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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

UK coronavirus: alert level to be raised from 3 to 4; Northern Ireland bans mixing indoors

Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster (left) and deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, in Belfast.
Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster (left) and deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, in Belfast. Photograph: Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye/PA

Summary

  • Arlene Foster, the first minister of Northern Ireland, has announced everyone in the region will now be covered by a ban on mixing in other people’s homes.
  • Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has announced that in England there will be an exemption for childcare from local lockdown measures. (See 3.46pm.) He also announced how people will be prioritised for testing. (See 4.59pm.)

That’s all from me. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here:

Updated

The news that all people in Northern Ireland are to be banned from visiting each other’s homes will bring to 15.4m the number of people under some level of restriction in the UK from tomorrow.

The announcement, which follows on from that from Wales that four new areas are to be brought under local lockdown means that 23.1% of the UK population will be under curbs.

More than a quarter of the population of Wales (27%) is now under local lockdown and a third of the population of Scotland reside in the seven local authority areas still covered by lockdown restrictions.

In England from tomorrow those living in Merseyside, Warrington, Halton, Wolverhampton and Oadby and Wigston will all be under restrictions while the rules are being extended to cover all parts of Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale and those living in Lancashire county council area will face local lockdown (this excludes Blackpool).

This is equivalent to 10.9m people in England or one-in-six.

Number of people covered by restrictions
Number of people covered by restrictions Photograph: Guardian

Updated

Statement from chief medical officers explaining decision to raise Covid alert level

Here is the full statement from the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the decision to raise the alert level.

The Joint Biosecurity Centre has recommended that the Covid-19 alert level should move from level 3 (a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation) to level 4 (a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or rising exponentially).

The CMOs for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reviewed the evidence and recommend all four nations of the UK should move to Level 4.

After a period of lower Covid cases and deaths, the number of cases are now rising rapidly and probably exponentially in significant parts of all four nations. If we are to avoid significant excess deaths and exceptional pressure in the NHS and other health services over the autumn and winter everyone has to follow the social distancing guidance, wear face coverings correctly and wash their hands regularly. We know this will be a concerning news for many people; please follow the rules, look after each other and together we will get through this.

The UK was placed at alert level 4 when the system was introduced in May. In June the alert level was lowered to 3.

Covid alert level should be raised, say chief medical officers, meaning threat increasing

PA Media has snapped this.

The Joint Biosecurity Centre has recommended the Covid-19 alert level for the UK be increased to Level 4, meaning transmission of the virus is “high or rising exponentially”, the UK’s chief medical officers have said.

That is the first time the alert level has been raised, not lowered, since the system was set up in May.

Covid alert level.
Covid alert level. Photograph: Gov.UK

Eight more emergency, ‘Nightingale’ courts have been announced to tackle the backlog of cases, including one that will operate in a Salford theatre.

Two of the new courts will be housed in hotels in Middlesbrough and York, the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, has confirmed. The other five will be in Chester, Liverpool, Bristol, Winchester and Cirencester; their precise locations have yet to be revealed.

When fully operational, there will be 17 extra court buildings holding socially distanced hearings in an effort to ensure that the justice system can continue to operate during the pandemic. Buckland said:

This is yet another important step in our recovery plan thanks to the hard work of everyone working in our system – with the number of outstanding cases in magistrates’ courts now falling as a result of the measures we have introduced.

But we must keep going if we are to get our courts back up to speed. These additional sixteen court rooms will further boost our efforts to increase capacity - reducing delays and delivering speedier justice for all.

Earlier this summer the Ministry of Justice announced an £80m funding boost for HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to deal with problems caused by the pandemic.

The MoJ says magistrates’ courts are now seeing the number of outstanding cases falling. Plexiglass screens are being fitted in 300 courtrooms and jury deliberation rooms to enable them to operate jury trials safely.

Labour’s shadow justice secretary, David Lammy, has called for faster delivery of emergency courtroom capacity. Some lawyers point out that an austerity programme, which closed hundreds of courts after 2010, deprived the justice system of the necessary flexibility to respond to the crisis.

Lowry Quays theatre, converted into a Nightingale court.
Lowry Quays theatre, converted into a Nightingale court.
 Photograph: Ministry of Justice

Here is more on the press conference in Belfast where new restrictions were announced. These are from the BBC’s Darran Marshall.

People in Northern Ireland banned from visiting in other's homes, Foster announces

In Northern Ireland Arlene Foster, the first minister, and Michelle O’Neill, the deputy first minster, have just announced that people in the whole of the region will be banned from visiting other people’s homes. This is from the BBC’s Emma Vardy.

Hancock tells MPs who will get priority for testing, in order

In his statement MPs, as well as announcing a childcare exemption from local lockdown restrictions (see 3.46pm), Matt Hancock also announced that he is publishing details of who will get priority for testing. He said he would start prioritising access to testing because demand recently has far exceeded supply.

Hancock told MPs that tests would be allocated where they were needed most. He went on:

First, to support acute clinical care.

Second, to support and protect people in care homes.

Third, NHS staff, including GPs and pharmacists.

Fourth, targeted testing for outbreak management and surveillance studies.

Fifth, testing for teaching staff with symptoms, so we can keep schools and classes open.

And then the general public when they have symptoms, prioritising those in areas of high incidence.

Hancock did not give further details of how the prioritisation system would operate, and the short document he has published about the new rules does not explain this either

Sir Keir Starmer in his office in parliament with his speech for Labour’s online conference, which he will deliver tomorrow morning.
Sir Keir Starmer in his office in parliament with his speech for Labour’s online conference, which he will deliver tomorrow morning.
 Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Back in the Commons Matt Hancock says he has been told that test and trace website should no longer be telling people that they must travel hundreds of miles for a test. He says he has been told that problem has been resolved.

Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister, has confirmed that she has spoken to Boris Johnson today.

UK records 4,368 more coronavirus cases, as English hospital ventilation cases double over eight days

The government has just updated its daily coronavirus dashboard. Here are the main figures.

  • The UK has recorded a further 4,368 coronavirus cases. This is the second highest daily total since early May (the highest was on Saturday) and only the third time this autumn the figures have topped 4,000.
New cases.
New cases. Photograph: Gov.UK
  • The UK has recorded 11 new coronavirus deaths. This takes the official headline total to 41,788. But this figure only covers people who died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus. The total number of deaths attributed to coronavirus in the UK is over 57,000.
  • The total number of patients in hospital in England with coronavirus is 1,261. Yesterday it was 1,141. Before this weekend the total had not been above 1,000 since late July.
  • The number of hospital patients in England on mechanical ventilation (ie, the most seriously ill) is now 154. That is more than double what it was just over a week ago (74 on Sunday 13 September).

In the Commons Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, says decisions about how to balance the need to protect lives against other considerations, like the economy, are political judgments. Does Hancock agree that political judgments will be improved if they are subject to scrutiny?

Brady is campaigning for MPs to get more say on coronavirus restrictions.

Hancock says he does agree with this. But he says sometimes restrictions have had to be announced when parliament was not sitting.

In response to a question about a school in Leeds saying any pupil who falls ill must go home and get tested for coronavirus, Hancock says that is not correct. Pupils should only get tests if they have coronavirus symptoms; if they have another illness, they don’t, he says.

Updated

In the Commons another Conservative MP expressed concern about further possible coronavirus restrictions being introduced. Simon Clarke urged Matt Hancock to consider the importance of “proportionality”. He said people needed some social contact.

Hancock said he agreed.

Boris Johnson has spoken to Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales. After the call a spokesperson for Drakeford said

The first minister welcomed confirmation there will be a UK-wide Cobra meeting tomorrow

The first minister updated the prime minister about the measures the Welsh government is taking in Wales to control an increase in cases of coronavirus and protect people’s health in parts of south Wales.

They agreed on the need to work on a four-nation basis to discuss UK-wide measures where these were necessary.

Boris Johnson and Mark Drakeford (left) in Cardiff in July last year.
Boris Johnson and Mark Drakeford (left) in Cardiff in July last year. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Former Tory cabinet minister Chris Grayling says he's opposed to tightening national restrictions

In the Commons Chris Grayling, the Tory former transport secretary, praises Hancock for the measures announced today. But he says there is considerable regional variation in the spread of coronavirus. In the light of that, Grayling says, he does not believes there is a case for tightening national restrictions.

Leaked document reveals list of lockdown restrictions being considered in Scotland

Scottish ministers are considering far-reaching restrictions to combat the surge in Covid cases including local lockdowns linked to school holidays next month, travel restrictions, closing playparks and shutting down hairdressers.

The measures were revealed in a leaked document marked “official sensitive”, which also reveals the Scottish government could issue a “general message” that people should again stay at home accept for essential shopping and exercise and also avoid public transport.

Written by Scottish government officials last Saturday, it also suggests a “rolling lockdown” for different parts of Scotland linked to October’s half term holidays, so that once schools are closed, the entire area goes into a lockdown.

Schools in a large majority of Scotland’s local authorities close for two weeks on 9 October, while a handful, including Edinburgh, close on 16 October.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, confirmed she knew about the document, a computer screen image circulated on Twitter, and did not deny it was authentic. She said her government was considering a range of measures, some of which would go live this week and others at a later date.

“Yes, we are looking at a wide range of options and any government that isn’t doing that right now wouldn’t be doing its job properly,” she said during her daily coronavirus briefing.

She is due to hold emergency talks with Boris Johnson this afternoon before all four UK governments announce a new batch of tougher national restrictions on Tuesday. The details in that document are likely to be very similar to the restrictions being considered across the UK.

“I’ve heard about the screengrab,” she said. She went on:

I’m not going to comment on leaked documents whether they are genuine or not.

What I would say is that any responsible government right now will be looking at a whole range of different options. I know the Scottish government is and I’ve indicated today what the nature of some of those would be.

But we haven’t reached final decisions yet so anybody that’s looking at any documents and drawing a conclusion these are definitely going to happen is wrong, because we haven’t made these decisions.

Updated

Hancock is responding to Ashworth.

He thanks him for his constructive approach. They both agree that the strategy of suppressing the virus, while protecting the economy, is the right one.

Hancock says most people have followed the rules. But they have to be made mandatory because some people are not following them.

He says testing capacity is at record 230,000. It will continue to grow.

There will be no admission to care homes without a test, he says.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is speaking now.

He claims the tone of Hancock’s remarks yesterday (in TV interviews) implied he was blaming the public.

He asks the government to publish figures showing how many asymptomatic people have been tested.

There have been reports of asymptomatic people being offered tests at test centres. Was that policy?

Hancock announces childcare exemption from local lockdown arrangements

Hancock says an exemption from local lockdown measures is going to be introduced for childcare arrangements. It will cover formal and informal arrangements, for children under 14 and for vulnerable children.

But it will not cover parties, he says.

He says MPs from all parties have been pushing for this.

He says this should give people more certainty.

UPDATE: Here is the full quote from Hancock.

I’ve heard the concerns about the impact of local action on childcare arrangements. For many, informal childcare arrangements are a lifeline, without which they couldn’t do their jobs.

So, today I’m able to announce a new exemption for looking after children under the age of 14 or vulnerable adults where that is necessary for caring purposes.

This covers both formal and informal arrangements. It does not allow for play-dates or parties, but it does mean that a consistent childcare relationship that is vital for somebody to get to work is allowed.

I hope this change will provide clarity and comfort to many people who are living with these local restrictions.

Updated

Hancock says, from next Monday, new payments worth £500 will be offered to those on low incomes who have to self-isolate.

He says this scheme will apply to England, but the devolved administrations will get Barnett funding to pay for their own versions.

He says the obligation to self-isolate will be made statutory.

Fines will apply to people who do not obey, he says.

(These measures were briefed to the Sunday papers at the weekend.)

Matt Hancock's Commons statement to MPs

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is making a statement to MPs about coronavirus.

He says ONS figures suggest there are 6,000 new infections per day.

He says the PM spoke to first ministers today. He says the four nations of the UK are seeking to coordinate what they do.

If it continues to spread at the rate it is doing, there could be 50,000 new cases by October, he says.

Updated

NHS England has recorded 10 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The full details are here.

There were no further coronavirus deaths reported in Scotland, but 255 new cases have been reported, and the percentage of people being tested who are positive is now 6.3%. That is almost double the positivity rate from Wednesday last week (3.6%).

In Wales there have been 234 new cases by no further deaths.

And in Northern Ireland there have been 125 new cases, but no further deaths.

The Department for Health and Social Care has been forced this morning to deny claims from the prime minister’s official spokesperson that the contact tracing features of the forthcoming NHS Covid-19 app had been delayed yet again.

Confusion reigned in Westminster after No 10 appeared to confirm yet another missed target for the contact tracing app, which is currently planned for release this Thursday.

“It will be there to check and report symptoms, book a test, find out if you have tested positive or not and if you need to self-isolate,” the PM’s spokesman said. But when asked twice if the app would also have the headline contact tracing feature, the spokesman demurred, saying only that he had “set out to you the functions which it will have when it has launched.”

Even as the spokesman was talking, the official account for the app shared a video with the exact opposite message, confirming that it would indeed have the bluetooth contact tracing feature, which uses mobile phones to track who may have been exposed to the virus.

DHSC said later in a statement:

Contact tracing will be at the heart of the NHS Covid-19 app. The app is designed to work alongside traditional contact tracing services and testing, to help people to understand if they are at risk of infection so they can take action to protect themselves and their communities.

Earlier I mentioned a letter signed by 22 experts questioning whether ongoing coronvirus restrictions need to be as strict as they are. (See 2pm.) A rival letter has been published in the British Medical Journal, signed by 22 academics (mostly professors in medicine or health). It is addressed to the UK’s four chief medical officers and it says the authors “support your continuing efforts to suppress the virus across the entire population, rather than adopt a policy of segmentation or shielding the vulnerable until ‘herd immunity’ has developed.”.

It says there will be no return to normal for some time to come.

We share the desire of many citizens to return to “normality”. However, we believe that the pandemic is following complex system dynamics and will be best controlled by adaptive measures which respond to the day-to-day and week-to-week changes in cases. “Normality” is likely to be a compromise for some time to come. We will need to balance suppressing the virus with minimising restrictions and impacts on economy and society. This is the balance that every country is trying to find—and every country is having to make trade-offs. This might mean moving flexibly between (say) 90% normality and 60% normality. We believe that rather than absolute measures (lockdown or release), we should take a more relativistic approach of more relaxation/more stringency depending on control of the virus.

And it questions the argument (made in the other letter) that there is no firm evidence that particular restrictions are reducing deaths. It says:

In a complex system, we should not expect to see a simple, linear and statistically significant relationship between any specific policy intervention and a particular desired outcome. Rather, several different policy measures may each contribute to controlling the virus in ways that require complex analytic tools and rich case explanations to elucidate.

Dodds suggests Tories are inherently 'cavalier with public money' because they don't value what it can do

Anneliese Dodds’ first speech as shadow chancellor to a Labour conference this morning did not take place in the best of circumstances. The conference is online, which means that even if Barack Obama were speaking, it would still feel more like a YouTube video than an event. And Dodds was on shortly before the Whitty/Vallance briefing that is dominating today’s news.

Still, we promised coverage, and here are the main points. The full text is here.

  • Dodds accused the government of wasting billions on some coronavirus measures. She said:

The Conservatives have wasted enormous amounts of public money. It is a file of failure that no carefully crafted Instagram story from the chancellor can hide.

Just some examples; £130m to a Conservative donor for testing kits that were unsafe, £150m for facemasks that couldn’t be used by NHS staff, over £2.6 billion to be handed over in so-called job retention bonuses, to businesses who were going to bring staff back to work anyway, outsourced contract after outsourced contract which has simply failed to deliver.

But she also made a wider point, which was interesting because it was counter-intuitive, and a rebuttal to the normal Tory charge that it is Labour that is inclined to waste public money ...

  • She suggested the Tories were inherently “cavalier with public money”. She said:

A responsible approach to the national finances. Because you’re only as cavalier with public money as our current chancellor, if you don’t know the value of it.

We in Labour know that if you are responsible with public money, it can transform lives.

  • She set out a three-point coronavirus recovery programme, involving a job retention programme, a training stragegy and a business rebuilding programme. On job retention she said:

Our job recovery scheme would enable businesses in key sectors to bring staff back to work, on reduced hours, with government backing wages for the rest of the week. The scheme would incentivise targeted businesses to bring back more workers part-time, instead of bringing some back full time and letting others go.

On training she said:

The government has wasted months on this, when a limited and underused ‘training portal’ was the only thing on offer. A nationwide retraining strategy would help people whose hours have been cut to increase skills or retrain. It would also enable people who’ve lost their job already, to transition into new work.

Training must be a core part of a job recovery scheme. High-quality training, fitting workers’ needs – not just ticking boxes.

And on business rebuilding she said:

From March next year, repayments will start for the loan schemes set up to help businesses through the crisis. But on the current trend, our economy won’t be anything like back to normal by then.

Without effective government action, many companies will go to the wall – with more job losses and more costs for the public finances.

That’s why I’m calling today for the chancellor to act urgently and put in place a business rebuilding programme. To do for businesses struggling with debt what we’ve repeatedly asked him to do for workers whose jobs are at risk.

  • She stressed that her father was a small businessman, “an accountant who worked a six-day week for decades”.
Anneliese Dodds on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning.
Anneliese Dodds on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning. Photograph: ITV/REX/Shutterstock

The Sun’s Harry Cole says the government is planning strict measures to enforce the rule of six.

Twenty two experts - almost all academics, largely specialising in medicine or health - have signed an open letter to the prime minister arguing that coronavirus restriction measures are going too far.

They say the government’s aim seems to be suppression of the virus. This objective is “increasingly unfeasible”, they say, and “inconsistent with the known risk profile of Covid-19”.

They question how successful current restrictions measures have been. They say:

Focusing on the UK, there is no readily observable pattern between the policy measures implemented to date and the profile of Covid deaths. Caution should therefore be exercised in any presumption that such policy measures will successfully lower future Covid mortalities.

They suggest that it would be better for the government to focus on protecting those at most risk from coronavirus, while minimising the impact of restrictions on the economy and other aspects of life.

This is from Prof Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist and one of the authors of the letter.

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said it was “good” Johnson is hosting a Cobra emergency planning meeting tomorrow morning. “That’s very positive,” she said, during her briefing on Monday, soon after Downing Street confirmed Cobra would take place. (See 1.33pm.)

Earlier in the briefing she had expressed frustration no clear date or time for that Cobra meeting had been confirmed.

She said it was essential that fresh action was taken “quickly, urgently and decisively” to suppress the pandemic and get the R number, the rate of transmission, below 1. She said the current R rate estimate for Scotland was between 0.9 and 1.4.

Face masks on sale at a shop in New Street in Birmingham today.
Face masks on sale at a shop in New Street in Birmingham today. Photograph: Carl Recine/Reuters

Commenting on the news that Boris Johnson will speak to the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, this afternoon (see 12.26pm), the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said this was a “helpful step forward” and such direct communication was necessary if UK-wide measures were to be taken.

Updated

Johnson to make coronavirus statement to Commons tomorrow

Boris Johnson is going to make a statement to MPs tomorrow, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, has announced.

Ministerial statements like this normally take place at 12.30pm on a Tuesday. That would allow Johnson to announce new coronavirus restrictions to MPs after rubber-stamping them earlier at cabinet and at Cobra - although to make the Commons for 12.30pm, he would have to ensure both meetings were quite brisk.

At the weekend there were suggestions that Johnson might make his announcement in the form of a TV address to the nation. This is what he did when he announced the original hard lockdown in March, and when he announced the first lockdown easing in May. But recently the government faced fierce criticism for not announcing the rule of six in the Commons first, and No 10 now seems to be ensuring that MPs won’t be able to complain about being sidelined.

From the Times’s Steven Swinford

The Science Media Centre has published on its website reaction to the Whitty/Vallance briefing from five leading scientists. They are all supportive. One of them, Prof Jackie Cassell, deputy dean at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, says one feature of the briefing that was particular welcome was the fact that “there was none of the bombast about future world-leading technical solutions that have undermined trust and distracted from the basics in recent weeks and months.”

No 10 says Cobra to meet tomorrow, fuelling speculation new restrictions to be announced on Tuesday

The Downing Street lobby briefing has just ended, and No 10 has confirmed that Boris Johnson will chair a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency committee, tomorrow morning.

Cobra, which includes the leaders of the devolved administrations, used to meet regularly at the start of the crisis, normally to agree lockdown measures being imposed in sync by the four nations of the UK. It has not met recently (ministers have claimed that other government committees are doing the job it used to perform) but in recent days Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford have been saying it should be convened to address what must be done about the rise in Covid cases.

The fact that a meeting has now been scheduled suggests that Johnson will be announcing new restrictions at some point after it’s over tomorrow.

Updated

Local lockdown restrictions imposed in four more areas in south Wales

The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said the fresh restrictions in four new areas in south Wales (see 12.43pm) would come into force at 6pm tomorrow.

The new restrictions will apply to everyone living in Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Newport. The restrictions are:

  • People will not be allowed to enter or leave these areas without a reasonable excuse, such as travel for work or education;
  • People will only be able to meet people they don’t live with outdoors for the time being. They will not be able to form, or be in, extended households;
  • All licensed premises will have to close at 11pm.

Gething said:

We have seen a worrying and rapid rise in cases in four other south Wales council areas – Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Newport.

In many cases, this is linked to people socialising indoors without social distancing. We are seeing evidence of coronavirus spreading. We need to take action to control and, ultimately, reduce its spread and protect people’s health.

It’s always a difficult decision to introduce restrictions but coronavirus has not gone away – it is still circulating in communities across Wales and, as we are seeing in parts of south Wales, small clusters can quickly cause real issues in local communities.

We need everyone’s help to bring coronavirus under control. We need everyone to pull together and to follow the measures which are there to protect you and your loved ones.

Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales.
Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

New local lockdown restrictions are to be imposed on four more areas of south Wales affecting more than 400,000 people.

The restrictions are being introduced in Newport, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent, the Welsh government has announced.

Local lockdowns are already in place in Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf.

In all, it means more than 800,000 people in Wales will be subject to local lockdown restrictions, out of a population across the country of 3 million.

Vaughan Gething, the Welsh health minister, at today’s briefing
Vaughan Gething, the Welsh health minister, at today’s briefing Photograph: BBC

Updated

Sturgeon says new restrictions needed, arguing 'doing nothing isn't an option'

Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish government endorses the alarming warnings this morning about the potential for a substantial increase in Covid-19 deaths and cases from Patrick Valance and Chris Whitty.

She said: “Doing nothing in the face of this quite rapid spread now isn’t an option.”

Speaking during today’s routine coronavirus briefing, Sturgeon said she is due to speak to Boris Johnson on Monday afternoon where she would urge him to agree to a joint “four nations” strategy on imposing a much tougher lockdown.

She said Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, promised her and other devolved government leaders on Saturday that there would be a Cobra emergency meeting on Monday or Tuesday, but the exact timing of that had not yet been confirmed.

She said the Scottish government would be willing to delay a Scottish government decision on exactly what new measures would be required but said the prime minister had to act urgently and decisively. “Because of the urgency of the situation we cannot, must not and will not wait,” she said.

Sturgeon added that she expected to address the Scottish parliament on the new emergency measures in the next two days.

She said there had been 255 new positive cases over the last 24 hours, with 103 new cases in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, 47 in Lanarkshire and 30 in the Lothians. There had been no further deaths recorded overnight, but another 10 people were now in hospital, with the total number of confirmed cases at 73.

Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament last week.
Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament last week. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

Updated

Here is some reaction to the Whitty/Vallance briefing from MPs.

From the Labour MP Geraint Davies

From the Green MP Caroline Lucas

From Richard Burgon, the Labour MP and secretary of the leftwing campaign group of Labour MPs

From the Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse

Johnson to call first ministers following complaints he's ignored them for months

Downing Street has announced that Boris Johnson will be speaking by phone to Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, and Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill, first minister and deputy first minister of Northern Ireland respectively, later today.

Sturgeon and Drakeford have been particularly critical of Johnson for not communicating with them regularly. Last week Drakeford said that he had only spoken to Johnson once since May and that this was “simply unacceptable to anyone who believes that we ought to be facing the coronavirus crisis together”.

There was “a vacancy at the heart of the United Kingdom”, Drakeford said last week.

You can find all the slides from the Whitty/Vallance coronavirus briefing here.

From the Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has issued this statement about the Whitty/Vallance briefing.

The UK’s top scientists have presented a grim picture about the rise in coronavirus cases.

This rapid spike in infections was not inevitable, but a consequence of the government’s incompetence and failure to put in place an adequate testing system.

The prime minister is making a statement later this week, but Labour’s priority is that there must be a national effort to prevent another national lockdown.

The government must do what it takes to prevent another lockdown, which would cause unimaginable damage to our economy and people’s wellbeing.

We need an effective testing and tracing system with support for people to isolate. When testing breaks down we can’t track this virus and it quickly gets out of control.

We are also calling for a Cobra of the nations and regions so that the government acts with the urgency this demands.

Summary of Whitty/Vallance briefing

Here are the main points from the briefing by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. The words were strong, but the visuals were even more compelling - in particular the “graph of doom” (my phrase, not theirs) - which Vallance insisted was not a forecast, but which was clearly intended to jolt the public into recognising the case for fresh restrictions.

  • The UK will face more than 200 Covid deaths per day by mid November if the virus continues to spread as now, Vallance said. He said:

At the moment we think the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days. If, and that’s quite a big if, but if that continues unabated and this grows doubling every seven days ... if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.

50,000 cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200-plus deaths per day.

The challenge therefore is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.

There are already things in place which are expected to slow that, and to make sure that we do not enter this exponential growth and end up with the problems that you would predict as a result of that.

That requires speed, it requires action and it requires and it requires enough in order to be able to bring that down.

What might happen if Covid continues to spread as now.
What might happen if Covid continues to spread as now. Photograph: No 10
  • Vallance said the experience of what was happening in countries like Spain and France showed that increasing case numbers were leading to increasing deaths. (See 11.05am.) It was a simple message, he said:

As the disease spreads, as it spreads across age groups, we expect to see increasing hospitalisations and unfortunately, those increasing hospitalisations will lead to increasing deaths.

  • Whitty said the recent increase in hospital Covid admissions in England showed the potential for an exponential increase in deaths if the virus was allowed to carry on spreading as now. (See 11.05am.) He said:

If this carried on unabated - these numbers are relatively small, we’re talking about around 200 at the moment - but if this continued along the path that [Vallance] laid out, the number of deaths directly from Covid ... will continue to rise, potentially on an exponential curve, that means doubling and doubling and doubling again.

And you can quickly move from really quite small numbers to really very large numbers because of that exponential process.

So we have, in a bad sense literally turned a corner, although only relatively recently.

  • Whitty said the almost all parts of the country were at risk from rising rates of coronavirus. He said:

What we’ve seen is a progression where, after the remarkable efforts which got the rates right down across the country, first we saw very small outbreaks, maybe associated with a workplace or another environment, then we’ve seen more localised outbreaks which have got larger over time, particularity in the cities.

And now what we’re seeing is a rate of increase across the great majority of the country. It is going at different rates but it is now increasing.

And what we’ve found is, as we go through in time, anywhere that was falling is now moving over to beginning to rise and then the rate of rise continues in an upwards direction. So, this is not someone else’s problem, this is all of our problem.

  • Whitty hinted that people might be encouraged again to work from home. Describing what could be done to combat the virus (see 11.19am), he said:

We have to break unnecessary links between households because that is the way in which this virus is transmitted. And this means reducing social contacts whether they are at work, and this is where we have enormous gratitude to all the businesses for example who have worked so hard to make their environments Covid-secure to reduce the risk, and also in social environments.

We all know we cannot do this without some significant downsides.

This is a balance of risk between if we don’t do enough the virus will take off - and at the moment that is the path we’re clearly on - and if we do not change course we are going to find ourselves in a very difficult problem.

  • Whitty hinted that any new restrictions might last all winter. He said:

At this point the seasons are against us, we’re now going into the seasons - late autumn and winter - which benefit respiratory viruses, and it is very likely they will benefit Covid, as they do, for example, flu.

So we should see this as a six-month problem that we have to deal with collectively, it’s not indefinite.

Updated

Vallance is talking now about vaccines.

He says several are in clinical tests.

He says the UK has put itself in a good position for vaccine supply.

It is possible that some vaccine could be available in small amounts later this year.

But it is more likely that a vaccine will be available early next year - although that is not guaranteed, he says.

And that’s it. The briefing is over. Whitty and Vallance did not take questions.

Vaccines
Vaccines Photograph: No 10

Whitty: four steps we must take

Whitty says a lot of people argue that individuals should be allowed to choose how much risk they take.

But if you take a risk, you are also exposing others to risk, he says.

He says there are four things we can do.

First, as individuals, we can reduce our risk: hands, face, space, he says.

Second, we can isolate the virus. If people have symptoms, they must self-isolate. People who do this are helping to keep the virus out of circulation.

Third, we must “break unnecessary links between households”. That means cutting contacts at work, and in social environments. But we cannot do this without significant downsides, he says.

He says, if we do not change course, we will find ourselves in a very difficult situation.

Fourth, we can address the virus through science.

Updated

Whitty says Covid poses four sorts of risk.

The virus can kill people. And if it led to the NHS being overwhelmed, people would die, he says. But he says this did not happen in the spring.

He says the virus can also have an indirect impact on health, because operations get postponed etc.

And if it generated an economic downturn, that would have health impacts too, he says.

Whitty presents a chart showing how hospital admissions for Covid are increasing.

This has only started in England, he says. But it means we have turned a corner. And the increase could be exponential. That means the numbers could eventually get very high.

He says there is no evidence that the virus has become weaker.

Infections are not just remaining amongst the young. They are going up the age groups.

Seasonal flu normally kills round 7,000 people a year. But this virus is more virulent, he says.

He says treatments have got better. But that will not be enough to keep deaths at a minimal level, he says.

Hospital admisisons
Hospital admisisons Photograph: No 10

Whitty is speaking now.

He presents a graph showing the rate of spread of Covid (on the left) and the rate of increase (on the right). It is a threat everywhere, he says.

Spread of Covid
Spread of Covid Photograph: No 10

Vallance says around 8% of the population have had the virus, judging by antibody tests.

But that means most people are not protected.

In London the figure could be a high as 17%. That would slow the spread, he says, but not stop it.

Antibody figures
Antibody figures Photograph: No 10

Updated

UK faces 200-plus deaths per day by November if Covid continues to spread as now, Vallance says

Vallance presents the next slide.

It shows new cases in England, by age group.

In every age group cases are going up.

He says that is not just due to more testing. In every age group the proportion of people testing positive is going up.

And the ONS study suggests cases are going up. It suggests about 6,000 people a day are getting infected.

This is translating into an increase in hospitalisation, he says.

New cases in England
New cases in England Photograph: No 10

Vallance says he wants to remind people how quickly things can change.

This slide is not a prediction, he says.

But it shows what could happen.

The epidemic is doubling rouhly every seven days.

If that continues unabated, by mid October you would have 50,000 new cases per day.

That would lead a month later to 200-plus death per day.

What might happen if virus continues to spread as now.
What might happen if virus continues to spread as now. Photograph: No 10

Updated

Increased cases will lead to increased deaths, says Vallance

Vallance presents the first slide.

It shows cases in Spain and France.

Increases in case numbers have led to an increase in hospitalisations. And deaths are increasing too, he says.

He says there is a simple message from the slide: as the disease spreads, there will be more hospitalisations and more deaths, he says.

Cases in other countries
Cases in other countries Photograph: No 10

Vallance starts the briefing.

He describes how the virus spread, and why keeping away from people is important.

Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance's briefing

The briefing from Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, is about to start.

They will not be taking questions.

Hancock hints that pubs in England could face further restrictions

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told ITV’s This Morning that the final decisions about what new restrictions will be imposed have not yet been taken. But he strongly implied that pubs in England will face some restrictions.

Asked whether landlords would be told to shut this weekend, Hancock said:

We will be absolutely clear about the changes we need to make in the very, very near future.

Hancock said his answer on pubs was “not a no, and it’s not a yes”, adding:

We have been working on this all weekend, we haven’t taken the final decisions about what we need to do in response to the surge that we have seen in the last few weeks.

Hancock said he had spoken to Boris Johnson this morning. “He is as worried as we all are about the rise in the number of cases and we have to make a final decision about what’s the best response to that,” Hancock said.

Hancock also suggested that any new restrictions would focus on social settings rather than schools or the workplace.

The evidence is ... schools aren’t where a lot of the transmission happens, it’s more about people socialising.

He pointed out that there were already parts of the country where “there are measures in place to say that you shouldn’t socialise with people outside your household”.

Updated

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is delivering her speech to the virtual Labour conference. You can watch it here.

I will post on it when I’ve had a chance to read the full text.

Liam Fox's says PM's threat to break international law has not helped his campaign to be next head of WTO

Last week Liam Fox, the former international trade secretary, got through to the final five in the contest to become the next head of the World Trade Organization. The government is backing his candidature although, as a Brexiter, he does not have much EU support and he is not seen as a favourite to win.

And Boris Johnson’s threat to override the Brexit withdrawal agreement that he signed early this year has not helped, Fox has admitted. Asked how helpful it was to his campaign to have the government announce that it would be willing to break international law, Fox told Sky News:

Well, it didn’t help when we were voting last week that was happening.

Liam Fox.
Liam Fox. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

We are definitely getting a Commons statement from Matt Hancock, the health secretary, at 3.30pm.

Most of the questions directed at Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, during his broadcast interviews this morning were about coronavirus, not the rail system. Here are the main points he was making.

  • Shapps rejected claims that there was a row in cabinet about how strict further restrictions should be. But there had been a debate, he said:

It’s very clear when you follow the data that we need to make sure we are applying all these measures or we are at this tipping point where we may need to go further - that’s something we would like to avoid.

A debate is quite proper, that’s exactly what you would expect.

Everyone recognises there is a tension between the virus and the measures we need to take and the economy and ensuring that people’s livelihoods are protected, and we want to protect lives and livelihoods.

He also refused to say on which side of the debate he stood himself.

  • He said Boris Johnson would be addressing the public “very soon” following today’s briefing from Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance to say what would be happening next. But the PM wanted “to allow scientists to set out the picture to the country” first, without politicians present, Shapps said.
  • He defended the government’s decision to rely so much on emergency legislation, involving regulations coming into force with minimal parliamentary scrutiny, during the pandemic. He said:

I’m a member of parliament as well as a minister so I don’t disagree about parliament’s role in all of this.

But I do just stress that the exceptional circumstance have meant we’ve needed to move at unbelievable pace and that hasn’t always meant that we could come to parliament first when you’re dealing with something like the coronavirus.

Grant Shapps.
Grant Shapps. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

The UK government has extended emergency funding measures for rail companies for the next six to 18 months to help them get through the Covid-19 crisis, as a first step towards a complete overhaul of the railway system, my colleague Julia Kollewe reports.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, who was doing a round of interviews this morning, has described this as the end of the rail franchising system that has been in place for quarter of a century. He said:

The model of privatisation adopted 25 years ago has seen significant rises in passenger numbers, but this pandemic has proven that it is no longer working.

Our new deal for rail demands more for passengers. It will simplify people’s journeys, ending the uncertainty and confusion about whether you are using the right ticket or the right train company.

It will keep the best elements of the private sector, including competition and investment, that have helped to drive growth - but deliver strategic direction, leadership and accountability.

One of Boris Johnson’s ministers has denied a report in the Italian media that the UK prime minister made a secret trip to the country less than a fortnight ago, a claim Downing Street has also rejected as “completely untrue”, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Whitty and Vallance to present data showing 'trend in UK heading in wrong direction'

Good morning. Last night No 10 sent out a short press release with the title “CSA and CMO to give coronavirus data briefing”. In Whitehall it is often the case that the blander the title, the more significant the announcement, and today’s should be very important indeed. CSA is the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and CMO is the chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty (also the UK government’s chief medical adviser), and they are going to tell the nation how serious they think the risk is from the recent rise in coronavirus cases.

According to the news release, Whitty will say:

The trend in UK is heading in the wrong direction and we are at a critical point in the pandemic.

We are looking at the data to see how to manage the spread of the virus ahead of a very challenging winter period.

Whitty and Vallance are speaking ahead of an announcement expected soon, possibly tomorrow, about further measures being imposed to counter the spread of coronavirus. But Boris Johnson will not be joining them, and it appears that, although ministers have been discussing what new measures might be imposed - nationally as well as locally - no final decisions have yet been taken.

How bad could it get? The Times splash (paywall) today, attributing its information to an unnamed senior government figure, starts: “Britain faces a further six months of ‘very difficult’ lockdown restrictions, Downing Street has warned.” No 10 has been playing this down, but it’s worth remembering that right at the start of the first lockdown government scientists were stressing that it was unlikely to be a one-off. This is what SPI-M-O, the scientific pandemic influenza group on modelling, a sub-committee of the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), said in a statement (pdf) on 16 March, the day soft lockdown measures were announced:

It was agreed that a policy of alternating between periods of more and less strict social distancing measures could plausibly be effective at keeping the number of critical care cases within capacity. These would need to be in place for at least most of a year. Under such as policy, at least half of the year would be spent under the stricter social distancing measures.

The Imperial College paper (pdf) published the same day (the one that persuaded Johnson to commit to the lockdown) included this graph showing one possible scenario for the future involving restrictions being imposed, then lifted, then imposed again (as cases increased), running until the end of 2021.

Scenario for possible future involving successive periods of restrictions
Scenario for possible future involving successive periods of restrictions Photograph: Imperial College

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.35am: Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, delivers a speech to Labour’s online conference. As my colleague Heather Stewart reports, Dodds will accuse the Conservatives of wasting billions of pounds of public money through botched outsourcing and poorly-designed job schemes.

11am: Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, hold a briefing.

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

12.15pm: The Scottish government is due to hold its daily coronavirus briefing.

3.30pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to give a Commons statement on coronavirus.

4pm: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, delivers a speech to Labour’s online conference.

After 4.30pm: MPs debate amendments to the internal market bill.

Politics Live has been doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog for some time and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and where they seem more important and interesting, they will take precedence.

Here is our global coronavirus live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

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