Thank you for following the blog and all your comments today. Here is a summary of the main developments:
- Experts have warned that the test and trace system in England is not performing well enough, despite Boris Johnson’s insistence it is world beating. The latest results showed 72.4% of close contacts of people who have tested positive for coronavirus were reached in the week ending 29 July, down from 76.2%
- Nine Conservative MPs in Greater Manchester have written a letter to the health secretary demanding “a more sophisticated approach” that would see decisions taken on a borough by borough basis or even town by town basis. They are unhappy that the entire region of 2.8 million people was put back into partial lockdown last Thursday after infections started to rise.
- Preston could be the next area to face government intervention after a rise in coronavirus rates, the city council’s chief executive warned. Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Adrian Phillips said: “Our rates are increasing and they have increased over the last week to a level now where we are concerned that we could face government intervention.”
- Covid infections are growing at 3,200 per day in England and R is close to 1 in most regions, according to Cambridge University experts. predict that the number of deaths each day is likely to be between 47 and 91 by the end of the third week of August. The latest government figures put the daily rise in the number of cases in the UK at 950, with another 49 deaths recorded after a positive coronavirus test.
- The government has admitted 50m masks bought as part of a £252m medical supplies contract awarded to an investment firm have been deemed unsuitable for use by NHS workers. The Good Law Project and EveryDoctor, which are suing the government over its contract with the supplier, Ayanda, estimate the 50m masks would have cost more than £150m.
- The number of Covid cases in Aberdeen, where some lockdown measures have been reintroduced has risen by 25 to 79 and is expected to increase further, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said. She said a further 30 cases were being investigated to see whether they were linked. Sturgeon told residents not to leave the city for holidays.
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Clusters of Covid-19 infections have been identified in Leeds, which was not subjected to enhanced lockdown restrictions last Thursday, unlike neighbouring Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees. The clusters are concentrated in and around the Kirkstall and Harehills neighbourhoods. The city’s seven day rate has also been gradually increasing from 4.1 cases per 100,000 people early last week to 13.3 as of 5 August.
- Five clusters have been identified in Northern Ireland over the past seven days with 35 associated cases and 239 close contacts, according to the Public Health Agency (PHA).Dr Gerry Waldron, head of health protection at the PHA, said it should act as a timely reminder against complacency.
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Updated
There has been more reaction coming in to the latest test and trace statistics. Despite Boris Johnson’s continuing to insist the system in England is “world beating”, the consensus is that the government must do better (see. 3.33pm).
Prof Sheila Bird, formerly programme leader, MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, said:
Test and trace’s poor performance in reaching identified close contacts who are members of the household of a non-complex index case is extraordinary and needed explanation. Explanation [is] awaited still.
Is language a barrier or age-group (extreme youth or being very old) or illness; and why does Test and trace not enlist the help of the index case or - as recommended by the Royal Statistical Society – select a random sample of index-case households to be visited on a random day (or pair of days) during the household’s quarantine for swab-testing to be offered.
These random visits also check on adherence and would allow the reasons to be understood for T&T’s failure to reach over 40% of household members when the index case is non-complex ...
Prime minister, any world-beating Test & Trace system should inform us, the public, how many tested positive during or soon after their quarantine period who belonged to T&T’s two high-risk groups (a) member of the household of symptomatic index case (b) identified external close contact of a symptomatic case. Any world-beating Test & Trace system should also be designed to learn about asymptomatic infections in those two high-risk groups; and be able to document adherence to quarantine.
Eivor Oborn, professor of health care management, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, said:
Though the system has been operating for just over two months, the percentage of positive cases being contacted through contact tracing system has remained stubbornly around 80% since mid-June.
There is also a slight decline in being able to reach and isolate the contacts of those who test positive. In this sense the system for testing and tracing does not seem to be improving.
Dr Joshua Moon, research fellow in the science policy research unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School, said the results were “not a great sign if we’re serious about keeping the virus under control in the UK”. He added:
Over the nine weeks of NHS T&T activity, the percentage of non-household contacts has been increasing, indicating that the changes are likely to be as a result of the government’s decision to relax lockdown measures.
Clusters of Covid-19 infections identified in Leeds
Clusters of Covid-19 infections have been identified in the Yorkshire city of Leeds, concentrated in and around the Kirkstall and Harehills neighbourhoods.
The council said the city’s seven day rate has also been gradually increasing from 4.1 cases per 100,000 people early last week to 13.3 as of 5 August.
Leeds was not subjected to enhanced lockdown restrictions last Thursday, unlike neighbouring Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees.
But the council is now taking preventative steps in an effort to stop further escalation of cases and to stay on top of community transmission, including sending mobile testing units to affected areas.
Councillor Judith Blake, leader of Leeds city council and chair of the Leeds Outbreak Control Board, said:
Our outbreak planning has meant we’ve been able to identify these clusters early and intervene quickly, so it’s our hope that by working closely with people living in these areas, we can manage and contain these cases and prevent a wider outbreak.
But we can’t do that alone and it’s absolutely imperative that residents play their part by following the latest advice, including avoiding gathering in large numbers, maintaining social distancing, wearing face masks when required, regularly washing their hands and by getting tested and isolating if they have symptoms.
Updated
The number of people who have died in the UK after a positive test for Covid-19 has increased by 49 from the previous day to 46,413, according to the government’s official death toll.
The latest Office for National Statistics count says 56,600 deaths have been registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Updated
Nine Conservative MPs in Greater Manchester have written a letter to the health secretary demanding “a more sophisticated approach” to local lockdowns, criticising the government’s “crude and ineffective strategy”.
The whole region of 2.8 million people was put back into partial lockdown last Thursday after infections started to rise. The decision prompted unhappiness in some areas of Greater Manchester where rates remained low, for example in Wigan and Bury.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has rejected the idea of releasing some of the 10 boroughs before others. But the Tory MPs reject this “one size fits all” approach, which they say “risks spreading resources too thinly across the whole conurbation, including in areas with few or no cases”.
They say Burnham fails to understand local infection patterns in seeking to “impose a crude and ineffective strategy across the whole area”.
They say:
Measures must be taken on a borough by borough basis and on a town by town basis in boroughs where there are only one or two coronavirus ‘hotspots’, but the rates in other parts of the borough are low ...
Failing to properly target resources, meaning inadequate measures in some places where the problems are greatest, and wasting resources where none are currently needed risks a wider outbreak across Greater Manchester, will only lead to more stringent ‘full lockdown’ measures being imposed as in Leicester. We must strive to avoid this at all costs.
The latter is signed by
James Grundy (Leigh)
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West)
James Daly (Bury North)
Christian Wakeford (Bury South)
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton)
Chris Green (Bolton West and Atherton)
Mark Logan (Bolton North East)
Mary Robinson (Cheadle)
William Wragg (Hazel Grove)
Updated
Five clusters have been identified in Northern Ireland over the past seven days with 35 associated cases and 239 close contacts, according to the Public Health Agency (PHA).
Dr Gerry Waldron, head of health protection at the PHA, said:
This should act as a timely reminder that we must not become complacent - coronavirus remains in circulation and we have seen an increase in cases in recent weeks. It is therefore essential that we remember the key advice to help keep ourselves and those around us safe.
Maintain social distancing, wash your hands regularly, and get tested if you display any symptoms of coronavirus.
The PHA said there had been 23 clusters identified in Northern Ireland since 25 May, when the test-and-trace programme went live, 11 of which remain open.
Some 168 cases of Covid-19 have been associated with these clusters, with nine of the clusters having had five or more cases associated with them.
Earlier this week, two businesses in Newcastle, Co Down, closed temporarily following outbreaks among their staff.
The statement from the PHA came as the Department of Health’s daily updates showed 43 more positive cases of coronavirus have been detected in the region, bringing the total to 6,049.
No new deaths were recorded, leaving the total in the region at 556, according to departmental figures.
The PHA has defined a cluster as two or more laboratory-confirmed cases of Covid-19 among individuals associated with a key setting, with illness onset dates within a 14-day period.
Key settings that have recorded a cluster include workplaces, retail or hospitality premises, domestic gatherings, and sporting settings. However, the PHA said the transmission risk was highest in a household setting.
The Department of Health said the R number was now “highly likely” to be above 1 in Northern Ireland.
The current estimate for the R value is between 0.8 and 1.8. R represents the number of individuals who, on average, will be infected by a person with the virus.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said while community transmission remained low in Northern Ireland, the number of positive tests per day had increased threefold from early July.
Updated
New Covid cases rise again to 950
The number of new coronavirus cases in the UK is still rising with another 950 cases reported as of 9am this morning, according to the latest official daily figures.
This is an increase on the 892 new cases reported on Wednesday and above the daily average of 820 reported yesterday.
The rate has been rising since dropping to a four-month low of 546 almost a month ago.
Some reaction to Johnson’s insistence that our test-and-trace system is still “world beating”:
Our test-and-trace system is a long way off “world-beating”, Prime Minister – LabourList https://t.co/0gL3vwcSTT
— Justin Madders MP (@justinmadders) August 6, 2020
Our “world beating” test and trace system in action.
— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) August 6, 2020
The contact tracing app is finally being launched. But it won’t actually do any contact tracing 🤔https://t.co/KPzEAY27JV
My cartoon Thursday @TheTimes World-beating? It’s pants....#BorisJohnson #TestAndTrace #COVID__19 pic.twitter.com/aIiLRIyBDQ
— Peter Brookes (@BrookesTimes) August 6, 2020
Updated
On the new planning shakeup, Johnson added:
It’s long overdue because we’ve got a fantastic homebuilding industry with fantastic builders who do a great job. But for some reason or other, and planning has a lot to do with it, it takes far too long to build a home in this country, and they’re way way too expensive, by comparison with France, Germany wherever. They build many more homes per capita and that’s unfair on the younger generation who find themselves excluded from getting onto the property, excluded from any chance of having the home that they need in a good time.
What we’re proposing to do are measures which will certainly mean that you continue to have beautiful homes. In fact we’re going to put more conditions in for beauty, for space standards, so that people have fantastic homes to live in.
But also, we’ve got to move this thing onwards faster and get good projects going in a more timely way. It’s giving local people more powers to get good projects done faster. And that will be for the benefit of millions of younger people who at the moment find that they’re just unable to get the housing that would make such a huge difference to their lives.
Johnson: test and trace still 'world beating'
Johnson also insisted that the government’s test and trace system was still “world beating” despite data showing that fewer contacts are being followed up. He said:
It certainly does fit that description as world beating because I think I’m right in saying that we are now testing more per head of population than virtually any other country in Europe certainly. In America, they’re testing a huge number of people. That test and trace system is absolutely crucial for our ability to fight the disease, and it is working.
If you look at what we’re doing with some of the other local social distancing measures that we’re bringing back in, that’s entirely driven by our ability to detect cases, through local test and trace, working with local authorities and taking the right local measures. And that is how we hope that we’ll be able to keep the lid on the disease.
What it also takes, of course, is everybody remembers the mantra: ‘hands, face, space’. Wash your hands; cover your face if you’re in a shop or on public transport; and maintain social distancing. Plus: get a test if you think you’ve got symptoms. And that will really, really help us to continue to control this disease.
Speaking on a tour of new housing estate in Warrington, Johnson also expressed concern about news that a new consignment of 50m facemasks was unfit for use.
He said:
I’m very disappointed that any consignment of PPE should turn out not to be fit for purpose. But overall, don’t forget what we have achieved a colossal race against time to produce billions of items of PPE sourcing them from abroad but now increasingly, making them here in the UK as well, and stockpiling them now in case we have a second wave in in the autumn and the winter.
Boris Johnson has defended the Conservative party’s decision not to suspend the MP and former minister who is accused of rape.
Asked by Sky News why the party had not suspended the MP, Johnson said:
I think it’s very very important that we take all these cases, extremely seriously and will continue to do so I think we’ve got to wait for the police to decide whether they want to make charges and and take a decision on that basis.
Updated
What Keir Starmer does need to do is win back the party’s reputation for competence. Voters might well accept his case that the government is making a hash of things, but that’s not enough. He also has to convince them that life would not be even worse under Labour.
A further five people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,376, NHS England has said (via PA Media).
The patients were aged between 45 and 86 and all had known underlying health conditions. Another three deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
Public Health Wales said a further three people have died after testing positive for Covid-19, taking the total number of deaths in the country to 1,571.
The number of cases in Wales increased by 15, bringing the total number confirmed to 17,389.
Cambridge analysis estimates infections growing at 3,200 a day in England
The latest analysis by the MRC biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge estimates that Covid infections are growing at 3,200 per day in England and R is close to 1 in most regions.
The experts predict that the number of deaths each day is likely to be between 47 and 91 by the end of the third week of August.
London, followed by the north-west continues to have the highest proportion of the population who have been infected (16% and 10% respectively). The south-west continues to have the lowest (3%).
The researchers say the results point to “a plateau in the number of new infections. This is supported by the estimated level of infections remaining around 3,000 per day for the last three weeks.”
They add:
In the regions where the central estimate for R is greater than or equal to 1, the estimation is uncertain and the number of daily new infections is low. These two factors combined indicate that there is no particular public health concern for any of these regions, though the situation should be monitored closely. Only one region, the east of England, can be said with any certainty to have a value of R that is below 1, indicating a continued decline in transmission.
Experts say that R becomes less relevant as less virus is circulating, with the number of infections in the community becoming more relevant.
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon has told people living in Aberdeen they should not leave the city for any holidays as confirmed cases in the outbreak rose overnight to at least 79.
The first minister said the city’s 229,000 residents had to observe the emergency lockdown rules against any non-essential journeys greater than five miles from home. That included not taking any holidays in Scotland, the UK or overseas, she said.
Our advice to the people of Aberdeen is that you should not be going on holiday right now, either to other parts of Scotland, or to other parts of the UK. We advise against overseas holiday in general for people right across Scotland.
We’re also advising people outside of Aberdeen not to travel to the city for leisure purposes or to visit friends and family.
The emergency lockdown was imposed on Wednesday after a cluster of 54 cases emerged in the city over the weekend.
Updated
Some reaction to the latest test and trace results from Keith Neal, emeritus professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases, University of Nottingham. He said:
One persistent problem is that one in five cases, who should be at home and self-isolating, fail to be contacted by the contact tracers despite multiple attempts. These people have arranged a test and been informed of a positive result and expect to be contacted. It would be useful to have more information on these people as to why they are not participating in control measures.
Not being able to trace contacts is understandable but the cases could help in letting their contacts know.
This is a public health crisis and the public must play their part in its control. Without the co-operation of cases, controlling Covid-19 will be particularly difficult.
The executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, Dido Harding said:
NHS Test and Trace is working. It has already helped to prevent almost a quarter of a million people unknowingly spreading the virus. But we do not work alone. Close partnerships with local government and local public health teams are essential to stop the spread of the virus, and NHS Test and Trace continues to work hand-in-hand to support communities experiencing spikes in cases, through increased testing and additional contact tracing.
Winter may seem far away but it’s what we do right now that counts. So please do play your part to stop the virus from flaring up again – this system will only work if you come forward for a test and help us to trace your contacts. So if you have symptoms, however mild, get a free test immediately. If you are contacted by NHS Test and Trace, follow the advice you receive. This is how, together, we’ll get back to the things we love.
Updated
Summary
Here is a summary of the latest developments:
- The percentage of close contacts of people who have tested positive for coronavirus reached by tracers in England fell to 72.4% in the week ending 29 July, down from 76.2% in the previous week. The figures will increase pressure on the government to improve performance.
- Preston could be the next area to face government intervention after a rise in coronavirus rates, the city council’s chief executive warned. Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Adrian Phillips said: “Our rates are increasing and they have increased over the last week to a level now where we are concerned that we could face government intervention.”
- The government has admitted 50m masks bought as part of a £252m medical supplies contract awarded to an investment firm have been deemed unsuitable for use by NHS workers. The Good Law Project and EveryDoctor, which are suing the government over its contract with the supplier, Ayanda, estimate the 50m masks would have cost more than £150m.
- The number of Covid cases in Aberdeen, where some lockdown measures have been reintroduced has risen by 25 to 79 and is expected to increase further, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said. She said a further 30 cases were being investigated to see whether they were linked.
- Thousands of NHS workers are expected to take to the streets this weekend demanding a pay rise. Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, said it was supporting those wishing to attend the socially distanced protests in London and other cities across the UK on Saturday morning.
Updated
A chief constable has urged the government to consider greater penalties to combat illegal street parties - describing the challenges posed by Covid-19 as “the toughest times in the history of policing”.
Dave Thompson, the head of West Midlands Police, praised members of the public for their “amazing” efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus but, writing on his blog, added:
I am very concerned over the illegal gatherings in the form of car cruises or street-based parties. These are disorderly, dangerous events that risk spreading infections.
We have to effectively intervene and deal with these issues.If we do not then this will result in increased delinquency and risk to the public. In these circumstances people are taking deliberate, concerted mass action to breach the regulations.
I am encouraging government to consider additional powers and stronger deterrence for these circumstances ...
If you organise an illegal street party the sanction must be more serious than not wearing a face mask on a bus.
The prevalence of Covid-19 in England fell from 0.13% in May to 0.077% in mid-June/early July, a study commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care has found.
The React-1 study, carried out by Imperial College London, found 159 positive samples from 120,620 tested swabs in May, compared with 123 positive samples from 159,199 tested swabs in mid-June/early July.
Other findings were:
- The proportion of swab-positive participants who were asymptomatic at the time of sampling increased from 69% in round one to 81% in round two.
- Although healthcare and care home workers were infected far more frequently than other workers in round one, the odds were markedly reduced in round two.
- Age patterns of infection changed between rounds, with a reduction by a factor of five in prevalence in 18- to 24-year-olds.
- The data was suggestive of increased risk of infection in black and Asian (mainly south Asian) ethnicities.
- Increased infection intensity was detected in and near London.
- A continued decline in prevalence and a shift in the pattern of infection by age and occupation was found at the end of the initial lockdown in England.
Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, who was not involved with the study, said:
There is general agreement that the relaxations in lockdown restrictions in early June were not sufficient to push the R value above 1. The React-1 study has shown that the rate of decline had slowed between round one and two, suggesting that the relaxations in early June did allow the R value to drift up.
The study does not enable any conclusions to be drawn about what impact any of the further relaxation from late June onwards may have had. Indeed, it is likely that the impact of any relaxation will not be seen in swab data for at least a week or two after implementation.
Updated
Aberdeen outbreak cases increase by 25
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says 79 Covid cases have now been associated with a cluster of infections in Aberdeen, an increase of 25 on yesterday. The outbreak there has led to some lockdown measures being reimposed in the city.
Sturgeon said a further 30 cases were being investigated to see if they are linked.
She said they were looking into whether “there is an issue of people going from one pub to another”. Sturgeon warned that every time an individual does not follow advice it poses a risk of the virus spreading.
The R number for Scotland is currently between 0.6 and 1.0, a “slight increase”.
The number of people who have tested positive in Scotland has risen by 67 in a day, to 18,847.
There were 270 people in hospital with confirmed Covid-19, up by three in 24 hours. Of these, four were in intensive care, an increase of one.
The first minister said there had been no coronavirus deaths in Scotland for three weeks in a row.
Updated
Though the government does not legally have to review the reinstatement of lockdown restrictions in much of the north of England until 19 August, an update is expected on Friday as to what happens next.
Some Conservative MPs have been lobbying for their constituencies to be exempt from the restrictions, which stop people having visitors in their gardens or meeting other households in the pub. In Leigh, in Wigan, new Tory MP James Grundy wrote to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, yesterday arguing against the “one-size-fits-all” approach which locked down all 2.8 million residents of Greater Manchester, even in districts like Wigan where infection rates are low.
In Shipley, a constituency in the Bradford district, the Conservative MP Philip Davies used his column in the Bradford Telegraph yesterday to advocate for Shipley and nearby Keighley to “break away” from Bradford, arguing his constituents should not have been included in the “blanket lockdown thrown over the entire district, unnecessarily”. In Calderdale, Tory MP Craig Whittaker said that in his Calder Valley constituency in West Yorkshire it was “the BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] communities that are not taking this seriously enough”. Whittaker provided no evidence for his claim and was widely condemned.
But few health experts believe Hancock will lift the restrictions tomorrow, after just a week, as infections continue to increase in almost all of the areas where restrictions were tightened a week ago. For example, in Stockport in Greater Manchester, the seven-day rate of positive tests per 100,000 people has risen to 25.9 for the week ending 1 August (up from 15.7 in the week ending 25 July and 7.2 the week before that). The local council says it has seen an increase in infections “in particular teenagers and younger adults, but also the 40-49 age group”.
If anything, more areas could be added to the locked-down area. Leeds, so far exempt despite being just 10 miles from Bradford, recorded 129 cases last week, up from 40 the week before. In Lancashire, which saw a small week-on-week rise to 155 new cases (up from 150 the week before), the county’s director of public health warned today that stricter rules could be imposed in Preston, its biggest city, after a doubling of cases there.
Updated
The latest test-and-trace statistics for England (pdf) show another 4,966 people tested positive for Covid-19 in the week ending 29 July, up 17%, compared with the previous week. The number of people tested increased by 4% in the same time period.
There were 4,642 people transferred to the contract-tracing system, an increase of 9% compared with the previous week, in line with the upward trend in people testing positive since the week ending 8 July.
Of those transferred to the contact-tracing system in week nine, 79.4% were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, a figure which has remained broadly constant since the week ending 24 June. There were 19,150 close contacts identified.
The Department of Health and Social Care report says:
The overall percentage of contacts reached has been declining since test and trace began, primarily due to the reduction in contacts relating to local outbreaks (complex cases), as these are managed by local health protection teams and have a higher success rate than those dealt with by contact tracers.
The percentage of complex close contacts reached and asked to isolate in the week ending 29 July was 93.0%, compared with 98.0% since test and trace began. The proportion of complex close contacts successfully reached has seen a slight decline since the week ending 15 July.
By contrast the latest weekly figure for non-complex cases, handled either online or by call centres, was 60.9%, higher than the 56.1% since test and trace began.
Updated
Fall in test and trace contacts reached
The latest test-and-trace figures for England show that 72.4% of close contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 were reached in the week ending 29 July, down from 76.2% in the previous week.
The figures make disappointing reading at a time when the government is under pressure to improve performance.
On Wednesday, my colleagues Sarah Marsh and Molly Blackall revealed that, despite the prime minister’s grand claims, some people working on it have said they are making only a handful of calls every month and are occupying their time with barbecues and quizzes.
That came only a day after Josh Halliday reported that English councils with the highest infection rates had felt it necessary to launch their own contact-tracing operations to plug holes in the “world-beating” £10bn central government system. And here’s a little more background on the contact-tracing operation:
There have also been concerns about the impact schools returning in September could have on spread of the virus without a robust test-and-trace system in place.
Updated
Greater Manchester’s night-time czar has warned pubs and clubs to stop encouraging customers to break lockdown restrictions by socialising with other households, saying the result could be similar restrictions to those imposed in Aberdeen.
Sacha Lord, who in normal times runs the Warehouse Project and Parklife festivals as well as acting as the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, spoke out after Greater Manchester police revealed they had their busiest weekend for coronavirus-related calls in nine weeks, with reports of more than 750 illegal gatherings last weekend.
Lord said:
It is clearly a very difficult time for everyone involved in the hospitality and leisure industries and the majority of operators are working their hardest to keep people safe.
But over the past week, I have heard of numerous pubs, bars and restaurants who have been squeezing customers in, flouting social distancing rules, ignoring contact tracing and actively persuading mixed groups not to cancel bookings.
These venues clearly have a disregard for the safety of both their customers and their staff, and I support our mayor, Andy Burnham, and Greater Manchester police in taking action over repeat breaches in these venues.
Updated
Good morning, this is Haroon Siddique taking over from Kevin. You can contact me with tips, suggestions etc via the following channels:
Twitter: @Haroon_Siddique
Email: haroon[dot]siddique[at]theguardian[dot]com
Unite’s national officer for health, Jackie Williams, said:
Nursing staff and other allied health professionals have reacted with anger to being overlooked when pay rises were given to many in the public sector last month and the government not hearing the health trade unions’ call to bring their pay rise forward from April 2021.
Last week, health workers marched to Downing Street to vent their anger that all their efforts during the pandemic, which has claimed so many of their colleagues’ lives, have appeared to be ignored when it comes to recognition in their pay packets.
In a decade of Tory austerity, NHS staff have seen their pay cut by 20% in real terms – and no amount of Thursday evening clapping and warm ministerial words can compensate for this dramatic loss in income.”
Last Wednesday, hundreds of NHS workers marched to Downing Street demanding an immediate pay rise. They made their way to Whitehall carrying banners that said “Clapping won’t pay my bills” and “We helped you survive, now help us survive”.
A recent survey by Unison suggested 69% of people think all NHS employees should be awarded a rise this year. The union’s poll of more than 2,000 British adults found that two-thirds believed a wage increase should be significant, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The survey found that just one in 10 think health workers should wait until April for a rise.
Updated
Thousands of NHS workers are expected to take to the streets this weekend demanding a pay rise, PA Media reports.
Unite, which has 100,000 members in the health service, said it was supporting those wishing to attend the socially distanced protests so that the government can see the depth of discontent and frustration among NHS staff.
A demonstration is organised in London on Saturday morning, while protests will also take place in other towns and cities across the UK.
Health workers are in the final year of a three-year deal and are due a pay rise next April, but unions want the government to show its appreciation for NHS staff by bringing it forward to this year.
Ministers did not commit to an early pay rise for all NHS staff a couple of weeks ago when wage increases for 900,000 public sector workers were announced.
Updated
ITV has been hit by the steepest decline in advertising in its 65-year history, a 43% fall in the second quarter, as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic looks set to push the broadcaster out of the FTSE 100 at next month’s reshuffle.
The broadcaster, which has scrapped paying an interim dividend to fortify its balance sheet, reported a 50% fall in adjusted profits to £165m in the first half. The company said advertising revenues fell 21% in the first six months, a drop of £178m to £671m, including a 43% decline in the second quarter.
Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of ITV, said that while the worst was over the ongoing uncertainty in the market meant the company would not issue performance guidance for the remainder of this year.
This has been one of the most challenging times in the history of ITV. While our two main sources of revenue – production and advertising – were down significantly in the first half of the year and the outlook remains uncertain, today we are seeing an upward trajectory with productions restarting and advertisers returning.
Updated
Travellers hoping to make it to Belgium or Malta face a nervous wait as the government refuses to confirm or deny reports Whitehall officials are preparing to introduce quarantine rules for people returning from each country.
According to reports in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, ministers are due to discuss removing the two countries from the “green” list of countries from which travellers can arrive in the UK without having to quarantine for a fortnight.
The uncertainty will cause concern for many, who cannot be sure of whether or not they will be able to visit either country without having to isolate on their return. Asked about the reports on Thursday, a Department for Transport spokeswoman said this week’s review of travel corridor arrangements had not yet been published.
Updated
Scotland’s health secretary has played down the prospects of Aberdeen’s emergency lockdown being extended to other parts of the economy or the region after the outbreak in cases there.
Jeane Freeman said NHS Grampian’s contact tracers had so far found and spoken to all 191 people identified as being in close contact with the 54 people known to be infected in the city, and all had been told to self-isolate for 14 days.
Freeman confirmed ministers would act quickly if there was evidence of wider community transmission, but that had not yet emerged. Further data would be published later on Thursday, she said, to show whether new Covid-19 cases had emerged in the city or wider area.
The first minister warned on Wednesday that Aberdeen’s emergency lockdown could extend to other towns in the region after health officials linked 32 pubs and golf courses to the outbreak in the city.
Soames also defended the fact that the average contact tracer has contacted 2.4 people each.
Let me tell you, we’ve got 10 Nightingale hospitals lying vacant, we’ve got 30,000 ventilators that are not being used. The government has to start somewhere with capacity and the fact is that we’ve got too much capacity, or more capacity than we need right here, right now, today.
But, naturally, the government has taken a decision to over-provide to begin with on the basis that we can always reduce it.
I mean, we could increase the number of calls per agent by reducing the number of agents who are there and I am pretty sure that the government, over the coming weeks, is going to start reducing the number that we have. But you would expect it to start at a high level and then try to adapt it.
The boss of outsourcing giant Serco has defended the number of people being contacted and asked to isolate as part of the test-and-trace system, saying it is “improving all the time”. Rupert Soames, Serco’s chief executive, told Today:
I think we need to get this into proportion. You’re giving me the numbers saying that we’re tracing 50% of contacts, let me tell you that 96% of the people that we talk to agree to self-isolate. So we’ve got a very, very high success rate of people that we get to contact.
Pushed on the fact that this is only the contacts that tracers have been able to reach, Soames added: “So there’s been 218,000 already contacted.”
Questioned again on why tracers are still only managing to get hold of half of people’s contacts, Soames said:
If somebody rang you now and I said tell me everybody that you have met, been in contact with, in the last 48 hours and tell me on the telephone, give me their contact details, how many do you think that you’d be able to reel off off the top of your head?
And the fact is that about 20% of the contacts that people give us, say I know I sat next so somebody on a bus on the way in but I don’t have their contact details. I’m sorry, but my brother-in-law brought around a friend last night, I don’t have their contact details. So there is an element of that and it is about 20% at the moment where people can’t remember or never knew the contact ... the details of where they were.
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The shadow Cabinet Office minister, Labour’s Rachel Reeves, has said:
Many health and care workers experienced inadequate protection, relied on community donations and even bought their own PPE from DIY shops. Ministers repeatedly assured the country that things were fine, yet lives of health workers were lost, the infection was spread in health settings while all that time masks bought by the government could not be used for their intended purpose.
The case for the National Audit Office to investigate the Conservative government’s mishandling of PPE is overwhelming and as well as apologise, ministers must urgently learn lessons to save lives in the future.
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Responding to the news, the Lib Dem leadership candidate Layla Moran has said:
The government has serious questions to answer over this shocking waste of taxpayers’ money.
We urgently need a clear strategy for procuring PPE so that NHS and care staff on the frontline are not left without. That should include a review of the process for handing out contracts to prevent these colossal errors from happening again.
It’s vital that ministers act on the recommendations of the cross-party inquiry I’m chairing so that lessons are learned ahead of a potential second spike later this year.
50m masks bound for NHS workers deemed unusable
The government has admitted that 50m masks bought as part of a £252m medical supplies contract awarded to an investment firm have been deemed unsuitable for use by NHS workers.
Two organisations are seeking judicial review of the decision to award the contract to Ayanda Capital, which describes itself as specialising in “currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing”.
EveryDoctor and the Good Law Project published correspondence with the government’s legal department in which the latter acknowledged the masks would not be used by the NHS because of concerns they will not fit tightly enough.
The government declined to comment on ongoing legal proceedings but a spokesman has said:
Throughout this global pandemic, we have been working tirelessly to deliver PPE to protect people on the frontline.
Over 2.4bn items have been delivered, and more than 30bn have been ordered from UK-based manufacturers and international partners to provide a continuous supply, which meets the needs of health and social care staff both now and in the future.
There is a robust process in place to ensure orders are of high quality and meet strict safety standards, with the necessary due diligence undertaken on all government contracts.
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Returning to the planning story, the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, has said he wishes he had not sat next to Tory party donor and developer Richard Desmond at an event.
Asked why people should trust him over new planning proposals that will give more power to large developers after the controversy over the Westferry development project, Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I don’t think this does give more power to developers, it creates a much more certain system. It will, for example, fix the challenge of developer contributions once and for all.
Asked what he had learned from the experience of the Westferry development, Jenrick added:
I’ve set out the events around that decision and there are definitely lessons to be learnt. I wish I hadn’t been sat next to a developer at an event and I regret sharing text messages with him afterwards.
But I don’t regret the decision, because I think it was right to get housing built on a brownfield site on a part of London that desperately needs it.
The system that I’ve helped to design that is set out in the proposals we’re publishing today will actually move us forward significantly on some of the challenges that that case rose.
Jenrick claimed he had “no idea” how much property developers have donated to his party in the last year, saying: “Ministers are not involved in those issues, that is entirely for the Conservative party.”
He added: “You’re entirely mischaracterising what we’re doing here. We’re actually asking developers to pay more.” He said the government was “saying we’re going to abolish the current system which favours the big developers”.
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Preston could be next to face lockdown measures, council chief executive says
Preston could be the next area to face government intervention after a rise in coronavirus rates, the city council’s chief executive said.
The authority has advised residents in the Lancashire city to avoid having visitors to their homes, although there are no official restrictions such as the laws brought in for other parts of the county, as well as Greater Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire. Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Adrian Phillips said:
We are not waiting for some government announcement. We know our rates are increasing and they have increased over the last week to a level now where we are concerned that we could face government intervention. We’ve been working with our communities to make sure we get those key messages out.
The council has also advised residents to wear face coverings at all times and to get tested even if they are experiencing only mild symptoms.
A statement on the authority’s website said evidence from Public Health England showed a spike of coronavirus cases in Preston, with the majority of the spread through households and community.
The city is surrounded by areas that have had enforced measures implemented by government and we want to act now to stop that from happening (in) Preston.
Phillips told BBC Breakfast:
We are aware we have got community transmissions, we are aware they are across the city. There is a concentration in inner areas as there usually is in any urban environment. But it’s in villages, it’s in our suburbs. Covid has not gone away and it is us all taking that message onboard and making sure that we don’t relax our guard too much, that we maintain those key issues.
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The director of the Town and Country Planning Association called on the government to provide evidence as to how the current planning system is “desperately broken”. Hugh Ellis told Today:
Change is a good thing to planning, there’s no doubt about that, but the most important thing is that people’s voice is not going to be enhanced, this is not a democratisation of planning and that is really troubling to us.
So, people might struggle to involve themselves in the system at the moment but they do get two bites of the cherry, they can have an involvement in the plan, they can comment on planning applications. Half that process is going to effectively disappear.
Just to be absolutely clear, the planning system in England consented 370,000 units for housing last year in the year and the Local Government Association estimates that there are 1m consents not built.
So, I’m sorry, the government are going to have to present some detailed evidence which is not in the white paper about why they say the planning system is desperately broken.
Jenrick told the same programme there was a need for more homes and land on which to build them, citing constituents who have complained younger people are struggling to get on the property ladder.
Claims the government’s planning reforms would lead to slums are “complete nonsense”, the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, has claimed.
The proposals include a scheme that would remove a whole stage of local oversight within designated zones by setting pre-approved “design codes” that would see some applications given an automatic “green light”.
The government is seeking a way to make it easier to build new homes but the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) described the proposals as “shameful” and said they would do “almost nothing to guarantee the delivery of affordable, well-designed and sustainable homes”. Instead, they could lead to the “development of the next generation of slum housing”. Speaking on Sky News on Thursday morning, Jenrick said:
Today, it takes seven years to produce a local plan, we want to reduce that to around two and a half years. And it can take five years to get spades in the ground on a housing estate. We believe that can be cut very significantly and everybody will benefit from that – the people who work in the industry and those people who want to get on the housing ladder as well.
Asked whether the public will have less of a say on planning decisions, he added:
We want to have a meaningful local engagement and that is at the planning making stage. So what our proposals will do, it will mean that when the plan is being produced, there will be a really serious debate in a local community about where they want homes to be built.
Asked about the RIBA’s comments, Jenrick said:
That, I’m afraid, is complete nonsense. I saw those comments and they were put out before we’d even published the document.
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The Citizens Advice service is helping people with redundancy queries every two minutes, according to its director of external affairs. Katie Martin has told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We’ve been seeing case after case of people coming to Citizens Advice for help around redundancy – in particular, selection for redundancy and potential questions around discrimination.
So we’re helping somebody about once every two minutes at the moment and visits to our advice pages on selection for redundancy have doubled in the last couple of months.
We’ve also conducted some polling that suggests that disabled people, parents, carers and those people who have previously been shielding are more than twice as likely to be at risk of redundancy as other workers.
So it is a really, really concerning trend and something that we feel really needs to be addressed.
The comments come as recruitment firms report record numbers of people in Britain looking for temporary work. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation and the accountancy firm KPMG said the number of people signing up rose in July at the fastest pace since records began in 1997.
English contact tracing figures due to be published
Good morning and welcome aboard the Guardian’s live blog, where we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye out for the latest data on England’s contact tracing system. They’re due to be published at 11am, amid concerns about the effectiveness of the operation.
On Wednesday, my colleagues Sarah Marsh and Molly Blackall revealed that, despite the prime minister’s grand claims, some people working on it have said they are making only a handful of calls every month and are occupying their time with barbecues and quizzes.
That came only a day after Josh Halliday reported that English councils with the highest infection rates had felt it necessary to launch their own contact-tracing operations to plug holes in the “world-beating” £10bn central government system. And here’s a little more background on the contact tracing operation:
