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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Mattha Busby (now); Amy Walker (earlier)

UK coronavirus live news: Hancock says no change to exercise rules as Calderwood steps down from daily briefings – as it happened

We’ll be closing our UK live blog shortly – you can join my colleague Clea Skopeliti for all the global coronavirus developments. Thanks for reading, and take care.

Updated

Evening summary

  • The UK coronavirus death toll rose by 621, a slight fall on yesterday when 708 people were confirmed to have died from Covid over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of victims to 4,934
  • The number of new people tested daily in the UK for coronavirus returned to above 10,000, according to Department of Health figures. A total of 12,334 new people were reported as being tested in the 24 hours up until 9am today.
  • Health secretary Matt Hancock said he could not provide an exact figure on how many more ventilators the NHS could have in place over the next week in the daily press conference but earlier this morning he told Andrew Marr that “there should be another 1,500” in a week’s time.
  • He implored people not to flout the coronavirus lockdown rules despite the warm weather and he confirmed that sunbathing was against the rules. He said that if people flout them “we might have to take further action”.
  • Scotland’s chief medical officer is withdrawing from daily media briefings during the coronavirus pandemic, after it emerged she had twice visited her family’s second home in Fife – prompting a police warning. Scottish government adverts are being shown on television this weekend where Calderwood says: “To help save lives, stay at home.” These are being edited to remove her.
  • Labour will ask the government “difficult questions” amid the coronavirus pandemic, newly-elected leader, Keir Starmer said, adding that the UK had been slow to begin testing and that equipment for health care workers on the frontline was lacking.
  • However, Starmer said he would seek to engage with the government constructively and that he would support the government if they were to ban outdoor exercise due to some people flouting lockdown rules.
  • Matt Hancock should have stayed home for longer than seven days after contracting Covid-19, Labour’s newly-elected deputy leader Angela Rayner said. The government’s guidelines state that if you have symptoms of coronavirus, you need to self-isolate at home for seven days or for as long as you still have a high temperature, but the World Health Organisation has recommended people self-quarantine for a fortnight.
  • John Alagos, a 27-year-old nurse at Watford general hospital, died on Friday following a 12-hour night shift after complaining of suffering a headache and high temperature upon his return home. His mother, Gina Gustilo told the Mail on Sunday that her son had not been wearing full personal protective equipment despite treating coronavirus patients.
  • The owner of London’s ExCel centre, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company, has said it will no longer charge the NHS to use the site for the temporary Nightingale hospital. ExCel chief executive Jeremy Rees told the BBC an initial agreement with the NHS to had “included a contribution to some fixed costs”. But following reports, he said: “We have since decided to cover the fixed costs ourselves.”

Updated

The Foreign Office’s efforts to repatriate British nationals stranded in India continue to draw criticism even after it announced seven charter flights for next week.

The flights leave from Mumbai, Goa and Delhi but the cost of £600 for a one way journey and the lack of information on flights from other airports, particularly in Punjab, have frustrated those stranded.

The high commissioner Jan Thompson said these were the “first round of charter flights” and would go from Goa to Stansted on 8, 10 and 12 April; from Mumbai to Heathrow on 9 and 11 of April and Delhi to Heathrow on 9 and 11 April.

There has been criticism over the high prices, an issue that appears to have heightened existing exasperation over the UK’s failure to send charter flights earlier like other countries including Germany which has repatriated 42,000 of its citizens around the world.

Another said it was “absolutely appalling that those stranded in Punjab were not told sooner they would not be included in the first phase of repatriations”.

Thompson said in response that the Foreign Office was “looking to arrange flights for British nationals from other locations”.

Public Health England said 11,085 tests for coronavirus were carried out on 8,651 people on Saturday in England. A tweet by the Department of Health added that PHE gave the testing capacity for inpatient care in England as 12,799 tests per day.

The announcement comes after a total of 12,334 new people were reported as being tested in the 24 hours up until 9am today. The equivalent figure for yesterday had slipped below 10,000, having previously been above 10,000 for two days in a row (see 3.07pm).

Updated

Here are some further full lines from the presser.

When asked if people are safe to visit family if they have been following the social distancing guidelines correctly, Hancock said uncertainty over how the disease is spread means they should not.

This virus can spread in all sorts of different ways, both from directly respiratory and also through objects and through touching objects that others then touch - the uncertainty over who has it, especially before they have symptoms, means that the only effective way of bending the curve down is to reduce that social contact.

That’s why we came to the conclusions we did, difficult conclusions, that we have to have such extraordinary social distancing policies in place and why we took the decision more than a week ago now to flip the basis of those rules from saying you can’t do certain things to saying you must stay at home unless you’re doing one of a small number of things.

Harries said there is an important distinction between the terms “family” and “household”.

Previously you might have had four or five students living in a flat under one roof, sharing cooking, bathrooms, all sorts of things - that in infection control terms of things is a household. If your family lives in a different town, they are an entirely different household and mixing those two is not what we want to do generally. Stay with the people you live under the same roof with and keep doing that for as long as you can.”

Hancock appears to contradict himself over ventilator figures

During the press conference, health secretary Matt Hancock said he could not provide an exact figure on how many more ventilators the NHS could have in place over the next week.

But this morning he told Andrew Marr that “there should be another 1,500” in a week’s time.

He told the Downing St briefing:

The production from domestic manufacturers is starting to come on stream. The key goal is to always keep the amount of critical care beds - which nearly all need ventilators - above the demand.

We haven’t got an exact figure for how many we will deliver next week not least because when we bring them in from abroad there are risks to the timing.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he said:

We need to make sure we have more ventilators than there are people who need ventilation. At the moment we have between 9,000 and 10,000 ventilators within the NHS right now and we have the 2,000 spare that are critical care beds with ventilator capacity should people need to come into them and we’re ramping that up. The answer is that our goal, instead of the 30,000, is that we need 18,000 ventilators over the coming two weeks.”

Asked how many there will be in a week’s time, he said: “There should be another 1,500.”

The government had already appeared to revise down its 30,000 target for ventilators.

Scottish CMO to be withdrawn from media briefings

Scotland’s chief medical officer is withdrawing from daily media briefings during the coronavirus pandemic, after it emerged she had twice visited her family’s second home in Fife.

Dr Calderwood will remain in the post and continue advising the Scottish Government, but the current advertising campaign which features her will now be revised, according to first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

In a statement after Sunday’s excruciating briefing, Sturgeon said:

I am acutely aware of the importance of public trust in the advice the government is giving to stay at home in order to save lives and protect our NHS.

To maintain that trust we will be revising our public information campaign and the chief medical officer will be withdrawing from media briefings for the foreseeable future. She will continue to provide the Scottish government with the scientific and medical advice on the spread of coronavirus.

Updated

Although he raised the possibility of an extension of the lockdown earlier today, Hancock said the government is not looking at tightening the rules on exercising outdoors.

“What we are doing is being absolutely clear that the current rules must be followed,” he said.

He said the rules are designed to include exercise to protect people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

Harries said:

It is not just what you are doing but how you are doing it. If you are sitting on a park bench, people tend to accumulate - it is very difficult to prevent that.

Having rules where we are getting all of the benefits and minimising the risks and harms is an important approach to maintain. We have set those rules, we are enforcing against those rules and we will reiterate those rules, because that is the best way to be able to bend the curve down and stop the spread of the virus.

At the beginning of the news conference which was not broadcast due to a malfunction, Hancock said he offered his “profound sympathies” to the families and friends of those who have died.

He added: “I’ve lost two people that I was fond of so I understand what a difficult time this is for the country.”

Harries said that transport use in the UK had been down since February but needed to be sustained.

The first slide [showing transport use] probably hasn’t changed much but that is really good news. What is shows is that our transport use is down and remains down since early March, beginning back in February as well and we’re managing to sustain that.

As the secretary of state has said it’s really important that we continue to do that despite the good weather so thank you to the members of the public that have observed that and please ensure that we keep moving in that direction.

On the number of lab test reported cases, Harries emphasised the need for caution.

You will be aware that our capacity is increasing all the time on laboratory tests. So we need to interpret this with a little bit of caution.

We are following to a certain degree an epidemic curve and we can see the rise and we will of course in due course be looking to see that level off, but you will notice that over the last 24 hours or so there is an apparent big surge there.

We just need to keep in mind that we need to watch for a trend over time because as our testing capacity increases, inevitably we will find more cases.

Asked if he would have asked for Calderwood’s resignation after she twice visited her coastal second home over the past two weekends, Hancock says it is a matter for the Scottish government. And the press conference concludes.

Updated

Hancock says that even for “those of who have had it”, it is unclear to what extent those who have contracted coronavirus can transmit the virus.

He says there are scientific predictions showing their ability to transmit the virus is lower and their immunity is higher, but the science is not yet definitive.

Hancock says the virus can spread in all sorts of different ways and that the uncertainty over who has it – especially before they have symptoms – means that the only way to reduce the number of people contracting it is strict social distancing.

Harries says people have intermixed the terms family and household. She says it is important for people to remember it is a household isolation policy, not a family one – though people’s households may comprise their family.

Mixing those two is not what we would like to do, generally, she says – remaining slightly equivocal.

She refuses to speculate on the true scale of coronavirus in the UK and acknowledges other countries are ahead in assessing the extent of the pandemic nationally.

Harries says it is unclear how the disease outbreak has affected our immunity and says it is important to discover.

She says different interventions could come in response to emerging regional data.

The government has bought 3.5m finger-prick antibody tests.

Asked if the government is going to take equity stakes in any companies hit by the outbreak, Hancock says this is an area where Rishi Sunak has been doing incredible work.

He declines to comment on whether Virgin Care would be in line for this help, after Jim Pickard from the FT noted that it has sued the NHS and its owner Richard Branson is a tax exile.

Asked about the Queen’s espousal of the nation’s self-discipline, Hancock says we need perseverance in the face of some great challenges, adding that people need to stay at home unless they are going out for any of four reasons.

On mass testing, Harries says not everybody in particular care homes and prisons, for example, would be tested but those prioritised key workers have been tested where there have been outbreaks.

Matt Hancock answering questions from the media via a video link during a media briefing in Downing Street.
Matt Hancock answering questions from the media via a video link during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photograph: Pippa Fowles/Crown Copyright/10 Downing Street/PA

Updated

On whether higher levels of protection should have been in place, amid growing reports of health care workers dying, Hancock muses on whether we are doing the right thing now.

You can have a debate about the past, he says, but the previous guidance was based on the previous information that was available.

Harries says the guidance has been reviewed to ensure clinicians feel safe.

Asked whether people in hospitals with immunosuppressed conditions should be concerned due to doctors having a lack of protective equipment, Hancock says guidance has been updated in line with the emerging science.

Harries appears to acknowledge that the previous guidance was not in line with the WHO guidance and that doctors need to be prepared for changing circumstances.

Updated

Hancock says there are adequate supplies of oxygen in hospitals following reports to the contrary.

He recognises an equipment failure led to the diversion of some ambulances, but this was not uncommon.

Harries says the public should not be concerned since there was no insufficiency of oxygen.

Updated

Daily press conference under way

The press conference with health secretary Matt Hancock and deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries is underway.

Updated

Campaigners have questioned the safety of pregnant women travelling by ferry from Northern Ireland for abortions amid the coronavirus pandemic as the services remain unavailable in the nation despite the law change in October.

At the time, it was reported that women would continue to travel to England for medical terminations until March – but that period appears to have been extended.

Here are some clips from earlier’s remarkable press conference in Scotland as we await the daily Downing St briefing.

A man has been arrested after a woman was stabbed in the face in a domestic incident, and police have urged victims of domestic abuse not to remain silent during the lockdown.

Merseyside Police repeated advice for victims of domestic abuse during the coronavirus lockdown after officers were called to a home in Rainhill, Merseyside, just before 11pm on Saturday following reports of an argument involving the two occupants.

A force spokesman said a 44-year-old woman had been stabbed in the face twice, causing injuries above her left eyebrow, and was taken to hospital for treatment. She was later released.

A 47-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of wounding. Two children are being looked after by family members following the incident, police said.

Det Ch Insp Steve Reardon said:

Earlier this week we reminded people about the silent call 999 system for vulnerable people living in our communities, including those who suffer from domestic abuse. We completely understand that victims of domestic abuse could be feeling more vulnerable during the current situation we all find ourselves in, but my message to them is please don’t suffer in silence.

If you need our help call us and if you can’t make a call as you would ordinarily do, please use the silent call option available to you. Silent call is a part of the 999 system which allows for people who are not free to speak, but are able to make a noise, to press 55, which alerts the BT operator to the fact that you need help, and they can then connect the call to the police.

The system enables all 999 callers to access support in the manner described, it is important that a noise is made when 55 has been pressed. For example if you can only make noise, such as tapping the handset, coughing, crying or even talking to the offender, then these actions will alert the attention of the BT operator.

There are growing calls from within the NHS to urgently ramp up staff testing to tackle growing absence from work.

NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said:

We have welcomed the commitment to significantly increase testing for NHS staff, but we are now at the point where we urgently need this to be ramped up and operating at full capacity.

Snapshot surveys indicating high staff sickness and self isolation rates reflect what we’re hearing day in day out from trust leaders – that trying to cope with record levels of demand with record levels of absence is really difficult. More wide-scale staff testing to confirm whether self isolating staff have COVID-19 cannot come quickly enough.

Trusts have rapidly put in place staff testing facilities and they are trying to grow the testing capacity they control as fast as possible. But we know there is still a shortage of swabs, reagents and kits and this urgently needs to be resolved.

The lack of testing is affecting frontline staff not just in hospitals, but those who are working in community, mental health and ambulance services. Staff testing is vital to ensure staff in whatever role can get back to work as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, plans to ensure oxygen supplies for critically ill patients are afoot.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said:

The NHS has known for over six weeks that treating COVID-19 requires high levels of ventilation support and accompanying oxygen. We’ve therefore been preparing accordingly. Trusts have been working closely with national NHS leaders and oxygen suppliers to ensure hospitals have enough oxygen supply.

They’ve also been working with oxygen system engineers to ensure they have the right piping and ducting to carry oxygen to all the required beds including newly created critical care capacity. There is a particular challenge here given that trusts are currently using unprecedented levels of ventilators and oxygen at the same time. This can put a much higher level of pressure on a hospital’s central oxygen supply system than usual, potentially overloading it.

We can’t comment on individual incidents but a hospital will declare a critical incident if it can’t take any more patients or if it is suffering a serious incident like a fire. At that point a well prepared and frequently rehearsed critical incident plan will kick in. Patients will diverted to other hospitals and, if need be, existing patients will be transferred to other hospitals as well. This is another good example of the benefits of having a National Health Service where trusts are used to helping each other out if they encounter serious problems.”

Turning to party politics briefly, Ian Lavery and Barry Gardiner are to leave the shadow cabinet. Gardiner has said new leader Keir Starmer contacted him to “stand him down”, while it is currently unclear whether Lavery left of his own accord.

The owner of London’s ExCel centre, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company, has said it will no longer charge the NHS to use the site for the temporary Nightingale hospital.

ExCel chief executive Jeremy Rees told the BBC an initial agreement with the NHS to had “included a contribution to some fixed costs”.

But he said: “We have since decided to cover the fixed costs ourselves.”

The Sunday Times reported that the centre, which is owned by ADNEC, was charging the NHS between £2m and £3m in rent to use the east London site.

Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, managing director and group chief executive of ADNEC, said:

To be clear, profit has always been the furthest thing from our minds. It is our firm commitment that we will not charge a penny for the use of our facilities, and we will provide the NHS with the operational and logistical support it needs for NHS Nightingale London.

The ExCeL’s decision to charge the NHS was in contrast to the NEC in Birmingham, owned by the American private equity giant Blackstone, which is reportedly providing the venue for free.

Updated

Wayne Rooney has criticised the government and Premier League for putting Britain’s top-flight footballers in a “no-win situation” over the issue of pay cuts, with Gary Lineker and Gary Neville also speaking out.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Rooney claimed his fellow professionals were being lined up as “easy targets” in the wider response to the coronavirus crisis, and branded government criticism of players “a disgrace”.

The Premier League’s proposed 30% wage cut or deferral strategy for players was discussed in a conference call with the PFA and the League Managers Association on Saturday. The players’ union later issued a statement suggesting such a move could result in a £200m tax deficit.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, led calls for Premier League footballers to accept pay cuts, insisting players should “play their part” by reducing their ­lucrative salaries.

In response, Rooney said he is willing and able to make significant financial contributions, but felt the public pressure being exerted on players was unhelpful.

If the government approached me to help support nurses financially or buy ventilators I’d be proud to do so, as long as I knew where the money was going. I’m in a position where I could give something up. Not every footballer is in the same position.

Yet suddenly the whole profession has been put on the spot with a demand for 30% pay cuts across the board. Why are footballers suddenly the scapegoats? How the past few days have played out is a disgrace.

He [Hancock] was supposed to be giving the nation the latest on the biggest crisis we’ve faced in our lifetimes. Why was the pay of footballers even in his head? Was he desperate to divert attention from his government’s handling of this pandemic?

Gary Lineker has also said it is unfair to single out high-earning athletes but expressed confidence that action was imminent, citing recent conversations with players.

“Why not call on all the wealthy to try and help if they possibly can rather than just pick on footballers?” Lineker said during an appearance on Andrew Marr’s BBC One programme. “Nobody seems to talk about the bankers, the CEOs, huge millionaires. Are they standing up? Are they being asked to stand up? We don’t know.”

Lineker was critical of top-flight clubs, including l Liverpool and Tottenham, who have furloughed non-playing staff using the safety net of the Government’s job retention scheme.

“That’s a different matter entirely,” Lineker said. “The big clubs, you’d have thought, would have been savvy enough to perhaps try to help more of their workers when players are earning so much money.”

In a statement issued by the Scottish government’s national clinical director (see 12.32pm), it was suggested that the chief medical officer merely went to check on her second home this weekend with her family.

Now Catherine Calderwood has admitted she also went there last weekend, questions are being raised over how often must one check on their second home.

Sturgeon did not provide her absolute backing to Calderwood future in the barnstorming press conference. She said Calderwood had offered to do whatever is in the best interest of the country. “In my view, that would not be her resignation,” she said.

Updated

Politicians have criticised the provision of personal protective equipment after a care home worker in Scotland with suspected Covid-19 died.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said access to protective clothing and equipment for health and social care staff is a “problem across Scotland” and called on the Scottish government to take urgent action.

Baillie, who represents Dumbarton, said:

In this time of crisis, we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to those heroic health and care workers who risk their lives daily to care for and treat those in need. This very sad news will come as a great blow to the family and to my local community. My thoughts are with them and I share in their grief.

It is clear that access to protective clothing and equipment for health and social care staff is a problem across Scotland. Supplies are rationed because there is simply not enough and the strategy appears to be determined by that shortage of supply, rather than what health guidance dictates. This is simply not good enough and is putting lives at risk. The Scottish government must act urgently to protect our brave frontline workers. It is our duty to do so.”

Hazel Nolan, from the GMB union, said advice and guidance to home care workers had been resource-led, not science-led.

Not everyone is ignoring the government guidelines, according to the Guardian’s Miles Brignall.

This was the A1 in Hertfordshire at midday today. Not a car in sight. It was junction nine, for any motorway nerds.

An empty A1.
An empty A1. Photograph: Handout

The number of new people tested daily in the UK for coronavirus is back above 10,000, today’s figures from the Department of Health show.

A total of 12,334 new people were reported as being tested in the 24 hours up until 9am today.

The equivalent figure for yesterday had slipped below 10,000, having previously been above 10,000 for two days in a row.

On Thursday, Matt Hancock set out a goal of moving from 10,000 tests a day to 100,000 by the end of April. This would include swab testing in Public Health England and NHS labs, using commercial partners including universities and private businesses, and introducing antibody blood tests.

The total number of people in the UK tested since the outbreak began - 195,524 - is the equivalent of around 293 people in every 100,000, or 0.3% of the population.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has taken 15 days to go from just over 5,000 – 5,018 as of 9am March 21 – to nearly 50,000 – 47,806 as of 9am April 5.

Sturgeon would not be drawn on whether the CMO has put at risk the wellbeing of those who have been following the government’s stay-at-home guidance and could be prevented from exercising under measures threatened by the health secretary earlier today due to people allegedly flouting existing rules.

Updated

Asked why Calderwood has received a warning while people have received fines for sitting in their cars, Sturgeon said it is not a case of one rule for some and one rule for others, but that she cannot speak for the police.

Calderwood said she is “truly sorry” for not adhering to coronavirus guidelines by visiting her second home, adding she had “no excuses” for “not following the advice she has been giving to others”.

She said she cannot justify her actions and can only apologise unreservedly.

People make mistakes, according to Sturgeon.

The chief medical officer made a mistake in travelling away from her home. Whatever her reasons for doing so it was wrong and she knows that.

All of us, including me, will make mistakes in these unprecedented times we are living in. When we do we must be candid about it and learn from it.

She said Calderwood is learning from her error and that her advice and expertise during the pandemic has been invaluable. Sturgeon said any loss of this expertise would damage the government.

Updated

Scotland's chief medical officer also visited second home last weekend

The chief medical officer for Scotland has revealed that she was also at her holiday home in Fife last weekend. Seemingly in response to calls for her resignation, she said she would continue to concentrate on her job.

Updated

Two more deaths in Scotland as Sturgeon warns true figure would be higher

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said two more people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Scotland, bringing the total deaths there to 220.

Sturgeon said this figure, up from 218 on Saturday, should not be taken as being “truly representative” of the number of deaths, as the way Covid-19 deaths are being notified is changing. She said the figure is “likely to be artificially low”.

Updated

An NHS nurse has made an emotional appeal to the public to observe lockdown measures. In a video filmed between two ICU shifts, Shirley Watts said the coronavirus crisis had left the NHS “on our knees”.

UK death toll rises by 621

A total of 4,934 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Saturday, the Department of Health has said.

That is an increase of 621 from 4,313 yesterday when there were 708 new deaths confirmed in the UK – the largest 24-hour increase since the outbreak began.

As of 9am on Sunday, a total of 195,524 people have been tested for Covid, 47,806 of whom tested positive, according to the Department of Health.

Updated

As my colleagues reported yesterday, the NHS England figures – which make up the bulk of UK deaths – reflect the day on which the death was reported, not the actual date of death, which is usually days, sometimes weeks, before it appears in the figures.

Updated

Wales coronavirus deaths rise by 12

Public Health Wales has said 12 more people who had tested positive for Covid-19 have died, taking the total number of deaths in Wales to 166.

Updated

555 more deaths in England after Covid diagnoses

The total number of confirmed deaths of people who tested positive for coronavirus in hospitals in England has risen to 4,494, NHS England has said, an increase of 555.

The patients were aged between 33 years and 103 years old and 29 of them were aged between 35 and 95 years old and had no known underlying health conditions, according to NHS England.

The patients were from the following regions:

  • East of England 40
  • London 174
  • Midlands 74
  • North East & Yorkshire 103
  • North West 47
  • South East 81
  • South West 36

The daily update on UK coronavirus cases will be released later on Sunday, the Department of Health said.

Updated

Another seven coronavirus deaths in Northern Ireland

The number of people who have died in Northern Ireland after contracting coronavirus has risen by seven to 63, health officials have said.

Tests have confirmed a further 91 positive cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the region to 1,089, though the true total is almost certainly much higher.

We should have statistics for the rest of the UK shortly.

Updated

The Observer’s Nosheen Iqbal has been speaking with the volunteers delivering food to people’s homes.

Keir Starmer has received a briefing from senior government officials on the coronavirus pandemic.

A spokesman for the new Labour leader said:

This afternoon Keir Starmer was briefed over the phone by senior government officials about the coronavirus pandemic. During the call, the Labour leader reiterated his commitment to work constructively with the government in the national interest.

Cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill, chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance were on the call.

A investment management firm founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, has been accused of profiteering from the coronavirus crisis.

The MP reportedly owns 15% of Somerset Capital Management (SCM) and amidst the economic disruption caused by coronavirus it is believed that the company has been investing in businesses whose values have fallen but are expected to rally.

First reported by the Sunday Mirror, the business’ fund manager Mark Asquith said in a piece of promotional material for investors:

History has shown us that super normal returns can be made during this type of environment. Market dislocations of this magnitude happen rarely, perhaps once or twice in a generation, and have historically provided excellent entry points for investors.

Strategies such as those believed to have been employed by SCM are not uncommon but new Labour leader Keir Starmer said “nobody should be seeking to take advantage of this crisis”.

Prof David Oliver, an NHS consultant physician, has said that there is a “constant anxiety” among healthcare workers that they could become infected. He told the BBC:

Its widely acknowledged that we could have been quicker to provide [protective] equipment to frontline staff. And also the advice has changed two or three times. My perception now is we do have regularly updated and very clear guidance.

We’re telling everybody else stay at home and don’t mingle. But its the nature of our work that we have to come into buildings every day and come into contact with clinical colleagues and we don’t know what members of the team have already been infected.

Scottish CMO warned by police after flouting her own guidance

Police have visited Scotland’s chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood and issued her with a warning after she visited her second home.

Scotland’s chief constable Iain Livingstone said in a statement:

Earlier today, local officers visited Dr Catherine Calderwood and spoke to her about her actions, reiterated crucial advice and issued a warning about her future conduct, all of which she accepted. The legal instructions on not leaving your home without a reasonable excuse apply to everyone.

Updated

The former boss of the McLaren Formula One team, businessman Ron Dennis, has launched an initiative to provide one million free meals to frontline NHS workers.

He said he co-founded SalutetheNHS.org to feed thousands of hospital staff because he was “in awe” of their work to save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a time when all of us, individuals and businesses alike, need to stand up and be counted in the effort to combat Covid-19. We’re all in this together. I am delighted to be leading this initiative to help ensure that vital NHS workers have nutritious meals while they work every hour in this fight. It means they have one less thing to worry about.

The Dennis family is donating £1m through their charity foundation Dreamchasing, alongside 500,000 in match-funding. Tesco will donate food for the meals and the initiative is supported by catering group Absolute Taste and delivery service Yodel.

Meals will be made available, for free, to ICU teams, anaesthetic teams and A&E staff who are unable to leave their clinical areas during their 12-hour shifts.

Deliveries will start at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford tomorrow and at London children’s hospital Great Ormond Street the following week, before being rolled out to Government-targeted locations.

Thousands of casual workers at some of English football’s biggest stadiums have been left unpaid during the Covid-19 shutdown, the Guardian understands.

A number of employees from Delaware North – which provides catering and hospitality services at venues such as the Emirates Stadium, London Stadium, Wembley, Craven Cottage and the Ricoh Arena – have contacted the Guardian after seeing booked shifts cancelled and receiving no payments since the Premier League season halted last month.

Some of the workers, who are on zero-hour or casual arrangements, feel increasingly desperate. The casual workers complain the company has told them there are no shifts for them because of the impact of Covid-19 and that it is trying to establish whether they are eligible to be furloughed under the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme.

A long-standing casual employee at one of the venues told the Guardian that they work there for up to five days a week but saw that income stream removed as soon as the season was paused. They said they had received no payment for the shifts they had committed to.

Lord Bath of Longleat has died aged 87 after testing positive for coronavirus.

Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquess of Bath, died on Saturday after being admitted to the Royal United Hospital in Bath on March 28. During his time there, it was confirmed that he had Covid-19.

Longleat Safari Park confirmed the news in a Facebook post on Sunday, expressing their “deepest sadness” at Lord Bath’s death.

The family would like to express their great appreciation for the dedicated team of nurses, doctors and other staff who cared so professionally and compassionately for Alexander in these extremely difficult times for everyone. They would politely request a period of privacy to deal with their loss.

Lord Bath in front of Longleat House in Wiltshire in 2006.
Lord Bath in front of Longleat House in Wiltshire in 2006. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA

Aspects of our national life are suddenly in the foreground – from the NHS, through all those low-paid key workers, to spontaneous community initiatives that transcend most of the social divides we were told were insurmountable, writes the Guardian’s John Harris.

If the Conservatives cannot turn them into a national story, someone else should at least try – not for immediate electoral gain, but for two other reasons. In the short-term, it could help many of us to get out of bed every morning and face the day. Looking further ahead, it might start to map out what kind of country we might become when the horrors of the coronavirus begin to recede.

On the evidence of the past few months, Starmer may be too bloodless and cautious a politician to pull this off. Maybe his remainer convictions, and widespread mistrust of his party, will deny him a big enough audience. But in the speech released as his victory was announced, there were at least hints of what the moment requires: the elegant recognition that in the midst of the crisis, “too many will have given too much” and “some of us will have lost too much”; the unanswerable claim that “we know, in our hearts, [that] things are going to have to change.”

There are reports of children arriving at hospitals with illnesses at more advanced stages than they usually would be at the point of admission, according to the UK’s child health professional body.

The president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Russell Viner, has privately contacted the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, to urge for an immediate change in the government’s public information strategy as parents appear reluctant or afraid to go to hospital with their children, OpenDemocracy reported.

With vast green spaces such as Victoria Park in London now closed, people are taking to smaller parks to exercise. But why not turn golf courses into exercising spots to allow people to more easily socially distance?

The volume of calls to the NHS 111 helpline has surged by 400% since the spread of the coronavirus became a national health crisis.

The free service, which offers urgent but non-emergency care advice, has been inundated with calls from Britons since the start of March when the virus took hold.

Vodafone, which provides the lines and handles the call traffic for the NHS 111 call centre, said it had doubled capacity to handle 2,400 calls simultaneously.

The call centre has experienced huge surges in the number of calls, hitting a peak of 1,100 simultaneously at one point – four times more than the peaks before the health emergency. Daily peaks vary widely, but for example last Saturday it was 500.

The Scotman’s Paris Gourtsoyannis has questioned how the Scottish government’s national clinical director could be certain that the chief medical officer observed social distancing during her visit to Fife (see 11.58am).

ITV’s Peter Smith warns that the apparent mixed messaging is becoming dangerous.

Waitrose and John Lewis are donating 50,000 boxes of Easter confectionery to NHS workers as a small token of their appreciation in the run-up to Easter.

Truffles and mini Easter eggs from John Lewis will be available to NHS staff shopping at 51 stores until the Easter weekend.

The Waitrose branches have been chosen due to their proximity to NHS hospitals, with shops based in locations including London, Dorset, Hampshire, Northumberland and the West Midlands.

Peter Cross, director of customer experience at the John Lewis Partnership, said:

In these extremely difficult times, we wanted to make a small gesture to those working on the frontline. We hope these gifts will go a little way in helping to express our gratitude and simply brighten up the day a little for the NHS staff who are working tirelessly in really challenging circumstances.

John Lewis has also donated care packs with items such as pillows, phone chargers, eye masks and hand cream to hospitals to make breaks more comfortable for staff.

Hancock should have isolated for longer after Covid diagnosis, says Rayner

Matt Hancock should have stayed home for longer than seven days after contracting Covid-19, Labour’s newly-elected deputy leader Angela Rayner has said.

The government’s guidelines state that if you have symptoms of coronavirus, you need to self-isolate at home for seven days or for as long as you still have a high temperature, and anyone you live with should stay in for 14 days even if they do not have any symptoms.

However, the World Health Organisation has recommended people self-quarantine for a fortnight after possible Covid exposure or having contracted the virus.

Rayner, who herself has been self-isolating with coronavirus symptoms, said she was in bed for six days and her symptoms were “very debilitating”.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sophie Ridge On Sunday, she said:

I’m disappointed that Matt Hancock, after seven days of having the virus, went out when the World Health Organisation has said you should self-isolate for 14 days.

I think it’s right that we do that because I cannot stress enough the severity of the symptoms that I have suffered, as you can tell from how breathless I am still now, and I’m day nine, day 10. I think the government really need to give that clarity and continue to support people doing the right thing.

Hancock announced on Friday March 27 he had tested positive for Covid-19, and he came out of isolation on Thursday and presented the daily Downing Street press conference. He is assumed to have self-isolated for 24 hours before he made his positive diagnosis public.

Meanwhile, prime minister Boris Johnson remains in isolation as he still has a temperature after going into isolation on March 27.

Updated

Right wing think tank the Henry Jackson society has claimed that China is liable to pay the UK, along with the other G7 nations, billions in compensation due to alleged underreporting of the scale of the coronavirus outbreak, amid growing calls from Tory MPs led by former deputy prime minister Damien Green for a reset in UK-China relations.

Updated

The chief medical officer for Scotland, Catherine Calderwood, is now facing calls to resign after she appeared to flout her own advice and visited her coastal second home with her family.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Monica Lennon said:

The first minister and her top team must lead by example during this crisis which continues to take lives on a daily basis. The message that people should stay at home to save lives and protect the NHS is the right one.

The chief medical officer delivers that instruction on behalf of the government but has failed to follow her own advice. Her actions have undermined Scotland’s pandemic response and her own credibility. Unfortunately, it means she cannot and should not continue in her role. Her position as CMO has become untenable.

Rennie and Wendy Chamberlain, the Lib Dem MSP for North East Fife and a former police officer, said government officials such as Calderwood had to command public confidence at a time of crisis.

If we are going to get through this pandemic we need medical leaders who everyone can follow. It is with great regret that we say that the chief medical officer will need to go.

Local people are irate that holidaymakers and second home owners have ignored the warnings from the chief medical officer to stay at home. The main street was described as being like a motorway and many second homes are full up,” they said.

There is real concern that with a swollen population and a virus sweeping through the local health services will just not cope.

Updated

Prof Neil Ferguson of London University’s Imperial College, one of the scientists whose modelling of the virus helped prompt the lockdown, told Andrew Marr earlier that it was difficult to know when it might be eased, as this would depend on how quickly case numbers reduce.

There is no point, having gone through this effort, in releasing a lockdown at a point where case numbers are still high and will resurge even faster than we have seen before.

We want case numbers to get to a low point where we can start substituting other measures for the most intrusive and economically costly aspects of the current lockdown.

Ferguson said it was also hard to predict total death numbers, but he believed these could be “anywhere between 7,000 or so up to a little over 20,000”.

Here’s the full story:

ITV presenter Piers Morgan and businessman Alan Sugar have disagreed over whether people should be allowed to sunbathe.

Matt Hancock said he is “sympathetic” to calls for nurses to receive a pay rise.

The starting salary for a nurse is £24,214, according to Unison, and the more than 300,000 nurses have suffered real terms pay cuts due to government-imposed wage restraints over the past decade.

Asked if nurses deserved a pay rise, Hancock told Andrew Marr:

Everybody wants to support our nurses right now and I’m sure there will be a time to debate things like that.

At the moment the thing that we’re working on is how to get through this. So I’m very sympathetic to that argument but now is not the moment to enter into a pay negotiation, now is the moment for everybody to be doing their very best.

Tributes are being paid to NHS staff known to have died after contracting Covid-19.

Two nurses – both young mothers - five doctors and two healthcare assistants have contracted the coronavirus and died since the start of the outbreak, and there are reports of further such deaths.

Nurse Areema Nasreen, 36, died just after midnight on April 2 in intensive care at Walsall Manor Hospital in the West Midlands - the hospital where she had worked for 16 years.

Her sister Kazeema, 33, said:

She was a legend. Everyone remembers her with so much love and heartbreak because she had so much love to give. She was like a mum to us. She looked after us all.

Richard Beeken, chief executive of Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Any death is devastating but losing one of our own is beyond words.”

He said Nasreen had started at the hospital as a housekeeper in 2003 before gaining her nursing qualification in 2019.

Her dedication to her role and her popularity amongst her colleagues is obvious to see with the outpouring of grief and concern we are seeing around the organisation and on social media.

Her vocation in nursing was clear for all to see and she always said that she was so blessed to have the role of a nurse, which she absolutely loved because she wanted to feel like ‘she could make a difference’ - and you did, Areema, you will be very sadly missed.

Scotland’s chief medical officer apologises for flouting rules

Scotland’s chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood, has apologised for visiting her second home despite herself issuing advice to stay at home.

In a statement, she said:

I wish to apologise unreservedly for the issue reported in the media today. While there are reasons for what I did, they do not justify it and they were not legitimate reasons to be out of my home.

While I and my family followed the guidance on social distancing at all times, I understand that I did not follow the advice I am giving to others, and I am truly sorry for that. I know how important this advice is and I do not want my mistake to distract from that.

I have a job to do as chief medical officer to provide advice to ministers on the path of this virus and to support the medical profession as they work night and day to save lives, and having spoken with the first minister this morning I will continue to focus entirely on that job.

Dr Catherine Calderwood at a coronavirus briefing at St Andrews House in Edinburgh 29 March
Dr Catherine Calderwood at a coronavirus briefing at St Andrews House in Edinburgh 29 March Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/PA

Updated

A 20-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly wiping his saliva on products in a Dorset supermarket.

The man entered the Lidl store on St Andrews Road in Bridport wearing a face mask and gloves at about 2pm on Friday, Dorset Police said.

He was seen to lower the mask and lick his fingers before “purposefully” rubbing them onto an item in the store.

The force said the individual was arrested and charged with an offence of contaminating or interfering with goods with intent under Section 38 of the Public Order Act 1986. He is due to appear before Weymouth Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Dorset Police said the suspect did not have a confirmed case of Covid-19 and was not displaying any symptoms.

Nursing Notes, an online publication for healthcare professionals, has announced the death of John Alagos, a 27-year-old nurse at Watford general hospital.

His mother, Gina Gustilo told the Mail on Sunday that her son had not been wearing full personal protective equipment despite treating coronavirus patients.

They wear PPE, but not totally protective of the mouth. They wear the normal masks.

Alagos was found unconscious in his bedroom following a 12-hour night shift on Friday after complaining of suffering a headache and high temperature upon his return home, according to reports.

Watford General Hospital said in a statement:

Our staff are fully briefed on the symptoms of Covid-19 and we would never expect anyone to remain at work if they were showing these symptoms or indeed were unwell in any way.

We have always kept our staff updated on the latest PPE guidance to make sure they have the right level of protection ... John was very popular and will be missed greatly.

It did not confirm whether Alagos had died from Covid. More details will emerge in due course.

Nursing Notes has launched a digital memorial mapping health and social care professionals who have lost their lives during the fight against Covid.

Updated

Hancock admits NHS may not hit ventilator target before virus peaks

Matt Hancock, the health secretary said the government is on track to have ventilator capacity for 18,000 patients but that it may not be in place before the expected peak of the virus.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show earlier, he said:

We need to make sure we have more ventilators than there are people who need ventilation. At the moment we have between 9,000 and 10,000 ventilators within the NHS right now and we have the 2,000 spare that are critical care beds with ventilator capacity should people need to come into them and we’re ramping that up.

The answer is that our goal, instead of the 30,000, is that we need 18,000 ventilators over the coming two weeks.

Asked how many there will be in a week’s time: “There should be another 1,500.”

On whether the country will be below the capacity it needs in a week’s time when the virus is expected to peak, Hancock said: “No, because thankfully we’ve got the demand down because the vast majority of people are following their social distancing guidelines.”

He added there are no immediate plans to roll-out antibody testing - to test if people have had the virus and recovered - because they are “not good enough”.

Random testing, to provide a survey of how many people have had the virus and where, to better map the outbreak, is ongoing, Hancock said. Results of the first survey are being processed and would be made public in due course, he added.

Updated

Starmer: I would support ban on outside exercise over rules flouting

Starmer said he would support the government if they were to ban outdoor exercise due to some people flouting lockdown rules.

“We do have to take whatever steps are necessary. Social distancing, staying indoors, is really difficult for people,” he said.

“It’s particularly difficult if you don’t have a garden or if you’re in a flat, and I know there are many people in overcrowded accommodation.

“But we’ve got to get through this and every time people break the guidance from the government they put other people at risk.

“If the health service can’t cope, people will die. You can see that that’s happening every day.”

He added: “I know it’s tough, I know it’s difficult, we are all missing each other, we realise how much social contact matters.

“But I would support the government in this if that’s what they decide to do.”

Updated

Starmer insisted that his party would scrutinise the government, but would not try to “score party political points”.

He added that prime minister Boris Johnson had allowed him one-to-one privy council meetings with experts and politicians.

“We’ve got to pull together, support the government where it’s right to do so, but asking those difficult questions matters,” said Starmer.

“You can see that when the difficult questions were asked on testing, things began to move. Same thing with equipment on the frontline.

“Scrutiny is important here. Because if scrutiny points out mistakes that can then be put right, it’s an important thing. But not opposition for opposition’s sake.

“I’m not going to score party political points and I won’t demand the impossible.”

When asked by Marr if he would consider joining a national government to deal with the crisis, Starmer reiterated the arrangements he has already made with the prime minister.

Starmer says he will engage constructively with the government

Labour’s newly-elected leader, Keir Starmer, told Andrew Marr that his party would ask the government “difficult questions” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think this would be difficult for any government. I do think there have been mistakes along the way”, he said.

Starmer said he did not think it was worth “picking over” the herd immunity approach that the government disputes ever considering.

But, he added: “we were then slow in testing, the equipment that’s needed on the frontline isn’t there.”

“But I want to be very, very clear that I’m going to engage constructively with the government.

“I spoke to the prime minister yesterday and said to him that I mean what I say about constructive engagement.

“We’ve all got a duty here to save lives and protect our country and the Labour party under my leadership will ask difficult questions but only for the purpose of pointing out mistakes so they can be put right.”

Sir Keir Starmer arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London to appear on the Andrew Marr.
Sir Keir Starmer arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London to appear on the Andrew Marr. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Updated

In response to some frontline NHS workers having to use items such as bin liners as protective equipment, Hancock said the government were shipping “tens of millions” of personal protective equipment items to the UK a day.

“We’ve upgraded the PPE standards. Also we’ve got a system coming in to deliver against those standards using the army,” he said

“We’re asking people to put themselves in harms way to care for others and we’ve got to make sure they’ve got the equipment.”

On Thursday, the government upgraded the standards of PPE that frontline doctors and nurses are expected to wear from aprons to gowns.

Hancock said that calls to a hotline for NHS workers over the lack of protective equipment had declined, although there were “absolutely” still some problems.

He added that three nurses had died from Covid-19.

Updated

Hancock: you've got to follow the rules or we'll ban all exercise outside

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has said the government could ban exercise outdoors if people flout lockdown rules.

After saying earlier that sunbathing is against lockdown rules, he told Andrew Marr that if people flout them “we might have to take further action”.

“I understand how difficult these measures are, of course I do. But the truth is the more people go out from home, the more the virus spreads,” he said.

“We’ve said because of the positive benefits to your physical and your mental health that it’s ok to exercise on your own or with members of your own household.

“But if the result of that is that too many people go out and flout the other rules because they say ‘well if I can exercise, then it’s fine for me to do other things’, then I’m afraid we will have to take action.

“My message is really clear, if you don’t want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home then you’ve got to follow the rules.”

Matt Hancock speaking to Andrew Marr
Matt Hancock speaking to Andrew Marr Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Axel von Trotsenburg, the World Bank managing director of operations, has warned of an impending global recession.

Speaking on Marr, he said: “What we are seeing today is unprecedented. Certainly we haven’t seen something alike since the second world war and also not during the financial crisis 11 years ago.”

He added that during the last week, 6.6m people in the US applied for unemployment benefits, on top of 3.3m people who filed the week before.

The World bank would be providing financial assistance worth $160bn to poorer countries over the next 15 months.

“We need to consider that these health systems are the weakest in the world and we need to provide our full support,” he added.

Professor Neil Ferguson has said there are “some signs” that the current lockdown measures in force across the UK has slowed down the coronavirus epidemic.

Ferguson, a key epidemiologist in advising the government, told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show that he thinks the crisis will “plateau in the next week to 10 days”.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s new deputy leader, said the party would work with the government to battle the coronavirus pandemic but would hold it to account.

Speaking to Sky New’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Rayner said the government’s was failing on testing, and on protecting frontline NHS staff, and ensuring businesses and employees could “do the right thing”.

Rayner believes she has experienced symptoms in line with those of the coronavirus including a sore throat, a temperature, a headache and fatigue.

“I’m disappointed that Matt Hancock after seven days of having the virus went out when the World Health Organisation has said that you should wait for 14 days,” she said.

“I’m going to exercise that and I think it’s right that we should do that.”

Updated

Former health secretary Alan Johnson has condemned the government’s response to Covid-19.

The former Labour MP told Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “I am absolutely amazed at how badly prepared the government is for this.”

He added that during his tenure as health secretary, in which the swine flu pandemic took place in 2009, the government had a risk register.

“Top of our risk register was a pandemic,” he said, saying that second on the list was a terror attack.

He added that the basic arrangements that government’s should be prepared for in the event of a pandemic was protective equipment for NHS staff, alongside testing.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of The Doctors’ Association UK, has raised concerns about the “severe lack” of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline NHS workers.

He told Sky News that some doctors had told the association that they were having to reuse single-use surgical masks, while others were holding their breath during procedures on coronavirus patients because they didn’t know if their equipment would offer enough protection.

He added that some doctors, many of whom did not have symptoms in line with Covid-19 but who lived with people who did, had been sent to a NHS testing centre only to be told their name doesn’t appear on a list and they couldn’t be tested.

Updated

The prime minister Boris Johnson is in “good spirits” but still has a temperature over a week after he was diagnosed with Covid-19, according to Hancock.

“The prime minister is working away inside downing street but he’s making sure he protects others by following public health advice,” he added.

Hancock, who also contracted the virus, said he did not know if Johnson had been visited by doctors at Downing Street.

Hancock said that 8% of NHS frontline staff were currently off work self-isolating amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Within that group, 5.7% of doctors are currently off work. “Those figures are stable but we want to get them down obviously, and one of the ways we do that is make sure testing goes up,” said Hancock.

Hancock: sunbathing is against the rules

Health secretary Matt Hancock is first up on Sophy Ridge on Sky News this morning, emphasising that people should not flout the coronavirus lockdown rules despite the warm weather.

“Sunbathing is against the rules that have been set out for important public health reasons,” he said, adding that it was “unbelievable frankly to see some people are not following that advice”.

“I say this to the very small minority of people who are choosing to flout the guidance you are putting other’s lives at risk and you are putting yourself in harm’s way.”

He added that the “vast majority of the public” were following guidance to stay at home unless they are going to buy essentials such as food or medicine, seeking medical care, going to work, or exercising.

Hancock’s call for the public to adhere to public health guidance comes as Lambeth Council closed Brockwell Park in south-west London on Saturday, after it claimed that more than 3,000 people had spent the day in the park, sunbathing or hanging out in large groups.

I’m Amy Walker, covering the liveblog for the next two hours, you can follow me on Twitter at @amyrwalker.

Police officers drive a vehicle through Peckham Rye Park to instruct people not to sunbathe in London yesterday.
Police officers drive a vehicle through Peckham Rye Park to instruct people not to sunbathe in London yesterday. Photograph: Griff Ferris/Reuters

Updated

Starmer to give first major interview since victory in Labour leadership race

Good morning, and welcome to Sunday’s UK-focused coronavirus live blog. We’ll bring you all the news as it happens, with Matt Hancock due to appear on Sophy Ridge’s Sky News programme this morning along with new Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn’s successor Keir Starmer gives his first big interview after yesterday’s victory to the BBC’s Andrew Marr. We’re also expecting the first names in his shadow cabinet to be announced.

Starmer has a daunting to-do list as he begins his first full day as Labour leader. The Observer’s Michael Savage has summarised the challenge ahead of him, from Covid-19 and the economy to antisemitism:

Elsewhere, London mayor Sadiq Khan has described his “devastation” that five London bus workers have died after testing positive for coronavirus and urged people to stay home on another sunny day. And there are troubling signs in the midlands, where the death toll has now accelerated past the capital.

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