Summary
Here the latest key developments at a glance:
- Prof Neil Ferguson is “hopeful” this will be UK’s “final lockdown”, and said Boris Johnson will “have some bandwidth” to start reopening schools in March before potentially beginning to ease other restrictions the following month.
- The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is between 0.7 and 0.9, according to the latest government figures, falling below 1 for the since July last year.
- The UK reported a further 758 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the UK official death toll to 116,287.
- Downing Street has defended the level of restrictions that will be in place at quarantine hotels, with hotel staff to decide whether travellers are allowed out of their rooms.
- Scottish government ministers continue to draw attention to the UK’s “insufficient” border controls, before the managed quarantine restrictions coming into force on Monday.
- GPs and other vaccinators can now give coronavirus vaccinations to people aged between 65 and 69 in England if they have done all they can to reach older and clinically vulnerable people in higher priority groups.
- Downing Street has said the plan to ease the lockdown in England will be set out on 22 February, after Tory MPs were concerned this would be delayed.
- The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said Wales has achieved the first milestone in its vaccination strategy - to offer vaccination to everyone in the first four priority groups. the nation has so far given jabs to 700,000 people.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that one in 80 people in England had Covid-19 in the week ending on 6 February, or around 695,400 people in total, while 1 on 60 people in London were estimated to have the virus that week.
In Wales, it was one in 85 in the same week, in Northern Ireland one in 75 and in Scotland around one in 150, the ONS estimates.
That’s all from me, thanks for following along. This blog will close shortly, you can follow more updates on the pandemic on our global blog.
Updated
Walsall council is set to extend additional coronavirus testing into more areas after being made aware of a second case of the South African variant in the borough.
The second person affected by the variant – which was identified after “routine sequencing” of positive Covid tests – is known to have made a full recovery, PA Media reports.
The council said in a statement:
The case is not linked to the previously identified cases in the borough or to international travel, and further targeted testing is planned to gather as much information as we can to aid better understanding of the new variant and help suppress and control the spread of Covid-19 in Walsall.
Stephen Gunther, the area’s director of public health, said:
We are mobilising teams for enhanced testing of additional targeted areas next week.
Updated
About 8.8% of Covid-19 hospital cases in England over the first wave of the pandemic may have been nosocomial, or hospital-acquired, infections, according to scientists advising the government.
Figures published by Sage on Friday suggest that between 2 February and 26 July last year, there were about 7,906 cases of Covid-19 infections where patients tested positive 15 or more days after hospital admission.
Experts analysing the data said this figure increased to 14,635 cases (or 16.4%), when factoring in positive Covid-19 tests eight or more days after hospital admission.
However, they suggested that when taking into account missed hospital-acquired infections the numbers may have been as high as 31,000 in England over the first wave.
The experts said that while the proportion of Covid-19 cases linked to hospital transmission is considerable, this is relatively small at a population level.
The undated Sage document said:
A simple calculation assuming 5% of infections are hospitalised and of these hospital cases, if 25% are due to nosocomial infection, the complete prevention of nosocomial transmission would have led to approximately 1% impact on the number of infections in the English epidemic overall.
However, since hospitalised patients tend to be old and/or frail, the impact in terms of morbidity and mortality would nonetheless be expected to be substantial.
Updated
The majority of doctors surveyed by a union still do not feel fully protected from coronavirus infection at work almost a year into the pandemic.
PA Media reports:
The British Medical Association (BMA) said its findings “tell a story of real worry” among medics.
The organisation, which has been regularly surveying doctors across the UK since April last year on their experiences and the issues they face in various settings, including GP practices and hospitals, said its latest results showed that just 28% feel fully protected at work.
The BMA surveyed 8,153 doctors and medical students between February 3 and 5. The latest figures were up from 11% in April last year, but down on 41% in July.
Of those who responded [to the February survey], around 8% said they did not feel protected at all, while 64% said they felt partly protected and less than a third (28%) said they felt fully protected.
Chairman of the BMA consultants’ committee, Dr Rob Harwood, said it is “unacceptable that we are still seeing just how many doctors are not as well protected as they feel they should be in their workplace; and its gone on for almost a year”.
“No one should have to go to work and not feel safe, but these results show that our doctors, the length and breadth of the country, seem to be doing just that - and that’s a terrible indictment.
“To be caring for patients, many of whom are seriously ill and need complex care, whilst anxious about the adequacy of your own protection from the virus, should not be happening in a 21st century health service.”
Updated
Government data up to 11 February shows that of the 14,542,318 jabs given in the UK so far, 14,012,224 were first doses - a rise of 503,116 on the previous day.
530,094 of the overall were second doses, an increase of 5,647 on figures released the previous day.
The seven-day rolling average of first doses given in the UK is now 434,350.
Based on the latest figures, an average of 329,259 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day to meet the government’s target of 15m first doses by 15 February, PA calculated.
Updated
UK reports further 758 deaths
The government said a further 758 people had died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the UK total to 116,287.
Last Friday, the daily death toll had been 1,014, and yesterday’s 678.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 134,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The government also said that, as of 9am on Friday, there had been a further 15,144 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 4,013,799.
Birmingham airport is only expecting to welcome a handful of the passengers returning to Britain from red list countries, according to policing leaders.
PA reports:
Waheed Saleem, West Midlands’ deputy police and crime commissioner, said the airport, one of five nationally announced by the government to handle the arrivals, was expecting “about 2% of those flights, so about 20 (passengers) a month”.
[...]
Travellers from countries on the banned list can only arrive into one of five airports in England, also including Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, and Farnborough Airfield.Guidance says that anyone from one of those countries with a booking that brings them to a different “port of entry” from 15 February must change it to one of those specified.
Speaking to reporters during a briefing of West Midlands political, local government and health leaders on Friday, Saleem said the numbers in Birmingham were “not going to be as much as other areas, like Heathrow, for instance”.
West Midlands mayor Andy Street said “a number of hotels had been identified” around Birmingham airport to take passengers arriving from red list countries, but they had “not become public knowledge yet”.
Updated
Members of minority ethnic multigenerational households should be vaccinated at the same time to ensure they have the maximum protection from coronavirus, a charity has said.
PA reports:
The government is being urged to prioritise vaccinating minority ethnic groups after research showed that people of south Asian background had continued to experience disproportionately high Covid-19 death rates.
The Runnymede Trust said it was amplifying its call and the government should particularly focus on Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities who live in densely populated urban areas.
Many British Bangladeshis and Pakistanis feel they are being “utterly failed by the system”, said its chief executive, Dr Halima Begum, who is of Bangladeshi heritage.
[...]She said mobile vaccination hubs should be made available across the country to avoid access issues and these should offer the vaccine to all members of a multigenerational household at once.
If elderly members of these households had already been vaccinated, the rest of the family should be offered the vaccine as soon as possible.
A review by Public Health England found that overcrowding could contribute to the spread of Covid-19 and was more prevalent in black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) households.
Updated
Travellers remain unable to book a room at a quarantine hotel just three days before they become mandatory for arrivals from “red list” countries.
People attempting to access the booking website receive a message that states: “We’ll be back soon! Sorry for the inconvenience but we’re performing some maintenance at the moment.”
Difficulties with the website have been reported since it went live on Thursday afternoon, PA Media reports.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said the booking portal “will be open” before Monday, with rooms available to be used from that date.
Updated
A father has hit out at “ridiculous” border rules and criticised the government’s upcoming hotel quarantine scheme, which could prevent him from returning to his family.
PA Media reports:
David Taylor, 41, normally splits his time equally in three week blocks working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and being with his wife and their two children in north-east England.
But the government’s decision to add the UAE to its “red list” countries means he would need to go to a quarantine hotel for 10 days if he returns from Monday.
Taylor told the PA news agency: “It’s ridiculous. It’s putting a lot of pressure on my family because I’m away for longer. The kids don’t get to see me.”
He described the 1,750 bill for staying in a quarantine hotel as “devastating”.
The oil industry worker is concerned that he will have difficulty finding an available room at a quarantine hotel when he is next due to return home in early March. “I think I’m going to have real problems booking a hotel, and if they’re full I can’t fly,” he explained.
“I’m then relying on the government finding more hotels, and I don’t have any faith in that at all.”
Taylor also expressed anger that the UK has banned direct flights from the UAE.
“The UAE is full of expats and workers from the UK.
We’re now going to have to go home via a different country and a different airline. It’s ridiculous.“They’re so scared of me that they’re going to put me into quarantine, but they’ve pushed me onto a flight from France or wherever.
“When that flight lands, I’ll go straight into quarantine but everybody sat next to me will then go home. I just don’t get it.”
He added that around half the UAE’s population has received a coronavirus vaccine, and the country is being “picked on” by the UK government in response to anger over social media influencers visiting Dubai.
Updated
NHS England data shows a total of 1,398,167 jabs were given to people in London between 8 December and 11 February, including 1,335,205 first doses and 62,962 second doses.
This compares with 2,256,625 first doses and 72,013 second doses given to people in the Midlands, a total of 2,328,638.
The breakdown for the other regions is:
East of England - 1,421,572 first doses and 59,217 second doses, making 1,480,789 in total
North-east and Yorkshire - 1,850,682 first and 80,437 second doses (1,931,119)
North-west - 1,582,904 first and 68,672 second doses (1,651,576)
South-east - 1,918,899 first and 83,581 second doses (2,002,480)
South-west - 1,377,761 first and 56,702 second doses (1,434,463)
Updated
Joe-Warren Plant and his partner Vanessa Bauer have pulled out of Dancing On Ice after testing positive for coronavirus. Plant said in a statement:
Having tested positive for Covid this now means the end of the competition for Vanessa and I. I have loved every minute of being a part of Dancing On Ice and I am disappointed as I feel I had so much more to give and was working hard to perfect each performance.
Updated
Against the backdrop of yet more evidence highlighting the elevated risk to ethnic minorities of contracting and dying from Covid-19, my colleagues Nazia Parveen and Aamna Mohdin report on the under-acknowledged predicament of Britain’s south Asian taxi drivers on the frontline.
Analysis from Oxford University has revealed that between the first and second waves of the pandemic in 2020, death rates improved in black communities but continued to remain high among people from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds.
Shaz Saleem, the head of the Dudley Private Hire and Taxi Association and the West Midlands Drivers Association, told the Guardian minicab drivers are used to racism and danger, but having worked through the last year in the face of a new, invisible threat, have become forgotten victims of the coronavirus.
Many drivers, usually self-employed, he explains, continued to work throughout the pandemic, often ferrying key workers to shifts at antisocial hours, while also juggling their own family commitments and increased financial worries due to reduced trade. Saleem says many of the men’s families begged them not to work, but they had no choice but to carry on.
They need to work because they can only earn by working. It’s a very tricky situation. It’s one where they’re risking their lives to keep our country moving and they deserve a lot more credit than they actually get.
Here is the full story:
Updated
A further 407 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 78,152, NHS England said on Friday. There were another 34 deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
Further, a total of 12,293,207 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 11 February, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 391,380 on the previous day’s figures. Of this number, 11,809,241 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 386,734 on the previous day, while 483,966 were a second dose, an increase of 4,646.
My colleague Richard Adams has written a piece on the effectiveness and limitations of hotel quarantine schemes.
He writes:
The point of quarantine is to keep people isolated, but hotels are not prisons. Australia and New Zealand have seen multiple escapes by guests who have slipped out through gaps in fences and fire escapes or, in one case, by knotting bedsheets together and climbing out of a fourth-floor window. Some escapers went to their nearest off-licence; one went to a supermarket and bought deodorant; others just went for a stroll. In one sad case, a bereaved woman and her children climbed out over a fence after being denied permission to see her dead husband.
Short of building dedicated quarantine camps – a bad and expensive idea – the best way to deal with the inevitable escapes is an efficient track-and-trace system, which the UK arguably lacks.
You can read the full article here.
Updated
Coronavirus infection rates remain high, but continue to show clear signs of declining in most areas of the UK, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, declines were seen both in the percentage of cases thought to be associated with new variants of the coronavirus and older ones. However, within Scotland, the percentage of people testing positive with what looked like the B117 variant had levelled off.
Within England, the percentage of people testing positive has decreased in all regions except for the south-west where the rate appears to have levelled off – although it remains lower than in most other English regions, and some areas of the South West have the lowest rates of all. Caution should also be taken in over-interpreting any small movements in the latest trend, the report said.
London had the highest percentage of people testing positive, estimated at 1.6% on 6 February, but pockets of the West Midlands, the east of England, and the north-west also had high rates.
Although the ONS data suggests lockdown is continuing to reduce community infection rates, the drop is not as pronounced as the fall in cases reported from pillar I and II diagnostic tests. These are largely done on people with coronavirus symptoms, whereas the ONS survey data is based on tests of randomly selected households.
Experts have previously suggested that this disparity could be due to changes in testing behaviour, or the growing use of less accurate lateral flow tests in pillar II (community) testing.
Updated
UK R value falls below 1 for first time since July, down slightly from last week
The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus transmission across the UK is between 0.7 and 0.9, according to the latest government figures.
It is the first time the R value has fallen below 1 for the since July last year.
Last week, it was between 0.7 and 1.
R represents the average number of people each Covid-19 positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially, but when it is below 1 it means the epidemic is shrinking.
An R number between 0.7 and 0.9 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between seven and nine other people, and that the number of new infections is shrinking between 2% to 5% every day.
Updated
A driver claiming to have travelled 25 miles in lockdown to “feed the ducks” before getting their car stuck in the mud has been fined.
PA reports:
West Mercia Police issued the £200 fixed penalty notice in Telford, Shropshire, this week.
On the force’s Telford & Wrekin Cops Facebook account, posted Thursday, police showed a photograph of the Audi hatchback, with its front tyres bogged down in muddy ground and dirt spattered up the wheel arch.
Commenting, they said: “A trip from Walsall to Telford to ‘feed the ducks’ is one thing, but to get your car stuck as well ... This isn’t a reasonable excuse.
“The person involved was reported by a member of the Brookside Safer Neighbourhood Team and will be receiving a £200 fixed penalty.”
The post concluded by urging people to stick to the rules.
Under lockdown measures introduced by the government across England, people must stay at home and only go out if they have a reasonable excuse.Such reasons include activities like shopping for essentials, working where it cannot be done from home, and for education, training or medical appointments.
Updated
The UK competition watchdog has said it will take legal action against Lastminute.com unless it pays more than £1m in refunds within the next seven days to customers it still owes for holidays cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In December, the flight and hotel booking site agreed to pay £7m in refunds by the end of January to more than 9,000 customers whose holidays were cancelled because of coronavirus, following an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority.
The CMA stepped in after holidaymakers spent months unsuccessfully trying to secure refunds from the online travel agent, many dating back to trips cancelled during the UK lockdown in March and April.
My colleague Mark Sweney reports.
Hundreds of bus drivers employed by Go North West in Manchester will begin an all-out strike from 28 February in a dispute over pay and conditions, union Unite has announced.
PA reports:
The union claims the company is threatening to fire and rehire workers on inferior contracts. The workers voted by 4-1 in favour of strike action earlier this week.
Unite regional secretary Ritchie James said: “Unite gave Go North West the opportunity to withdraw its fire and rehire plans following the overwhelming vote for strike action, sadly it spurned this opportunity.
“As a consequence, Unite has had no option but to call its members out on strike. This will inevitably cause a great deal of disruption throughout Greater Manchester and beyond, but I hope that passengers appreciate that Unite took this action as a last resort.
“If Go Ahead were allowed to implement its fire and rehire policies it would result in our members, who have been in the frontline since the pandemic began, having to work longer for far less money.”
Downing Street has defended the level of restrictions that will be in place at quarantine hotels, with hotel staff to decide whether travellers are allowed out of their rooms.
Downing Street said it could add extra hotel rooms for quarantine “as required”, after signing contracts for 4,600 rooms with 16 hotels far.
A No 10 spokesman said:
[The restrictions] are in line with other countries who are taking this approach.
We require repeat testing, travellers to quarantine inside their room for 10 days and we have strict penalties in places for anyone who fails to comply.
Travellers must quarantine inside their room for 10 days. They are allowed outside for exercise with permission from hotel staff.
He added the list of exemptions from staying inside the hotel room was “quite limited”.
Updated
Scottish government ministers continue to draw attention to the UK’s “insufficient” border controls, before the managed quarantine restrictions coming into force on Monday.
“We’re very clear that our position that no one should enter Scotland from international travel without managed quarantine is informed by clinical advice and our experience last year over the summer ... We think the UK government approach which confines itself to the red zone countries is insufficient and we continue to try and persuade them to adopt the tougher stance that we are adopting.
At today’s briefing, the health secretary, Jeane Freeman, said her government was giving “serious consideration” to the options available to it to close the loophole whereby international travellers could come to Scotland via major airport hubs in England, thus avoiding Scotland’s stricter quarantine controls. She added that decisions around border control remained operational matters for Police Scotland.
National clinical director Jason Leitch also said that progress in reducing infections had “stalled” because of the new Kent variant.
Updated
Drakeford said restrictions in Wales could be eased “slowly and cautiously” around spring time if levels of Covid-19 infection continued to drop, echoing remarks he made earlier on Friday.
Drakeford said:
If that is the path that we are on, then a pattern in Wales as we move towards the spring and Easter will be one in which we will be able to slowly and cautiously lift the restrictions that are currently in place in all aspects of our lives.
That will include the tourism industry and it’ll include those aspects of family life which are denied to us all at the moment, but that is a path that depends upon continued success.
We’ve learnt so often over the last 12 months coronavirus continues to have very unpleasant surprises up its sleeve, we’re by no means guaranteed to have a smooth passage into the future.
Government to set out roadmap out of lockdown on 22 February as planned
Downing Street has said the plan to ease the lockdown in England will be set out on 22 February, after Tory MPs were concerned the timetable may have slipped.
A No 10 spokesman said:
On February 22 we will set out a gradual and phased approach towards easing the restrictions in a sustainable way.
PA Media reports:
Concerns of a delay among lockdown-sceptical Conservatives were raised on Thursday when the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We’ve been clear we will publish the road map on the week of the 22nd.”
On Friday, the No 10 spokesman did not rule out that one option being considered is social distancing being maintained until the autumn.
“The latest data and evidence clearly shows that we remain in a difficult situation with the pressure on the NHS still very significant. We keep the latest data and evidence under constant review and on February 22 we will be setting out our plan to reopen schools and gradually reopening our economy and society,” he said.
Updated
Wales hits milestone of over 700,000 vaccinations
Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said Wales has achieved the first milestone in its vaccination strategy - to offer vaccination to everyone in the first four priority groups.
Drakeford told a press conference in Cardiff that he was “incredibly proud” of the achievement, which comes just 66 days after Wales began its vaccination programme. More than one in five people in Wales have had their first jab.
He said:
Take up of the vaccine has been incredible high.
The latest figures, which were published at midday today, show that in total more than 715,000 people have already had a first dose of the vaccine.
We want to make sure that nobody from those first four groups is left behind.
Drakeford said those who had changed their mind about having a vaccine, or not been able to attend an appointment due to illness, had not “missed out” on the chance of having the jab.
He said:
The NHS across Wales is checking and rechecking its lists to make sure that nobody has been missed out and will continue to invite people to come forward throughout the weekend.
Updated
1 in 60 in London estimated to have had the virus in last week of February - ONS
London continues to have the highest proportion of people likely to test positive for coronavirus in any region of England, with around one in 60 people in private households estimated to have had Covid-19 in the first week of February, according to the ONS.
This is down from an estimated one in 45 for the period between 24 and 30 January.
For eastern England, the East Midlands, north-west England and the West Midlands, the latest estimate is one in 70 people.
The other estimates are one in 95 for Yorkshire and the Humber; one in 100 for north-east England and south-west England; and one in 105 for south-east England.
More than three million rapid coronavirus tests have been carried out among school and college staff and pupils in England since January.
PA reports:
Figures released by the government show that 1.7 million lateral flow tests have been taken on site in secondary schools and colleges, where students are offered two tests on their return and staff are offered tests twice-weekly.
A further 1.7 million rapid Covid-19 tests have been taken at home by staff in primary schools and council-run nurseries.
The Department for Education (DfE) has said 97% of schools and colleges in England are now ready to offer tests.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson said: “I hope it gives parents and students the same confidence it gives me - that every possible action is being taken to get all students back into education as soon as possible.”
1 in 80 had Covid in England last week, ONS estimates
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that one in 80 people in England had Covid-19 in the week ending on 6 February, or around 695,400 people in total.
In Wales, it was one in 85 in the same week, in Northern Ireland one in 75 and in Scotland around one in 150, the ONS estimates.
The infection rate decreased in all regions of England except for the South West in that week, and the number of cases that are compatible with the new UK variant of the virus decreased in all regions of England except Yorkshire and The Humber, the East Midlands and the South West.
In the previous week, ending on 30 January, around 1 in 65 people in England are estimated to have had the virus, compared with 1 in 70 in Wales, 1 in 65 in Northern Ireland and 1 in 115 in Scotland. The week before the figures were 1 in 55, 1 in 70, 1 in 50 and 1 in 110 respectively.
As the UK is within touching distance of completing the first step in its coronavirus vaccination programme, my colleagues have put together interesting info on what societal groups the circa 13.5 million people who have so far received a first jab fall into.
Care home residents and their carers were the top priority for the vaccine when the distribution began. But by last Sunday, 17,000 residents in England’s old age care homes were still to receive their first dose, according to the latest data released on Thursday, my colleague Robert Booth reports.
A survey of 24,370 nurses this week by the Royal College of Nursing showed that 85% of nurses across the UK had had either their first dose or, in a few cases, both, but 15% – about 75,000 people – had still not had any, Denis Campbell reports.
Figures released on Thursday show that 6.5 million people aged 70 and over in England had received their first jab by 7 February, accounting for 86% of the total. Ministers had hoped for a 75% acceptance rate, my colleagues Dan Sabbagh and Niamh McIntyre write.
While more than 9 million first and second doses have been given to white people, covering 18.4% of that population in England, that figure plummets to just 175,053 vaccinations for black people (8.7%).
People from Asian and mixed ethnicity backgrounds are also less likely to have been vaccinated, with 11.2% and 7.7% of those groups receiving a jab respectively up to 7 February, Nazia Parveen and Caelainn Barr report.
And despite strict rules limiting the vaccines to the four priority groups, around the country many younger people have managed to skip the queue, with some clinics offering “leftover” shots to younger people at the end of the day that would otherwise have been thrown away.
This is particularly true with the Pfizer vaccine, which must be used within three days after coming out of deep-freeze, my colleague Helen Pidd reports.
Full piece here.
A man has denied allegations he tricked a 92-year-old woman into paying for a fake Covid-19 vaccine.
PA Media reports:
David Chambers, 33, pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation and one charge of battery during a plea and trial preparation hearing at Kingston crown court on Friday morning.
His alleged victim is said to have allowed him into her home in Surbiton, south-west London, on the afternoon of 30 December after Chambers allegedly said he was there to administer the Covid-19 vaccine.
According to the court indictment put to the defendant, Chambers allegedly made a series of false representations to the woman, namely that he had been sent to administer a coronavirus jab, that he gave her one and that she needed to pay a fee for receiving it.
City of London police previously said the woman was allegedly charged £160.
For the same date, Chambers faces a charge of assault by beating against his alleged elderly victim.
On 4 January, he is also accused of allegedly falsely claiming the 92-year-old owed him a further £100.
Chambers, from Surbiton, south-west London, spoke only to confirm his name, give his date of birth, enter his not guilty pleas and say he understood proceedings during the short hearing.
He was remanded in custody by Judge Judith Coello ahead of a trial at Kingston crown court to be held from 9 August.
Updated
Professor Neil Ferguson told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast that despite favouring a cautious, gradual one-step-at-a-time easing of lockdown restrictions, he still believes that the UK will “hopefully” be reopening society to a considerable degree by May.
He said:
I still think despite that caution, though, certainly by May, we hopefully will be in a place much more like we were like back last October, for instance, rather than the ever-intensified social distancing we’ve seen since October onwards.
Ferguson added that this would however “critically depend” on the “real world effectiveness” of the vaccine, which was not yet clear.
He said:
The data from Israel is informative, and there’s some parallel data coming through from the UK that the Pfizer vaccine, certainly after two doses, gives a very high level of protection - 90, 95 percent-plus, as shown in the trials.
Of course, we’ll have to see how it performs against the UK new variant - not the one in Bristol, but the one which has been circulating for the last six or eight weeks in particular.
But it’s still likely to be highly, highly effective. There’s a bigger question mark obviously around - just because we haven’t seen the data yet - around the real world effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Seeing the data come through will be critical for making an assessment of the extent to which those rules on people seeing each other can be relaxed.
Updated
A Welsh government spokesperson has said it is confident Wales will have administered coronavirus vaccines to “every single person that wants a jab” in its top four priority groups by the end of the weekend.
The spokesperson told the PA news agency the government expects to reach this target by the end of Friday, but there may be “mopping up” over the weekend to arrange appointments for those from the priority groups who had missed or previously refused a slot.
Out of the 740,350 people in Wales’ first four priority groups, only 56,253 were outstanding to be vaccinated as of Wednesday evening, the spokesperson said.
They added:
With yesterday’s figures and today’s figures, we are confident that we will have jabbed the remaining 56,000, with a little bit of mopping up over the weekend.
Every single person that wants a jab will have had a jab by today or certainly over the next couple of days.
The scientist behind the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine says that the time between the first and second dose should not be longer than six weeks, Sky News reports.
BioNTech chief executive Professor Ugur Sahin was responding to the UK’s decision to delay the second dose by up to 12 weeks to allow more people to get a first dose quickly.
Asked if that was wrong, he told Sky News:
As a scientist, I wouldn’t mind if the second dose of the vaccine is given three weeks, four weeks, maybe five weeks, even up to six weeks might still be okay.
But I wouldn’t delay that further. As a scientist I believe that it is not good to go longer than six weeks.
[...]
The pros are very clear - by immunising more people we could get benefit to more people. But we need to be also aware that we will only get partial benefit to more people.
So at the end of the day it is a risk-benefit assessment from governmental bodies whether the benefit by reaching more people is sacrificed by giving less protection to the vaccinated people.
Updated
A couple face being fined for breaking lockdown rules after being caught “fornicating under the stars” on Dartmoor.
33% of Britons say they’re comfortable with the idea of having sex in the great outdoors including 49% of men but only 17% of women, YouGov reports.
Safeguarding minister Victoria Atkins has refused to comment on the number of police officers that will be deployed to ensure arrivals to the UK follow quarantine rules.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said:
We have announced today a further 60 million for police forces.
58 million is to support police forces who have done an incredible job over the last year of the pandemic making sure those few people who aren’t sticking to the rules that they stop doing so and, if necessary, they are fined.
She said that another 2 million had been allocated to forces that will be patrolling ports and airports.
But she refused to comment on the number of police officers that would be deployed to enforce the new quarantine rules, saying only: “Police operational details - first of all I wouldn’t dream of announcing them on national television.”
There are currently 14,818 daily new symptomatic cases of Covid-19 in the UK on average, according to the latest figures from the Zoe Covid Symptom Study app.
PA reports:
The data, which is based on swab tests data from up to five days ago, also puts the UK reproduction number (R) of coronavirus at 0.8.
The Zoe app figures, which includes information from around one million weekly reporters, estimates around one in 233 people in the UK currently has symptomatic Covid-19.
Tim Spector, lead scientist on the Zoe app and professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said:
“Based on the Zoe data and our predictions we are soon to be in the same place we were in early June, with the advantage of having a large proportion of the population vaccinated, which could mean good news in terms of lifting some restrictions sooner rather than later.
“By March 8 we should have less than 1 in 740 people with symptoms, allowing us to get kids back into the classrooms and starting to allow people to exercise and meet, at least outdoors, where the risk of transmission is much lower.
“Until then it’s important to keep following the guidelines, even if you have had a vaccine, and keep reporting symptoms and getting tested even if your symptoms are not typical.”
Middle-aged men are driving coronavirus infection rates in Liverpool, the city’s director of public health has said.
Matthew Ashton said infection rates had reduced in the city since January but in the last few days had plateaued, PA reports.
He said:
We know from some analysis of the data that middle-aged men are driving the infection rate in some areas. That is why testing, and self-isolating if you test positive, are so important.
If we give it a huge push over the next four weeks we will be in a much stronger position when the government decides to start to ease lockdown restrictions and that will give us more of the freedoms that we all crave.
People aged 60 to 69 will now be invited for a Covid-19 vaccine in England if supplies allow and if GPs have done all they can to reach those at higher risk.
PA reports:
Some parts of England have already begun vaccinating the over-65s with their first dose after they reached everyone in the top four priority groups - including the over-70s and care home residents - who wanted a jab.
Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group is among those that has invited over-65s to receive a vaccine, while in Shropshire, Coventry and Hampshire some vaccines have been given already.
NHS England said regions could now move onto people aged 60-69 if every effort has been made to contact and vaccinate those in groups one to four, and if there are supplies.
In Wales, First Minister Mark Drakeford said some over-50s there have already begun to be contacted and offered a vaccination after the top groups were reached.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she expects many in the 65-69 age group to have had their first vaccine by the middle of this month.
And in Northern Ireland, people aged 65-69 have been able to book a Covid-19 vaccine at seven regional centres since the end of January.
However, some GPs have expressed frustration at being told they cannot move on to the next groups.
Doctors at the Francis Crick Institute in London say they are providing first doses at a rate of 100 a day when they have capacity for 1,000, the Guardian reported.
Dr Sam Barrell, the chief operating officer at the institute, which opened as a mass vaccination centre on 18 January, said: “Every day lost, where you have vaccine supply and vaccinators, is lives lost and livelihoods lost.”
Updated
Hundreds of thousands of social care staff in England looking after older and clinically vulnerable people in their own homes have not received their first coronavirus vaccine.
A survey by the UK Home Care Association of 379 employers of homecare workers found that by the end of January only 32% of their staff had been vaccinated.
With an estimated 656,000 working in homecare, that means more than 400,000 were still unvaccinated at the beginning of the month.
The findings show that the government is unlikely to meet its target of all health and frontline social care staff having received or been offered their first vaccine by 15 February.
My colleague Anna Bawden reports.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said of the latest GDP statistics:
These figures confirm that not only has the UK had the worst death toll in Europe, we’ve experiencing the worst economic crisis of any major economy.
Businesses can’t wait any longer. The Chancellor needs to come forward now with a plan to secure the economy in the months ahead, with support going hand in hand with health restrictions.
We need a smarter furlough scheme that offers certainty beyond April, alongside an extension to the business rates holiday and the vital VAT reduction for hospitality and tourism to give businesses breathing space.
This crisis has pulled back the curtain on the Conservatives’ insecure economy. We need to rebuild stronger, putting in place the foundations for a better, more secure future.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest “Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain” report.
Around three quarters (74%) of adults said they would be likely to get a test for Covid-19 if offered as part of mass testing, even if they had no symptoms. This is up from 69% last week, the ONS reports.
Those aged 16-29 were least likely to say they would take part in mass testing, at 64%. This is compared with 77% of those aged 30 to 49, and 78% of those aged 50 to 69.
Among those aged 70 or older, 73% said they would be likely to take part in mass testing, even if they had no symptoms. This is up from 66% last week, but lower than the 78% who said the same in in early December 2020.
Personal well-being scores remained at some of the lowest levels recorded since March 2020, while levels of anxiety improved slightly (4.2 out of 10) compared to early January (4.6).
Compliance with safety and social distancing measures remained high in the week to 12 February, the report said.
Compliance with measures to stop the spread of the #COVID19, such as handwashing and using a face covering, remained high this week https://t.co/oTDntdgOqH pic.twitter.com/js6gyOuSbs
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) February 12, 2021
Home secretary Priti Patel has told people to “persevere” with the government’s testing website after a woman raised fears she will not be able to travel back from the US because of issues.
An LBC radio listener said she is a UK citizen married to a US citizen and is due to return from the States on 22 February but has been unable to book a test.
Patel responded:
I do understand there have been problems with the testing package website, which I think was launched yesterday.
I’ve been told it was back up and running this morning so please persevere with this.
This is a fresh website clearly.
Updated
Neil Ferguson 'hopeful this will be UK's 'final lockdown'
Boris Johnson will “have some bandwidth” to start reopening schools in March before potentially beginning to ease other restrictions the following month, professor Neil Ferguson has said.
PA Media reports:
The key scientist advising the government as part of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group said he is “hopeful” that the nation could be in its “final lockdown”.
His comments came as the Prime Minister faced pressure from Tory MPs not to delay the timetable for easing lockdown.
Mr Johnson’s “road map” for easing England’s third national lockdown is due out in the week starting February 22, with March 8 earmarked for a wide reopening of schools.
Prof Ferguson, the Imperial College London academic whose modelling was crucial in shocking Mr Johnson into imposing the first lockdown, said the nation is “in a better place than I might have anticipated a month ago”.
“The lockdown has really driven down cases quite fast,” he told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast this week.
“They’re basically halving about every 17 days at the moment or so, and that means in a month’s time - the Prime Minister’s talked about potentially reopening schools, we might have some bandwidth to do that, at least primary schools.
“And if we continue to see then a continued decline without large outbreaks, then perhaps starting to relax other aspects of society the following month.”
Prof Ferguson estimated that around a third of the UK population now has some immunity to Covid-19, partly because so many people have been naturally infected and partly because of the vaccine rollout.
He acknowledged it will be “a bumpy road” and that “I’d be a fool to try and predict out six months” but that he believes the vaccines will start allowing restrictions to be eased.
But he echoed other scientists in cautioning that social distancing measures must be relaxed slowly in order to prevent another spike in infections.
“I’m hopeful it will be the final lockdown, so long as we are relatively cautious in coming out of this lockdown,” Prof Ferguson said.
Updated
Drakeford said there would be a “small dip in the volume of vaccine coming to Wales” over the next two weeks, but that the Welsh government was “confident” it would vaccinate the top nine priority groups by the spring
Drakeford told BBC Breakfast that those already vaccinated would receive second doses and anyone in the next five priority groups would begin to receive their first doses.
“Then in March, the volume of vaccine accelerates again and that gives us confidence that we will complete the vaccination of the next five priority groups by this spring,” Drakeford said.
He added everyone in the top four priority groups in Wales will have received “invitations to come in” for a Covid-19 jab “at the very latest over the weekend”, and that out of Wales’ 740,000 people in those four groups, 689,000 of them had been vaccinated by the end of Wednesday.
Only “a very small number” of people in these groups will not have had a vaccine by the end of the weekend.
“There will be some people who were ill when they were first offered who will need to be rebooked, there will be some people who chose not to have a vaccine when they were first offered it who may have changed their minds,” he said.
Welsh government mulling potential easing of lockdown measures in spring
First Minister Mark Drakeford said the Welsh Government can “see a path into the spring” where it is possible to ease some lockdown measures.
Drakeford told BBC Breakfast:
Here in Wales, numbers of people infected with coronavirus continue to go down. If that can be sustained over the weeks to come then we can see a pathway into the spring in which we will be able to restore freedoms to people that they’ve had to go without while we’ve been in this second wave.
But that is a very big if because there are so many unknowns, new variants that are happening in different parts of the world that could make a difference here in the United Kingdom.
But with vaccination, and with numbers falling, provided we reopen society carefully and cautiously and don’t allow the virus to get away from us again, we can see a path into the spring where it will be possible for us to go back to doing some of the things that we’re all missing so much.
Drakeford said Easter was an “important moment” for the tourism and hospitality industry in Wales and the government was “talking with them about what might be possible”.
Updated
The UK’s economy shrunk faster than at any point in 100 years in 2020, as gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 9.8%, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said:
Today’s figures show that the economy has experienced a serious shock as a result of the pandemic, which has been felt by countries around the world.
While there are some positive signs of the economy’s resilience over the winter, we know that the current lockdown continues to have a significant impact on many people and businesses.
That’s why my focus remains fixed on doing everything we can to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods.
At the Budget I will set out the next stage of our plan for jobs, and the support we’ll provide through the next phase of pandemic.
You can follow updates on this in more depth on our business live blog this morning.
The government’s hotel quarantine scheme has also come under fire because travellers were left unable to book rooms just days before the policy is due to come into force.
The online booking portal crashed shortly after it was launched on Thursday afternoon, and is not expected to be up and running again until around 10am on Friday, PA Media reports.
Labour said this was “extremely worrying”, adding the system was “showing signs of failing from the outset”.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said the portal would be open “well before” the hotel quarantine scheme comes into effect, adding: “The website is currently undergoing work to correct a minor technical issue.”
Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, said the government must ensure there are enough hotel rooms available.
He said: “If mandatory hotel quarantine is to be effective, it is essential the government ensures there is enough provision of rooms to accommodate UK arrivals from red-list countries, to save anyone being left stranded abroad and significantly out of pocket for reasons beyond their control.”
Home Office minister Victoria Atkins said it is “reasonable” to allow travellers quarantining in hotels a “gulp of fresh air”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We have to look at our own measures in our own country.
The hotel will of course be adhering to all of the very strict measures that we have in place in relation to social distancing and face masks and so on.
So I think allowing someone a gulp of fresh air... apart from anything else, we know that being outside is less likely to transmit than being inside.
But I think allowing someone a gulp of fresh air during a 10-day visit in a hotel, with all the very strict measures that we have, I think is reasonable - but of course we will keep these measures under review.
We are confident that the measures that we have in place, ready to go on Monday, are strong and that they will help to protect our country against any of these new variants that are being found.
Good morning.
Details of the government’s hotel quarantine policy, to come into effect on Monday, and their impact are dominating the agenda this morning.
Countries could be added to the UK’s “red list” with just a few hours’ notice, the Times reported (paywalled), which could make international travel unworkable for months.
The list of 33 countries from which travel to Britain is banned will be expanded by ministers “at a moment’s notice” if new variants are reported in countries not on the list, a government source said.
Travellers from such countries are required to quarantine in a hotel for 11 nights at a cost of £1,750 each.
People must fly into one of five specified airports and are “not guaranteed” the chance to leave their room for exercise, according to guidance published on Thursday.
Allowing travellers quarantining in hotels to leave their rooms with guards is “very risky”, Australian epidemiologist professor Michael Toole has warned.
Toole is from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Victoria, which has entered a third lockdown after an outbreak of cases thought to be linked to a quarantine hotel.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there had been coronavirus cases in the city where an infected guest opened their room door and “with the positive pressure this kind of fog of virus went out into the corridor, travelled down and infected hotel staff”.
Asked for his views on people being allowed to leave their rooms in UK quarantine hotels while accompanied by guards, Prof Toole said: “We’ve learnt that that is a very risky procedure.”
My name is Jedidajah Otte and I will be at the helm of this blog for the next few hours. As always, free to get in touch with relevant updates, comments or tips, you can reach me on Twitter @JedySays or via email.
