Evening summary
- To prevent new variants arriving in the country, all travel corridors will be closed from 4am on Monday. All arrivals will need a negative Covid test and must quarantine for 10 days upon arrival.
- The vaccine is ‘steadily protecting those most at risk’, Boris Johnson said. Almost 45% of over-80s and 45% of care home residents have been vaccinated.
- The spread of the virus is ‘slowing right down’ in most parts of the UK, Chris Whitty said, but warned hospitalisations and deaths would likely continue to rise into next week.
- There are early signs the restrictions are working, with the R number estimated to have narrowed to between 1.2 and 1.3, compared to 1 and 1.4 last week. In London, where tougher restrictions came in earlier, the R number is lower, estimated - based on data up until 11 January - to be between 0.9 and 1.2, compared with 1.1 and 1.4 the previous week.
- The UK government said a further 1,280 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the official total to 87,295. The government also said that, as of 9am on Friday, there had been a further 55,761 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 3,316,019. You can view the data dashboard here. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 102,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
- Wales will introduce new Covid risk assessments for workplaces, shops and supermarkets amid concerns some businesses are not taking restrictions seriously enough. All retailers will be required by law to put in place measures such as limiting the number of customers, while workplaces are to be obliged to carry out Covid assessments taking into account the new more easily transmissible variant.
- Wales also introduced mandatory testing for international arrivals. Passengers planning to travel into Wales from abroad will have to prove they have tested negative for coronavirus before their departure from 4am on 18 January.
- The new Brazilian variant of concern has not yet been detected in the UK, Prof Wendy Barclay, G2P-UK lead and head of department of infectious disease and chair in influenza virology at Imperial College London, said.
- It comes as Britain’s ban on the arrivals of travellers from South American countries and Portugal came into effect at 4am on Friday morning, to limit the spread of a concerning new variant.
- The Supreme Court “substantially allowed” an appeal brought by the FCA in a landmark £1.2bn legal battle over businesses’ ability to claim on insurance for coronavirus-related disruption.
- The UK economy is edging towards a double-dip recession as GDP fell 2.6%. Official figures confirmed a renewed slump in November fuelled by the second national coronavirus lockdown in England.
That’s all from me for today. You can continue to follow our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic over on the global live blog, where the news has just broken that a tragic global milestone has been reached. More than two million lives across the world have now been lost to Covid-19.
My colleague Mattha Busby has this very sobering reminder: It took eight months to hit 1 million dead. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million.
Q. What are you doing to smooth the process of deliveries to GPs that are being delayed and cancelled?
Q. What are you doing to ensure practices can start administering the vaccine to their own patients?
Johnson says there’s an integrated system where if people don’t come to get vaccinated, there are other ways of reaching out to them, eg army, pharmacies, local councils.
Whitty says a massive thank you to colleagues in general practice.
And the press conference is over.
Updated
'We hope to have vaccinated care homes by end of month,' Johnson says
Q. What are you doing to help speed up vaccine rollout in care homes?
Q. Will the target of vaccinating all the over-80s be hit sooner rather than later?
Q. How soon before we know what effect the vaccines will have on transmission rates?
Johnson says there is clearly a problem in care homes again, so care home workers and residents are being prioritised.
They hope to have completed vaccinating all care homes by the end of the month, he says.
Vallance says the vaccines are good at reducing deaths, severe disease, hospitalisations and symptomatic disease, but it’s more difficult to get info on transmission, but this will come as it is rolled out.
He doubts it will be complete suppression of transmission; it doesn’t meant you won’t catch it and pass it on – it means you’re protected against severe disease.
This is why we shouldn’t go mad when everyone’s vaccinated, he says.
Updated
Q. Are you intending to reopen society once the over 50s are vaccinated and will this be safe for the population?
Q. What is the government’s plan for excess vaccines and how they should be used?
Q. Why isn’t the government’s education campaign focusing on the risk of being in unventilated indoor places?
Johnson says it will be a process and needs to focus on getting the most vulnerable immunised and then the rest of the population. There’s a debate to be had, he adds.
Whitty says there’s an issue with shelf-life and heavy concentration of people at greatest risk to try to limit wastage.
Vallance says it’s indoors where the biggest risk of transmission occurs, hence why mixing indoors and being in crowded situations must be avoided.
Simple things like opening windows matter, he says.
Updated
Q. How many doses of the vaccine are available now and how many will be in February?
Q. Do you still think things will be back to normal by Easter or are we now looking at the summer?
Q. Has Sage looked at the problem of workplace transmission and does more need to be done to protect people going to work?
Johnson says we depend on manufacturing processes, testing and approvals that need to be done.
The aim is for 12 million people in England to be offered a first vaccine dose by 15 February, he says.
Whitty says generally things could very likely have improved by the spring.
With everybody working together, we can beat the virus, and increasingly the vaccine will take the heavy lifting, he says.
It won’t be all over in the spring, but we expect things to be substantially better, he says, with deaths down and the NHS not under pressure.
Vallance says Sage has produced papers on workplace safety and how to optimise conditions to reduce the spread of the virus.
Johnson reminds people the virus is also transmitted by handling and touching things touched by somebody who has been infected, which is why hand-washing is key.
Updated
Q. Why are you only now putting in proper controls at the border?
Q. Do you think the Brazilian variant is here already or have we done enough to stop it?
Johnson says they’re taking steps to prevent importing new variants from areas of concern at this crucial stage.
Vallance says the virus is changing all the time and there are new variants all over the world, not just areas of concern.
The concerning Brazilian variant hasn’t yet been detected in the UK as far as he’s aware, he says.
Updated
To the media now.
Q. Was enough done by the government to prepare the NHS for the second wave?
Q. When do you expect the peak of pressure on the NHS to be and how might that vary around the country?
Q. How do you see the trajectory of cases going from now?
Johnson says ICU capacity has not yet been overwhelmed in the way feared.
There are tentative early signs that pressure might be easing in London now, but far too early to be confident, he adds.
Whitty says they expect the peak of infections has already happened in some parts of the country, especially London and the south-east.
For parts of the country that went into lockdown later, the peak will be later, he says.
The peak of hospitalisations and deaths will both come later in the future, he says.
The peaks are expected over the next week to 10 days for most places in terms of people in hospital, he says.
Vallance says this is not a natural peak; it’s only coming down because of the measures in place; it’s a suppressed peak that we need to keep on top of.
Updated
Q. What will the death and infection rates have to be for the government to lift lockdown restrictions?
Johnson says they want to be at a stage where the most vulnerable groups are vaccinated by 15 February, then it depends on the effectiveness of the rollout and where the disease is in terms of new variants.
Younger people are ending up in hospital now too, so we can’t relax restrictions too soon, he says, the disease has to be under control.
Whitty says we can’t move from lockdown to nothing; it will be walking backwards by degrees depending on what works, he says.
Indirect effects could contribute to putting the NHS under pressure, which need to be reduced as well as the direct effects, he says.
Updated
Questions from the public now.
Q. What are your plans to contain are future highly transmissible variant that may require adjustments to the vaccines?
Vallance says the screening programme is comprehensive for picking up new variants in the genome.
It looks as though this variant will be susceptible to the immune response either from previous infection or the vaccines, he says.
The mRNA vaccines are quite easy to adjust, he says, potentially within weeks.
It’s likely the vaccine will protect against the UK variant and to a possibly different degree the other one, he says.
Whitty says this is an international problem - a problem anywhere is a problem everywhere with a virus like this.
We should be doing everything to support everybody internationally, he says.
The number of deaths is rising steadily, which will continue next week, he says.
The results of everyone’s actions will reduce the pressure on the NHS and reduce the number of deaths, he says.
The impact of reducing deaths of the vaccination programme will come first, he says, while the impact on reducing hospitalisations will take longer due to younger people being in hospitals in addition to older citizens.
I’m afraid in the next week we do anticipate the number of people in the NHS and the number of deaths will continue to rise as the effects of what everyone has done take a while to feed through.
The number of hospitalisations lags behind infections, so the number of people entering hospital is still rising in much of the country and the number of people in hospital is still rising in all parts of the country, he says.
We have “well exceeded” the first peak of 12 April, he says.
If you have any serious medical problems, eg heart attack, stroke, you should be going to hospital, he says.
Number of hospitalisations will continue to rise into next week, he says.
Updated
Chris Whitty is speaking now.
The number of people testing positive for Covid-19 is still “extremely high”, he says.
But there is now some levelling off everywhere, he says, including the areas which entered lockdown more recently.
Johnson says 3.2m people have been vaccinated
Boris Johnson says 3.2 million people have now been vaccinated, he says.
Almost 45% of over-80s are now vaccinated and almost 40% of care home residents, he says.
He praises some areas where 90% of over-80s have been vaccinated.
Updated
Travel corridors to close from Monday, Johnson announces
To protect us from the risk of as-yet unidentified strains, all travel corridors will temporarily close from 4am on Monday, he says.
This will apply across the whole of the UK, he says.
Anyone coming into the country must have proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours before leaving, a filled in passenger locator form and the airline will ask for both before take off, he says.
You may also be checked on landing and face fines for refusing to comply, he says.
Upon arrival you must quarantine for 10 days, not leaving for any reason, and take another test on day five and wait for proof of another negative result, he says.
Enforcement will be upped in-country and at the border, he says.
Updated
Johnson is speaking now.
It would be fatal if the sense of progress via the vaccine turned into complacency, because the pressures on the NHS are extraordinary, he says.
There are now more than 37,000 patients in hospital with Covid-19 across the UK, he says.
Cancer treatments are being postponed, ambulances queueing and intensive care patients spilling over into adjacent wards, he says.
This is not the time for the slightest relaxation of our national resolve and individual efforts – please stay at home, he says.
He reminds the disease can pass through handling items touched by an infected person and one in 3 people has no symptoms.
Updated
Boris Johnson's press conference
The prime minister Boris Johnson is holding a Downing Street press conference at 5pm alongside England’s chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty and chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance. It’s due to begin shortly.
Students could receive their A-level and GCSE results by the start of July under proposals unveiled by England’s exams regulator.
Ofqual has launched a two-week consultation on the options for exam alternatives in England after this summer’s A-level, AS and GCSE exams were cancelled due to the pandemic.
The watchdog is considering how students will be awarded fair grades amid the disruption and it is proposing that students continue with their education during this academic year despite cancelled exams and school closures.
Students would be assessed by their teachers during a period from May into early June and school staff would submit their grades to the exam boards by mid-June under the regulator’s plans.
Normally students receive their results in mid to late August, but the regulator has suggested results could be issued to students at the start of July, once quality assurance has been completed.
Allowing all students to appeal over their grades is one of the proposals being considered by Ofqual.
The watchdog is proposing that a student’s grade “will be based on their teachers’ assessment of the standard at which the student is performing”.
The proposals come after the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, suggested that students could be asked to sit externally-set papers or tasks to help teachers with their assessments.
On Wednesday, Williamson said teachers should make a judgment on a student’s grade “as late as possible” to maximise teaching time and ensure students remain motivated.
Ofqual said it was proposing that exam boards should make a set of papers available – which teachers can use with students as part of their assessment.
The consultation seeks views on what form they should take, when they should be made available, and whether their use should be mandatory.
Papers used in the final assessment could be completed in a student’s home “if the pandemic makes it essential”, it says, but Ofqual is hopeful that students’ performance will be able to be assessed within schools or colleges.
Exam boards should provide guidance and training “to help teachers make objective decisions”, the consultation says.
Updated
A common feeling that Britons cannot afford to miss work “sums up why we have failed to manage the pandemic”, a doctor has said.
Dr Nishant Joshi, 32, a GP trainee in Luton, went viral with a tweet about a complaint he receives on a daily basis – that many patients feel unable to take time off even if they have coronavirus symptoms.
“‘But doctor, I can’t afford to take time off work ...’” he wrote on Twitter. “I hear it every single day. This is the single sentence that sums up why we have failed to manage the pandemic.”
This week, the UK passed 100,000 coronavirus deaths, with cases extremely high in large parts of the country. Some have called for a temporary pause to jobs where staff are unable to work from home, in a bid to prevent further increases in cases.
Joshi told the PA news agency it appeared some employers were also “bending the rules”, including one case where an isolating patient had been asked to return to work “sooner than they otherwise would have”.
It just brought home to me that, at a time when we should be trying to put a bow on the pandemic, and wish it goodbye really, we’re still struggling with the basics.
Joshi told PA he felt society had “a chronic problem with presenteeism” in the workplace.
All of us will have gone into work while not feeling anywhere near 100% at some time. It’s almost like a badge of honour to turn up to work 100% of the time, and then if you were to ever call in sick, then almost feel like there’s a sense of shame or letting your team down.
UK employees meanwhile have expressed discomfort at being asked to physically go to work at all during the pandemic, with a number of construction workers telling PA they did not feel their work on housing estates was “essential”.
Will, a supervisor for a number of sites across the south-east of England, said:
A lot of guys here either don’t feel safe or, to be honest, don’t care, because if they do not come in, they don’t get paid, and not paying bills and putting food on the table is a bigger issue to them.
One worker in Scotland, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “I am working on a site where houses cost an average of 400,000.”
There is not one form of affordable housing on this site and I feel that the only reason I am working is to fund the corporate greed.
Charlotte Childs, a GMB union national officer, said: “Construction workers are rightly concerned about commuting to site, often by public transport, and the risk from Covid-19 as a result.”
Footage which went viral this week showed commuters packed together while boarding tube carriages. One rail worker and trade union activist said the number of commuters is “worse now than it was the first time around”.
The worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, said:
There’s too many people who shouldn’t be travelling, [who] are still travelling. Look at the roads, where’s everyone going? There’s traffic everywhere. If you’re on the underground system ... people are touching the seats, the handrails. The majority of people who are travelling are wearing masks, over their nose and mouth, but a train is not a big place on the tube!
A Health and Safety Executive spokesperson said: “Any worker concerned about their health and safety arrangements should talk to their employer. If they remain concerned, they can raise these concerns with us.”
Updated
Further 1,280 deaths and 55,761 cases recorded in UK
The UK government said a further 1,280 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the UK total to 87,295.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 102,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The government also said that, as of 9am on Friday, there had been a further 55,761 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 3,316,019. You can view the data dashboard here.
Updated
A further 807 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 59,519, NHS England said on Friday. Patients were aged between 32 and 101. All except 51, aged between 40 and 97, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between 18 November and 14 January. There were 31 other deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
An NHS boss in the West Midlands has implored people to take the vaccine amid rising pressure on medical staff as hospitalisations, ICU admissions, and mortality rates continue to increase across the county.
Over the last seven days there have been 350,264 new cases in England, with at least 36,616 in the West Midlands. The total number of cases in the county since the pandemic began stands at 297,565.
Wolverhampton is the part of the West Midlands with the highest rate of infection, with 997.1 cases of all ages per 100,000 over the last seven days. Birmingham stands at 781.9 per 100,000 and Walsall at 780.1 per 100,000.
It comes as the West Midlands has seen the most deaths in the country since the pandemic, at 9,056.
David Loughton, the chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton NHS trust, said in the latest West Midlands Covid-19 brief:
Nobody went to medical school, went into nurse training, or came into the health service to watch people die. That wasn’t what they were trained for. I’ve got some intensive care consultants who have trouble sleeping, because they wake up at four o’clock in the morning, and they can remember the faces of the people with coronavirus who they tell, ‘I’m going to put you to sleep now, and you may never wake up.’ This is real, and I cannot overemphasise that when people are offered the vaccine ... Take the vaccine.
Updated
An NHS hospital is bringing in military personnel trained in healthcare roles as it struggles with staff sickness amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Erika Denton, the medical director of Norfolk and Norwich University hospital, said:
We have some help coming from military colleagues, with 30 military personnel who are trained a bit like our healthcare assistants - slightly different role. They will be coming in to support our clinical staff.
Speaking on BBC Radio Norfolk on Friday, she said the hospital currently has three times as many Covid-19 patients as at the height of the first wave.
“We’ve got a lot of staff off sick with Covid-19 or self-isolating because somebody in their family has it and that’s put us under even greater pressure,” she said, adding that current sickness levels were 13% to 14%.
That’s obviously very significant for us. It’s very difficult for us to staff the hospital when we’ve got lots of people off sick.
She said the hospital is working to bring back people who have previously worked in the NHS, and Norfolk county council has offered support for non-clinical roles.
I think this is the most challenged the position has ever been for the NHS, and unprecedented times for all of us.
She said the hospital’s intensive care unit normally cares for around 20 patients, but currently has more than 30 patients there.
Denton said the hospital is treating more than 250 patients who contracted Covid-19 in the last 14 days, and a further 70 who have been at the hospital for longer than 14 days.
We had a short period of time when we’ve not been able to do as much cancer surgery as we’d like to. We’re now going to be doing quite a lot of surgery at the [private] Spire Hospital in Norwich and that’s going to mean that we will catch up with a backlog of the more urgent things. More routine surgery I’m afraid will have to wait until the peak of this pandemic has eased and we have more capacity in the hospital. Everybody’s under significant pressure.
Updated
Unions have reacted with fury after Transport for London (TfL) published funding plans that include some cuts to bus routes and off-peak Tube services and a review of staff pensions, as the capital seeks a long-term financing agreement with central government.
In the plans, London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, called for the capital to retain vehicle excise duty paid in the city, some £500m a year, to avoid the need to implement a £3.50 daily “border charge” to be paid by drivers coming into Greater London.
The London network is heavily reliant on tube fare income, which has shrunk under Covid-19 restrictions, and TfL forecasts passenger usage will only return to about 80% of pre-pandemic levels. TfL will seek around £3bn in state funding for 2021-22 after the current emergency deal expires in March, and £1.6bn per year until 2030 for investment in cleaner transport.
The proposals also include a commission to review TfL’s pension arrangements, which the RMT union said was “scandalously chasing a Tory obsession”. The general secretary, Mick Cash, said the proposals were a “capitulation to austerity”, adding: “We’ll use every weapon at our disposal to fight any cuts.”
Finn Brennan, the district coordinator for Aslef, representing tube drivers, said: “Any attempt to downgrade pension benefits for existing or future staff would lead to a serious industrial dispute.”
At least 57 TfL workers have died from Covid-19, the majority during the first lockdown in 2020.
Updated
The Scottish Conservatives have thrown their Holyrood candidate for Glasgow Pollok out of the party over what the party called “unacceptable comments” about food bank users.
Following an investigation prompted by reports in the Daily Record this morning, the party announced “Craig Ross is no longer a candidate or a member of the party”.
Ross recorded a podcast last year during the pandemic in which he described food bank users as being more at risk of diabetes than starvation, and questioned the influence of the footballer and anti-poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford.
Updated
The concerning Brazilian variant of coronavirus does not appear to affect vaccines, Downing Street has said, after a top virologist suggested a separate strain from Brazil was already in the country.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said scientists at the government’s Porton Down research facility are currently investigating the new concerning strain, which has been detected in travellers to Japan. It has led to travellers from South America and Portugal being banned from entering the UK.
The PM’s spokesman said:
As with some of the other variants we’ve seen, the Kent [UK] variant and the South Africa variant, evidence does suggest that it [the concerning Brazil variant] may be more transmissible. More research is required to confirm this and Porton Down will conduct that research but current evidence does not suggest that the strain causes any higher mortality rate or that it affects the vaccines or treatments.
Downing Street said it had acted “as quickly as possible” to impose the ban on travellers from South America, with the concerning Brazilian strain possibly posing a “significant risk to the UK”.
The PM’s spokesman added:
It’s obviously right that we continue to look at different variants and take action accordingly. As soon as we identified this variant, our teams were quickly working on this and, given that we know this could pose a significant risk to the UK, we acted as quickly as possible, which is why you’ve seen this travel ban from those countries enacted quickly.
Earlier, Prof Wendy Barclay, G2P-UK lead and head of department of infectious disease and chairwoman in influenza virology at Imperial College London, was forced to clarify her comments after at first suggesting the concerning strain may be in the UK. She later said:
The new Brazilian variant of concern, that was picked up in travellers going to Japan, has not been detected in the UK. Other variants that may have originated from Brazil have been previously found.
The virologist added that both Brazilian variants have mutations that suggest “they might impact the way that some people’s antibodies can see the virus”.
It is really important that we carry out this work now, and carry it out carefully, and in several different laboratories, to really firm up those results because they have big implications.
Her comments came after the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said he was “not aware” of any cases of the concerning Brazilian strain in the UK which had led him to impose the restrictions, which came into force at 4am on Friday.
Updated
A Covid-19 vaccination service has begun administering jabs at Lichfield Cathedral after being set up along its medieval nave.
Britain’s oldest three-spired cathedral, in Staffordshire, was dubbed “the most glamorous vaccine centre in Britain” by the city’s MP.
Field hospital-style facilities and waiting areas have been set up inside the cathedral, including along its central aisle. The Dean of Lichfield, the Very Rev Adrian Dorber, said people working at the centre were “buzzing” – with volunteers glad to help out.
It’s great, it’s a real glimmer of hope after a very dark year, and we are delighted to be able to offer the place as a nice, airy, socially distanced space in which this can take place. I hope it’s a symbol of how all the communities can come together to facilitate the rollout of this amazing vaccine.
The dean, who has overall charge of the cathedral, said setting up the centre was surprisingly straightforward, taking only a couple of days. He told the PA Media news agency: “We issued the invitation as soon as we heard of the dawning of the vaccine last autumn.
Updated
A total of 3,189,674 vaccinations have taken place in England between 8 December and 14 January, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 279,647 on Thursday’s figures.
Of this number, 2,769,164 were first doses of the vaccine, a rise of 274,793 on Thursday’s figures, while 420,510 were second doses, an increase of 4,854.
Updated
We reported earlier that small businesses forced to close during the pandemic were set to receive insurance payouts after a landmark supreme court decision (see: 10.38am). Now, the shadow minister for business and consumers, Lucy Powell, has said:
This is long overdue, and will be of huge relief to all those businesses which took out business interruption insurance who have yet to receive a penny.
The pressure businesses are under is huge, and even with these payouts the cash crisis they face as a result of inadequate Government support threatens the future of many.
These payouts do not absolve government of their responsibility to see firms through the pandemic. Business desperately needs a long-term comprehensive plan from government to tide them through lockdown and on to recovery.
Updated
About 300,000 doses of the vaccine have been delivered to Wales, the first minister, Mark Drakeford, has confirmed. Drakeford said the figure “in very broad terms” was made up of 50,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and 250,000 of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Drakeford said:
We will be using all the Oxford vaccine that we get as we get it, the Pfizer vaccine has to last us until into the first week of February.
So we have to provide it on a week-by-week basis. What you can’t do is to try and stand up a system which uses all the vaccine you’ve got in week one and then have nothing to offer for the next four weeks.
We won’t get another delivery of the Pfizer vaccine until the very end of January or maybe the beginning of February, so that 250,000 doses has got to last us six weeks.
That’s why you haven’t seen it all used in week one, because we’ve got to space it out over the weeks that it’s got to cover.
We are expecting a significant upswing in the Oxford vaccine coming to Wales next week and we will use all of that because it is a much easier vaccine to use, it can be used in GP practices and so on.
We will continue to use the Pfizer vaccine in a way that will mean that we will use it all before we get the next delivery.
Updated
UK R number narrows to between 1.2 and 1.3
The ranges for the growth rates and R number have narrowed for the UK, England and most regions reflecting greater certainty around the estimates, experts advising the government have said.
They said the estimates are based on the latest data, available up to 11 January. Sage said:
The latest figures show that we need to remain vigilant to keep this virus under control, to protect the NHS and save lives. We all need to play our part, and if everyone continues to follow the rules, we can expect to drive down the R number across the country.
The latest R number range for the UK is 1.2 to 1.3 and the latest growth rate range is +2% to +5%, according to the official data.
Updated
The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, is facing calls to resign over the latest free school meals scandal, which critics say demonstrates he “plainly isn’t up to the job”. There was a public outcry earlier this week when images of boxes containing just £4 or £5 worth of food intended to last a week were shared online.
It is the latest debacle Williamson has overseen and Labour’s Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said the public has now had enough. She told Good Morning Britain:
I think patience has completely run out with Gavin Williamson and I do think it is time for him to go.
Our children’s future, our children’s education, our children’s well-being, is too important to be left in the hands of someone who plainly isn’t up to the job and I think it’s time for him to go.
It is the first time Green has called directly for her opposite number to quit. She added:
There is so much research going back many decades that if you give parents money to spend on their children – buying them food, buying them clothes, buying essentials, that’s what they do.
Everything we know is that if you give parents money to spend on their children, that’s what they do, that’s what they prioritise – as any parent would.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, branded the parcels an insult to the families that had received them, while the home secretary, Priti Patel, said they were “unacceptable” and called for action against the company compiling them.
Williamson has said companies will be “named and shamed” if they fail to deliver against food standards, and has urged schools to cancel contracts where necessary.
Updated
The budget travel provider easyJet has begun cancelling holidays up until the last week in March amid the tightening of lockdowns around the world and international travel restrictions.
The operator said on Friday it was in the process of contacting customers who have holidays booked up to and including 24 March to let them know they will not be able to travel. It said this was due to ongoing restrictions as well as the ever-changing rules on international travel.
The announcement comes on the same day as a ban on travel to the UK from all of South America as well as Portugal came into force. The restrictions, which began at 4am on Friday, were imposed in response to a Brazilian variant of Covid-19 associated in a rapid increase in cases in areas where there have already been large outbreaks of the disease.
Travellers heading for England will also have to produce evidence of a negative coronavirus test taken not more than three days before departure from 4am on 18 January. Similar measures for people travelling to Scotland came into force on Friday.
Elsewhere, France banned travellers from the UK except in very limited circumstances on 20 December.
EasyJet said customers could choose to change their holiday online, or opt to receive credit to their online account that would be valid for the next 12 months. Customers can also opt for a full refund, which is usually processed in about 12 days, the company said. Those booked from 25 March and beyond can change or defer their holiday online up to 28 days before they are due to travel without incurring any fees.
The company had already cancelled breaks up to the end of February following lockdown announcements made on 4 January.
Updated
Senior Scottish government ministers have warned that schools are unlikely to reopen for full face-to-face learning next month.
Asked on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme whether he thought schools would fully reopen on 1 February, the education secretary, John Swinney, said:
I think that’s a tall order to be honest.
And at this lunchtime’s daily briefing, the health secretary, Jeane Freeman, said:
I understand why he would say it was a tall order, I would share that view.
Both said that they would look diligently at all the data and advice from clinical advisers before updating the public next Tuesday.
Freeman was also asked about the charge made this morning by the Scottish Conservatives that she had broken the ministerial code by revealing confidential Covid vaccine details in a rollout plan published online and promptly removed on Thursday morning.
Freeman said that she had apologised directly to the UK health secretary for the error, but that decisions on the code “are for the first minister and I’m sure she will give due consideration to what has been raised with her”.
Freeman said that the amended plan was now back up on the Scottish government’s website, adding:
Our intention as a government from the very outset is to be as open and transparent as we possibly can ... I regret that we published information that the UK government considers to be sensitive … There was no malicious intent. It was an error, a mistake and I am of course accountable for it.
Updated
Lockdown in Wales may be reviewed at end of month
Lockdown restrictions in Wales may begin to be relaxed at the end of the month if rates continue to fall, the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said.
Drakeford said the current arrangements would be reviewed as is expected by 29 January – the end of the government’s regular three-week cycle.
He said:
If things over the next two weeks continue to head in the right direction the cabinet will decide if there is any headroom for us to begin the process of lessening the levels of restrictions we face.
But he added:
We would have to be certain that improvement is reliable, sustainable in order for us to begin the journey of lifting restrictions.
Drakeford also said the government was keen to get children returning to face-to-face learning as quickly as it was possible to do it safely. He did not put a timescale on a return.
“We all want children to be back in the classroom, we all want that to be done in a way that is safe for them and staff,” Drakeford added.
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said there are signs that coronavirus cases are stabilising or reducing across much of Wales.
Drakeford said the all-Wales coronavirus rate has dropped below 400 per 100,000 people for the first time in “many weeks”.
“We are seeing some encouraging signs that cases are stabilising and reducing,” said Drakeford. The rate is currently at 365.
He said:
These signs of improvements show all the hard work and sacrifice is really paying off. We have to continue making this effort.
Drakeford said the situation remained “serious” in Wrexham and Flintshire in north Wales and the NHS in Wales remained under “immense and sustained pressure”.
Updated
There have been a further 1,808 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 177,864. Public Health Wales reported another 54 deaths, taking the total in Wales since the start of the pandemic to 4,171.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated
— Public Health Wales (@PublicHealthW) January 15, 2021
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Wales tightens Covid measures for shops and workplaces
Supermarkets, shops and workplaces in Wales are to be compelled to carry out a specific coronavirus assessment under new legislation being brought amid concerns that some businesses are not taking restrictions seriously enough.
The Welsh government said on Friday the risk assessments would be the “starting point” for implementing measures required to minimise exposure to Covid-19 in places open to the public and workplaces.
Businesses will have to consider issues such as whether ventilation is adequate; hygiene; ensuring physical distancing is taking place; and use of PPE and face coverings. It will also include considering how employers maximise the number of people who can work from home.
The Welsh government said the highly contagious new variant of the virus meant it had looked again at the rules regulating workplaces and premises that remain open to the public.
Full story here:
New Brazilian variant of concern has not been detected in UK
Prof Wendy Barclay, G2P-UK lead and head of department of infectious disease and chair in influenza virology at Imperial College London, said the Brazilian variant detected in the UK is not the one causing the concern.
She explained:
The new Brazilian variant of concern, that was picked up in travellers going to Japan, has NOT been detected in the UK. Other variants that may have originated from Brazil have been previously found.
Updated
Britain’s decision to suspend flights from Portugal because of concerns about a new coronavirus variant in Brazil is “absurd”, the Portuguese foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, has said.
Santos Silva told the state-owned news agency Lusa late on Thursday he had requested a meeting with the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to clarify the situation.
The UK announced on Thursday that Portugal had been added to a list of South American countries from which arrivals were being banned, because of its close travel links to Brazil.
“This is an absurd measure, and we don’t understand what it is based on,” Santos Silva said. There is no evidence that the Brazilian strain is present in Portugal, according to health authorities.
Flights between Portugal and Brazil remain available as part of a wider Portuguese policy of maintaining travel to countries with large Portuguese diasporas. The policy allows only essential travel and does not include tourism. Travellers must present a negative coronavirus test taken up to 72 hours before departure.
Santos Silva criticised the short notice given by Britain for the new measure, which went into force at 4am GMT on Friday. He said Portugal had not banned travel from Britain when a new variant of the coronavirus was first identified in the UK, but had followed European Union policy by simply requiring a negative coronavirus test from travellers.
I believe in the value of reciprocity.
Updated
Dramatic language could be used in hard-hitting new anti-coronavirus adverts, warning that going for a coffee could kill. A national campaign is to be unveiled within days as the UK government eyes tougher restrictions amid a surge in infections.
One of the slogans being considered is “Don’t let a coffee cost a life”, it is believed. Another message in the campaign is “Covid takes the train too”.
The move is aimed at presenting a stark message to the public to try to ensure compliance with tough lockdown measures as the UK battles more highly transmissible variants of the virus.
The campaign comes as the number of outbreaks of Covid-19 reported to Public Health England (PHE) surveillance teams in the seven days to 10 January from food outlets and restaurants was 18, up from 11 the previous week. However, this compares with 977 suspected outbreaks in care homes in the same period.
The data does not show a full picture of where coronavirus transmission is happening. The most up-to-date PHE data shows 243 suspected outbreaks in workplaces in the same timeframe, 78 in hospitals, and 31 in educational settings such as schools.
Updated
One of two Brazilian variants detected in UK before travel ban
One of two Brazilian coronavirus variants was detected in the UK before ministers banned the arrival of travellers from South America to limit the spread of a concerning new strain, a leading virologist has said.
Prof Wendy Barclay, who is advising the UK government’s Covid-19 response, said the variant may have been “introduced some time ago” but it was unclear whether it was the highly infectious strain that prompted the ban.
Her comments came after the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said he was “not aware” of any cases of the strain that led him to impose the restrictions, which also covers Portugal due to its strong links with Brazil.
The restrictions came into force at 4am on Friday in response to concerns of a Brazilian variant that shares with the new South African strain mutations that are associated with a rapid increase in cases in areas where there have already been large outbreaks of the disease.
Barclay, head of the G2P-UK National Virology Consortium, a new project set up to study the effects of emerging coronavirus mutations, said:
There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected and one of them has not. In the databases, if you search the sequences, you will see that there is some evidence for variants from around the world, and I believe including the Brazilian one, which probably was introduced some time ago. That will be being traced very carefully.
The Imperial College virologist added that both Brazilian variants – one of which was detected by travellers in Japan and the other which is more prevalent in Brazil currently – have mutations that suggest “they might impact the way that some people’s antibodies can see the virus”.
It is really important that we carry out this work now, and carry it out carefully, and in several different laboratories, to really firm up those results because they have big implications.
Earlier, Shapps described the ban, which includes an exemption for British and Irish nationals, as a “precautionary” measure to ensure the vaccination programme rolling out across the UK was not disrupted by new variants of the virus.
Asked whether the Brazilian strain was currently in the country, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Not as far as we are aware, I think, at this stage. There haven’t been any flights that I can see from the last week from Brazil, for example.
Updated
Donald Trump will not be visiting Scotland before inauguration day, the PA news agency understands.
There had been speculation that the US president would visit his Turnberry golf resort in South Ayrshire before Joe Biden takes office at the White House next Wednesday. But PA now understands Trump will not be in Scotland.
As part of the tradition, the outgoing president and president-elect usually travel together to the ceremony at the Capitol from the White House. But Trump, who was overwhelmingly defeated in November’s US election, has previously said he will not attend the 20 January ceremony for his successor.
Prestwick airport was told to expect the arrival of a US military Boeing 757 aircraft previously used by Trump on 19 January, according to the Sunday Post. But the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has in recent days stressed it is illegal to travel in or out of Scotland without a valid reason, adding:
Coming to play golf is not what I would consider to be an essential purpose.
When asked about the speculation earlier this week, Sturgeon said:
I have no idea what Donald Trump’s travel plans are, you’ll be glad to know. I hope and expect that – as everybody expects, not everybody necessarily will hope – that the travel plan immediately that he has is to exit the White House. But beyond that I don’t know.
We are not allowing people to come in to Scotland without an essential purpose right now and that would apply to him, just as it applies to anybody else.
The Scottish justice secretary, Humza Yousaf, also suggested the Home Office should consider denying Trump entry to the UK after he leaves office.
Updated
A national project has been launched to scrutinise new variants of the coronavirus with the aim to flag variants of concern and investigate issues ranging from how contagious these variants are to whether they cause more serious disease, or could evade the protection offered by current Covid-19 vaccinations.
Dubbed the ‘G2P-UK’ National Virology Consortium, the project involves 10 research institutions in the UK, including Oxford University and Imperial College London, with efforts already underway to unpick details of the new UK variant and the variant identified in South Africa that have raised concern among experts.
The project has received £2.5 million of funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and will work alongside Public Health England and the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium – which have previously flagged, tracked and investigated new variants of the coronavirus – to boost surveillance of emerging mutations.
Prof Michael Malim, co-lead of the project from King’s College London, said:
It’s really important for the strengths and breadth of UK virology to come together and develop an evidence-base to explain the biological impacts of viral variants, such as possible resistance to vaccine induced immunity, and inform how we should respond and plan for the future.
The Supreme Court has “substantially allowed” an appeal brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a landmark £1.2bn legal battle over businesses’ ability to claim on insurance for coronavirus-related disruption.
The FCA last year brought a test case, which could affect around 370,000 businesses, over the wording of business interruption insurance policies, which some insurers argued did not cover the Covid-19 pandemic.
The City watchdog previously said it was bringing the legal action following “widespread concern” over “the lack of clarity and certainty” for businesses seeking to cover substantial losses incurred by the pandemic and subsequent national lockdown.
In September, the High Court ruled on several “lead” insurance policies issued by eight separate insurers largely in favour of the FCA, which welcomed the judgment as “a significant step in resolving the uncertainty being faced by policyholders”.
The regulator, however, argued the judgment “paved the way for many insurance policies to pay indemnities on Covid-19 business interruption claims”, but also “took something away with one hand after giving more substantially and in detail with the other”.
In November, the UK’s highest court heard “leapfrog” appeals - which have bypassed the Court of Appeal - in a case which could have implications for hundreds of thousands of businesses affected by coronavirus.
Announcing the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday, Lord Hamblen said:
The appeals of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Hiscox Action Group are substantially allowed and the insurers’ appeals are dismissed.
Summarising the Supreme Court’s decision in relation to “prevention of access clauses” - which are triggered by “public authority intervention preventing access to, or use of, the business premises” - Lord Hamblen said the High Court’s interpretation was “too narrow”.
An instruction given by a public authority may amount to a ‘restriction imposed’ if it carries the imminent threat of legal compulsion or is in mandatory and clear terms and indicates that compliance is required without recourse to legal powers.
In a written ruling, Lord Hamblen and Lord Leggatt - with whom Supreme Court president Lord Reed agreed - concluded:
Although we have accepted some of the insurers’ arguments on their appeals, in no case has that affected the outcome of the appeal. It follows that the insurers’ appeals are dismissed.
In a separate concurring judgment, Lord Briggs - with whom Lord Hodge agreed - said:
On the insurers’ case, the cover apparently provided for business interruption caused by the effects of a national pandemic type of notifiable disease was in reality illusory, just when it might have been supposed to have been most needed by policyholders.
That outcome seemed to me to be clearly contrary to the spirit and intent of the relevant provisions of the policies in issue.
In a statement after the ruling, Sheldon Mills, executive director of consumers and competition at the FCA, welcomed the decision, saying the judgment “decisively removes many of the roadblocks to claims by policyholders”.
We will be working with insurers to ensure that they now move quickly to pay claims that the judgment says should be paid, making interim payments wherever possible. Insurers should also communicate directly and quickly with policyholders who have made claims affected by the judgment to explain next steps. As we have recognised from the start of this case, tens of thousands of small firms and potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs are relying on this.
Richard Leedham, a partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya who represented the Hiscox Action Group (HAG), said:
This is a landmark victory for a small group of businesses who took on a huge insurance player and have been fully vindicated. What is important now is that Hiscox accepts the Supreme Court’s verdict and starts paying out to its policy holders, many of whom are in danger of going under.
Leedham - who acted for HAG, which represents around 400 businesses insured by Hiscox - added:
Today’s outcome is one of the most significant for business in modern times. The result should leave Hiscox and the rest of the insurance industry in no doubt that they should immediately start doing the right thing and settle these claims.
The Scottish Conservative party has immediately suspended one of its candidates for May’s Scottish parliament elections after reports that he suggested people queuing for food banks in the UK during the pandemic were overweight.
The Daily Record this morning reported comments made by Craig Ross, the candidate for Glasgow Pollok constituency, last year in his podcast, which he advertises as including “reaction to the Guardian newspaper from the centre-right”.
Referring to interviews with food bank users he had watched on Channel 4 news, Ross said:
I’m not saying that every single person who claims to be really hungry and is reliant on charity is also very overweight, but what I am saying is if Channel 4 News is having a reasonable go at showing the reality of food bank usage, then we know that the people that they film are far from starving. If anything, their biggest risk is not starvation, it’s diabetes.
He also complained about anti-poverty campaigner and Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford, saying: “Has Marcus Rashford stood for election to anything? Not that I’m aware of.”
A Scottish Conservative party spokesman said: “We have suspended this candidate and an investigation is under way. These unacceptable comments do not reflect the views of the party.”
Wales introduces mandatory testing for international arrivals
Passengers planning to travel into Wales from abroad will have to prove they have tested negative for coronavirus before their departure, the country’s health minister has said.
Vaughan Gething said the requirement, which comes into effect from 4am on 18 January, would help protect against new strains of Covid-19 circulating internationally.
The rule applies to inbound passengers arriving by boat, plane or train from countries outside the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Tests must be taken up to 72 hours before departing the country they are in, with proof of a negative result presented to carriers as well as a passenger locator form.
A mandatory 10-day quarantine for arrivals will remain in place for passengers arriving from countries not on the Welsh government’s travel ban list, regardless of their pre-departure test result.
On Friday, Gething said:
We are doing everything we can to slow down the spread of the virus. These new measures will help ensure we prevent new strains of the virus developing internationally from being imported into Wales.
Wales remains in its alert level 4 lockdown restrictions, travel for a holiday into the country is not permitted, and people must stay at home unless travelling for essential reasons.
The weekly infection survey from the ONS due at noon will no longer be published today, following what the statistics body said were delays in receiving laboratory test results. It will now be published “as soon as possible”, the ONS said.
Our weekly Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey data will not be published today as it requires further quality assurance.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) January 15, 2021
We’ll publish this as soon as possible when the data are fully analysed. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Read our statement https://t.co/u6LlPnOly2
Critically ill patients with Covid-19 are being transferred from overstretched London hospitals to intensive care units almost 300 miles away in Newcastle, Sarah Marsh and Denis Campbell reveal.
The crisis engulfing the capital’s hospitals is so severe that in recent days patients have also been moved 67 miles to Northampton, 125 miles to Birmingham and 167 miles to Sheffield.
It is the latest dramatic illustration of the increasingly difficult situation confronting the health service. Hospitals across the UK are battling to provide care for 36,489 people with coronavirus, an increase of 5,872 in seven days. There were a further 48,682 confirmed cases reported on Thursday but Public Health England said that UK deaths data had been delayed due to a “processing issue”. Late on Thursday it said there had been 1,248 deaths recorded in the previous 24 hours.
Dr Claudia Paoloni, president of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, said the long-distance transfers put patients at risk, and the huge number planned showed that the NHS was “on the ropes” after years of underfunding and staff shortages.
The number of Covid-19 infections across England is falling as a whole, with the reproductive rate - the R - below 1 in some regions, University of Cambridge researchers have said.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) Biostatistics Unit Covid-19 Working Group said the current estimate of the daily number of new infections occurring across England is 60,200.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is due to release its own figures later, while government scientists will release their own R rate, which refers to the number of people an infected person will pass the virus on to.
The Cambridge researchers said regions with a current R rate below 1 are the East of England, London, the South East, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber. They say it is above 1 in the South West, North West, North East and East Midlands.
The team suggests the proportion of the population who have ever been infected could stand at 30% in London, 26% in the North West and 21% in the North East, dropping to 13% in the South East and 8% in the South West.
They added:
The growth rate for England is now estimated to be -0.02 per day. This means that, nationally, the number of infections is declining but with a high degree of regional variation. Infections are still increasing in the South West and North East, whilst plateauing in the West Midlands and East Midlands.
It comes as Public Health England (PHE) released data on Wednesday showing infection rates had fallen in most regions of England across all age groups apart from the over-80s.
At the same time, however, the PHE surveillance report noted that there were more people being admitted to hospitals and intensive care units. NHS England data shows that around one in five major hospital trusts in England had no spare adult critical care beds on 10 January.
Elsewhere, the Zoe Covid Symptom Study UK Infection Survey from King’s College London put the UK R rate at 0.9. It said cases have also plateaued in most age groups.
Tim Spector, who is leading the study, said:
It’s great to see case numbers falling in most regions but numbers are still worryingly high and hospitals will stay under pressure for some time yet. With such high numbers and growing evidence new strains are highly transmissible, things can still take a turn for the worse. We need numbers to keep falling before we make any changes to current restrictions.
Plan to discharge Covid patients to care homes in England is 'madness'
Robert Booth reports that plans to discharge Covid patients from hospitals into care homes without tests have been branded “madness” by care home providers who warned the move risks a repeat of last spring’s crisis, which was partly fuelled by pressure to relieve the NHS.
The Department of Health and Social Care issued guidance that Covid positive patients in England who have been in isolation in hospital for 14 days “are not considered to pose an infection risk” and do not have to be retested. If they are not showing new symptoms or have had fresh exposure to the virus they can be moved directly to care homes from hospital.
Care homes are demanding to see evidence to support that assessment in the light of rising cases of the new more transmissible strain of the virus. About 1,200 care home residents died from Covid-19 in England in the first week of January and on Wednesday the NHS ordered GPs to rapidly accelerate vaccination of England’s approximately 400,000 care home residents to deliver all first doses by the end of next week.
Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, which represents providers in North Yorkshire, told the Guardian:
I can’t quite believe the government is thinking of doing this. How do we know [people being discharged] haven’t been exposed especially with this new virulent strain? It seems we haven’t learned from the first wave. We want to help the health service but people will be reluctant to accept discharges without the comfort of a test … It seems madness.
Updated
The UK economy is heading for a double-dip recession after official figures confirmed a renewed slump in November as the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic took hold, Richard Partington reports.
The Office for National Statistics said GDP fell by 2.6% month-on-month in November, when the government launched the second national lockdown in England and amid tougher controls in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. City economists had forecast a steeper fall of 5.7%.
The impact of renewed restrictions took GDP in November down to 8.5% below its pre-pandemic level, in a setback for Britain’s economic recovery from the first wave of the crisis.
For more, head to our business live blog:
Ban on arrivals from South America and Portugal over Brazilian variant in force
A ban on travellers from more than a dozen countries across South America entering the UK came into force early this morning because of growing concerns about a variant that has emerged in Brazil. The ban, which took effect at 4am this morning, also covers Panama, Cape Verde and Portugal because of its travel links with Brazil.
I’ve taken the urgent decision to BAN ARRIVALS from ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, BOLIVIA, CAPE VERDE, CHILE, COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, FRENCH GUIANA, GUYANA, PANAMA, PARAGUAY, PERU, SURINAME, URUGUAY AND VENEZUELA – from TOMORROW, 15 JAN at 4AM following evidence of a new variant in Brazil. 1/3
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) January 14, 2021
Scientists analysing the variant believe the mutations it shares with the new South African variant seem to be associated with a rapid increase in cases in locations where there have already been large outbreaks of the disease.
The transport secretary Grant Shapps described the ban as a “precautionary” move to ensure the vaccination programme rolling out across the UK was not disrupted by new variants of the virus. He said:
We don’t want to trip up at this late stage. We don’t have cases at the moment but this is a precautionary approach. We want to make sure that we do everything possible so that vaccine rollout can continue and make sure that it is not disturbed by other variants of this virus.
'We don't have cases at the moment... this is a precautionary approach'
— ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) January 14, 2021
Transport secretary Grant Shapps says the UK doesn't have cases of the new Brazilian Covid variant, after he announced a travel ban from Brazil, South American countries and Portugal https://t.co/MO1LuWWVVh pic.twitter.com/rZyyWnt6is
British and Irish nationals and others with residence rights are exempted from the measure, which was backed by the Scottish government, though they must self-isolate for 10 days along with their households on their return.
There is an exemption also for hauliers travelling from Portugal to allow the transport of essential goods.
The shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the ban was a “necessary step” but accused ministers of incompetence and “lurching from one crisis and rushed announcement to another”.
Updated
Good morning. The prime minister Boris Johnson’s plans for daily testing of millions of school students a week are in disarray after the UK regulator refused to formally approve the scheme, my colleague Josh Halliday reports.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told the government it had not authorised the daily use of 30-minute tests because of concerns that they will give people false reassurance if they test negative. This could lead to pupils staying in school and potentially spreading the virus when they should be self-isolating. Mass testing with lateral flow tests is already in place in some secondary schools and was due to be expanded next week for children who are in school. The regulator’s decision is another setback for Johnson’s mass testing plan (which experts remain divided on) and raises questions about the proposed full return of schools after the February half-term, which is partly dependent on the availability of serial testing.
Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph (paywall) reports on the latest Public Health England (PHE) data revealing that outbreaks in care homes have more than trebled in a month, with levels of infections now similar to the peak of the first wave. The figures show that in the week to 14 January, there was the second highest weekly total since records began in April.
The paper has been told the care home vaccine rollout is taking longer than the government had anticipated. Sources said only 100 residents could be vaccinated in the time it took to administer jabs to 1,000 people in the community. The same lateral flow tests that the MHRA warned against using for schools are currently being used in care homes and experts have repeatedly raised concerns they are unreliable. Adam Briggs, a senior fellow at the Health Foundation, said the rise in reported care home incidents is “deeply concerning”. He told the Telegraph:
Care homes cannot be neglected again.
I’ll be bringing you all the latest UK developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next eight hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share - your thoughts are always welcome!
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
