Summary
- Boris Johnson said he wants an ‘irreversible’ lockdown but, despite being ‘increasingly optimistic’ about easing restrictions, he can’t guarantee this will be the last. At the daily news conference, the prime minister said he aims to cautiously ease coronavirus restrictions in an “irreversible” manner, but conceded he cannot offer a “cast iron guarantee” that England’s third national lockdown will be its last. He welcomed the “unprecedented national achievement” of vaccinating 15 million of the most vulnerable people in the UK ahead of the target deadline on Monday, but said now is “no moment to relax” in terms of unlocking. The level of coronavirus infections is still high and the number of hospitalisations higher than they were during the first peak, Chris Whitty said. No decisions have yet been made, Johnson said, adding that people should take speculation with “a pinch of salt”. He called for people to be “optimistic but also patient” about the situation.
- There are ‘grounds for confidence’ that vaccinations reduce Covid-19’s spread, but they’re awaiting the ‘hard facts’ before setting out the timetable for easing the lockdown, Johnson said. Public Health England is also conducting a study tracking the people who have been vaccinated to monitor the effect on hospitalisations and deaths. Early data suggests it’s having an impact but it’s too early to come to any conclusions, Simon Stevens said. This will inform the roadmap out of lockdown due to be set out by the PM next week.
- There is ‘reasonable evidence’ that a booster shot will be needed in the autumn, Chris Whitty said. There are two potential reasons for this: if immunity started to wane (and we don’t currently know how long that would take); and if the virus were to mutate into variants that could escape the immunity provided by the vaccines. The latter would require redesigning the vaccine and re-vaccinating, Whitty said.
- The offer of a first dose will be extended to people aged 65-69, he says, as well as those with underlying health conditions and eligible adult carers, Simon Stevens said, marking the next “sprint” in the vaccine rollout. The “marathon”, he added, was vaccination for everyone in the country.
- There’s a battle against a ‘pandemic of misinformation’ over the vaccine but there’s been ‘meaningful progress’ in take-up among black and Asian communities, Stevens said. He said the NHS is working with community and faith leaders to tackle misinformation and vaccine hesitancy and to encourage take-up in minority groups.
That’s all for today. If you would like to continue following the Guardian’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, head over to our global liveblog:
Updated
Q. How do you work out if it’s vaccines bringing transmission down or if it’s because we’re in lockdown?
Whitty says case control studies are being done.
In time, the rates of severe disease and fatality will fall in which people were vaccinated, he says.
Impact on transmission will take longer to determine than impact on mortality and severe disease, he adds.
Stevens says early data looks like a signal on the impact of vaccination but this needs another week or fortnight to be able to properly validate that.
Q. Who do you hold responsible for the lack of transparency over the origins of the virus ane what actions are you willing to take?
Johnson says there needs to be a general agreement on how we research and track data surrounding zoonotic pandemics and around transparency, for instance a treaty on pandemics.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
Q. Will people in hotel quarantine be charged extra if their release is delayed if they test positive? What mental health is being provided to them?
Johnson says it’s currently illegal to travel abroad for holidays.
He would expect people from ‘red list’ countries to be able to cover their costs and they should be able to access mental health support.
Q. Why is the target date for vaccinations for everyone over 50 the end of April rather than March?
Stevens says if supply increases the NHS can move faster, but it is ramping up in the next phase.
Q. Will you publish data on how many people have declined the vaccine?
Stevens says the NHS publishes take-up by ethnic group and this is shared with local directors of public health.
Q. What is the government doing to address vaccine hesitancy and the spreading of misinformation, particularly among minority groups?
Stevens acknowledges there is vaccine hesitancy among some black and South Asian communities and the NHS has been working with community leaders and faith leaders to try to overcome that, eg vaccinating at mosques.
Whitty says it’s critical to support people to combat misinformation and make clear that the risk of the vaccine is massively lower that getting the disease.
Q. How will you prevent companies from mandating customers and employees to have proof of vaccination before accessing their services?
Johnson says the government is considering rapid testing for parts of the economy that haven’t reopened at all, eg theatres, nightclubs.
In combination with vaccination, that will probably be the route forward, he adds.
Updated
Q. What are the implications of no vaccination programme being 100% effective?
Johnson says the vaccines offer a high protection against serious disease or death, but at the moment we can’t quantify what that means in terms of driving down the incidence of the virus and the speed at which that will happen.
So we just have to be cautious at the moment, he adds.
Q. What implications of this for protecting public health? Will some measures like social distancing become permanent?
Whitty says the risk will gradually go down, but whether it gets down to zero or to a case where we have to do things at various points in the season is too early to say.
By far the majority of the heavy lifting is done by vaccination drugs and promising treatments (which the prime minister can’t pronounce) will also help, he adds.
Q. Once schools are reopened, will you wait to see what effect it has on infection rates before opening up anything else?
Q. Will you announce any other measures at the same time, eg socialising outdoors?
Johnson says decisions aren’t taken yet.
Q. Are we seeing an effect of vaccinations on the death rate yet and if not, when?
Whitty says the early indications imply there’s some effect but it’s too early to put a number on it. He expects in the next few weeks we could, he adds.
Updated
Q. Can you guarantee this will be the last lockdown and will it be a very gradual easing? Should we rule out getaways at Easter?
Johnson says he can’t give that guarantee, though he is optimistic about the possibilities for opening up with vaccinations.
Q. Will the government commit to a mental health spokesperson at the next briefing to set out how people can access support?
Johnson says the stresses and strains of lockdown are having an impact on people, adding that NHS mental health services and mental health charities are still there to be accessed by those who need them.
I hope there isn’t much longer to go now, he adds.
Whitty says one of the next priority groups to receive their first dose of the vaccine is people who have significant mental health disorders.
They’re taking questions now.
Q. How will the NHS cope with pressure to re-vaccinate people every year and resume normal health provision?
Whitty says we still don’t know how long we will need between vaccinations and if there will be variants that escape the immunity the vaccine provides.
The vaccine would be redesigned around the new variant, he says. But we don’t know how regularly this will be needed, he adds.
It will probably vary year by year, but probably won’t be on this scale, he says.
Stevens says thousands of volunteers and high street pharmacists have helped the vaccination effort, which will help the usual NHS workforce.
Stevens is speaking now.
Between now and the end of April, those who have been invited for their first dose but haven’t come forward, they can still do so by getting in touch with their GP, he says.
People will also get their second booster doses, he says, beginning early-mid March, 12 weeks on from the first dose, at the same place you had the first dose.
And the offer will be extended to a larger group of people, for people aged 65-69, he says, as well as those with diabetes, heart problems, learning difficulties and mental illness.
Eligible adult carers will also be contacted by letter, he says.
The number of people receiving a first dose of the vaccine is steadily going up, he says.
The first layer of protection - the first dose - only begins to work three weeks later, he says.
It’s crucial people go back for their second dose, Whitty says.
They don’t yet know how effective these vaccines are against transmission, he reiterates.
The more we vaccinate out in the community, the more we protect those most vulnerable, he says.
The number of people dying remains high but is continuing to go down, he says.
The most recent seven-day average is 657 deaths, now below the peak of the first wave, he adds.
Updated
The number of people in hospital is also coming down, but rates are still very high (slightly above what they were in April during the peak last year), he says.
Whitty is speaking now.
The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 is coming down steadily over time, but it’s still at quite a high level (above September last year), he says.
We must be optimistic but also patient, he says.
Next week he will be setting out the route to normality, Johnson says, adding that he wants this lockdown to be the last.
Johnson is speaking now, beginning with paying tribute to NHS workers and volunteers involved in the UK’s vaccination efforts and thanking everyone who has come forward to be vaccinated.
The threat from the virus remains very real and the level of infection remains very high, he adds.
Hospital admissions are still running at 1,600 a day, he says.
The over-65s and those aged 16-64 with underlying health conditions and adult carers will now be offered the vaccine, he says.
If it continues to go well, he hopes to have offered everyone in the first nine priority groups, including everyone aged over 50 a vaccination, by the end of April, Johnson says.
At the same time, second doses will be given to the most vulnerable within 12 weeks of the first, he adds.
Updated
Boris Johnson's press conference
The prime minister will lead this afternoon’s Downing Street briefing, due to begin shortly. He will be joined by England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England.
It comes ahead of the government’s roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions expected next week, and follows the news today that the UK hit has its target of offering a first dose of Covid-19 vaccines to 15 million people. This is from the FT’s Seb Payne:
NEW: Boris Johnson will host a press conference at 5pm today. Expect talk about the timetable for vaccinating over 50s
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) February 15, 2021
Updated
Greater Manchester police (GMP) say they broke up a party over the weekend in Manchester’s tallest building.
Around 40 people were discovered in a private flat in the Beetham Tower. Body camera footage captured an officer telling the revellers that they had breached coronavirus regulations. “Do you know we’re in a lockdown?” the officer asks, prompting one man to say they didn’t have a TV. “But you’ve got a brain haven’t you?” says the officer.
“Some of the group, aged in their 20s and 30s, dispersed on police arrival and a review is ongoing into retrospective action for those present at the event, including the prospect of the maximum £10,000 fixed penalty notice for the organiser,” GMP said.
The force said it issued 185 fixed penalty notices at the weekend, including several £800 fines, for incidents including an 18th birthday party attended by at least 30 people in Newton Heath, and a staff party at an industrial estate in Salford attended by 17 people.
Officers also responded to a reported wedding party in Oldham where seven £800 fines were given, after around 15 people were present and fled on police arrival.
Updated
Afternoon summary
Here’s a roundup of the key moments from the day:
- NHS staff have begun vaccinating people over the age of 65 and people who are clinically vulnerable today.
- A further 231 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 79,120, NHS England said on Monday.
- There have been another 9,765 confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, the smallest daily number since October. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 4,047,843.
- Coronavirus case rates have fallen across nearly 95% of local authorities in the UK, new figures show.
- The first guests have checked into quarantine hotels as tougher rules for international arrivals come into force.
- Covid vaccine take-up has been notably lower among health and care staff than among age-based groups, Matt Hancock has said, increasing concerns that this could hamper progress in tackling the virus.
- The World Health Organization special envoy for the global Covid-19 response has said he expects “some sort” of vaccine passport will be introduced in future.
- The UK’s equality watchdog is facing demands to investigate claims that ministers have sidelined key gender laws in their response to the Covid pandemic.
- Boris Johnson said the plan to ease lockdown will aim to be ‘cautious but irreversible’.
- Schools do not play a significant role in driving the spread of Covid-19 in the community, according to a study yet to be peer-reviewed.
- Nicola Sturgeon says the Scottish government has met its target of offering the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to everyone in the top four priority groups.
I’m handing this liveblog over to my colleague Lucy Campbell now. Thanks so much for joining me today and for all the messages, emails and comments below the line.
Updated
The government has clarified that people whose asthma is under control will not be prioritised for the Covid vaccine, as they are less at risk of dying from the virus.
The only asthma sufferers who will be prioritised are those who are formally shielding, regularly take steroid tablets or have ever had an emergency hospital admission.
Previous guidance indicated that steroid inhaler users would be eligible, and many with moderate asthma had hoped they would receive the vaccine earlier than their healthier peers.
Responding to the government’s new criteria, Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said:
The government have advised people with asthma that they are clinically vulnerable to Covid, throughout the pandemic, leaving many people with asthma to believe that they were going to be in priority group six for the Covid vaccine.
However, based on evidence that a lot of people with asthma are at no increased risk of dying from coronavirus, it has changed the eligibility for category six, which means many people with asthma no longer fall into this group.
The government must urgently communicate directly to people with asthma why it has made this decision and explain the reasoning behind it.
The government’s lack of attention, urgency and confused messaging around this issue from the start of the pandemic has caused needless anxiety for people and it needs to be put right. It is simply not fair that people with asthma are dealing with this at an already difficult time.
Woolnough said many people with asthma would be frustrated and upset by the news. The charity has been urging senior officials at the Department of Health and Social Care to be clearer about who will get the vaccine early and also asking that they “err on the side of caution” to ensure that all those at increased risk receive an early vaccination.
She said: “We are also continuing to call for the government to prioritise everyone with asthma for the next wave of vaccinations after the initial priority groups.”
Updated
New coronavirus cases dip below 10,000 for first time since October
There have been another 9,765 confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, the smallest daily number since October. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 4,047,843.
Another 230 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, bringing the UK total to 117,396.
It is the first time new cases have dipped below 10,000 since 2 October, which was around a month before the second wave peaked.
The number of daily deaths was also the lowest since 26 December, when there were also 230.
The latest government data shows that of the 15,839,781 jabs given in the UK so far, 15,300,151 were first doses, a rise of 237,962 on the previous day. There have been 539,630 second doses, an increase of 1,915 on figures released the previous day.
Updated
Teachers are more likely to contract Covid-19 from their local communities than in school, according to preliminary research from Warwick University academics.
Absence rates among teachers in secondary schools across England did not rise in the wake of an increase in infection rates among their students, according to the researchers’ analysis of school attendance data from the November lockdown.
“This may suggest that teachers are more at risk of infection in the community than in the school environment and the decreased community mixing due to the national lockdown led to the drop in cases in teachers during this period,” the academics wrote.
Teachers in secondary schools were also shown to be no more likely to have contracted Covid-19 than those teaching in primary schools, where there were lower infection rates.
The study of attendance data between September and December shows that pupils tended to be off sick from school when there had been increases in infection rates within the wider community. This suggests that schools are not “playing a significant role in driving spread”, the authors said.
To reopen schools safely, the academics recommended that the government wait until infection rates are as low as possible in the community, as well as encouraging parents to work from home and preventing them from mixing at the school gates.
Updated
Giving dates for when lockdown restrictions can be lifted could result in people feeling “hopeless and helpless” if they are not met, Prof Stephen Reicher has said.
The member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which advises the government, said the approach needed to be “more constructive”.
He told the PA news agency:
If things don’t happen on that date then people begin to be hopeless and helpless. You begin to have a sense of ‘look, there’s nothing we can do’, and that sense of helplessness is very damaging psychologically.
I think it’s far more constructive to say to people ‘this is what we can do to get infections down’, to give people something active to do.
Updated
England's coronavirus death roll rises by 231
A further 231 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 79,120, NHS England said on Monday.
Patients were aged between 31 and 102. All except 12, aged between 53 and 92, had known underlying health conditions, PA reports.
The deaths were between 24 December and 14 February, with the majority being on or after 11 February.
Updated
Dominic Cummings was instrumental in the process of awarding a government contract without tender to a company run by his “friends”, according to court documents that raise questions about whether the Cabinet Office may have misled the public.
The documents reveal the central role the prime minister’s former chief adviser played in the awarding of the contract to Public First, a research company owned and run by two of his longstanding associates.
Public First was paid £564,393 to research the public’s understanding of the coronavirus and the government’s messaging around the pandemic, and one of its partners was seconded to work in Downing Street.
Read the full story here:
Downing Street has urged care home staff to get vaccinated, after the health secretary said that only around two-thirds of social care staff had received a coronavirus jab, PA reports.
There is no official data published on how many health and social care staff have received a vaccine, including for staff in elderly care homes who look after one of the most vulnerable groups.
Matt Hancock said on Monday that the proportion was currently around two-thirds of the social care workforce.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
We are asking everybody to come forward and take the vaccine. We’ve been clear that it is safe and effective and not only provides protection but it also provides protection for those around them.
So of course we’re asking everybody to come forward and take the vaccines, including care home workers.
Asked if care home staff are being irresponsible for declining jabs, he said: “I think the important thing is for us to encourage them to come forward and take the vaccine.”
He said vaccines were not mandatory, when asked about reports that some care home employers have told staff they cannot come to work if they are not vaccinated.
Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the rollout of coronavirus jabs had been “remarkable”.
But he told Sky News:
We’ve got problems not only with care home staff, we’ve got problems with BAME groups, reaching out to socially deprived populations, homelessness.
There are a number of people that we really need to reach out and persuade that these vaccines are safe and effective.
Updated
The mayor of Blackburn has stepped down and offered his “deepest apologies” after being fined £200 for breaching coronavirus restrictions.
Iftakhar Hussain was caught by police on Saturday at a house in Blackburn after a member of the public called to report a suspected wedding on Saturday.
Hussain, a Labour councillor for the Bastwell area of Blackburn, which has had one of the highest Covid infection rates in the UK, apologised for what he said was a “momentary lapse of judgment”.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The chief executive of one of the UK’s largest social care providers is calling for social care staff to be placed at the front of the queue during the next phase of the vaccination programme.
Ben Maruthappu, the chief executive of Cera, which employs more than 5,000 carers and has 10,000 users, equating to 25,000 in-home visits per day, says one-third of its carer workforce are still awaiting their first jab.
Earlier, Matt Hancock said a third of social care staff in England had not had the Covid-19 vaccine.
Maruthappu, who is also a co-founder of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, said:
We’re calling for social care staff to be placed at the front of the queue for vaccines during this next phase of the rollout. This is to ensure not only their own wellbeing, but also to reduce the risk of transmission to those they provide care for and help to bring the R rate down further.
During the first wave, many carers had to operate without access to PPE. Now in this wave, many are having to operate without the protection of a vaccine despite doses being available.
We must apply the lessons of the last year with urgency. Put simply, social care staff must not be failed again.
Updated
Tributes have been paid to a “hardworking and caring” porter who has died from coronavirus a week after a colleague at the same Staffordshire hospital, PA reports.
Mark Elliott, a father of three from Stoke-on-Trent who had worked at Royal Stoke university hospital for five years, died on Valentine’s Day aged 64.
His death came just seven days after that of fellow porter John “Adam” Jackson with the virus. Both were employed by the outsourcing company Sodexo.
Tracy Bullock, the chief executive of University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS trust, said colleagues had started the week with a “heavy heart” after losing “another of our portering staff to Covid”.
Updated
It would be a “nonsense” to permit pubs to only serve outside in April, the chief executive of the pub group Young’s has said.
Patrick Dardis told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that the hospitality sector should be able to open, with social distancing in place, at the same time as non-essential retail.
Arguing that ministers should allow service to resume by the Easter weekend, he said: “For some reason pubs are at the back of the queue and all we’re asking is to be treated fairly and if you are opening non-essential retail, well then pubs should be opening at the same time.”
Asked about reports of allowing pubs to serve customers outside only, Dardis added:
It is a nonsense, it is just a lockdown in another name. We are living in the UK here, we’re not in a Mediterranean country, we all know what the spring and summer can be like.
Yes, we can have some good days (but) what good is it being able to open outside when it is raining or wet and cold and you’ve got to try and manage staff where you’ve got three days of rain and one day of sun – it is an impossibility.
Updated
Most people have already adjusted their expectations to a spring of disruption – but most are quietly hoping that by the summer, and into the autumn, life in the UK will have returned more or less to normal. Are they right to be confident? What can we do to avoid slipping back into a cycle of lockdowns? In short: how does this pandemic end, and how can we end it faster?
Globally, the UK is in the strong position of having access to at least five effective and safe vaccines, but there are major challenges ahead. We already know about variants such as those arising in Kent, Brazil and South Africa, which are proving challenging in terms of being more transmissible, and having potentially more severe health outcomes, in the case of the UK variant.
Even worse, continual mutation means that some of these variants, such as the Brazil and South Africa ones, as well as future variants, could evade our vaccines and our natural immune responses. The consequence would be our current vaccines being rendered less effective and the possibility of reinfection: having one version of Covid-19 doesn’t mean you can’t have another.
Read the full opinion piece here:
Updated
Scottish government meets vaccine priority group target
Nicola Sturgeon has been giving her daily briefing, and says the Scottish government has met its target of offering the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to everyone in the top four priority groups.
Scotland recorded no deaths of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours for the first time since 18 January. A total of 559 positive tests were recorded on Sunday, bringing the total number since the start of the pandemic to 192,375. The death toll remains at 6,715.
The first minister said levels of uptake of the vaccine had so far been “significantly beyond” the target of 80% set out in the deployment plan.
She said “pretty much everybody” living in care homes for older people had been given their first injection, and “close to 100%” of people aged over 80 living in the community.
“Today, mid-February, is the final day of the period during which we said we would have offered the vaccine to everyone over 70 and everyone who has an extreme clinical vulnerability,” Sturgeon said.
“We will report today’s numbers tomorrow but I can say now that we are satisfied that we have met that target. Everyone in these groups has been offered the vaccine.
“In the weeks ahead we expect the first doses that have now been given to people in these groups will reduce deaths from Covid significantly, and they will also have an impact, although perhaps a smaller one, on hospital admissions.”
Sturgeon said the rate of vaccination “may well decline a bit” this week. “We are unlikely to vaccinate more than 30,000 people a day this week,” she said, attributing the drop to a high uptake of the vaccine in recent weeks and a correspondingly lower supply of vaccine available.
Updated
Schools do not play major role in coronavirus spread, study suggests
Schools do not play a significant role in driving the spread of Covid-19 in the community, according to a study which has just been released but is yet to be peer reviewed.
Cases among teachers fell during the November lockdown - when schools in England remained open - particularly in regions with the toughest restrictions, according to epidemiologists at the University of Warwick.
The study - which comes as the prime minister restates his plans on school reopening but says that any progress will depend on the available evidence - examines data on school absences in England from September to December 2020 as a result of Covid-19 infection - and how that varied through time as other measures in the community were introduced.
Researchers say there is no significant evidence to suggest that children attending class, particularly in primary schools, is a major driver of outbreaks in the community in England.
In December, the data indicates a large rise in the number of absences due to confirmed infection in secondary schools in the South East and London, but such rises were not observed in other regions or in primary schools.
The researchers say the increased transmissibility of the new variant in these regions may have contributed to the rise in cases in secondary schools.
The authors noted that the findings “only refer to cases reported in school children and teachers, and do not provide an indication as to whether these individuals were infected within the school environment.”
They say careful continued monitoring of the potential impact on community incidence may be required as schools reopen to more pupils.
At the Downing Street press briefing, the prime minister’s official spokesperson has echoed Boris Johnson by saying that the intention is to “start getting” pupils back to school on 8 March, but adding that doing so would be dependent on the evolving evidence on infection rates. Johnson is due to set out a roadmap for the path out of lockdown on Monday 22 February.
The spokesperson said: “It’s our intention to start getting kids back to school from March 8.” But when pressed if all students would be back on that date, he said: “It’s important that we undertake the review this week, we always said that we’d carry out the review this week and we would set out all the details in the road map [next] Monday.
“I’m not obviously going to pre-empt what’s going to be in the roadmap on Monday but again it remains our priority to get kids back to school and we always said we want that to start from March 8 if the science and evidence allows.”
On easing lockdown restrictions more broadly, he said: “We’re looking at infection rates, and the transmission rates of the virus across the country, the number of people that are being hospitalised, the number of people who are currently in hospital, the number of people who are sadly going on to die from the virus, alongside the latest R rate, and the impact that the vaccination programme is having on transmission rates of the virus.
“So we’re looking at a whole range of evidence and data and it will be that that informs the roadmap that we publish on Monday next week.”
Updated
One in four people in Wales have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the health minister, Vaughan Gething, has said.
Gething told a press conference in Cardiff that take-up of the vaccine in the first four priority groups in Wales had been “incredibly high”. He said people in priority groups five to nine in Wales should be offered a vaccine appointment by the end of April.
The Welsh government will hold a review of coronavirus restrictions in the country this week, with the cabinet using any “headroom” to return the youngest children to face-to-face teaching.
“The seven-day average rate has fallen below 100 cases per 100,000 people for the first time in many, many months, the positivity rate is less than 10%, and the R number remains below one,” Gething said.
He described the figures as “positive” but said Wales had to be “very careful” about easing of lockdown measures due to the presence of new strains of Covid-19 in the UK.
Updated
Concerns are mounting that members of the Latin American community in London will miss out on vaccinations, after a survey found that one in seven low-paid Latin Americans are not registered with GPs.
There are an estimated 250,000 Latin Americans living in the UK, half of whom live in London, making them the eighth largest ethnic group in the capital. Poor digital access compounds problems with accessing health services, as four in 10 of those surveyed said they had no internet at home and 15% had no devices.
“The high proportion of Latin Americans not registered with a GP raises questions about their potential exclusion from health programmes, including the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine,” a report by the Brixton charity IndoAmerican Refugee Migrant Organisation (IMRO) said.
Read the full story here:
Boris Johnson will lead a Downing Street press conference later on Monday, No 10 has said.
It is scheduled for 5pm and you will be able to follow along on this blog.
A fourth member of the Welsh ambulance service has died with coronavirus. Kevin Hughes, 41, from Valley, Anglesey, worked on the ICT service desk based at St Asaph. He died at Ysbyty Gwynedd, in Bangor, on Sunday morning after fighting coronavirus for several weeks.
It is with great sadness we must announce the loss of a fourth colleague to Covid-19. Kevin Hughes was just 41 years old. Read more here https://t.co/uq8iAScLRj pic.twitter.com/sm3LMJwD7f
— Welsh Ambulance (@WelshAmbulance) February 15, 2021
Hughes is survived by his wife, Emma, and three children, Liam, Sioned and Jamie.
Jason Killens, the chief executive of the Welsh ambulance service (WAST), said:
Kevin’s loss will be felt deeply by everyone here at Team WAST and we extend our deepest sympathies to Emma, Kevin’s children and his wider family.
Our focus will now be on supporting his family and bereaved colleagues at this most difficult time.
The three other Welsh ambulance service employees lost to Covid-19 were Alan Haigh, Paul Teesdale and Gerallt Davies.
Updated
Boris Johnson urged people who should have had a coronavirus jab by now to come forward and make sure they receive a vaccine.
The prime minister earlier told reporters:
The numbers are very good for the over-80s, for the over-70s, and I think the 75-79 group you’re looking at 99% that have been done.
But there are some people who are still to come forward and I really do urge people to come forward.
These jabs, these vaccines are safe, they are efficacious, they will help protect you against disease and against death and they’re a wonderful thing to have - they help protect you, your family, your neighbours.
I think people get that and that’s why they’re coming forward in such numbers, but if you haven’t yet had a letter and you think that you need one, you think that you’re in the categories concerned, get on to the NHS or dial 119 and we’ll fix you with a jab.
Updated
A coalition of 10 universities in England and Scotland plans to research Covid-19’s social and economic impact on minority ethnic groups, PA reports.
The Covid race and ethnic inequalities programme will respond to the crisis posed by the pandemic, and the work will be informed by the context of Brexit, the economic downturn and an increased awareness of racial inequality in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
The programme, which involves 32 researchers, is led by the University of Manchester and managed by the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).
The CoDE said the research would provide new data in an accessible format to champion policy and institutional change, by showing where and how racial inequality is present, how it builds and extends existing patterns of inequality and how this is experienced by minority ethnic groups in their everyday lives.
Prof Claire Alexander, an associate director of the CoDE, said:
Racial and ethnic discrimination and disadvantage is not a one-off event, but a process which happens across the life course and across all aspects of the lives of individuals and communities.
Poor housing leads to poorer health outcomes. Educational underachievement can constrain employment prospects, leading to higher levels of poverty. Poorer areas are likely to suffer from over-policing, resulting in poorer mental health.
But it is also important to think about how communities are challenging discrimination and disadvantage, especially in the wake of BLM, in the campaigns around the history curriculum and the public histories of monuments.
The CoDE said it was working with leading Black, Asian and minority ethnic third sector organisations, such the Runnymede Trust and the Stuart Hall Foundation, to ensure that its findings inform and transform public, political and media debates around race and racism.
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Plan to ease lockdown will aim to be 'cautious but irreversible', says PM
Boris Johnson said the government would provide target dates for sectors to reopen “if we possibly can” when he reveals his roadmap for releasing lockdown next week.
Speaking to broadcasters in Kent, the prime minister said:
If we possibly can, we will be setting out dates. And just to help people think about what we’re trying to do on February 22, remember what we did around about this time last year, or a little bit later – we set out a roadmap going forward into the summer looking a little bit beyond, that’s what we’re going to be trying to do.
The dates that we will be setting out will be the dates by which we hope we can do something at the earliest, if you see what I mean - so it’s the target date by which we hope to do something at the earliest.
If, because of the rate of infection, we have to push something off a little bit to the right, to delay it for a little bit, we won’t hesitate to do that.
I think people would much rather see a plan that was cautious but irreversible and one that proceeds sensibly in accordance with where we are with the disease.
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EHRC urged to investigate ministers for 'equality failures' in Covid response
The UK’s equality watchdog is facing demands to investigate claims that ministers have sidelined key gender laws in their response to the Covid pandemic.
In the wake of a damning report from MPs that said the UK risked turning back the clock on gender equality, a coalition of organisations including the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Amnesty International, Save the Children and the Fawcett Society have accused the government of taking decisions that are deepening inequalities.
Two dozen signatories, including leading gender equality experts, signed a letter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that argues that the government has failed in its duty to consider the impact of key policies on women and other groups protected under the Equality Act.
The letter states: “This is a time of crisis for women. The coronavirus pandemic is having a significant and disproportionate impact on women’s health, jobs and livelihoods.”
Read more here:
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All UK nationals or residents arriving back in England from high-risk countries will begin checking in to government-designated accommodation on Monday as the hotel quarantine regime to prevent the spread of new coronavirus cases takes effect.
People returning to England from 33 “red list” countries – comprising hotspots with Covid-19 variants in circulation – will be required to quarantine in hotels for 10 days.
Anyone who has been in one of the high-risk destinations will have to enter England through a designated port and have pre-booked a quarantine package to stay at one of the government’s managed quarantine facilities.
The government has struck deals with 16 hotels so far, providing 4,963 rooms, and a further 58,000 rooms are on standby, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said on Sunday.
Read the full story here:
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Boris Johnson has said no decisions have been made on whether year groups across schools in England will return together or whether primaries and secondaries could be staggered, PA reports.
During a visit to Orpington Health and Wellbeing Centre in south-east London, he told reporters:
No decisions have been taken on that sort of detail yet, though clearly schools on March 8 has for a long time been a priority of the government and of families up and down the country.
We will do everything we can to make that happen but we’ve got to keep looking at the data, we’ve got to keep looking at the rates of infections – don’t forget they’re still very high, still 23,000 or so Covid patients in the NHS, more than in the April peak last year, still sadly too many people dying of this disease. Rates of infections, although they’re coming down, are still comparatively high.
So we’ve got to be very prudent and what we wanted to see is progress that is cautious but irreversible, and I think that’s what the public and people up and down the country will want to see.
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Scientists have said lessons must be learned from the mistakes made previously in relaxing lockdown measures too fast, PA reports.
A number of experts have called for a cautious approach, ahead of Boris Johnson’s announcement next Monday of a “roadmap” for the lifting of restrictions.
The prime minister is facing pressure from some quarters to set out a swift easing of the lockdown, on the back of a successful rollout of the vaccines.
But Prof Neil Ferguson, who advises the government as part of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said more information was needed about how effective vaccines are going to be.
He told Good Morning Britain:
We have results from scientific studies, clinical trials, but the real world is a different thing and so, again as the government has said, we need to see how much protection vaccinated people have, how quickly death rates come down before we can be completely confident about going that next step and really reopening.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, told BBC Breakfast a “sustainable exit” whereby measures are lifted in a way that does not result in another lockdown was “an important part of our considerations”.
Ferguson said he was encouraged by the government’s cautious strategy to date, adding: “The thing we don’t want to repeat is what has happened on previous occasions – namely relaxing too fast.”
Echoing this view, Prof Gabriel Scally, president of the epidemiology and public health section at the Royal Society of Medicine, said there needed to be a strategic plan for easing restrictions by driving down the virus.
Scally, who is a member of Independent Sage, said cases must come down consistently, adding: “We can’t repeat the mistakes that we made in the past by loosening restrictions in places where there still is a lot of circulating virus.”
Ferguson said he felt it was “quite likely” that all schools in England would reopen on 8 March but said there would then need to be two or three weeks to look at how it affected case numbers.
He said:
The modelling we and other groups and universities in the UK have been doing would suggest there probably is leeway to reopen all schools.
But of course that poses slightly more of a risk than just, for instance, reopening primary schools.
He said it was a “balancing act”, but added: “My own overall judgment is we probably do have the headroom to reopen schools.”
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World Health Organization Covid-19 special envoy expects 'some sort' of vaccine passports
The World Health Organization special envoy for the global Covid-19 response has said he expects “some sort” of vaccine passport will be introduced in future.
Speaking on Sky News on Monday morning, David Nabarro said:
I am absolutely certain in the next few months we will get a lot of movement and what are the conditions around which people are easily able to move from place to place, so some sort of vaccine certificate no doubt will be important.
Nabarro said countries would only be able to form “bubbles” for travel purposes if they both had the same standards of coronavirus restrictions and similar levels of vaccination uptake. Transparency over Covid-19 measures between countries was key to keeping an eye out for new variants of the virus, he said.
That’s going to be with us for the foreseeable future, because even when much higher proportions of the population are vaccinated, there are still going to be these worrying moments when perhaps a version of the virus appears that can break through the defences provided by the vaccine.
Vaccine passports are among the most controversial potential measures that have been mooted to contain the spread of coronavirus in the future, with apparent disagreements within the UK government over their implementation.
Cabinet ministers have several times contradicted each other over whether there are plans to introduce the documents, and whether they will be in use only for international travel or also for civil society.
Middlesbrough council withheld potentially embarrassing details of how – against the advice of its own public health expert – it ordered £24,000 worth of Covid tests that it could not use, emails reveal.
The independent mayor of Middlesbrough, Andy Preston, spent £24,000 on pinprick antibody tests, disregarding concerns voiced by the region’s director of public health, according to documents released under freedom of information laws.
Read the full story here:
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Coronavirus case rates fall in nearly 95% of UK local authorities
Coronavirus case rates have fallen across nearly 95% of local authorities in the UK, new figures show.
Of the 380 local authorities areas across the UK, only 23 (6%) have seen a week-on-week increase in case rates, compared with 354 (93%) where the rates have fallen, PA reports.
The highest case rate in the UK was in Corby, Northamptonshire, with 277 new cases recorded in the seven days to 10 February, which is the equivalent of 383.6 cases per 100,000 people.
This was down from 468 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 3 February.
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Calls for Serco-run test-and-trace system to be scrapped
The chair of the Bolton NHS foundation trust has called for the Serco-run test-and-trace system to be scrapped.
Prof Donna Hall tweeted that the system should be handed back to local government public health teams and NHS organisations after the success of the vaccine rollout. She argued that it would be braver to admit the £22bn test-and-trace programme should be shelved now rather than waiting until spring.
A report from the National Audit Office found that the system had repeatedly failed to meet targets for delivering test results and contacting infected people.
My colleague Josh Halliday reported last year that Serco, the outsourcing firm, was being paid up to £400m for its work on test and trace, but it had subcontracted a bulk of contact-tracing to 21 other companies.
Hall, a former leader of Wigan council, has long argued that the tracing system should be in local hands. She wrote a piece for the Guardian in May 2020 arguing:
I have seen firsthand the incredible work of public health and environmental health teams who work to test, track, trace and treat people with sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis and HIV. They involve GPs, local NHS trusts and the local community to ensure no stone goes unturned. I’ve been out to accompany these impressive multi-agency frontline teams and witnessed the supportive conversations they have with sex workers, homeless people and recent migrants to the UK.
The staff have had the right training and have local knowledge about which GPs to speak to. They know who in the local community centre will know where a person lives so they can receive lifesaving treatment. And we should now be using these well-tested approaches to tackle coronavirus.
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Covid vaccine take-up lower among health workers, says Hancock
Covid vaccine take-up has been notably lower among health and care staff than among age-based groups to have been offered the injection, Matt Hancock has said, increasing concerns that this could hamper progress in tackling the virus.
While take-up was more than 90% among the first four age groups to have been offered at least a first injection – which include all those aged 70 and above – for NHS staff it was about 80%, and for care staff “around two-thirds”, the health and social care secretary said.
He did not specify whether the figures were for England or UK-wide, but as health policy is devolved, it is likely they are for England.
In a round of interviews after the news that the target of offering at least a first vaccination to all those in the top group groups seen as most vulnerable by Monday had been met in England, Hancock also stressed the government’s concern that take-up among black, Asian and minority ethnic health and care staff was lower than average.
Read more here:
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First guests check into UK's quarantine hotels
The first guests have checked into quarantine hotels as tougher rules for international arrivals come into force, PA reports.
UK and Irish nationals and UK residents returning to England from 33 “red list” countries – hotspots with Covid-19 variants in circulation – are required to quarantine in hotels for 11 nights. The rule also applies to people returning to Scotland from any destination.
Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow airport were escorted by security personnel to coaches that took them to nearby hotels.
A handful of people pulled up to the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel shortly before 9am.
One woman who had flown in from Zambia said: “I’m not happy, but you have to do it.”
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Over the weekend, more than 60 members of the Tory backbench Covid Recovery Group (CRG) signed a letter calling for the prime minister to commit to a firm timetable ending with the lifting of all legal controls by the end of April.
Backbenchers have increased the pressure this morning, with 13 MPs, including the chair of the 1922 Committee of Tories, Graham Brady, and the former cabinet minister Esther McVey calling for Covid-safe weddings to resume from 8 March and unrestricted ceremonies from 1 May, PA reports.
But Prof Neil Ferguson, a scientist advising the government’s Covid response, urged caution and said there was “always a risk” around new variants emerging from home or abroad.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
Our current virus, which is the dominant one in the country, only requires one or two more mutations to partially escape immunity – and that means immunity naturally gained or immunity gained by being vaccinated – and so it is imperative that we monitor the situation as closely as we can.
On BBC Breakfast, Matt Hancock said “we very much hope” that the current lockdown will be the last, adding: “Having a sustainable exit – so lifting the measures in such a way that can be sustainable and we don’t have to have another lockdown – that is obviously an important part of our considerations.”
The health secretary cited “early evidence” suggesting vaccines reduce the spread of Covid-19 by about two-thirds, but he stressed that ministers wanted to “see that actually in the data, not just from the trials”, as well as a drop in hospital admissions and deaths from jabs, when considering easing restrictions.
He said he communicated with the CRG “all the time” as ministers considered a “very important and fine judgment”.
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The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said there is “some way to go” before lockdown is eased, as ministers are to begin reviewing coronavirus restrictions in England.
He said this morning that the government was awaiting key data on how successfully vaccines reduce transmission.
He told BBC Breakfast:
We are taking those decisions this week, so we will be looking at the data, looking at the success of the vaccine rollout and how far that has reached and its impact in terms of protecting people, looking at the number of cases and, critically, looking at the number of people who are in hospital and the number of deaths – those two factors are vital.
Right now, as of today, at the latest count there are still over 23,000 people in hospital with Covid – that’s more than in the April peak. So we’ve still got some way to go, but we are looking to set out that roadmap on Monday.
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More than 15 million people in the UK have had at least one shot of a Covid vaccine in the first wave of jabs aimed at protecting the over-70s, the clinically extremely vulnerable and health and social care workers.
My colleague Ian Sample answers some common questions about the next steps of the vaccine rollout here:
My name is Nicola Slawson and I’m running today’s coronavirus liveblog. Thanks so much for reading!
If you would like to contact me, my email address is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com and I’m also on Twitter as @Nicola_Slawson.
Next phase of vaccine rollout begins today
NHS staff have begun vaccinating people over the age of 65 and people who are clinically vulnerable today. More than a million people in those categories have already received their invitations to book their first jab.
More than 15 million people in the UK have had at least one shot of a Covid vaccine in the first wave of jabs aimed at protecting the over-70s, people who are clinically extremely vulnerable, and health and social care workers.
The vaccine will now be rolled out to groups five and six on the priority list. These include people aged 65 to 69 and those who have underlying health problems that put them at greater risk of severe illness or death from the disease.
Ministers plan to vaccinate the remaining priority groups, six to nine – estimated to be 17 million people – in the first phase of the rollout before May.
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