramount importance of relationships of mutual trust and respect between politicians and their officials.
This includes keeping internal conversations private, feeling able to speak freely and honestly about matters of state and to speak constructively about things that are not working so that we can fix them together promptly.
I am clear that there is a particular duty on ministers and permanent secretaries to create jointly across government a culture which is professional, respectful, focused and ambitious for change and in which there is no place for bullying.
According to a story by Eleni Courea in the Times (paywall), Johnson raised Patel’s alleged bullying in cabinet yesterday, quoting Churchill. Johnson apparently referred to Clementine Churchill, who in 1940 wrote to her husband after one of his friends had complained of his “rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner”. Clementine told her husband: “You won’t get the best results by irascibility and rudeness.”
This is from Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.
This is a very encouraging step forward.
— Professor Chris Whitty (@CMO_England) November 23, 2020
I would like to say a huge thank you to those who volunteered and the researchers around the country.
The regulators will now do their independent analysis for safety and efficacy but this is another important advance. https://t.co/Iz1ZEzJ7x7
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has told other government leaders her administration needs to work on a Covid-safe policy for Hogmanay this year, as well as agree UK-wide policies for Christmas.
In Scotland, the traditional emphasis on Hogmanay as the focus of family gatherings adds an additional layer of complication for Sturgeon’s government. If families are allowed to mingle over Christmas, why not Hogmanay too?
Many Scots still regard celebrating the new year as a much more important social and cultural event. Our colleague Steve Morris reports that this was flagged by Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, at his regular Covid briefing last Friday.
Drakeford was asked about the four nations talks on relaxing Covid controls for Christmas. He said:
There are different traditions in different parts of the country. In Scotland, for example, the new year celebrations have always been a more significant part of their national way of marking the winter festival than in some other parts of the country. There are different things that have to be thought about in the different contexts that each nation faces.
Officials in Scotland say this was raised by Sturgeon during a four-nations call chaired by Michael Gove, the UK government’s Cabinet Office minister, early last week. But preparing for Hogmanay is not part of the four nations strategy due to be unveiled in the next few days.
Sturgeon has made clear she is worried that lifting controls over Christmas will feed the pandemic and increase deaths, particularly amongst the elderly. There would be some leeway, but not much, she warned last week:
I want to do that in a way that also minimises the risk of me standing at this podium in late January, reporting really horrible numbers of people who have died because of infections that we’ve picked up over the Christmas period.
Like so much with this virus we’re trying to strike the right balance.
AstraZeneca says it expects to have produced 40m vaccine doses for UK by end of March
Executives from AstraZeneca, which has partnered with Oxford University on the coronavirus vaccine and which is in charge of production, have also been briefing journalists. Here are the key points they’ve been making.
-
Pam Cheng, executive vice president of operations and information technology at AstraZeneca, said the company expected to have 40m doses of the vaccine ready for the UK by the end of March 2021. She said:
Excluding our sub licence partners, we will have approaching 200m doses of actives – the drug substance by the end of 2020 and more than 700m doses by the end of Q1 [the first quarter of 2021] globally. These actives would then be formulated and filled into vials.
For the UK, assuming conditional approval is granted, we expect to have manufactured approaching 20m doses of active, and with up to 4m doses in finished form by year-end, and significantly higher by end of Q1 at 70m doses of active form and 40m doses in finished form. We have a robust supply chain which is capable of manufacturing at scale and we can do it very quickly.
- Mene Pangalos, executive vice president for biopharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said the subgroup analysis – which showed 90% efficacy for a particular dose regimen – was enough to file for regulatory approval.
- Pangalos said data from the vaccine trial was already being submitted to the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for consideration.
-
Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca, said even though three teams have now announced successful interim vaccine efficacy results, more vaccine would be needed. He said:
Sometimes people think it is a competition but if you add the capacity that Pfizer has announced, plus Moderna, plus our capacity, the three of us don’t even have enough vaccine production for the world.
So, there’s no competition really, we need as many as we can so we vaccinate sufficient number of people worldwide. So we stop this pandemic.
Updated
At the Oxford vaccine team briefing Prof Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the university, said scientists were “optimistic” that their vaccine would have good durability. She said:
When we did our Mers vaccine trial, that was with a single dose of a vaccine, and we did see very good, strong immune responses maintained a year after vaccination in that small clinical trial.
So, we’re optimistic we’re going to see good durability. There are grounds for believing that we will do, but we have to collect the data.
The UK-EU trade talks continue this week. For about the third week in a row, the negotiations start with commentators saying that this may be the crunch week because time is running out.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, has posed this on Twitter this morning. Barnier is self-isolating, because a member of his team tested positive last week, and so the talks are taking place online.
🇪🇺🇬🇧 After technical discussions this weekend, negotiations continue online today with @DavidGHFrost and our teams. Time is short. Fundamental divergences still remain, but we are continuing to work hard for a deal.
— Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) November 23, 2020
Medicines regulator says it will make decision on Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine 'in shortest possible time'
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says it has already started looking at data on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and that it hopes to decide whether or not to approve it “in the shortest time possible”. In a statement Dr June Raine, the MHRA’s chief executive, said:
We are pleased to have received further data for the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine candidate.
It is our job now to rigorously assess these data and the evidence submitted on the vaccine’s safety, quality and effectiveness.
As we have received this data through a rolling review, we have already started our analysis and will aim to make a decision in the shortest time.
Two weeks ago Pfizer and BioNTech said an interim analysis showed their vaccine had a 90% efficacy rate, although subsequent figures put the efficacy rate at 95%. The UK has ordered 40m doses.
Summary from Oxford vaccine team briefing
Scientists from Oxford University involved in its coronavirus vaccine project have been holding a briefing. Here are some of their key points.
- Prof Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the university, said multiple vaccines would be needed globally - not just the Oxford/AstraZeneca one. She said:
We’ve always known that we’re going to need multiple vaccines for the world because no one developer, no one manufacturer is going to be able to produce enough to cover everywhere.
So, having multiple vaccines - particularly with different manufacturing technologies and technologies that can be manufactured globally and distributed globally – that’s really important.
- Prof Andrew Pollard, chief investigator for the vaccine trial, said the 90% efficacy figure was based on a sub-group of more than 3,000 participants. Asked if that sample size was big enough to produce a reliable result, he said the confidence around that estimate was “quite high”.
- Pollard said there was enough evidence from the sub-group with the 90% efficacy figure to submit to the regulators.
- Gilbert said years of work had led up to the success of the Covid vaccine trial. She explained:
We’d already made a vaccine and conducted a clinical trial with a human coronavirus vaccine, it just wasn’t the same coronavirus. But it showed us that we could make a vaccine with this technology that would induce good immune responses against a coronavirus spike protein.
And we’ve also been thinking about how to go really quickly when a new pathogen arises, and we need to make a new vaccine, and we’ve done some work preparing for that and getting ready to be able to respond when the situation arose. And that’s what happened in January.
- Pollard said it was too soon to know how long the protection offered by the vaccine lasted. He said:
We only started giving the second doses of vaccine in the UK in August. The increase in disease, as you know, started towards the end of September and so most of the cases have only relatively recently accumulated both in the UK and in Brazil.
So that means we just have not had enough time yet to be able to say whether, a year later, people are still as protected as they were at the beginning. So I think this is a ‘watch this space’ question.
- Pollard said it would take a “little bit longer” to have robust data on the vaccine’s effectiveness in older adults. Asked whether efficacy varied among age groups, he said:
At this moment we don’t have the full breakdown by age. But because the trials that enrolled older adults started a bit later than younger adults, it will take a little bit longer before we have really robust data in those older age groups from our trials.
Updated
This is from the Times’ Chris Smyth, flagging up a line in a story by his colleague Tom Whipple, the paper’s science editor.
Whole books could be written about this line in @whippletom write up of Oxford vaccine success
— Chris Smyth (@Smyth_Chris) November 23, 2020
"Shares in Astrazeneca, which has said that it will provide the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic, slid 67p, or 0.7 per cent, to £82.51."https://t.co/HYW1Dtl8fT
Dr Michael Tildesley, associate professor in infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick and a member of Sage (the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), said it could be five months before enough vaccine could be given to the population to achieve some sort of herd immunity.
Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Tildesley said:
The vaccine is on the horizon. But we’re still probably four/five months away from getting to the stage that we can give enough doses out to the population to start thinking about achieving herd immunity as a nation.
What we really need to do in the meantime is get the message out there that, yes, there is good news – the cavalry is appearing on the horizon – but we need to keep incidence as low as possible. We need to keep observing our social distancing.
Updated
In an interview on LBC, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was asked if carol concerts would be allowed at Christmas. He replied with the Arabic word: “Inshallah [God willing]”. When pressed, Hancock said he would leave it to Boris Johnson to explain in the Commons.
Updated
Hancock says vaccination programme could mean life will 'start to get back to normal' after Easter
Here is a full summary of the points Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was making on his morning interview round.
- Hancock said the success of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine did not remove the need for tough restrictions now. (See 9am.)
- He said the number of cases in the UK was now “clearly starting to fall”.
- He admitted that the new tier 3 restrictions would be tougher than the old tier 3 restrictions. That was because the old restrictions managed to flatten case numbers, but not bring them down.
- He said the combination of tough restrictions and mass testing in Liverpool had much more successful than he expected. He said:
In Liverpool, cases are down by more than two-thirds in the last few weeks. And this is a combination, of course, of those restrictions that have been in place, but also in Liverpool we put in mass testing.
They’ve tested over 200,000 people of the just over half a million who live in Liverpool. And they’ve found a load more people who were asymptomatic, didn’t know that they had a problem, didn’t know they have the virus.And the combination of the mass testing, and the measures in Liverpool, have brought the cases down really quite remarkably, much faster than I would have thought was possible.
- He dismissed Andy Burnham’s complaints about the new three-tier system of restrictions (see 9.39am) - and compared Burnham’s record in Greater Manchester unfavourably with what had happened in Liverpool. He said:
In Manchester there was a disagreement, there was some unfortunate messaging locally. In Liverpool, Mayor Joe Anderson, and Steve Rotheram [the mayor of Liverpool city region] both did a great job ... There may be some noises off, but I have a high degree of confidence that this new tier system will be able, in the tier 3 areas, to get the cases down.
- Hancock claimed that care homes would not need extras staff to operate the rapid testing system for relatives to allow visits to take place. In an interview on the Today programme, asked if the government was going to give care homes the money they needed to use rapid testing in this way, Hancock said at first the government was putting the support in. When pressed, he said new protocols were available. When it was put to him that care homes say they need extra staff for this system to operate, Hancock said he did not accept that.
- He said the government was still working on giving care homes legal indemnity from being sued for negligence over Covid infections. He said he “hoped” the government would be able to reach “a positive conclusion” on this.
- He said he hoped a vaccination programme could start in December, with life starting “to get back to normal” after Easter. He said:
[Vaccination] is subject to that regulatory approval and I really stress that because the medicines regulator, it’s called the MHRA, is independent, they’re rigorous, they’re one of the best regulators in the world.
They will be very, very careful to ensure that they look at all the data to make sure that this is safe.
Subject to that approval, we hope to be able to start vaccinating next month.
The bulk of the vaccine rollout programme will be in January, February, March, and we hope that sometime after Easter things will be able to start to get back to normal.
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Burnham says new three-tier system for England could be 'devastating for hospitality industry'
In an interview on the Today programme, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said he was concerned that the government’s plans for a new three-tier system for England from next week could be “devastating” for the hospitality industry.
According to the overnight reports, non-essential shops will be allowed to open in all tiers. But in tier 3, where the toughest restrictions will apply, pubs and restaurants will only be allowed to serve takeaways. Under the old tier 3, restaurants could open, and pubs could open provided they were serving alcohol with a proper meal. The new tier 2 rules for pubs will also be stricter because they will only be allowed to serve drink with a meal. Effectively, in relation to pubs at least, what was tier 3 will become tier 2, and a new tougher tier is being imposed on top.
Burnham told Today:
It seems that a toughened tier 3 could be devastating for the hospitality industry and will hit cities and the city economy very, very hard indeed.
They seem to be going too far before Christmas to allow too much over Christmas and that will lead to a huge loss of hospitality businesses, which I would say is too big a price to pay.
To close all hospitality businesses in tier 3 areas – that will be large parts of the north - that will be devastating for many of those businesses. They will not survive that.
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Boris Johnson has welcomed the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine announcement.
Incredibly exciting news the Oxford vaccine has proved so effective in trials. There are still further safety checks ahead, but these are fantastic results.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 23, 2020
Well done to our brilliant scientists at @UniofOxford & @AstraZeneca, and all who volunteered in the trials. https://t.co/84o8TKhQga
Hancock says Oxford vaccine success does not remove need for tough restrictions now
Good morning. And it actually does seem to be a good morning, because about two hours ago we learnt that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (the one on which the UK government has bet most heavily – it has pre-ordered 100m doses, far more than its orders for other vaccines) seems to work well. It has an efficacy rate of 70.4%, or up to 90% if a lower dose is used, according to the interim results.
The news comes a few hours before Boris Johnson’s announcement this afternoon of the framework restrictions for England that will come into force when the lockdown ends next week. In some areas the new rules will be tougher than what was in place before the lockdown started in early November. On the Today programme this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was asked if he thought the “light at the end of the tunnel” provided by the vaccine rules meant that it would be safe to start easing restrictions now. No, said Hancock. He went on:
That ... argument is actually quite worrying. And the reason it is is that we know this virus can accelerate very fast if there are not measures in place. And we’ve seen that happen a few times now, and in individual places as well. So it’s so important that the measures that are in place continue until the vaccine can make us safe ...
I am very glad to see in the data that the number of cases across the UK is clearly starting to fall. That is good news.
Therefore, in England, when the lockdown measures come to an end on 2 December we can be confident that they can be replaced with a tiered system, but the top tier is going to have to be tougher than the previous top tier because before it managed to flatten the curve but not have it fall.
I’ll post more from Hancock’s morning interview round shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Boris Johnson speaks at the online award of the Grotius Prize to the Australian PM Scott Morrison “in recognition of his work in support of the international rules-based order”.
12pm: Downing Street is due to hold its daily lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is holding a coronavirus briefing.
12.15pm: The Welsh government is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
1pm: Sir Keir Starmer hold an online ‘Call Keir’ meeting for people in Basildon.
1.30pm: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
2pm: Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, gives a speech ahead of Wednesday’s spending review.
3.30pm: Boris Johnson makes a statement to MPs about the new restrictions for England after the lockdown ends next week.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog 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 when they seem more important or more 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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