Afternoon summary
- Covid rates are falling in England, and probably in Scotland too, but rising in Northern Ireland, the ONS said. But it said it was “uncertain” from its infection survey what the trend was in Wales. (See 1.34pm.)
- Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has said that he has been willing to “forcefully” tell ministers to think again if he thinks they are taking the wrong technical decision. But he defers to them on political matters, he told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar. He said there was a spectrum with some decisions which are “purely technical” and others which are “entirely political”. He went on:
Depending on how much, where I think it is on that spectrum, will determine whether I actually really forcefully insert myself into the discussion.
If I think it’s mainly a technical decision and I think the political leader is trying to take it, I will say, ‘I don’t think that’s your call’.
Equally, if it’s primarily a political decision ... it shouldn’t be me trying to make a political decision for a political leader.
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, which has had supporters painting red hearts on a wall by the Thames in London, is appealing for volunteers to help finish off the project. They want to paint 150,000 hearts on a 500 metre stretch of the wall, representing all the people who have died during the pandemic. So far 40,000 have been finished. If you would like to volunteer, or donate, you can find details on the National Covid Memorial Wall website.
Second doses administered outnumbering first doses by more than 150,000, latest figures show
The UK government’s coronavirus dashboard has been updated, and here are the key figures.
- 404,922 people in the UK received their second dose of vaccine yesterday. Tuesday was the first day when the number of second doses administered (270,526) was larger than the number of first doses (224,590), but on Wednesday second doses outnumbered first doses (241,906) by more than 150,000. Earlier this week Boris Johnson said April would be “the second dose month” because, with vaccine supplies under pressure, the government is prioritising second doses.
- Another 51 deaths have been recorded. A week ago today the equivalent figure was 63. The total number of deaths over the last week is 38.5% down on the total for the previous seven days.
- A further 4,479 new cases have been recorded. Week on week, cases are down 16.7%.
Updated
Although Sir Keir Starmer has said there is “no case” for rejoining the EU (see 9.48am), Ipsos Mori polling out today suggests more than a third of people (35%) would like Britain to rejoin the EU within the next 10 years. They are only narrowly outnumbered by the 37% who say they do not want that. Another 20% neither agree nor disagree.
Updated
Salmond tells Ofcom and broadcasters his new Alba party should be included in TV debates
Alex Salmond will write to Ofcom and Scottish broadcasters to demand that the newly formed Alba party – which he claims can secure a pro-independence supermajority at next month’s Holyrood elections – be included in televised leadership debates.
Raising the prospect of the former SNP leader going head to head with current leader Nicola Sturgeon, just weeks after denouncing her government as “failing” and accusing those close to her of trying to put him in prison, Salmond told a press briefing:
In less than a week from launch, we are a national party putting up a serious challenge and can argue that we’ve got a significant following already and are going to get much more if we’re given a fair shout in the television debates.
Sturgeon herself has said repeatedly since Salmond launched Alba last Friday, and announced his intention to stand himself as an MSP on the North East regional list, that there are “significant questions” about the appropriateness of his return to public office given concerns raised about his conduct.
Salmond said that Alba’s presence would bring something “distinctive” to broadcast coverage for the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections, which take place on 6 May, adding that the party now had a comparable number of members to the Lib Dems and Greens in Scotland, as well as more Scottish MPs at Westminster than Labour. He said:
If independence is and it should be a dominating issue in this election campaign, it seems to me there should be parity of those arguing for independence and against.
Salmond was also asked whether he had concerns that the continued focus on his conduct towards women might detract from Alba’s campaign. In the past he has described himself as “no angel”, apologised to a woman who later accused him of assault, and behaved in a way deemed “inappropriate” and “touchy-feely” by his own defence lawyer during his criminal trial, after which he was acquitted on all charges .
He pointed to the party’s candidate list, which was confirmed yesterday and includes a number of women who have been outspoken critics of transgender law reform, as being “dominated by some of the most formidable feminist campaigners in Scotland”.
Whitty says trying to completely stop new variants entering UK 'not a realistic starting point'
Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, told a a Royal Society of Medicine webinar at lunchtime that trying to completely stop new variants entering the UK was unrealistic. He explained:
We have to accept that the idea that you can stop any variants coming into the UK at all is not a realistic starting point.
But what you can do is you can slow it down.
Anybody who believes that they can actually just put up some border policy or some overall policy that stops the possibility [of variants] completely is misunderstanding the problem completely.
As PA Media reports, Whitty also said that while R is less than 1, variants coming in “don’t have much of a foothold”, but he added that is anticipated to rise above 1 as more things open up in the lockdown exit road map.
And he said he thought a “very wide portfolio of vaccines” would be available in about two years.
In the Northern Ireland assembly a majority of MLAs have passed an SDLP motion for Sinn Fein to be censured over events at the funeral of Bobby Storey. But the vote will not have any practical impact.
In the debate Arlene Foster, the DUP first minister, said there were “clear and premeditated breaches of the Covid regulations” at the funeral of Storey, an IRA leader, last June. She said:
Sinn Fein chose to act in a way that breached the regulations on funerals at that time and in so doing happily sent a signal to everyone else in Northern Ireland that it was one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us ...
The prioritisation at Roselawn [the cemetery] over other grieving families was hurtful, ignorant and callous in the extreme, acts of arrogance, acts of self entitlement, acts of privilege.
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein deputy first minister, said she was “truly sorry” for the hurt caused by the incident.
Public Health England has published its latest coronavirus surveillance report.
Summarising its findings, PHE says:
Overall case rates decreased slightly. However slight increases were seen in case rates in the 10-19-year age group in the past 3 weeks, mostly among children of younger secondary age. This is likely to reflect the impact of schools reopening which occurred in week 10 and the mass testing programme in secondary schools.
Case rates are highest in those aged 10 to 19, with a case rate of 109.8 per 100,000 population.
The lowest case rates continue to be in those aged 70 to 79, with a rate of 10.7 per 100,000 population.
Case rates per 100,000 have fallen across all regions and remain highest in Yorkshire and the Humber, at 109.1.
Case rates per 100,000 are lowest in the south-west, with a rate of 28.4.
We've just published our weekly #COVID19 surveillance report.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) April 1, 2021
Read it here: https://t.co/8dYt9zEVk9
NHS England has recorded 43 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.
A week ago today the equivalent figure was 73 hospital deaths.
Covid rates falling in England, and probably Scotland, but rising in Northern Ireland, says ONS
The Office for National Statisics has released the latest results from its infection survey, which measures the prevalence of coronavirus infection in the UK. Normally the figures are out on a Friday, but tomorrow is a bank holiday.
Here are the central figures, which cover the week ending Saturday 27 March. They are all estimates, and the ONS report includes the credible interval figures (the range within which the true figure is likely to fall).
England: around one person in 370 testing positive – or 148,100 people.
The ONS says that is a decline in prevalence from the previous week, when the rate was one in 340.
Wales: around one person in 570 testing positive, or 5,300 people.
That looks like a decline from the previous week, when the rate was given as one in 450, but the ONS says the trend is “uncertain” because the credible intervals
Northern Ireland: around one person in 220 testing positive, or 8,200 people.
The ONS says there are “early signs of an increase” from the previous week, when the rate was given as one in 320 people.
Scotland: around one person in 320 testing positive, or 16,600 people.
The ONS says the rate has “likely decreased” from the previous week, when it was given as one in 240.
The ONS also says that, in England, the percentage of people testing positive increased in the east of England in the week ending 27 March, and decreased in the south-east and the south-west. In other regions it is not clear what the trend was, it says.
Updated
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, said he had been in discussions with leaders of the other UK nations over the issue of vaccine certification. At his briefing he said:
We continue to work together on the issue of vaccine certification, There are positive prizes to be won from having a successful vaccine certification scheme but there are many practical and ethical issues that will need to be addressed if those positive opportunities can be won from it. They are complex, we are engaged on it together.
Drakeford urged people not to travel to England from Wales to visit pubs once they reopened (two weeks before Welsh hospitality is resuming) and advised Welsh citizens not to go on holiday abroad this summer.
He said: “This is the year to stay at home, this is the year to enjoy everything Wales has to offer.”
Updated
Some 7.1m lateral flow device (LFD) tests for Covid-19, or rapid tests, were conducted in England in the week to 24 March, according to the latest test and trace figures - down from a record 7.7m in the previous week. As PA Media reports, LFD tests are swab tests that give results in 30 minutes or less, without the need for processing in a laboratory.
By contrast, 1.1m polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were conducted in the week to 24 March.
In an interview with Radio Scotland this morning Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, accused Alex Salmond of gambling with the election system. Responding to his claim that having his Alba party on the ballot would be helpful to the SNP (see 12.34pm), she said:
When Alex Salmond was leader of the SNP he didn’t say what he is saying now. What he said then, and he was right then, is the only way to get the government that you want is to vote for the party that will be that government.
Anything else is trying to gamble with the system, game the system, take a chance on the outcome of the election.
If you want to see an SNP government elected that then has the ability to deliver an independence referendum, you don’t get that by voting for somebody else, you will only get that by voting SNP.
Everybody knew Alex Salmond was a gambler, he has never made any secret of it, he backs the horses on an almost daily basis.
The Welsh government has announced that its vaccine programme is ahead of schedule.
The first minister, Mark Drakeford, said:
We will meet our next vaccine milestone early. By Sunday we will have offered a vaccine to everyone in the first nine priority groups - that’s everyone over 50; all adults with an underlying health condition and a great many unpaid carers.
By Sunday, a minimum of 75% of those in each priority group will have received a first vaccination. That is a major milestone for us to have reached first of all in Wales.
Speaking at a government press conference in Cardiff, Drakeford said 57% of adults in Wales have had one dose of the vaccine and almost one in five adults had completed the two-dose course.
Updated
Two shots of the Pfizer vaccine produce high levels of protective antibodies in people aged 80 and over, according to the largest independent study yet into older people’s immune responses to the jab.
Blood tests on 100 people aged 80 to 96 years old found that 98% produced strong antibody responses after two doses of the vaccine given three weeks apart. After the second shot, antibody levels more than tripled.
The findings, released in a preprint that has yet to be peer-reviewed, will boost confidence that the Pfizer vaccine can be highly effective against Covid even in older people who tend to generate far weaker immune responses to both vaccines and natural infections. But it is unclear what the findings mean for the UK where second shots of vaccine are given up to three months after the first.
Paul Moss, professor of haematology at the University of Birmingham, who led the study with Dr Helen Parry, also at Birmingham, said the team was “surprised” and “very pleased” to see the results which tallied with the “excellent clinical protection” the vaccine appears to provide. The first major real-world study of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel found that two shots prevented 94% of symptomatic cases across all age groups.
PM restates support for principle of Covid-status checks - despite Starmer saying they're un-British
Boris Johnson has been speaking to reporters on a visit to Middlesbrough. Here are the main points.
- Johnson suggested that Covid-status certificates could be “useful” - despite Sir Keir Starmer dismissing the concept as un-British. (See 9.18am.) Asked about Starmer’s comment, he would not address it directly. But he said he thought vaccine passports would be introduced for international travel. And he went on:
When it comes to trying to make sure that we give maximum confidence to business and to customers here in the UK, there are three things: your immunity, whether you’ve had it before, so you’ve got natural antibodies anyway; whether you’ve been vaccinated; and then, of course, whether you’ve had a test. And so those three things working together will, I think, be useful.
Originally ministers just suggested that Covid-status certificates would show either whether someone had been vaccinated or whether they had had a recent negative test, but last week Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, suggested that proof of past infection could be a third qualifying factor.
- Johnson described yesterday’s report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities as “an interesting piece of work”, while also saying the government did not agree with everything in it. He said:
Look, this is a very interesting piece of work. I don’t say the government is going to agree with absolutely everything in it, but it has some original and stimulating work in it that I think people need to read and to consider.
There are very serious issues that our society faces to do with racism that we need to address.
We’ve got to do more to fix it, we need to understand the severity of the problem, and we’re going to be looking at all the ideas that they have put forward, and we’ll be making our response.
That is quite a long way off a full endorsement.
- He paid tribute to Samuel Kasumu, who is leaving his post as a race adviser at No 10, and sidestepped questions about concerns expressed by Kasumu in the past about the government’s record.
- Johnson said it would be “crazy” for the government not to insist on buying British-made steel for the infrastructure projects it has planned, using the “post-Brexit” procurement freedoms available to the government.
- He claimed today’s increase in the national living wage was “the first growth in incomes for people on low wages for 20 years or so”. He went on:
That’s very important, part of the levelling-up agenda, building back better, helping families through what has unquestionably been a tough time.
Updated
Salmond urges Sturgeon to 'put aside personal differences' for sake of Scottish independence
Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister who last week launched a new Alba party to compete against the SNP in the Holyrood election, appealed to Nicola Sturgeon to cooperate with him in the cause of Scottish independence.
Although Alba will compete with the SNP for seats, Salmond argues that, because it is only running candidates in the regional list section of the election, this could compensate for the SNP losing out in this section under the proportional voting system that uses list seats to compensate parties that do badly in the constituency seat seats section of the ballot. Salmond says he wants to create a super-majority of independence in the next parliament.
Salmond told the Today programme this morning:
The cause of independence is much, much bigger than personalities. It is a noble cause, a huge cause for Scotland, and everybody has to put aside personal differences and work for that national interest.
But the next part of the interview underlined how hard it might be for Salmond and Sturgeon to make up in this way. Mishal Husain was interviewing, and this is how it went.
MH: You trashed her leadership.
AS: Everybody in politics has to take criticism from time to time but I’m talking about the cause of advancing Scotland’s case for independence. And I can tell you that we’ve got five weeks of this election campaign. You wouldn’t find a word of negativity coming off the lips of any Alba candidate as we progress that cause of Scottish independence.
MH: We’ve already had that, haven’t we. One of your candidates called Nicola Sturgeon a cow.
AS: Well, and has apologised for it. If I may say so, that was a Twitter debate before he became a candidate.
Sturgeon said earlier this week that Salmond would have to apologise for his treatment of women before she would consider sitting to discuss working with his party on independence. But Salmond refused to apologise in the Today interview, or accept that his previous behaviour was at fault. He just stressed that he had been acquitted in his sexual assault trial, and he claimed “fair-minded people think that’s fair enough”.
Last week Leonardo Carella, a politics researcher, tried to work out what impact Alba would have on the election result, and the number of pro-independence MSPs elected to the next Scottish parliament. He explains his analysis in a Twitter feed starting here. In summary, it depends, but if Alba gets less than 5% of the vote, it will reduce the overall number of pro-independence MSPs, but once it gets more than 10%, the positive impact starts looking very clear.
There seems to be some confusion as to what effect ALBA will have on the distribution of seats in the Scottish Parliament. As teased yesterday, I’ve built a toy model to illustrate that the answer is unambiguously “it depends”. 🧵🏴 /1
— Leonardo Carella (@leonardocarella) March 27, 2021
Updated
Race commission chair says it's 'absurd' to claim its report downplayed evils of slavery
Tony Sewell, the chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, has released a statement this morning saying it is “absurd” to claim its report published yesterday downplays the horrors of the slave trade.
The allegation has been made because Sewell’s foreword to the report contains a passage saying:
There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.
In his statement Sewell said:
It is absurd to suggest that the commission is trying to downplay the evil of the slave trade. It is both ridiculous and offensive to each and every commissioner. The report merely says that, in the face of the inhumanity of slavery, African people preserved their humanity and culture.
Children could be vaccinated against Covid to prevent disruption to their education, Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said this morning.
Speaking in an interview on the Today programme this morning, Finn said deciding whether to vaccinate children was problematic because very few of them get seriously ill from coronavirus. He suggesting immunising them just for the sake of others might be hard to justify. But he said taking into account the impact on their education might provide a reason.
Finn said:
One would not really be comfortable with immunising children entirely for the benefit of others and not for children.
I think if it does look as though it’s necessary, that will be driven by the observation that the virus is still circulating and there’s jeopardy for children in terms of disruption to their education.
I think that probably squares the circle if it does prove necessary.
As PA Media reports, the University of Oxford is currently carrying out a clinical trial on children to test the safety and efficacy of its vaccine in younger age groups, with initial results expected in the summer. The trial is working with partner sites in London, Southampton and Bristol and includes about 300 youngsters aged six to 17.
UK was 'not fully prepared' for pandemic, health chief admits
Today the UK Health Security Agency launches. It’s a new body, set up to to “protect the country from future health threats and ensure the nation can respond to pandemics quickly and at greater scale” and its chief executive is Dr Jenny Harries, previously England’s deputy chief medical officer.
In an interview on the Today programme this morning that mostly focused on looking back at the government’s handling of the pandemic over the last year, Harries admitted that the UK was not fully prepared. She said:
We were not fully prepared for this pandemic and, as I’ve said, I’m very happy to accept there is an awful lot to learn. I think we share some of those failings with many other countries.
Asked to accept that the initial response to the pandemic was poor, she replied:
I think it had merits and it had things that we would wish to improve.
Harries has faced particular criticism for a video she recorded with Boris Johnson on 11 March last year, less than two weeks before the full lockdown was announced, which was intended to show that ministers were following scientific advice. In it Harries said that wearing a mask was “usually quite a bad idea”.
Asked about this, Harries said:
We’ve learned more, as I’ve said, about asymptomatic transmission, and I think we would recommend face coverings earlier.
Boris Johnson’s adviser on race has resigned, it has emerged, the day after the government released a controversial report downplaying structural racism in the UK. My colleague Rajeev Syal has the story.
Commenting on the news, Marsha de Cordova, the shadow minister for women and equalities, said:
To have your most senior advisor on ethnic minorities quit as you publish a so-called landmark report on race in the UK is telling of how far removed the Tories are from the everyday lived experiences of Black, Asian and ethnic minority people.
Vaccine hesitancy amongst black Britons halved from February to March, ONS says
The proportion of black or black British adults reporting hesitancy over coronavirus vaccines has halved in roughly a month, PA Media reports. PA says:
Overall positive vaccine sentiment among the British population has risen to 94% in March from 78% in December, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
Six per cent of 17,200 respondents reported vaccine hesitancy between 17 February to 14 March - down from 9% of respondents during the previous data collection period.
About a fifth (22%) of black or black British adults reported hesitancy - half the 44% who reported hesitancy previously between 13 January and 7 February.
This was the highest level in all ethnic groups, with 13% of adults in the Asian or Asian British group reporting hesitancy and 12% of those with mixed ethnicity.
ONS says 1.1m people in UK have been suffering long Covid recently, with almost 20% affected 'a lot'
The Office for National Statistics has published a report on long Covid this morning. Here are the key points.
- An estimated 1.1 million people in the UK have been suffering from long Covid recently, the ONS says. The figure, which is based on responses to a survey, covers the four-week period to 6 March. Long Covid is defined as experiencing symptoms not explained by anything else more than four weeks after first getting coronavirus.
- Almost 700,000 people had long Covid lasting at least 12 weeks, and 70,000 people had it for at least a year, the survey suggests.
- For 674,000 (61%) of the 1.1m, long Covid was “adversely affecting” their day-to-day activities, the ONS says. And for 196,000 (18%) of the 1.1m, the illness was limiting their ability to undertake day-to-day activities “a lot”.
- A related survey shows that, amongst a sample of people who have tested positive for Covid within the last year, 13.7% reported experiencing symptoms for at least 12 weeks. Women (14.7%) were slightly more likely to have symptoms lasting at least 12 weeks than men (12.7%).
- Prevalence of long Covid is highest among “people aged 35 to 69 years, females, those living in the most deprived areas, those working in health or social care, and those with a pre-existing, activity-limiting health condition”, the ONS says. But it says it cannot tell whether this is because people in these groups are more susceptible to long Covid, or whether it is just because of their higher risk of infection.
Updated
Drakeford urges Johnson to postpone 17 May possible start date for reopening foreign travel
The roadmap out of the lockdown for almost all aspects of life in Wales is being spelled out today but the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, is at pains to call for people to remain cautious.
Drakeford said Wales has the lowest Covid rate and highest vaccination rate among the UK nations. His government is laying out a timetable for when the country can re-open again but questions are being raised over some aspects, such as why outdoor hospitality will not open until two weeks after England and why gyms remain closed until May.
Speaking on BBC Radio Wales, Drakeford said the advice from the chief medical officer, Frank Atherton, was clear – if too much is done at once the risk is that what has been achieved will be reversed. “That’s why it has to be staggered,” he said. If rates rise again, it would be possible to take action immediately.
Drakeford accepted people would cross the border from Wales to England to go to the pub once they re-open but added: “I hope people will not seek to do that.”
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Drakeford said he hoped Boris Johnson would push back the potential 17 May date for the UK resuming international travel. He said:
I’ve long argued that it is over-optimistic, that it doesn’t reflect the risk of reimporting coronavirus from other parts of the world where there are new variants in circulation.
Drakeford said the newest lockdown in France in response to rising cases of Covid-19 there was evidence of “how close to this country some of those risks are currently being experienced”.
Updated
Starmer says 'no case' for rejoining EU and Labour has not been 'strong enough' on crime
In his Telegraph interview (paywall) Sir Keir Starmer also had some interesting things to say on non-Covid topics. Here they are.
- Starmer said Labour had not been “strong enough” on issues like crime and policing. He told the paper:
I think that we have not been clear enough and strong enough on things like policing and crime over recent years ...
I know what it means for a community here or across the country not to feel safe,” he said. “And by that I mean simple testimony – if you don’t feel you can go out after dark down your own street or road, there is something fundamentally wrong. And too many people are in that position.
Starmer has made it clear recently that in some respects he is trying to outflank the Tories on law and order; one of his criticisms of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill is that it does not toughen sentences for rape. This is a manoeuvre adopted by Tony Blair when he was opposition leader, although it is not simply a rightwing tactic. Jeremy Corbyn also sought to trump Theresa May on law and order - but on police cuts, not sentencing policy.
- Starmer said there was “no case” for rejoining the EU. He has repeatedly said that the debate has moved on, and that Labour must accept the UK has left the EU, but the “no case” takes this argument even further. Starmer told the Telegraph:
We’ve left. We are no longer a member of the EU. We’ve got a deal, we’ve got to make that deal work. There’s no case for rejoining the EU and I’ve been very clear about that. The remain-leave debate is over.
Many in the Labour party would say there is a case for rejoining.
- He told the Telegraph that in the year ahead he wanted to “take the mask off and open the throttle” in terms of campaigning. He was making the point that campaigning in his first year as leader has been constrained by Covid; he has still not given a single speech as leader to an in-person audience.
Updated
Keir Starmer says Boris Johnson is wrong to outsource Covid checks to pub landlords
Good morning. Sir Keir Starmer has given an interview to the Daily Telegraph (paywall) to mark the first anniversary of his election as Labour leader (on Sunday) and it may make worrying reading for No 10. Sounding more libertarian than Boris Johnson (which is not easy), Starmer told the Telegraph he though that, if Covid deaths were even lower later this year, “then the British instinct in those circumstances will be against vaccine passports”. By vaccine passports, he seemed to be referring to Covid-status certificates (which would allow people to use a recent negative test result instead of proof of vaccination) and, although he did not firmly commit Labour to voting against them, he implied this was likely. My colleague Peter Walker has the story here.
One point Starmer makes may be particularly awkward for No 10. Boris Johnson has not yet committed the government to this proposal, but one idea being considered it to simply let venues like pubs decide for themselves whether or not to operate systems like this. “It may be up to individual publicans, it may be up to the landlord,” Johnson told the Commons liaison committee last week. The following day Liam Fox, the former cabinet minister, told MPs that, because Conservatives believed in freedom, they should be letting companies decide for themselves what to do. But Starmer said the government should either mandate a Covid-status certification system or rule it out; he told the Telegraph:
I think this idea that we sort of outsource this to individual landlords is just wrong in principle.
I will post more from his interview shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes figures on vaccine hesitancy, as well as a report on a prevalence of long Covid.
11am: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, holds a press conference.
12pm: Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister, holds a campaign launch event for his new party, Alba.
12pm: MLAs hold a debate in the Northern Ireland assembly on an SDLP motion condemning Sinn Féin ministers for attending the Bobby Storey funeral.
12.15pm: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, hold a press conference where he will confirm measures to take Wales fully to alert level 3 by 17 May.
12.30pm: Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, speaks at a Royal Society of Medicine online event.
2pm: The ONS publishes the latest results from its Covid infection survey.
2pm: Public Health England publishes its weekly Covid surveillance report.
Johnson is also doing a visit in Teesside this morning.
Politics Live has been mostly about Covid for the last year and I will be covering UK coronavirus developments today, as well as non-coronavirus Westminster politics. For global coronavirus news, do read our global live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
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