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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

UK Covid: Keir Starmer and Nicola Sturgeon criticise government over 'too leaky' borders - as it happened

Keir Starmer at the UK Border Control area during a visit to Heathrow airport.
Keir Starmer at the UK Border Control area during a visit to Heathrow airport. Photograph: Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror/PA

UK records 678 further deaths as 13,494 people test positive in the last 24 hours

The UK has recorded 678 further deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test.

There were 13,494 people who tested positive in the last 24 hours and 1,842 people were admitted to hospital since yesterday.

More than 13.5 million people have had at least one vaccine dose as of 10 February.

Daily stats
daily stats

Updated

Early evening summary

  • Sir Keir Starmer has restated his call for tougher border rules, claiming that around 10,000 people a day could arrive in Britain from higher risk countries without being subject to the hotel quarantine regime coming into force on Monday. (See 1.20pm.) Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, also said the borders were “a bit too leaky” under the UK government’s plans. (See 1.29pm.)

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

Updated

NHS reform white paper - Verdict from the experts

Here is some comment on today’s NHS reform white paper from health experts.

Prof Sir Chris Ham, who used to run the King’s Fund, the health thinktank, told the World at One the plans would not provide a solution to social care. He said:

The Lansley reforms were the wrong reforms at the wrong time. It’s the right thing to do to reverse those reforms to go off in a very different direction based on collaboration not on competition. The last decade in many respects has been wasted because of the distraction of those Lansley reforms and the impact that has had on staffing and patient care.

The white paper will not provide the solution that many of us have been arguing for on social care because successive governments have ducked that. The prime minister promised in the 2019 election that he would bring forward rapidly plans to establish a different model of funding and delivering social care that was fit for current times – that hasn’t happened and it’s a great regret that that hasn’t happened.

Social care has been rejected and the tragic deaths in care homes are just one indication of why we need to look at a sustainable solution.

Nicholas Timmins, historian of the welfare state, says it is a mistake to give ministers more direct control over the NHS. In an Institute for Government blog a few days ago based on a leak of the plans (they have not changed significantly) he wrote:

As it stands, it threatens to take the NHS back to the wrong sort of future. It largely removes the one bit of Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 that has worked, namely the statutory independence of NHS England. It reverts, instead, to a model where ministers exercise command and control over the running of the health service, an approach that many a past health secretary has acknowledged is far from ideal.

And, most importantly, it does not remotely make the case for doing that. Indeed, recent events during the pandemic – the initial trials over personal protective equipment and the tribulations of the £22bn test and trace programme, both programmes over which ministers already have direct control – make the case the other way. Among the things that have worked are the way the NHS adapted fast, and locally, to handle the huge surge in patients that Covid-19 produced, and the impressive local organisations of vaccine hubs and much else to deliver, to date, 12 million jabs into the arms of its patients.

These are from Sarah Wollaston, the former GP and Conservative MP who chaired the Commons health committee from 2014 to 2019. She left the Tories over Brexit and is now a Liberal Democrat.

Adam Lent, director of the NLGN, a local government thinktank, says the white paper is lacking in ambition. In a blog for politics.co.uk he says:

In short, this is not the white paper the country needs. Yes, it is good that the Lansley marketisation reforms have finally been put out of their misery but beyond that the paper betrays a profound lack of awareness of how deeply the NHS needs to change.

We can only hope that sooner rather than later we get a vision of healthcare from Westminster that not only recognises the need for a new community-powered model for the NHS but also sees that the only meaningful route to decent health is a decent society.

Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, a health thinktank, says the centralising powers in the white paper might be a mistake. In a press notice he says:

Ministers may come to regret all the new powers they are set to be granted over hospital closures and downgrades, directions to NHS England, and the responsibility to collaborate. The health service is so huge that decisions at the centre can easily miss the reality at the front line. And as earlier governments learnt to their peril, centralising power means you centralise blame, and create more pressure to interfere.

Bob Hudson, a visiting professor of public policy at the Centre for Health Services Studies at the University of Kent, identifies four problems with the plans in an LSE blog. He says:

Shared endeavours work best when there is a negotiated relationship between all of the local stakeholders based upon a high level of trust and mutual respect. This alchemy is built locally from the bottom-up, not by edict from the top-down. The policy landscape is littered with the corpses of failed top-down experiments; this organisational re-set of the NHS is at serious risk of adding to the number.

From Stephen Dorrell, Conservative health secretary in the 1990s

Updated

Northern Ireland has recorded a further 253 coronavirus cases and nine more deaths.

A week ago today there were 412 new cases and 10 deaths.

This chart shows how the seven-day rolling average for new cases in Northern Ireland (the green line) has been falling.

New cases
New cases Photograph: Department of Health, NI

Tory Covid Recovery Group accuses scientists of spreading 'fear and despondency' about lockdown easing

It is hard to be sure of the significance of Downing Street’s refusal to say that the roadmap out of lockdown will be published on Monday 22 February, and only that it will be published in the week beginning 22 February. (See 2.11pm.) Boris Johnson has in the past said it would be out on 22 February, but he has also talked about it just coming out that week, and so perhaps he just made a mistake. It would not be the first time he was wrong about the timing of a government announcement.

But the Covid Recovery Group, which represents Tory MPs pushing to end the lockdown, is worried. Mark Harper, its chair, has just put out a statement saying the announcement must come on the Monday. He said:

The prime minister, vaccines minister and health secretary have all confirmed that the plan for lifting restrictions would come on 22nd February. It’s crucial we don’t backslide on this, not least because the government has said it wants to give schools two weeks’ notice before they open, and - as the PM said - it is the ‘settled will’ of most MPs that pupils should be back in school on 8 March.

In the same news release Steve Baker, the CRG deputy chair, accused unnamed scientists of spreading “despair and despondency”. He said:

Having a full public debate is essential at this time but I fear senior scientists are failing to recognise their power to spread despair and despondency. Some seem to be floating untested hypotheses in the media. Doing so is not science. It is the death of science. Perhaps worse, it brings scientists squarely into the political domain, something we would I am sure all like to avoid. I look forward to the prime minister’s 22 February roadmap out of restrictions so that we can all reclaim our lives once and for all.

Baker, who has declined to name the scientists he is referring to, said he was making this comment in response to reports that criteria for lifting restrictions were changing. Ministers have always said decisions about easing lockdown would be determined by what was happening with cases and deaths; what was happening with hospitals, and the pressure on beds; the success of the vaccine rollout programme; and the situation with new variants. But recently they have been putting more emphasis on knowing how the vaccines perform against new variants.

Earlier this month, in a report dismissed by some government sources, the Daily Telegraph claimed Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was also worried that scientific advisers were “moving the goalposts” on the requirements for ending lockdown.

The government is calling for councils to stop using schools as polling stations in May’s local elections to avoid further disruption to pupils’ education.

A letter from Nick Gibb, the schools minister for England, and Lord True, the Cabinet Office minister, urges returning officers to look for alternative venues if a school would be required to close while serving as a polling station. It says:

This year all children have missed vital time at school and the government is committed to minimising any further disruption to pupils’ education. We know that returning officers are acutely aware of this and are seeking to avoid using schools as polling stations.

We support this approach of avoiding schools where it is practically possible to do so; in particular, we are clear that where schools would be required to close, returning officers should look to other available venues first.

The letter advises that alternatives such as “places of worship, gymnasiums, or other community or commercial venues” should be looked at. “This should be an opportunity to support local businesses,” it suggests.

Where using a school is the only option, the letter asks that “schools and returning officers will, as usual, work together to minimise any disruption and keep the school open where that is possible”.

Ministers will tomorrow discuss a plan to set up a system of vaccine certificates for when international travel is allowed again, Sky’s Aubrey Allegretti reports.

In the past ministers have denied planning “vaccine passports” although often comments on this topic have failed to differentiate between “vaccine passports” that might be used domestically to access venues, jobs or services (which the government does not support, and is not planning) and “vaccine passports” for international travel (which were always more likely because airlines started saying they would be requiring them).

Sir Keir Starmer (centre) and the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, (right) during a visit to terminal 2 at Heathrow airport today.
Sir Keir Starmer (centre) and the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, (right) during a visit to terminal 2 at Heathrow airport today. Photograph: Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror/PA

Updated

I’ve amended the post at 2.11pm to point out that Downing Street was wrong to say the EU triggered article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol at the lobby briefing. The EU only floated the possibility of doing this, before swiftly withdrawing the threat. You may need to refresh the page for the update to appear.

Public Health England has published its latest weekly Covid surveillance report (pdf). As PA Media reports, it shows that case rates are continuing to fall in all regions of England. PA goes on:

In the West Midlands, the rate of new cases stood at 237.6 per 100,000 people in the seven days to 7 February - the highest rate of any region, but down from 326.8 in the previous week.

The East Midlands recorded the second highest rate: 223.7, down from 280.0.

South-west England recorded the lowest rate: 120.3, down from 176.5.

And case rates in England are also continuing to fall among all age groups.

The highest rate is among 30 to 39-year-olds, which stood at 265.3 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to February 7, down week-on-week from 367.2.

Among 20 to 29-year-olds the rate dropped from 342.5 to 247.4, and for 40 to 49-year-olds it fell from 323.5 to 227.5.

For people aged 80 and over, the rate fell from 294.6 to 200.5.

And here are some of the charts from the report.

The government’s online portal to allow travellers to book a quarantine hotel when arriving in England from a country on the banned travel list has gone down for maintenance on the day it was launched, PA Media reports.

The website went live earlier today but a message on the portal says:

Due to a minor technical issue, the link to the booking portal in this guidance will not be available until later today. Please return to this page later if you wish to make a booking.

NHS England has recorded 494 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.

A week ago today it recorded 630 coronavirus hospital deaths.

No 10 says it's 'disappointing' EU letter failed to acknowledge anger caused by Irish border threat

Here are the main lines from today’s Downing Street lobby briefing.

  • The prime minister’s spokesman said children could be taken to outdoor playgrounds for exercise, but not “for the sole purpose of socialising”. He was asked to clarify the position after the Cabinet Office issued a statement which suggested that children should not meet another child for exercise and that they should use playgrounds only if they did not have a private garden.
  • The spokesman refused to confirm that the government’s roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions would be published on Monday 22 February. Previously Boris Johnson has said it will be published that day. But the spokesman would only confirm that it would be published in the week starting 22 February.
  • The spokesman said that it was “disappointing” that the EU’s letter to Michael Gove yesterday about the Northern Ireland protocol “failed to acknowledge the shock and anger felt across the community in Northern Ireland from its decision to trigger article 16”. The letter was from Maroš Šefčovič, vice-president of the European commission, who is meeting Gove later today to discuss the protocol. It is here (pdf). As my colleague Jon Henley reports, in the letter Šefčovič rules out major changes to the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol, saying the EU is not prepared even to consider any “flexibilities” until the UK fulfils the obligations it has already signed up to. Asked about the letter, the spokesman said:

We have set out the issues that we want to see addressed and that is the purpose of the meeting later.

It is disappointing that the commission has failed to acknowledge the shock and anger felt across the community in Northern Ireland from its decision to trigger article 16 and the need to take urgent steps to restore confidence as a result.

We have set out in our letter (pdf) from CDL [chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove] to the vice president the issues that we want to see resolved, that’s our focus and that’s why the meeting will take place later today.

In fact, the EU never triggered article 16 of the protocol. It floated the possibility of doing so, but swiftly backed down after protests about this amounting to creating a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Boris Johnson himself has also threatened to trigger article 16. The UK says it would never impose a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, although quite what would happen at that border if the UK did trigger article 16 is unclear.

  • The spokesman said Boris Johnson has not yet booked his own summer holiday.
  • Allegra Stratton, the PM’s press secretary, defended Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, after he described the London mayor Sadiq Khan as “loony” in the Commons this morning. Rees-Mogg’s comments came in response to a question from Andrew Rosindell (Con) criticising Khan’s decision to set up a Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to make statues, plaques and street names more representative of modern London. Rosindell said the “leftwing” commission members were a threat to London’s proud history and heritage. Rees-Mogg replied:

I absolutely agree with my honourable friend.

It seems to me that the mayor of London has replaced Red Ken as Red Khan.

Who would have thought that you’d have a more leftwing leader of London than Ken Livingstone? And now we do, and Red Khan is he.

It is quite wrong that these loony leftwing wheezes should be inflicted upon our great metropolis, and I think the mayor in his zeal is potentially treading on the toes of councils anyway – that councils have the right to name streets, by and large, not the mayor of London, and I don’t think he should interfere in things that aren’t his responsibility.

Last month Stratton told journalists at a briefing that Johnson wanted people to be “civil and kind” to each other. But she would not accept that Rees-Mogg was being uncivil or unkind when he called Khan “loony”. Referring to the insult, she went on:

It’s not something that if it was hurled at me I would be particularly upset, and I’m sure it will be hurled at me in the months ahead.

Updated

Sturgeon urges Scots to 'hold off a bit' before making holiday plans

At her daily briefing Nicola Sturgeon also said that she could not say with any certainty where people might be able to have a summer holiday. She said that while she was ‘pretty sure’ she would not be telling people they could travel overseas, she did not know whether she would be able to tell people they could visit anywhere in Scotland, or anywhere else in the UK. She said:

Right now, today, I would say to people not to book foreign holidays, and I would say just be cautious about booking holidays even domestically. If you want to take the chance that it will be okay, that’s not for me to decide for you.

But I can’t give you 100% guarantee that by the time we get to the date things will be okay … if you want to err on side of caution then hold off a little bit.

UK borders 'too leaky' to protect against new variants, says Sturgeon

UK borders are “too leaky” to protect against new variants, Nicola Sturgeon has said, as she confirmed that she is still trying to persuade the UK government to adopt Scotland’s more comprehensive approach to quarantine for international travellers. She said that the current situation where an individual could cross the border after entering the UK in England without having to quarantine created a “backdoor vulnerability” for Scotland.

Scotland’s first minister told her daily briefing that the situation was discussed on a four nations call last night “where I raised again the concerns that the UK borders as a whole are still a bit too leaky to protect properly against importation of this virus and new variants of it”.

Sturgeon also warned that there may be a reduction in vaccine appointments over the next few weeks, having received slightly lower stock due to a temporary reduction in Pfizer’s manufacturing capacity.

Adding that the vaccine programme was going “far better than I dared hope”, she told journalists that the programme remained on course to reach all over-70s and those in clinically vulnerable groups by 15 February.

Sturgeon confirmed 48 additional deaths as well as 1,499 people currently in hospital. She said:

Significantly, that means the number of patients in hospital is now back below the peak of last spring, which is another wee ray of sunshine for us to feel positive about.

She also reported a new daily figure for long-stay Covid patients, those who have been in ICU for a period of longer than 28 days, with 28 of those, two fewer than yesterday.

Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament yesterday.
Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament yesterday. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Labour claims 10,000 people a day arriving from higher-risk countries will avoid hotel quarantine

On a visit to Heathrow airport this morning Sir Keir Starmer restated his call for all arrivals to be subject to hotel quarantine. He told reporters:

Our concern isn’t their preparations, because they’re getting on with that.

Our concern is that we now know that there are variants in countries that aren’t on the red list. So this partial approach by the government isn’t going to work.

We are at this crucial stage now where it’s a race between the vaccine and variants and the only way through this is to buy time by having a comprehensive system of quarantine in hotels, wherever you come from.

Starmer also restated Labour’s claim that on Monday, when the government’s new hotel quarantine scheme comes into force, around 10,000 people will arrive in the UK from countries where the South African or Brazilian variant has been found that are not on the government’s “red list”. The Labour research suggests 10,000 arrivals a day from these countries could continue.

“I don’t think anybody would argue that’s a system that’s going to work,” Starmer said.

Here is a table from Labour that explains how they have calculated the 10,000 arrivals per day figure. Taking into account the number of passengers arriving in Scotland, where all international arrivals will be subject to hotel quarantine, Labour calculates that 10,096 people are likely to arrive in the UK on Monday from countries where the South African or Brazilian variants have been found without being subject to hotel quarantine. Labour describes these as “higher-risk” countries, although generally the number of cases of South African or Brazilian variant found in these countries so far is very small.

Data on arrivals to UK
Data on arrivals to UK Photograph: Labour

Labour says 29 of the 41 countries with cases of South Africa variant are currently not on the government’s “red list”. They are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, China, Cuba, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ghana, Gambia, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mayotte, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, the US, Vietnam.

And it says six of the 10 countries where the Brazilian variant has been found are not on the “red list”. They are: Germany, Faroe Isles, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, the US.

Updated

Public Health Wales has also recorded 27 further deaths and 410 further cases. A week ago today the equivalent figures were 35 deaths and 544 new cases.

And this is from Jamie Jenkins, the former ONS statistician, on the positivity data for tests in Wales.

Public Health Wales says a total of 684,097 first doses of the Covid vaccine have now been given, an increase of 28,678 from the previous day. As PA Media reports, the agency says 3,795 second doses have also been given, an increase of 108.

In total, 87.6% of over-80s in Wales have received their first dose, along with 84.2% of those aged 75-79 and 73.5% of those aged 70-74, PA reports. For care homes, 79.1% of residents and 83% of staff have received their first dose of the Covid vaccine.

NHS England had more Covid patients in critical care beds yesterday than it did for all conditions combined on the same day last year.

A total of 3,160 people were being treated for Covid in critical care beds yesterday, compared to the 3,019 adult critical care beds occupied by patients with any condition on the same day in 2020.

The health service required more than 5,000 critical care beds for 22 days running between mid-January and 5 February. However, there was a slight decrease this weekend with just over 4,800 adult critical care beds occupied on Saturday and Sunday.

Although an improvement on the previous week, the average number of required critical care beds in the week to 7 February (5,039) was 58% higher than the five-year average.

A total of 16 trusts were at full capacity on average in the week to 7 February, up from 15 last week.

Four of these trusts are in the south-east (Dartford and Gravesham, Frimley Health, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth Hospitals University) and a further four in the Midlands (Chesterfield Royal Hospital, George Eliot Hospital, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals, University Hospitals Birmingham).

Updated

Here is the 75-page NHS reform white paper (pdf), which has just been published. It is called: “Integration and Innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all.”

And here is the news release explaining the reforms from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Yes lead in Scottish independence debate narrowing, poll suggests

New polling shows support for Scottish independence dropping back, though still ahead of that for remaining in the UK, whilst revealing that the majority of SNP voters back Nicola Sturgeon’s stance on transgender law reform.

The Yes vote dropped from 57% to 53% in the latest poll from Savanta ComRes for The Scotsman, excluding don’t knows.

Including those who remain undecided, just under half (47%) of Scots would vote for independence, 42% would not and one in ten (10%) Scots are unsure how they would vote if there was a second referendum.

While this polling has been immediately interpreted as evidence that recent SNP in-fighting over referendum strategy, transgender rights and the ongoing Salmond inquiry has affected support for independence, it’s worth noting that support for the party at May’s Holyrood elections remains virtually unchanged since January.

Of particular interest given the current high-profile divisions over transgender rights reform, the poll also found that 37% of Scots backed the general principle of reform of the Gender Recognition Act – attempts to streamline the process by which people can change their legal gender - with 26% opposing it.

The poll also found the decision to sack Joanna Cherry from the SNP’s Westminster front bench – which some have argued was because she has consistently raised concerns about the impact of such changes on women’s rights and women-only spaces - was backed by 32% of SNP voters, compared with 13% who opposed it.

Jeremy Hunt (Con), the former health secretary who now chairs the Commons health committee, said he thought what Hancock was doing was “the right thing” and a “brave thing”.

Hunt also revealed that he had been treated in hospital for a broken arm this morning, after slipping during his morning run.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said Labour would be studying the plans carefully. But he questioned whether it was right to go ahead in the middle of the pandemic, when waiting lists are getting longer and NHS staff are exhausted.

He said the test of the reforms would be whether they brought down waiting lists and times, and improved cancer survival rates and general health.

In response, Hancock said he took Ashworth’s comments as “cautious support”.

Hancock turns to the detail of the proposals.

The first set of measures promote integration between different parts of the health and care system, he says.

He says the approach is based on the concept of “population health”. The integrated care system will be statutory, he says.

He says he wants to integrate decision making at a local level between the NHS and local authorities.

Bureaucracy will be removed to make it easier for people to innovate, he says.

He says the plans will also ensure ministers are accountable. Clinical decisions should be taken independently, he says. But he says, with the NHS spending £140bn a year, the NHS must be accountable to ministers, and ministers to parliament.

He says the government remains committed to reform of adult social care. Plans for that will be announced later, he says.

Matt Hancock tells MPs Covid has made NHS reform 'more, not less, urgent'

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, starts his Commons statement on the NHS reform white paper by paying tribute to the work done by NHS staff during the pandemic.

Their sense of teamwork has been inspiring, he says.

He says the government has been working on these plans for a long time.

Even before the pandemic, it was clear that reform was needed to reduce bureaucracy, he says. The plans are based on what NHS staff want, he claims.

And, addressing those who ask why this has to happen now, he says:

The response to Covid-19 has, in my view, accelerated the pace of collaboration across health and social care, showing what we can do when we work together flexibly, adopting new technology focused on the needs of the patient and setting aside bureaucratic rules.

The pandemic has also brought home the importance of preventing ill health in the first place by tackling obesity and taking steps like fluoridation that will improve the health of the nation.

The pandemic has made the changes in this white paper more, not less, urgent ... There is no better time than now.

Although Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said yesterday that people should not be booking summer holidays in the UK yet, many families are going ahead anyway. According to data from Avvio, a company that supplies the technology for hotel bookings, hotel and self-catering bookings in the UK for August are 46% up on last year. Bookings for July are 9% up, and bookings for September are 18% up.

Michael De Jongh, Avvio’s chief commercial officer, said that provided people could amend or cancel bookings easily, booking now “makes complete sense”.

And the ONS has also published its latest survey of the impact of the pandemic on business. Not surprisingly, eight out of 10 firms said they had experienced a decrease in turnover in the last two weeks compared with normal expectation for this time of year. This chart covers some of the main findings.

Impact of Covid on business
Impact of Covid on business Photograph: ONS

Covid death risk more than three times higher for more-disabled people, and people with learning disabilities, says ONS

This morning the Office for National Statistics published a report saying that more-disabled men and women were more than three times as likely to die with coronavirus as non-disabled people. Less-disabled men and women were about twice as likely to die. And, for people with a learning disability, the risk of death with Covid was almost four times as high as for people without a learning disability.

The report is here. And here are the key findings and charts.

Updated

Cancer services have continued to recover, new NHS figures show, with 25,199 people starting treatment in December, 555 more than in the same month the previous year.

Having seen cancer services fall off dramatically at the height of the first wave, data for December shows that the NHS was treating almost more patients than in December 2019 across several metrics.

However, a spokeswoman for Macmillan Cancer Support said the full-year figures showed that 2020 was the worst year on record for cancer waiting times in England in terms of performance against all nine key metrics which saw the lowest number of people starting cancer treatment in England for 10 years.

Sara Bainbridge, head of policy at Macmillan, said.

Whilst today’s data shows that a lot of cancer care continued in December, it rounds off 2020 as a devastating year for many people living with cancer who faced agonising delays or disruption to diagnosis and treatment, compounded with fears that this could impact their prognosis.

Almost third of all Covid hospital patients in England during pandemic admitted last month, NHS says

NHS England says that almost a third of all the patients treated in hospital for Covid since the pandemic began were admitted in January. In a news release it says:

Almost one third of all patients who have needed hospital treatment for Covid since the pandemic began were admitted last month.

Hospitals treated a total of 242,307 patients who were confirmed to have Covid last year.

That compares with 101,956 in January 2021, new figures revealed today show.

The news release says hospitals were able to carry on with other procedures too. Prof Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, said:

Even in January, when hospitals admitted almost a third of all the Covid patients they have treated during the pandemic, they were treating twice as many patients with other conditions as they did for those with the virus over the month.

Inevitably, in his morning interviews, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was asked if people would be able to have a summer holiday. It was too soon to say, he told the BBC.

I know that people are yearning for certainty over whether they can have a summer holiday, but pandemics are difficult times and there is a lot of uncertainty so I am afraid that people will have to be patient before we can get that certainty.

We are doing everything that we possibly can to make sure that people can have a holiday this summer but the vaccine rollout is absolutely essential to that.

We will set out more in more detail when we can, but at the moment unfortunately there is that uncertainty still.

Hancock rejects claims that it's wrong to reorganise NHS in midst of pandemic

Here is my colleague Denis Campbell’s overnight story about the NHS reform white paper being announced by Matt Hancock, the health secretary, in the Commons later this morning.

Hancock was giving interviews about this plans this morning and this is how he explained what the changes would achieve.

These changes will allow the NHS to work more closely together with the different parts of the NHS and, crucially, with social care and public health colleagues.

At the moment there are rules set out in law that stop some of that working together. We’ve seen that that’s been a problem.

At the heart of these reforms is the idea you take the budget for the NHS in a local area, and you get an integrated team that has social care, the NHS, the GPs and the hospitals, and they commission and they do the work to spend the money as effectively as possible.

Hancock also rejected claims that it was a mistake to unveil NHS reforms in the middle of a pandemic. “You’ve got to do both,” he said. “When we come out of this pandemic, and we will, we need to build a better, stronger NHS.”

And he told Sky News:

Now is absolutely the time to reduce bureaucracy, sweep away some of the legal barriers to the NHS getting on and delivering, integrate the NHS with social care and make sure that the whole health and care system works together better ...

They are significant reforms but they are reforms that make it easier to do the job on the frontline rather than an order of things imposed from on high.

Matt Hancock in the Commons on Tuesday.
Matt Hancock in the Commons on Tuesday. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

Updated

In an interview on the Today programme this morning Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, the health research foundation, said it was “not sensible” to set dates for lifting Covid restrictions now. He explained:

It is not sensible to set a date when restrictions will be lifted - those restrictions can and they will be lifted, but only when the data allows that to be true. Setting a date now, arbitrarily, for some date in March or April, frankly doesn’t make any sense.

I appreciate that businesses have to plan and everything else, but the data has to drive us, and in 2020 we lifted restrictions too quickly when the date would not really have allowed that and, frankly, as a result the transmission went back up in this country ...

The new variants are a massive warning. We are not through this pandemic yet but we can be through it, but only if we reduce transmission, we vaccinate as many people as we can in this country, and we ensure that those vaccines are available in an equitable way around the world.

That’s not just a moral and ethical case, that’s the financial and economic [case], and it’s the only way to bring this pandemic to a close globally.

More than 220,000 people waiting more than year for hospital treatment in England, latest figures show

The number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment in England stood at 224,205 in December 2020 - the highest number for any calendar month since April 2008, PA Media is reporting. The PA report goes on:

One year earlier, in December 2019, the number having to wait more than 52 weeks to start treatment stood at just 1,467.

The figures, from NHS England, also show that a total of 4.52 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of December 2020.

This is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

The total number of people admitted for routine treatment in hospitals in England was down 25% in December 2020 compared with a year earlier.

Some 190,604 patients were admitted for treatment during the month, down from 253,318 in December 2019.

The year-on-year decrease recorded in November was 27%, while in October the drop was also 27%.

Kent variant likely to 'sweep the world', says leading British scientist

Good morning. Last year, in one of his more rash and hubristic moments at the dispatch box, Boris Johnson promised the country a “world-beating” contract-tracing system. That never materialised, of course, but it did trigger a debate about what aspects of Britain’s response to the coronavirus crisis have been “world-beating”. On the plus side, the UK has been able to argue that its vaccine rollout programme is, if not quite the best in the world, certainly the fastest for a largeish economy. But on the minus side, of course, the UK’s death rate per head has been world-beating too.

This morning the UK has another dubious claim to global exceptionalism. In an interview with the BBC’s Newcast podcast, Prof Sharon Peacock, director of the Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium, said that the Kent variant of coronavirus, which is now the dominant strain in the UK, was likely to “sweep the world”.

She said that, although it was not clear yet whether the Kent variant (known as B117) was more deadly than the original, the fact that it was much more transmissible made it more lethal. She explained:

When you look at actually the number of cases that was caused because of transmission, the number of deaths and illness that it caused simply by being much more transmissible, [that] caused numerically more problems for people in this country than it being slightly more lethal, if that does prove to be the case.

And she went on:

So I would say that what what’s really affected us at the moment is transmissibility, because the new variant has swept the country, is going to sweep the world in all probability.

But she said she thought vaccines (which are effective against the Kent variant) could be adapted in future to deal with further mutations.

In the future I think the key is going to be if something is particularly problematic with vaccines. I think that we’re going to be able to duck and dive around that, to get our vaccines tweaked and get them rolled out, getting boosters.

As Adam Fleming, one of the presenters of the podcast points out, Peacock also said scientists were likely to be tracking mutations of the coronavirus for the next decade.

Peacock said:

I think, looking in the future, we’re going to be doing this for years ... We’re still going to be doing this 10 years done the line now, in my view.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: NHS England publishes its latest waiting time figures.

9.30am: The ONS publishes reports on Covid and disabilility, and on the impact of the pandemic on the economy.

11am: NHS Test and Trace publishes its weekly performance figures.

11.30am: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, gives evidence to the joint committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

Around 11.30am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, makes a statement to MPs about his plans to reorganise the NHS.

12.15pm: Nicola Strugeon, Scotland’s first minister, holds her regular coronavirus briefing.

2pm: Public Health England publishes its weekly Covid surveillance report.

And at some point late this afternoon Gove has a meeting with Maroš Šefčovič, vice-president of the European commission, to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol.

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

Here is our global coronavirus live blog.

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

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

Updated

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