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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

UK coronavirus: Whitty says aim of lockdown is to reduce R enough to move on after 2 December – as it happened

Early evening summary

  • Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has told MPs there is a “realistic possibility” that the lockdown for England can be eased after 2 December. Asked if the restrictions would definitely be lifted then, as planned by the government, Whitty said:

The decision as to whether to lift restrictions on December 2 is rightly a decision for ministers and parliament.

I think that the aim of this is to get the rates down far enough that it’s a realistic possibility to move into a different state of state of play at that point in time.

But he also said he did not expect England to return to the exact tiering system in place now. He said:

I think that the prime minister would probably want us to look at whether there should be variations on exactly the same tiering system as at the moment, rather than just assuming we would just revert to an absolutely identical one.

I think there’s a lot to learn. And in fact, the next two or three weeks we will start to see the effects of the tiering in an even more granular way than we’ve got to date and I think we should wait until we got that before we start to decide how best to use that in future.

  • Prof Tim Spector, who runs the Covid symptom study (CSS), has said his latest figures suggest coronavirus cases in England, Wales and Scotland are plateauing, with R, the reproduction number, now at about 1. The CSS monitors the spread of the virus through an app, with 4m downloads, which people use to report symptoms.

Updated

A Foreign Office minister was accused of burying his head in the sand by claiming no connection existed between the £400m debt owed by the UK to Iranian, and the inability of the UK to secure the release of the British Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe.

The minister, James Cleverly, told MPs today the two issues were unrelated.

He also repeatedly refused to tell MPs anything about any private discussions between the UK government and the Iranians over the potential payment of the debt, saying simply he was unwilling to do so and it would not be appropriate to do so.

He also refused to answer MPs request to say whether the debt could be paid through a humanitarian payment. He did acknowledge that a debt was owed by the UK.

The Iranians were due to take the UK to the high court this week over the non-payment of the 40 year old debt this week, but the hearing was postponed last week for six months at the instigation of the Iranians, Cleverly said. At the same time as the postponement, the Iranians chose to bring Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe back to court in Tehran to face a new set of charges. Her hearing today was postponed after 45 minutes with little explanation, and she was allowed to return to her parent’s home in Tehran on a tag.

She has already served 4.5 years of a five year sentence after being arrested for spying in April 2016.

Despite Cleverly insisting there was no connection between the non payment of the debt and Zaghari Ratcliffe’ detention, Zaghari Ratcliffe’s MP Tulip Siddiq said the hearing in Tehran was not a coincidence, but a punishment. She accused the government of continuously refusing to acknowledge the link between Nazanin’s imprisonment and our failure as a country to pay the debt.

She said there was no point the government burying their head in the sand adding it was costing her constituent’s life.

Cleverly said:

We recognise the debt is due. We are working to resolve this.

This is a 40-year-old debt and we are exploring options to bring this to a conclusion. It is not possible for me to comment either further or in more detail on this.

Here is the 32-page statutory instrument (pdf) containing the regulations that will impose the lockdown for England. MPs will vote on them tomorrow.

My colleague Peter Walker has been reading them.

Dido Harding speaks to CBI

Dido Harding, the head of the much-criticised NHS Test and Trace, is speaking to the CBI now.

She says her service has set itself demanding targets.

She says they only count an email as a successful contact if they get a reply. That is not how it works in Scotland, she says.

Asked about reports that people are not complying with instructions to self-isolate, she says the figures can be misleading. One person might say they did not comply because they took the dog for a walk at midnight. For someone else, not complying might mean going to a party she says.

Asked about claims that test and trace should be localised, she says some countries with localised test and trace have found their services overwhelmed. A mixed system works best, she claims.

Updated

Vallance backs up what Whitty said about the Great Barrington declaration. (See 4.54pm.)

He says Sage drafted a paper explaining why it was flawed recently.

It’s here (pdf).

He also says it is important to remember that in England there are many multi-generational households (implying you cannot shield the old from the young).

Whitty says, if there was no prospect of a vaccine, there might be some argument for this approch. But he says he is very confident the situation will improve next year. Repeating a line he used at the press conference on Saturday, he says they have “multiple shots at goal” through vaccines and better treatments.

The situation will get steadily better, he says.

Q: So you are predicting a difficult winter, but a bright spring?

“Brighter”, both Whitty and Vallance reply.

And that’s it. The hearing is over.

Whitty says Great Barrington anti-lockdown plan would be 'ethically really difficult'

Greg Clark comes to his last question.

Q: The Great Barrington declaration proposes a different policy. Do you model approaches like that?

Whitty says he has no doubt that the scientists involved in the Great Barrington declaration are trying to be helpful.

But he says the plan is flawed, and impractical and “ethically a little difficult”.

The plan implies herd immunity will apply. But for most diseases herd immunity does not happen.

And if it were to work, you would have to have up to 70% of them population infected. We are a long way from that, he says.

Second, he says, the plan involves shielding the vulnerable. But that is impractical. You could not do it year after year, he says.

And, third, he says this plan assumes that very many people would die.

Other than that, it no doubt has merits.

To have this as an element of policy would be ethically really difficult.

Q: If we go back to the tier system in December, will R go back above 1?

Whitty says that will depend on what the situation is then, and what come next.

He says he assumes there will be modifcations to tiering.

In the next few weeks we should have better data about that, he says.

Q: Are you happy for Wales to lift its lockdown while England imposes its?

Whitty says:

I am very strongly of the view that what happens in Wales is for Wales.

He says it is important to respect the fact that the two systems are different.

Q: Have you given advice to parliament about how it operates in a Covid-secure way?

Whitty says he spoke to the Speaker and Lord Speaker about this early on. But mostly Public Health England has been giving advice, he says.

Updated

Q: If we had had six times as many intensive care beds, would our response have been less dramatic?

Vallance says there would have been more headroom. But, without a lockdown, there would still have been many more deaths. There would have been a question for society as to whether or not that was acceptable.

Whitty suggests he would like to see test and trace made more localised

Graham Stringer (Lab) goes next.

Q: Should test and trace have been more local?

Whitty says directors of public health have done an amazing job.

And with the need to set up a system from a standing start, he can see the case for a national system.

But, especially with the trace element, he says he agrees that where possible we should be using “local skills”.

Updated

Whitty says he thinks lockdown will bring R below 1

Greg Clark is asking the questions again.

Q: Can we come out of this if R is still above 1?

Whitty says the whole point is to get R below 1.

Q: What if it isn’t?

Whitty says his expectation is that these measures will bring R below 1. He says he has faith in the willingness of the public to comply.

If people adhere in the way that I expect they will, it’ll reduce R below 1, in my view, in the great majority or all of the country.

I wouldn’t want to imply that suddenly that means that Covid is over as a problem.

This is a long haul.

Q: What if it’s just above R?

Whitty says there are endless possibilities. He says it is best to wait and see what happens.

Clark says MPs may only want to vote for these measures if they are certain how they will be lifted.

Whitty says these are decisions for ministers.

He says you could have R just below 1 in one place, but with the NHS struggling; or you could have R just above 1, but with the NHS coping; there would be different responses in different circumstances.

Updated

In the committee Whitty says the scientists are looking at what advice they will be able to give people about Christmas.

But it will very much depend on what the epidemiological situation is at the end of the year, he says.

Updated

This is from the BBC’s Nick Robinson summarising the committee hearing.

Greg Clark, the science committee chair, asks about the proposal to ban outdoors sports. He says the Sage assessment (pdf) says banning outdoor gatherings will only reduce R, the reproduction number, by 0.05.

Given the health benefits of sport, shouldn’t this be allowed?

Whitty says that that is a question for the politicians. He says it would not be wise to try to unpick a package that needs to be viewed as a whole.

If Patrick and I end up trying to unpick quite complicated packages that have been put together, that way disaster lies for everybody.

Updated

Vallance admits lockdown 'blunt instrument' when asked to justify ban on communal worship

Back in the committee, Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, is asked to say what the evidence is for a measure like closing places of worship.

Vallance says it is important to consider the lockdown measures as a package.

He says the evidence for the impact of each measure on R might be limited. He says:

We have not got good evidence on the exact value of each intervention on R.

He says Sage did publish a paper (pdf) looking at the impact of different interventions. But he says the evidence of not precise.

However, if you were to leave out measures just because the evidence was weak, the strength of the overall package would be lessened, he says.

Therefore I’m afraid it’s a rather blunt instrument.

Whitty says, even where churches follow social distancing guidelines strictly, there may be problems when people congregate outside afterwards.

Updated

The government has just published a series of data files supporting the projections it published on its slides at the press conference on Saturday. They are all here.

The MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University, which is one of the groups that produces Covid modelling considered by Sage, has today published its latest projections.

It says it thinks there are currently 77,600 new infections per day in England.

Deaths are likely to be between 380 and 710 on the 14 November, it says.

And it says “the number of infections is growing by 5% each day. This translates into a doubling in the number of new infections approximately every 15 days.”

Q: Why has Britain been worse affected than other countries?

Vallance says it is too early to say for sure.

But he says the UK was seeded with multiple infections. The epidemic was very widespread. In other countries it was more localised.

That is one factor, he says. But he says that at this stage you cannot say for certain.

He also said it is important, with epidemics like this, “to go quite early and go quite significant”.

But it is hard to make the case for early intervention when people have not seen how serious it is, he suggests.

Whitty says there is 'realistic possibility' of lockdown being eased after 2 December

Q: Do you expect to be able to lift the restrictions on 2 December?

Whitty says the prime minister has said that is what he expects to do.

Q: Does your modelling suggest it will be possible?

Whitty says this is a political decision for the government.

Q: But does your modelling suggest it will be possible?

Whitty said the aim of the lockdown is to ensure that there is a “realistic possibility” that after 2 December England will be able to move onto a “different state of play”.

Chris Whitty
Chris Whitty Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Back at the science committee, Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, said that it was “entirely realistic” to think that coronavirus deaths could reach the peak they hit in April.

Referring to the projections shown at the press conference (see 3.08pm), he said:

I think that if there is someone whose feeling is that the difference between them being supportive of these very restrictive and difficult measures is the difference between 1,000 deaths a day and 4,000 deaths a day - and remembering that if there were 1,000 deaths a day that would imply significant pressure on multiple other bits of the NHS - this I think becomes a very material question.

I think all of us would say that the rates will probably be lower than that top peak.

But I think reaching the peak which we reached in April, strikes me as an entirely realistic situation.

So if people wish to take a conservative view, that would be something which the short-term projections would take us to.

Whitty said he thought some of the commentary on this had been “overblown”. He went on:

People can take different projections if they wish.

But getting to the stage we got to in April - and if we do nothing carrying on up from there - is entirely realistic.

Vallance says Sage is very aware of the health impact of lockdown.

But he says he does not think it should be for Sage to make judgments about the economic impact of policy measures.

Whitty says it is important that those people taking the economic decisions understand the epidemiology.

He says none of them are under any illusions that this is anything other than problematic.

We are choosing between bad choices.

Up to four individuals will be able to meet in pubs, cafes and restaurants when Wales’s “firebreak” lockdown ends on Monday.

Addressing the Senedd (Welsh parliament), the first minister, Mark Drakeford, called for people to visit such premises in “as small a group as possible”, adding: “For many, this will only be the people they live with.”

But he added:

We have listened to those young people and single people who told us how important it is for them to meet some friends and other family members.

So the regulations will allow groups of up to four individuals to meet in a regulated setting such as a restaurant, café or pub.

But this is subject to strict protections discussed with the hospitality sector, including advance booking, time-limited slots and verified identification. As in all aspects of our lives, maintaining the basics of good hygiene and keeping our distance will be crucial in these settings.

A 10pm end on alcohol sales will remain in place.

Drakeford has expressed concern that people will travel from England to pubs in Wales once the firebreak ends. He said:

While the England lockdown is in place, travel to and from England will be prohibited by English regulations unless it is for an essential reason such as work, or education.

Updated

Q: Did shielding save lives?

Whitty says there were definite advantages and disadvantages.

It saved lives, he says. But it created problems of loneliness and mental health.

He says the process has now been revised. They decided it would be best to apply a less strict version, he says.

Test and trace not having 'big impact', says Vallance

Greg Clark is asking the questions again.

Q: Have you looked at the impact of test and trace on the virus?

Vallance says a Sage paper looked at this in June.

He says Sage is not assuming that test and trace will have a “big impact” on the spread of the virus.

Jeremy Hunt, chair of the health committee, is asking the questions now.

Q: Do you agree with the Sage assessment that test and trace is only having a marginal impact?

Whitty says test and trace has made good progress from a standing start.

He says it is unreasonable to expect the system to pick up asymptomatic cases.

And he says some academic commentary [like this report] suggests that compliance with self-isolation is very low. But this is misleading, he says. He says people may not be following the rules in their entirety. But that does not mean the majority who are not following the rules 100% are not taking some steps that will reduce the spread of the virus.

Updated

Whitty says, in his advice to ministers, he focuses on projections looking ahead to the next six weeks.

Whitty says there might have been a halving in the mortality rate because of new treatments.

Here is an extract from the report (pdf) mentioned in the previous exchange looking at the long-term direct and indirect impact of Covid on deaths.

Many non-urgent elective treatments have been postponed or cancelled by the NHS in preparing for Covid-19. Delaying access to care could equate to 12,500 excess deaths, equivalent to 45,000 lost QALYs [quality-adjusted life years] over approximately five years; morbidity impacts are estimated to equate to 90,000 lost QALYs by April 2021.

Some primary and community services have been stopped during lockdown and others have been reduced to only provide urgent care. Focused analysis of cancer diagnosis – including GP referrals and emergency presentations – suggests that disruption to these pathways could result in 1,400 excess deaths, equivalent to 3,500 lost QALYs.

Updated

Whitty says most excess deaths from Covid caused because 'you don't deal with Covid'

Q: Why don’t you show the alternative figures, such as the one showing the large number of people who might die as a result of lockdown?

Stringer is referring to this report (pdf).

Vallance says that report, looking at all possible deaths from Covid, is being updated.

But he says it is not the job of Sage to present the economic figures. He says Sage models possible deaths from Covid. It presents that to the government. It is for others to make the economic case, so that ministers can take an overall view.

Whitty says he wants to stress that, even though the analysis suggests the overall death toll could be higher than the Covid death toll, “most of the additional deaths stack up because you don’t deal with Covid”.

He says four factors will contribute to overall deaths: deaths from Covid; deaths from emergency services being overwhelmed, which did not happen in the first wave; deaths from people missing medical treatment for other conditions; and deaths from the economic recession.

Updated

Vallance denies showing 4,000 deaths per day projection to frighten people

Graham Stringer (Lab) is asking the questions now.

Q: Was it sensible to show the graph showing 4,000 deaths a day without caveats?

Vallance says he positioned that as a projection from two weeks ago. He says he is sorry if that was not clear. They were projections from major academic groups, he says. He says he also showed data showing more specific projections looking at just six weeks ahead.

Q: But they were not seen like that. Do you regret the impression given?

Vallance says the six-week figures were shown. But he says he thinks people were interested in the reasonable worst case scenario. People were interested in these, he says. And he says the modellers think those long-term projections are important.

Q: Aren’t you just frightening people?

Vallance replies:

I hope not. And that’s certainly not the aim.

Vallance says he was also accused of scaring people when he presented figures in September saying deaths would reach 200 a day by November. But that turned out to be an underestimate, he says.

UPDATE: Here is the full quote.

Death projections
Death projections. Photograph: No 10

Updated

Q: What impact will the tier 2 and tier 3 restrictions have?

Whitty says he is confident tier 2 will have an effect, and tier 3 a bigger effect.

But the early indications are that these have not brought the R number below 1, he says.

We’ve now got hospitals already like in Liverpool, which are above their previous peak, and it doesn’t take much increase from that until you run into quite serious trouble.

So the ability to actually hang on and say ‘well, let’s wait a couple weeks, let’s just see what happens’ - the problem is the people who are in hospital now were infected several weeks ago.

So it’s quite a long lead time between taking an action and having an effect on reducing the number of people going into hospital, going into intensive care and sadly in some cases dying.

And therefore if you wait too long you have baked in a very large backlog of things where the rates are still going up and we do not have, in my view, clear evidence at this point that R is below 1 in anywhere that we actually have significantly high rates.

Q: In Liverpool the peak for positive cases came around when tier 3 was introduced. Now cases have fallen dramatically. (Prof Carl Heneghan made this point this morning - see 11.22am.) So was that taken into account?

Whitty says he prefers to look at what has happened. Rates among the young have fallen. But not amongst older people, he says. Covid rates in those age groups are still tracking up. And these are the people who will need hospital.

R, or the 'effective reproduction number', is a way of rating a disease’s ability to spread. It’s the average number of people on to whom one infected person will pass the virus. For an R of anything above 1, an epidemic will grow exponentially. Anything below 1 and an outbreak will fizzle out – eventually.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the estimated R for coronavirus was between 2 and 3 – higher than the value for seasonal flu, but lower than for measles. That means each person would pass it on to between two and three people on average, before either recovering or dying, and each of those people would pass it on to a further two to three others, causing the total number of cases to snowball over time.

The reproduction number is not fixed, though. It depends on the biology of the virus; people's behaviour, such as social distancing; and a population’s immunity. A country may see regional variations in its R number, depending on local factors like population density and transport patterns.

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

He says the age differential isn’t captured in the headline figures.

The overall figure may appear to be going down. But that is driven by a fall in cases amongst the young, not amongst the old.

We are not seeing that [falling infection] reliably in the older age bands as it’s moved up through the age bands. And that’s important because actually the rates falling in people in their 20s will actually have remarkably little impact on the NHS.

The rates are still steadily tracking up in all the data that I have seen in the older age groups who are the ones who are likely to translate into hospitalisations, ICU cases and deaths.

Whitty says he hopes cases are now levelling off amongst the older groups too. But he says he cannot say that with confidence.

It would be “very imprudent” to work on the basis that this is what is definitely happening now.

He says there is no evidence, in his view, that the R number is reliably falling below 1 amongst the older age groups.

Updated

Clark asks why the projections did not take into account the impact of the restrictions introduced on 9 October.

Vallance says they did – at least as far as those restrictions had already had an impact on the data.

He says the forward projections were the best estimates from the modelling groups as to what would happen in the next six months.

He says, looking back, the projections have been a “pretty good” guide to what would happen.

Updated

Whitty says the north-east is the only region where R, the reproduction number, seems to have flattened recently.

Everywhere else it is still going up, he says.

He says putting dates on these forecasts is not possible. You cannot say with certainty when cases may reach a particular level. But if R is above one, the situation will get worse.

And winter is a worse time for respiratory illness, he says.

Whitty says ministers have to take other factors into account. The medical advice is just one strand of advice, he says.

Q: Is it your joint view that without these measures intensive care capacity would be overrun?

Vallance says the slide he presented on this came from the NHS. He agrees with it.

Here is the slide from Saturday’s press conference.

No 10
No 10 Photograph: Projection for bed usage/No 10

Whitty: doing nothing would hit urgent care and then lead to emergency care shortages

Whitty says some hospitals in the north of England have higher levels of Covid occupancy than during the first wave.

There are other places, such as in the south-west, where the rates of increase are faster than in the north, and the bed capacity is lower.

So they could hit problems quickly, he says.

He says he wants to explain what reaching capacity means. First, non-urgent elective care is cancelled. Then urgent care, and then emergency care, is constrained.

He says non-urgent operations are already being cancelled in some places.

Updated

Asked to defend the chart presented at the press conference on Saturday night, Vallance says it showed different projections from different groups for a reasonable worst case scenario. (See 11.22am.)

Q: Is there a Sage consensus view for what might happen?

For six weeks ahead, yes, says Vallance. But beyond that, no.

Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance questioned by MPs

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, have just started giving evidence to the Commons science committee.

Greg Clark, the chair, starts by asking how many people would die if the government did nothing.

Vallance says, if nothing changed, the number of hospitalisations would breach the first wave number by the end of November, and the number of deaths would breach the first wave deaths by mid December.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman said the government would be publishing documents this afternoon from from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), justifying the slides presented at the press conference on Saturday showing projections for the rise in Covid deaths. They have been criticised as alarmist and misleading. (See 11.22am.)

The regulations enforcing the lockdown for England starting on Thursday will also be published later today, the spokesman said.

The spokesman refused to confirm reports that the government will cut the period of time people have to self-isolate because of coronavirus. But he did say the current rules were being reviewed.

Nicola Sturgeon has warned that she cannot rule out moving some areas to level 4 – Scotland’s most stringent tier of Covid controls – at next week’s review, while adding that she is “cautiously optimistic” that the country will see improvements going into winter. But she refused to be pressed on whether a national lockdown was on the cards, saying that she would keep all options on the table and would not pre-empt decision in order to “make life easier at a media briefing”.

Sturgeon said that she wanted to take the public inside her government’s decision-making, explaining that there were “some encouraging signs” in the rate of new cases, but that the situation was “volatile”.

She emphasised that a plateauing of cases alone would not be good enough though – steadying of infections at a high level means that if the R number rises again then the health service could be quickly overwhelmed. She said that complex, multi-factorial judgments were involved so that going into winter health officials could be sure that a rise in the R number will not mean an exponential growth in cases.

Sturgeon warned that there would be “difficult judgments” in the weeks ahead. She added that the ban on travel to and from tier 3 areas, as well as to and from England, remains crucial to continued improvements, and patterns of travel from neighbouring areas would also impact on tier decisions.

The next tier review will be next Tuesday. Sturgeon said she would be sticking to her timetable, despite the continuing confusion over the availability of furlough for devolved administrations, which Treasury minister Stephen Barclay did little to clarify in the Commons whilst Sturgeon was speaking. (See 1.19pm.)

She said:

I can’t allow myself to be thrown off course by chopping and changing from the UK government ... Public health decisions should not be distorted by the need to effectively game a financial system ... it should be a level playing field.

Referring to Douglas Ross, who appeared to get a commitment from the prime minister yesterday, she said: “Fair play to Douglas ... but it’s the Treasury that writes the cheques.”

She said that she was continuing to seek “urgent clarity”, specifically on whether Scotland will be able to access furlough at 80% beyond November, which is when the scheme is available for England. Clarity was necessary for individuals across Scotland and also to allow her government, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, to plan, she said.

Updated

Welsh first minister say he will take PM 'at his word' on furlough funding

This is what Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, was saying about the furlough funding row on Twitter this morning.

Can Liverpool's mass-testing pilot provide a route back to normality?

Liverpool’s mass-testing pilot is undoubtedly a very significant development in the UK’s battle against the coronavirus. If it proves successful, it points to a potential way out of the draconian lockdown measures due to be introduced across England on Thursday. However, this enticing prize relies entirely on the UK’s ability to roll out rapid and widespread testing much more broadly and ideally nationwide.

Liverpool’s city leaders have for weeks been asking, both in private and in public, for increased testing capacity: they are concerned that the already huge number of positive cases in the city may only be the tip of the iceberg as they do not include infectious people who do not currently have symptoms.

From Friday, with the help of 2,000 army personnel, Liverpool will build up capacity to test nearly 500,000 residents every seven to 10 days. How many people will volunteer for a test is the first big question.

Joe Anderson, the Liverpool mayor, said he “realistically” expects 10,000 to 15,000 people a day – about 100,000 people a week – to come forward for a test but hopes it will be higher.

In Slovakia, which carried out a similar mass-testing programme, 1% of the country’s 3.6 million people over the age of nine were found to have Covid-19. The Office for National Statistics estimates a similar proportion of the UK population is currently infected. Anderson said he expects Liverpool’s positivity rate will be “not dissimilar,” meaning it would find 4,900 infected people if everyone eligible was tested.

The precise details for how the pilot will work are still being thrashed out. I understand that conversations between government officials and those in the city began on Friday, before being given the green light after conversations between Matt Hancock and Anderson on Saturday. The timing is intriguing. Clearly, ministers were eager to give the public – and restive Conservative Tory MPs – some promising news ahead of a Commons vote on England’s national lockdown on Wednesday.

Crucial to the pilot are the rapid lateral-flow tests that can use nose-and-mouth swabs or saliva and produce results in 15 minutes. These will make up the majority of the mass-testing programme, said Anderson, who hopes that they could provide a route to post-lockdown normality. He said:

Outside our hospitals, people will be able to get quickly tested so they know when they go in within 15 minutes that they’re clear.

Care homes, for instance, as well it will be helpful for people visiting somebody. It’s got loads of potential, even in the hospitality sector: if you want to have a wedding with 60 or 100 guests and previously you couldn’t, the wedding venue has all the staff tested to make sure they’re negative and your guests are tested as they arrive. The potential there to bring a little bit of normality back is crucial.

However, during the trial anyone who tests positive for coronavirus after taking a rapid lateral flow test will immediately be re-tested using a more reliable test, which will “within hours” produce a second result. This is to eliminate the risk of false positives; experts estimate that about 1 in 1,000 rapid lateral flow tests incorrectly produces a positive result, which is significantly higher than the more widely-used testing equipment.

Crucial, though, to the success of the pilot is people’s willingness to volunteer for a test. Anyone who tests positive are required by law to self-isolate for 10 days after displaying symptoms or, if they did not have symptoms, after the date of the test. Members of their household must currently self-isolate for 14 days; however the Guardian understands that this could be reduced to seven days as early as this week.

Currently, some on a low income are entitled to a one-off payment of £500 if they are unable to work from home and will lose out financially. Anderson said he sees no downside to the pilot taking place in his city, but he is pushing for those who test positive to be paid their full wages while self-isolating.

A man in a face mask walking past a statue of the Beatles in Liverpool.
A man in a face mask walking past a statue of the Beatles in Liverpool. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

'Clear as mud' - SNP criticises Treasury for not making firm commitment on furlough funding

Here is some SNP reaction to what the Treasury is saying about furlough funding. (See 1.19pm.)

From Alison Thewliss, the Treasury spokesperson in the Commons

From Stewart Hosie MP

From Joanna Cherry, the justice and home affairs spokesperson in the Commons:

Updated

No 10 says it will provide 'direct economic support' for devolved administration lockdowns

But at the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman said that the Treasury would provide “direct economic support” if the devolved administrations were having their own lockdowns.

The spokesman said:

The UK government has intervened in an unprecedented way to save nearly 1m jobs in Scotland during this pandemic. The Scottish government has also benefited from £7.2bn of additional support as a result of the UK government’s Barnett guarantee and furlough has always been a UK-wide scheme, and, as the PM has said, the government will always be there to provide support to all parts of the United Kingdom.

Asked if the reference to furlough being a UK-wide scheme meant that the Treasury would not fund a Wales or Scotland-only version in future, the spokesman said:

You heard what the PM said in the house yesterday. As the PM said, if other parts of the UK decide to go into measures which require direct economic support, of course we will make that available to them as we have done throughout the pandemic.

Asked why Robert Jenrick did not say this in his interviews this morning (see 9.26am), the spokesman said he had not seen Jenrick’s comments.

The devolved administrations are likely to be sceptical of this latest assurance because, as they went into their own versions of a firebreak lockdown earlier than England, they did not always get the economic support they wanted.

Updated

Treasury minister refuses to give firm commitment to extend furlough for devolved administrations if they need more lockdowns

Anyone who was hoping to get a clear answer from the Treasury as to whether it is willing to fully fund a furlough scheme in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland after 2 December, if England isn’t in lockdown, will be disappointed. Stephen Barclay, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has now been asked about this at least five times, and has refused to give a clear answer.

This is what he told the Welsh Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi when she asked about it.

We have already extended the furlough to the rest of this month and, as the PM said yesterday, we will always be there for all parts of the United Kingdom.

  • Treasury minister Stephen Barclay refuses to commit to extending furlough beyond November if devolved administrations need more lockdowns.

In one sense this is not surprising. The devolved administrations decide their own lockdown policies, because they are enforced via public health regulations which are devolved. But employment support is a UK-wide responsibility, furloughs are hugely expensive, and if the Treasury committed to always funding furlough for any devolved administration lockdown, it would be making an enormous, open-ended spending commitment.

But this is exactly what Boris Johnson implied he was doing yesterday. Ruth Davidson, the former Tory leader in Scotland, said he has promised that furlough would be “available to devolved administrations now and in the future”.

Barclay is making a general promise to be supportive. But that is not the same as a specific guarantee.

Stephen Barclay
Stephen Barclay. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

David Mundell, the former Conservative Scottish secretary, asks Barclay to confirm that if a further lockdown is needed in Scotland, furlough will be available.

Barclay says the government will always be there to support all parts of the United Kingdom.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP’s Treasury spokesman, says the late extension of furlough will be of no comfort to people who have already lost their jobs.

She says this episode has shown how this is not a union of equals. When Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland asked for an extension of furlough at 80% of wages, they were refused. But when England needed it, it was suddenly allowed.

She says the PM answered a question on this yesterday in a way designed to make Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, look good.

But what the PM said has been contradicted today by Robert Jenrick, she says. (See 9.26am.)

She asks if the Treasury will make furlough available at 80% to any part of the UK that needs it after 2 December.

Barclay says he was on a call with the Scottish first minister yesterday.

He says the government has listened, and introduced “for the first time an upfront Barnett guarantee” for the devolved administrations. That is unprecedented, he says.

He says he also told the first minister that a further uplift would be announced this week.

He says these are UK-wide schemes. They should be delivered “through the broad shoulders that the United Kingdom offers”.

More can be achieved if the Scottish and UK governments work together, he says.

Updated

Barclay is responding to Dodds.

He says Labour frontbenchers said, under their plan, a lockdown would have to be repeated.

And the deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, said at the time he was opposed to a lockdown, Barclay says.

He says the government has set out a comprehensive package of support to help businesses.

Dodds says the lockdown proposed by Labour three weeks ago would have been shorter and less damaging.

She says there has been a cost from the delay in lives and livelihoods.

So was Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, responsible for blocking an early lockdown?

(Reportedly Sunak was the leading cabinet minister most opposed to a lockdown.)

She says businesses cannot plan because they don’t know what will happen over the next six months.

Will the government set out a six-month plan?

Commons urgent question to Treasury on support for workers and firms

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is asking an urgent question about financial support for workers and firms during the lockdown.

Stephen Barclay, the chief secretary to the Treasury, is replying.

He says the PM explained yesterday why the lockdown was being announced.

The government must safeguard livelihoods as well as lives, he says.

He says the IMF has described the government’s support package as one of the best coordinated globally.

He summarises the support measures already announced.

He says the Barnett consequentials will be increased this week to give Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland greater certainty.

In her opening statement Nicola Sturgeon said there were signs that the rise in new cases was slowing down.

She said 999 new cases have been recorded today. A week ago today the figure was 1,327, and two weeks ago today the figure was 1,456.

This chart, from the Scottish government’s coronavirus dashboard, shows how the seven-day rolling average for new case numbers has been falling sharply.

Seven-day rolling average for new case numbers
Seven-day rolling average for new case numbers Photograph: Scottish government

Sturgeon says she welcomed what Boris Johnson seemed to be saying about furlough yesterday. (See 9.26am.) But she says the Treasury needs to clarify whether furlough would be available at 80% of wages beyond November.

She says there are some encouraging signs in the figures. The rate of increase of new cases is slowing, she says.

But the government cannot be complacent, she says.

She says the experts will try to establish this week whether case numbers are set to fall, or whether they are likely to plateau.

She says Scotland is in a different position to England because it pushed cases down to a very low number in the summer. When they started rising, they were rising from a lower baseline.

She says the government has to be confident not just that the situation is not deteriorating, but that it is improving considerably.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is opening her daily coronavirus briefing.

She says a further 999 coronavirus cases have been recorded.

There are 1,254 people in hospital with coronavirus, she says. That is an increase of 29 on yesterday. And there are 92 people in intensive care - one fewer than yesterday.

And there have been 28 further deaths, she says.

James Grundy, the MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester — Andy Burnham’s old seat and Labour for 114 years until December – has become the latest “red wall” Conservative to indicate he plans to vote against the government on the second national lockdown.

In a statement on Facebook, Grundy said:

Unless the targeted financial support put on the table for struggling small businesses and self employed people is significantly improved, and unless there is a clear timetable for the imminent rollout of a vaccine, then I will, with great regret, and great reluctance, be unable to support the government on this issue.

A rolling series of lockdowns might, and I stress, might, hold Covid-19 at bay for a few weeks, or months, as the last one did. Then again, it might not. It certainly will cause absolute devastation to every other part of our society though, and to the health of millions, both physically and mentally.

We must find a better way to deal with this crisis, a method that protects the health of the elderly and vulnerable, but does not reduce ordinary working people to penury and misery at the same time.

Updated

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, leaving the Foreign Office this morning after attending cabinet there.
Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, leaving the Foreign Office this morning after attending cabinet there.
 Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

As Sarah Boseley and Jessica Elgot report in our overnight story, up to half a million people in Liverpool are set to be tested for Covid-19 under the UK government’s first attempt to embark on city-wide mass testing and track down every case of the virus.

On the Today programme this morning Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and a government adviser on life sciences, came close to describing this as a game changer. He said

I hesitate to use the word game changer because it gets over used, but it is a significant step forward in the testing arena.

Church leaders back legal challenge against lockdown ban on communal worship

More than 70 leaders from different Christian traditions are backing a legal challenge against the lockdown ban on communal worship.

The church leaders have signed a pre-action letter organised by Christian Concern, a conservative faith-based organisation behind a string of legal cases citing freedom of religion in recent years. The letter says:

Our clients fully acknowledge the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic and the need for drastic precautions … However, such precautions may only be lawfully introduced by the churches themselves ... Our clients are gravely concerned about this infringement of the constitutional liberties of the church by the secular government.

There are growing signs that faith leaders are less ready to comply with restrictions on worship in the second national lockdown.

Christopher Chessun, the Anglican bishop of Southwark, has urged clergy and members of congregations to write to their MPs “questioning these restrictions”.

In a letter, he said:

The church is not a branch of the leisure or hospitality industries with a tap that can be turned on and off by politicians at will. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in Magna Carta and it is of the very essence of our common life that the liberties and freedoms of the people of this land extend to public worship.

The Catholic bishops of Leeds and Shrewsbury have called for churches to be allowed to stay open for worship, adding their voices to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic leader in England and Wales, who has also protested at the ban.

The Muslim Council of Britain has called for an urgent review of restrictions, criticising the government’s “inadequate consultation and poor engagement with faith communities”.

Sikhs are concerned about Bandi Chhor Divas and Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Gurpurab, two holidays in November when most Sikhs attend their Gurdwara. “It appears the government ignored the needs of the Sikh community,” said Bhai Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation (UK).

Worshippers at a Sunday morning service at the Christ Church Spitalfields in London.
Worshippers at a Sunday morning service at the Christ Church Spitalfields in London. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Updated

Excess deaths running at almost 30% in north-west of England, ONS says

Excess deaths in north-west England were three times as high as the rate in the rest of England and Wales in the week to 23 October, according to the latest figures from the ONS. (See 10.23am and 10.28am.)

Excess deaths measure the total number of deaths this year compared with the five-year-average. Across England and Wales, deaths were 10% above normal levels in the same week.

However, excess deaths were running at three times that rate in the north-west at 29.3%, by far the highest rate in the country.

The next-highest was in Yorkshire and the Humber at 17.6%. The south-west was the only region to register fewer deaths in the same week when compared with a typical year.

Excess deaths in regions of England and Wales
Excess deaths in regions of England and Wales in the week ending 23 October Photograph: ONS

Across England and Wales this was the highest level of excess deaths since early June, although far below the mid-April peak, when there were well over double the usual number of deaths registered in a one-week period.

The number of Covid deaths occurring week-by-week continues to double every fortnight according to the latest statistics from the ONS.

A total of 978 deaths registered in England and Wales mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate in the week to 23 October, up from 670 the previous week and more than double the 438 such deaths registered in the week to 9 October.

The proportion of the total number of deaths registrations mentioning Covid has also increased to 9.1%, the highest proportion since early June although still far below the 39% peak seen at the height of the first wave in mid-April.

Updated

Generally epidemiologists tend to support the planned lockdown in England. There were 27 scientists - all prominent experts - participating in the Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) meeting on 21 September that called for a circuit-breaker lockdown.

But scientists are not unanimous on this and this morning Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, and one of the more prominent lockdown-sceptics in the medical community, told the Today programme that he thought the current restrictions were working. He said:

Many of the measures are actually working as intended ...

What’s happening is we’ve got social distancing going on, we’ve got hand washing, we’ve got a test system. Now there’s a law of diminishing returns. But putting all those measures together, we are flattening the curve.

You cannot get rid of these viruses. You’ve seen how they’ve come up across the whole swathe of Europe at this time of year. But there’s no doubt we have been flattening the curve.

In some areas, like Liverpool, there have been outbreaks that have caused an impact on the NHS. So it’s been right for them to have some more measures. But any more measures beyond that now - again, the law of diminishing returns - are more likely now to create harm than benefit.

Heneghan said that he thought R, the reproduction number, was now below 1 in Liverpool.

The data in Liverpool is showing cases have come down by about half, admissions have now stabilised, so, yes, there is a problem in Liverpool.

But, actually, the tier restrictions ... the people in Liverpool have dropped cases from about 490 a day down to 260 a day - a significant drop.

The R value is well below one in Liverpool at this moment in time.

And he was particularly critical of one of the graphs shown at the No 10 press conference on Saturday night and used to justify the lockdown. (See below.) It showed that, according to one projection, deaths could reach 4,000 a day by the end of the year. But Heneghan said it should not have been shown because it was wrong. “Mathematically it is now proven to be incorrect, particularly the 4,000 estimate of deaths that would occur in September,” he told the programme.

Heneghan explains why he thinks that projection was flawed in more detail in a blog here.

Projections for coronavirus deaths
Projections for coronavirus deaths. Photograph: No 10

Updated

London mayor confirms GLA to move out of City Hall

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has confirmed the Greater London Authority (GLA) will leave its current City Hall home next year, situated next to Tower Bridge, in order to save the administration £61m over the next five years.

As PA Media reports, the decision, first suggested in June as part of a post-Covid budget cost-cutting exercise, will see the authority’s headquarters move east to the Crystal building in the Royal Docks.

Khan said:

My first priority will always be to protect funding for frontline services for Londoners.

Given our huge budget shortfall, and without the support we should be getting from the government, I simply cannot justify remaining at our current expensive office when I could be investing that money into public transport, the Met police and the London fire brigade.

The alternative to considering this move would be to cut the frontline services Londoners rely on.

City Hall, London.
City Hall, London. Photograph: Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Six Scottish church leaders have warned that proposals by Boris Johnson’s government which allow UK ministers to override policies in the devolved nations risked a constitutional crisis.

The leaders of Scotland’s main Presbyterian church, the Quakers, Methodists, the Catholic church and the Episcopalians said the Queen could be forced into authorising legislation which breaks international law if the UK government presses on with the current wording of the internal market bill.

It also puts the devolution settlement with Scotland under intense pressure, they said, because the bill will not get legislative consent from Holyrood and is opposed by a large majority of MSPs.

Their joint letter follows a warning from the UK’s four Anglican leaders, including the primus of the Scottish Episcopalian church, Bishop Mark Strange, last month that taking powers to override the Good Friday peace agreement with Ireland “has enormous moral, as well as political and legal, consequences. We believe this would create a disastrous precedent”.

The letter, signed by the Rt Rev Dr Martin Fair, moderator of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Most Rev Leo Cushley, the Catholic archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, the Rt Rev John Armes for the Scottish Episcopal church, the Rev Lindsey Sanderson of the United Reformed church, the Rev Mark Slaney, district chair of the Methodists in Scotland, and Adwoa Bittle of the Religious Society of Friends, said they had met religious leaders in the north and south of Ireland:

Our brothers and sisters are deeply dismayed to think that so much of what has been done to heal the scars of past division will be torn apart by the re-establishing of frontiers. We wish to stand with them in their opposition to these divisive steps.

[We also] have deep reservations that the United Kingdom parliament might pass a bill for royal assent that would place Her Majesty the Queen in the difficult position of having to sign legislation which breaks international law.

Updated

Boris Johnson (right) leaving No 10 this morning to chair cabinet in the Foreign Office.
Boris Johnson (right) leaving No 10 this morning to chair cabinet in the Foreign Office. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Police in Scotland handed out more than 300 fines and arrested 24 people over the weekend after a torrent of complaints from across the country about illegal gatherings and noise.

Police Scotland said they took more than 3,000 calls about nuisance, noise and disturbance between Friday 30 October and Sunday 1 November, leading to its officers breaking up more than 300 illegal gatherings, including house parties.

The incidents included more than 100 people enjoying a house party in Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, with a 48-seat “party bus” parked outside.

A man, 46, was charged with breaching coronavirus regulations and given a fixed penalty notice; the party organiser, a 33-year-old man, was charged with culpable and reckless conduct, while the bus driver was also given a fine.

In Glasgow, police fined 64 people, and a man, 26, was charged with with culpable and reckless conduct following reports of an illegal Halloween party at a warehouse in Hyde Park Street. In Edinburgh’s New Town, 30 students were given fixed-penalty notices after police raided a house party early on Sunday morning.

The incidents mirror a surge in callouts and arrests in Scotland since the police were given new powers in late August to break up gatherings breaking coronavirus restriction rules, suggesting compliance with the tougher rules is less than publicly acknowledged.

After putting in a freedom of information request, BBC Scotland was told by Police Scotland last week they attended 3,052 illegal gatherings between 28 August and 14 October, issuing more than 420 fines and arresting 83 people.

The BBC said a third of these cases arose after Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, announced new restrictions across central Scotland on 23 September.

Updated

The ONS has also been tweeting about today’s death figures for England and Wales.

The ONS website has been having problems this morning, but today’s weekly report on deaths in England and Wales is here (pdf), on its backup website.

Covid deaths in England and Wales up to 978 in third week of October, up 46% on previous week

A total of 978 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending October 23 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

PA Media reports that this is the highest number of deaths involving Covid-19 since the week ending 12 June. It is up from 670 deaths in the week to 16 October - a jump of 46%.

Updated

And Michael Gove is not the only cabinet minister uncertain about the lockdown rules for England. (See 9.40am.) As Sky’s Rob Powell reports, Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, also made a mistake in an interview with the BBC. He initially said that a whole household could go for a walk with one person from another household during the lockdown, before correcting himself. It is only one person who can meet someone from another household outdoors, excluding young children.

If you are a cabinet minister about to go on TV, or anyone else who needs to check the rules, you can find them here.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has apologised after wrongly telling constituents in a Q&A last night that people would be able to play golf and tennis during the lockdown in England. That’s wrong; golf and tennis won’t be allowed, he now says.

Speaking immediately after Robert Jenrick’s Sky News interview this morning (see 9.26am), Scotland’s finance minister, Kate Forbes, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland that the issue had been “a shambles from the beginning”. She said:

This is not a game. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Jobs depend on this. We need simple reassurance that Scottish businesses will be treated with the same degree of respect and valued by the chancellor if or when we are faced with a similar national lockdown or any part of Scotland goes into tier 4.

Kate Forbes in the Scottish parliament.
Kate Forbes in the Scottish parliament. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Updated

Johnson faces SNP anger after government appears to backtrack on furlough offer

Good morning. Yesterday, during his marathon Commons statement, Boris Johnson appeared to make a significant promise to Scotland; he suggested that the Treasury would fund a furlough scheme for Scotland after November if it needed one because it was back in lockdown, even if England by then wasn’t. Johnson’s words weren’t 100% clear, but in the Scottish media (see here, or here, or here) they were taken as a firm statement of intent.

But this morning (and not for the first time) a Johnson promise is starting to look rather hollow. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, was doing the morning broadcast round for No 10 and, when asked if the PM’s comment meant that Scotland would be able to run its own furlough scheme beyond November if it needed to, he just said that furlough would continue as a UK-wide scheme until 2 December, and that what happened after that would be a decision for the chancellor.

On Sky News Kay Burley pressed Jenrick four times on this. But he kept giving the same answer (or non-answer).

Until now the furlough scheme has operated as a UK-wide scheme. But Scotland is now on a different lockdown cycle to England - Nicola Sturgeon introduced her own version of a firebreak on Friday 9 October, almost a month before the English lockdown is starting - and the Scottish government wants to know that it will be able to access the furlough scheme if it needs another lockdown later. Sturgeon has also been more cautious about opening up the economy than Johnson, at one point in the autumn suggesting she would have made restrictions even tougher if she could finance better support for workers (ie, a furlough scheme).

Of course, the issue affects all the devolved administrations. Wales and Northern Ireland are also on different lockdown cycles to England.

After Jenrick’s interview Sturgeon posted this on Twitter.

We will hear more later, because there is a UQ covering this in the Commons.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.

12pm: Downing Street is due to hold its daily lobby briefing.

12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is expected to hold her regular coronavirus briefing.

12.15pm: Dr Andrew Goodall, chief executive of NHS Wales, gives a briefing on the coronavirus situation in Wales.

12.30pm: A Treasury minister responds to a Labour urgent question about economic support for workers and businesses during lockdown.

2.30pm: Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, give evidence go the Commons science committee as part of its inquiry into “UK science, research and technology capability and influence in global disease outbreaks”.

5pm: Dido Harding, head of NHS test and trace, speaks to the CBI conference.

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.

Updated

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