Afternoon summary
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Hancock says he cannot give assurance that vaccines will be effective against Indian variant
In the Commons earlier Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was asked by Labour’s Tan Dhesi if vaccines would effective against the Indian variant. Hancock said he could not give that assurance. He replied:
We simply don’t know that. We’re acting on a precautionary basis because we do not have ... I can’t give him that assurance.
And of course we’re looking into that question as fast as possible but that is the core of my concern about the variant first found in India, is that the vaccines may be less effective in terms of transmission and, or in terms of reducing hospitalisation and death.
It is the same concern that we have with the variant first found in South Africa and is the core reason why we took the decision today.
UK records four more Covid deaths - lowest daily total for more than seven months
The latest UK coronavirus figures have been posted on the government’s dashboard. Here are the key figures.
- The UK has recorded just four more coronavirus deaths. This is the lowest daily total on this measure for more than seven months, and only the second time this year the reported daily total has been below 10. The total number of deaths over the last seven days is 26.9% down on the previous week.
- The UK has record 2,963 new cases. Week on week, new cases are down 10%.
In the Commons Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, is now making a statement about the proposed European super league. We are covering that separately on our European super league live blog. It’s here.
Back in the Commons Labour’s Kevan Jones asks Matt Hancock, the health secretary, if he agrees that it was morally wrong to propose using the pay of low-paid NHS staff to construct a financial bond that could be sold on the money markets. He is referring to what is reported to be the Greensill Capital strategy.
Hancock says his view was that it was up to local NHS managers to decide whether to sign up to the Earnd scheme.
Annual coronavirus booster vaccines likely to be needed 'for some time to come', says Hancock
Back in the Commons Matt Hancock, the health secretary, tells MPs that he expects people to need annual booster vaccines against coronavirus “for some time to come”.
A man has been detained by police after a brick was thrown through the window of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ headquarters near Haymarket station in Edinburgh on Monday morning.
It is understood the incident took place at around 11am, and was witnessed by party staff. There have been isolated incidents involving graffiti on party offices in Scotland, including the word “resign” scrawled on the door of Scottish government minister Ben Macpherson in Edinburgh, and Nazi symbols sprayed on Scottish Tory offices in Aberdeen, but none of this severity.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib MP MP for Orkney and Shetland, and the party’s Scottish campaign manager, said:
This morning a brick was thrown through the window of our HQ in Edinburgh. Fortunately no one was hurt but it could have been very different and our staff are understandably shaken by this.
I’m dismayed that this kind of behaviour seems to have taken root in Scotland. Political campaigning should be about the clash of ideas, not about acts of violence.
Updated
Mark Harper, the chair of the Conservative Covid Recovery Group, which represents anti-lockdown MPs, asks Hancock to confirm that from 21 June, when the final stage of the roadmap is meant to start, no further restrictions will be in place.
Hancock says the decisions will be taken on the basis of the evidence. He says he expects that after 21 June there will be areas of life where people will act more cautiously - for example, in relation to wearing masks - even though MPs have not passed laws mandating this.
UPDATE: Hancock said:
Any decisions like that would be based on the evidence and we have far more evidence now than we did when making these decisions previously.
I fully expect that there will be some areas of life - without the need for laws in this place - where people will behave more cautiously than previously, and the wearing of masks is one where before this pandemic wearing a mask in public in this country was extremely unusual, and I’d imagine some people will wear masks and choose to wear masks for some time to come.
Our goal is to manage this virus, to manage the pandemic that it’s caused, like flu.
Updated
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, asks why India was not put on the red list 10 days ago, when other countries tightened restrictions for arrivals from India.
Hancock says these decisions are kept under constant review. Some countries have excellent genomic sequencing and others don’t, he says. He says this does not always correlate with wealth; South Africa has excellent genomic sequencing, he says.
He says he is glad Cooper welcomes the decision to put India on the red list, but he does not answer her question about the delay.
Updated
Hancock says vaccine booster shots could be delivered at same time as flu jabs if medical advice allows
Back in the Commons Hancock has just said a bit more about his plans for booster vaccines later this year. He said the programme would be rolled out in a similar way to the main vaccine programme.
But it would overlap with with autumn winter flu vaccination programme, he said. He said he still needed to see results from trials that would indicate whether the jabs could be given at the same time, which “would obviously be logistically easier”.
He said he was making the announcement today because he wanted to be “absolutely clear” that a booster shot programme would happen.
This is from Sir Keir Starmer.
My statement on being confronted in a pub today:https://t.co/lSmEc4585q
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) April 19, 2021
In fact, the link does not take you to a statement about his confrontation with an angry anti-lockdown pub landlord (see 2.59am) but to the government website enabling people to register to vote. So it’s effectively a dignified no comment, laced with a statement about the importance of democratic participation.
In the Commons Hancock says in the next couple of weeks some “very rich data” should be available about the effectiveness of a second dose of vaccine.
In his opening statement Matt Hanock told MPs that 557 cases of the South African variant of coronavirus had now been found in the UK. He said:
We’ve now detected a total of 557 cases of this variant since it was first identified in December. We’ve seen a cluster of cases in south London - predominantly in the London boroughs of Wandsworth, Lambeth and Southwark, and identified single cases over the last week in Barnet, Birmingham and Sandwell.
Around two-thirds of these cases are related to international travel and have been picked up by the day two and day eight testing for international arrivals, however, we have seen a small amount of community transmission too.
The South African variant, B1351, is not seen as more transmissible than the so-called Kent or British variant, B117, which is now the dominant one in the UK. But B1351 is thought to be more resistant to vaccines.
Updated
The Labour MP Naz Shah says India should have been placed on the red list much earlier. The decision was only put off because Boris Johnson was hoping to avoid cancelling his India trip, she suggests.
For weeks India has been left off the “red list”, whilst cases were rising, just to accommodate the PM’s visit to India.
— Naz Shah MP 💙 (@NazShahBfd) April 19, 2021
It shouldn’t have needed pressure, the data was clear enough. https://t.co/bAUgyKQhLH pic.twitter.com/N9OHFsmldV
Philippa Whitford, the SNP’s health spokesperson, says the UK government should extend hotel quarantine to all arrivals to the UK - as Scotland has done.
Hancock says the vast majority of the Indian variant cases found in the UK have been found as a result of testing at the border. That means the system is working, he says.
Ashworth also asks Hancock about revelations in the Sunday Times yesterday about how David Cameron lobbied on behalf of Earnd, a Greensill Capital company involving an app allowing people to receive their pay early. He says the offer was not “an act of altruism”, as Greensill implied, but an attempt to “package up loans to sell to investors”, with Cameron and the company likely to benefit.
Hancock says it was up to local NHS managers to decide if their employees took advantage of the payday flexibility offered by Greensill.
Responding for Labour, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said he welcomed the decision to put India on the red list.
But he said he hoped there would be support available for Britons in India who now want to return.
India added to travel red list, Hancock tells MPs, as number of Indian variant cases in UK rises to 103
Hancock says India has been added to the travel red list.
The rules will come into force at 4am on Friday. They mean arrivals from India will be subject to hotel quarantine.
He says 103 cases of the Indian variant have now been found in the UK. At the end of last week the figure was 77.
We’ve recently seen a new variant first identified in India. We’ve now detected 103 cases of this variant, of which again the vast majority have links to international travel and have been picked up by our testing at the border.
UPDATE: Hancock said:
This means anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen cannot enter the UK if they’ve been in India in the previous 10 days.
UK and Irish residents and British citizens who have been in India in the past 10 days before their arrival will need to complete hotel quarantine for 10 days from the time of arrival.
These rules will come into force at 4am on Friday.
India is a country I know well and love. Between our two countries we have ties of friendship and family. I understand the impact of this decision but I hope the House will concur that we must act.
Updated
Hancock says government preparing to give people vaccine booster shots later this year
Hancock says the government is “ramping up” its plans to give people booster shots later this year to help protect them from new variants.
He says the government has already obtained enough vaccine doses to begin booster shots this year.
UPDATE: Hancock said:
We’ve already procured enough vaccine doses to begin the booster shots later this year. We will be working with our current vaccine suppliers and new suppliers, like the CureVac partnership, to work out which vaccines will be effective as a booster shot and to design new vaccines specifically targeted at the variants of concern - like the variant first found in South Africa.
Our goal is to ensure the vaccine protects against this dreadful disease, whatever it throws at us, to keep us safe and to protect our much-cherished return to normal way of life.
Updated
Hancock starts by saying the virus is “diminished but not defeated”.
Covid deaths in the UK are down 97%, he says.
But he says the government must be cautious as it moves forward, because it wants the lifting of restrictions to be a one-way street.
He says uptake amongst the over-50s is 94%. And demand among people in their late 40s was so high that the website crashed when it opened for bookings, he says.
He confirms that 10 million people have now had a second dose.
And he confirms that the government is considering making vaccination compulsory for care home staff.
We all know that older people living in care homes are at the greatest risk from this virus and I believe we have a duty of care to protect the most vulnerable, so we’ll consider all options to keep people safe.
Updated
Matt Hancock's statement to MPs on coronavirus
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is about to make a statement to MPs about coronavirus.
We are expecting it to be more of an update than a big announcement.
On Twitter Andrew Bell reminds me that there is nothing new about a poll saying more than half of Britons expect the UK to break up within 10 years. (See 2.50pm.) The Guardian was reporting a poll saying that in 1999.
April 1999... but here we are. https://t.co/jU5s2hmSkl
— Andrew Bell (@__ambell) April 19, 2021
Labour has tabled an amendment to the finance bill this afternoon to call on the government to publish an equality impact assessment of the budget. The party said analysis shows that Rishi Sunak’s social security cuts and NHS staff pay deal will unequally impact black, Asian and ethnic minority people because they make up a greater proportion of NHS staff and are more likely to be on certain benefits, such as universal credit.
Marsha de Cordova, the shadow minister for women and equalities, said:
Black, Asian and ethnic minority people’s finances have been unequally impacted by the governments ideological choices. The Conservatives want to hike up council tax, cut the pay of our key workers who have been on the frontline of the pandemic for the last year, and cut vital universal credit support. They’re failing to do equality impact assessments and it shows.
They tell us they are interested in fairness and inequalities, but the truth is they have no interest in addressing this at all.
More than 10 million Britons have now received second vaccine dose, Hancock says
More than 10 million people in the UK have now received their second dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has announced.
Over 10 million second vaccine doses have been administered across the UK 🇬🇧
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) April 19, 2021
This milestone shows how far we've come in our fight against this virus & I want to pay tribute to the whole team involved. pic.twitter.com/mRjjPM6TuW
Starmer ordered to leave Bath pub by anti-lockdown landlord
The landlord of a pub in Bath has ordered Sir Keir Starmer to leave, PA Media reports. This video shows the angry landlord being held back by an assistant seeking to protect Starmer.
The landlord of The Raven pub in Bath has kicked out Sir Keir Starmer during the Labour leader's walkabout in the city pic.twitter.com/7byQt2bFqW
— PA Media (@PA) April 19, 2021
According to this report by the Telegraph’s Harry Yorke, the landlord, Rod Humphris, is a former Labour supporter angry about Starmer’s support for the lockdown.
Labour has posted these comments on Twitter.
A clip circulating online shows Keir Starmer being confronted by someone spreading dangerous misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. We will not be amplifying it. 1/2
— Labour Press (@labourpress) April 19, 2021
Keir argued that our NHS staff have been working tirelessly to protect public health and that restrictions - while painful - have been absolutely necessary to save lives. 2/2
— Labour Press (@labourpress) April 19, 2021
More than half of Britons think UK will not survive another 10 years in current form, poll suggests
More than half of Britons (53%) do not think the UK will exist in its current form in 10 years’ time, new polling (pdf) from Ipsos Mori suggests. And only a quarter of Britons (24%) say it will survive that long in its current form.
In this context “Britons” means people living in the UK. Polling companies often just poll people living in Great Britain because party politics is so different in Northern Ireland. As this chart shows, in all four nations of the UK there are more people who think the union will break up within a decade than there are who don’t, but union confidence is highest in Wales.
The polling also suggests:
- While 41% of English people say they would be sad to see Scotland vote for independence, they are outnumbered by the people in England both happy and sad (11%) or indifferent (38%). Another 7% say they would be happy to see Scotland vote for independence.
Updated
Welsh government refused permission to challenge Internal Market Act in court on grounds its move 'premature'
The Welsh government has been refused permission for a high court legal challenge against the UK Government over the Internal Market Act, PA Media reports. PA says:
Counsel general for Wales Jeremy Miles tried to bring a full high court challenge over the Act, which he argued “severely curtails” the powers of the Senedd and could prevent it from making laws on food or environmental standards.
Announcing the legal action in January, Miles said the Act was an “attack” on the powers of the Senedd, and also included “wide Henry VIII powers” which UK ministers could use to “cut down the devolution settlement”.
At a hearing in London last week, Miles asked the high court to allow the case to proceed to a full hearing later this year.
But the UK government argued that the claim was “hypothetical”, and that “nothing in the Internal Market Act alters the devolved competence of the Senedd”.
In a ruling on Monday, the high court refused permission for the case to go ahead, saying: “This claim for judicial review is premature.”
As PA reports, explaining the decision, Lord Justice Lewis, sitting with Mrs Justice Steyn, said:
A claim concerning the meaning or effect of provisions of Senedd legislation, or whether the legislation is properly within the Senedd’s legislative competence, is better addressed in the context of specific legislative proposals.
It is inappropriate to seek to address such issues in the absence of specific circumstances giving rise to the arguments raised by the claimant and a specific legislative context in which to test and assess those arguments.
Similarly, it is inappropriate to seek to give general, abstract rulings on the circumstances in which the power to make regulations amending the (Internal Market) Act may be exercised.
As the claim for judicial review is premature, it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to express views on the arguability or otherwise of the arguments raised by the claimant.
Updated
A white supremacist group could be banned in the UK, PA Media reports. PA says:
The home secretary wants to outlaw Atomwaffen Division and list National Socialist Order as its alias.
Priti Patel has asked parliament to proscribe the “predominantly US-based white supremacist group that celebrates and promotes the use of violence in order to bring about a fascist, white ethno-state by means of a race war”, the Home Office said.
The proposal will now be debated and, subject to approval, come into force later this week.
No 10 rejects claim from UN panel that its race commission report seeks to normalise white supremacy
The Downing Street lobby briefing is over. Here are the key points.
- No 10 has refused to rule out legislation to give supporters majority control of football clubs to block the European super league plan. Asked if the government was considering a German-style system of 51% fan ownership of clubs, the PM’s spokesman said:
I’ve seen a number of proposals that have been put forward as potential solutions or mitigations for this, I’m not at this stage planning on getting into each one.
Earlier Boris Johnson said that the government would do everything it could to stop the super league going ahead in the form planned. (See 11.01am.) But when asked to elaborate on that this might mean, the spokesman did not offer much clarification. He said:
We’re considering a range of options and the prime minister wants to look at everything we can do here to make sure these proposals don’t go ahead as proposed.
Asked if the government would try to recover Covid support given to clubs participating in the super league scheme, the spokesman said: “Again, another suggestion put forward. We want to look at everything possible, we’re not ruling anything in or out, we want to look at the options.
- Downing Street accused a UN panel of misrepresenting the conclusions of the report from the government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. Asked about the criticism (see 12.48pm), the spokesman said:
Our view is that this report misrepresents the findings. We remain proud of the UK’s long history as a human rights champion and we encourage everyone to read the original report in full.
Asked if the commission’s report normalised white supremacy, as the UN panel claimed, the spokesman replied:
Absolutely not. This report in no way condones racist behaviour and in fact it highlights that racism and inequality are still problems for our country.
- The spokesman said it was not right to “speculate” on whether India might soon be added to the travel red list.
- The spokesman said the fan-led review of football governance promised in the last Conservative manifesto will be set out “in due course”. Asked when it would appear, he said:
We’ve continued to work closely with fans and football stakeholders on issues.
I think, as I’m sure you’ll accept, the focus has been on the global pandemic and the response to that, and that includes protecting the immediate future of football clubs, but we will build on this with our fan-led Government review as soon as possible.
- Allegra Stratton, the PM’s press secretary, refused to say whether Johnson would visit Scotland ahead of the election. “The key thing here is that because of Covid, the pandemic is making these visits more challenging than they would be otherwise,” she said. This morning Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, signalled that a visit was unlikely. (See 8.45am.)
Updated
In his media interview this morning Boris Johnson also defended the civil service, in the light of the recent revelations about lobbying, and insisted that it was wrong to assume that “loads” of civil servants combine working for the government with holding a private sector job. He said:
What we have done is got Nigel Boardman to look at the whole thing.
I just want to stress one thing to people who are sort of vaguely tuning in to this. People should not, in my view, form the impression that the upper echelons of the British civil service have got loads of people who are double-hatting, as it were, doing two jobs - it just isn’t true.
We’ve got one of the best civil services in the world. They are fantastically hard-working people, they have been doing an amazing job throughout this Covid pandemic, apart from anything else, and I just wouldn’t want people to get that impression. It is simply not the case.
Following the revelation that Bill Crothers spent two months working for Greensill Capital, which has now gone bust, while also serving as the government’s chief commercial officer, an inquiry has been launched to see how many other civil servants were also allowed to “double job”.
Updated
No 10 race report tries to normalise white supremacy, say UN experts
The report from the government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was widely criticised when it was published last month, attempts to “normalise white supremacy”, human rights experts from the UN have warned. My colleague Aamna Mohdin has the story.
The full statement from the UN working group of experts on people of African descent is here. And here is an extract.
Among other things, the report blames single parents for poor outcomes, ignoring the racial disparities and the racialised nature of poor outcomes that exist despite an increased prevalence of single-parent families in every demographic. The report’s conclusion that racism is either a product of the imagination of people of African descent or of discrete, individualised incidents ignores the pervasive role that the social construction of race was designed to play in society, particularly in normalising atrocity, in which the British state and institutions played a significant role.
Stunningly, the report also claims that, while there might be overt acts of racism in the UK, there is no institutional racism. The report offers no evidence for this claim, but openly blames identity politics, disparages complex analyses of race and ethnicity using qualitative and quantitative research, proffers shocking misstatements and/or misunderstandings about data collection and mixed methods research, cites “pessimism”, “linguistic inflation” and “emotion” as bases to distrust data and narratives associated with racism and racial discrimination, and attempts to delegitimise data grounded in lived experience while also shifting the blame for the impacts of racism to the people most impacted by it.
In fact, the report itself did not say there was no institutional racism in the UK - although it certainly downplayed the relevance of institutional, system and structural racism. But the government did issue a press notice ahead of the report’s publication implying that it said there was no longer evidence of institutional racism in the UK, and the commission’s chair, Tony Sewell, gave an interview also saying this.
Updated
Johnson unable to name Tory mayor of West of England on regional visit
Boris Johnson does not seem to know the name of the Conservative mayor for the West of England (Tim Bowles, since you ask). PA Media has released a transcript of his remarks to reporters in Gloucestershire this morning, and here is the relevant passage.
Q: Do you know who the West of England mayor is?
BJ: I’m very much in favour of powerful mayors in the West of England and elsewhere. But what I want to see is a strong Conservative mayor in London and across the West Midlands and West of England and across the whole of the country.
Q: You have a Conservative mayor in the West of England at the moment, I just wondered if you know who that person is?
BJ: Well I can tell you I’ll be out campaigning for the West of England mayor, and all Conservative candidates, throughout the week.
Q: So you don’t know who Tim Bowles is, your current mayor? The reason I ask is because voters are being asked to go to the polls to vote on mayors, metro mayors, police commissioners, local - four ballot papers in some cases. It’s very confusing for people isn’t it?
BJ: There is a very simple solution, is vote Conservative, you won’t go wrong. That’s my answer.
Bowles is the current mayor for the West of England, but he is not standing in next month’s election. The Conservative candidate is Samuel Williams.
Photograph: Reuters
A Bank of England digital currency for the UK has moved a step closer after the chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a top-level taskforce to explore the benefits and risks of the idea, my colleague Larry Elliott reports.
The Commons independent expert panel, which was set up last year to rule on complaints against MPs involving bullying or sexual harassment, has published a report (pdf) this morning saying that Jared O’Mara, the former Sheffield Hallam MP, should lose the parliamentary pass that he was entitled to have as a former member.
O’Mara was elected as a Labour MP in 2017 - defeating the former Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg - but he sat as an independent after being suspended by Labour and stood down at the 2019 election. A woman working in his office complained in the summer of 2019 that he had sent her inappropriate messages and an investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards - which concluded last year, after O’Mara was no longer an MP - ruled that he had broken the rules on sexual misconduct.
The matter was then referred to the expert panel for it to decide an appropriate punishment. Given that O’Mara is no longer an MP, removing his pass was the only option available.
Today’s report says O’Mara did not appeal against either the commissioner’s ruling or its punishment.
In the past decisions about punishments in cases of this kind were taken by the Commons standards committee, but the expert panel was set up to stop MPs ruling on their fellow MPs in bullying and sexual harassment cases.
Updated
Johnson says government will do 'everything we can' to stop European Super League going ahead as proposed
Boris Johnson has also said the government will do everything it can to stop the European Super League going ahead as currently proposed. He told reporters:
We are going to look at everything that we can do with the football authorities to make sure that this doesn’t go ahead in the way that it’s currently being proposed.
I don’t think that it’s good news for fans, I don’t think it’s good news for football in this country ...
These clubs are not just great global brands - of course they’re great global brands - they’re also clubs that have originated historically from their towns, from their cities, from their local communities, they should have a link with those fans, and with the fan base in their community.
So it is very, very important that that continues to be the case. I don’t like the look of these proposals, and we’ll be consulted about what we can do.
Updated
Speaking to reporters on a visit to Gloucestershire, Boris Johnson has said it will be up to the UK Health Security Agency, the new body set up to replace Public Health England, to decide whether to place India on the red list for travel restrictions.
Interestingly, Johnson does not even seem 100% sure that Narendra Nodi, his Indian opposite number, will be able to attend the G7 meeting in Cornwall in June in person as planned. (India is not a member of the G7, but it is one of four other major democracies invited to attend this year.)
Johnson said:
The red list is very much a matter for the independent UK Health Security Agency - they will have to take that decision.
But Narendra Modi and I have basically come to the conclusion that, very sadly, I won’t be able to go ahead with the trip. I do think it’s only sensible to postpone, given what’s happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there.
Countries around the world including our own have been through this. I think everybody’s got a massive amount of sympathy with India, what they’re going through.
And I just want to stress that this is, we’re going to be going back, the relationship between the UK and India is of huge importance, and I’ll be talking to Narendra Modi on Monday, we’ll be trying to do as much as we can, virtually.
Of course it will be frustrating, but we’ll try and replicate as much as we can remotely, and then look forward to doing it in person as and when circumstances allow, and hopefully before the Cop summit in November and hopefully we’ll get Narendra Modi over for the G7 in June.
Tom Newton Dunn from Times Radio says India could be added to the red list for travel restrictions as early as today.
India is expected to be put on the travel Red list for mandatory hotel quarantine. A decision by the JBC expected imminently, as early as today possibly. Would have informed PM’s decision to cancel his trip next Sunday (for the 2nd time).
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) April 19, 2021
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is making a statement to MPs on coronavirus at 3.30pm.
🚨 Two major statements from 3.35:
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) April 19, 2021
1. Covid-19 Update - @MattHancock
2. European Football Proposal - @OliverDowden
Prof Christina Pagel, professor of operational research and head of the clinical operational research unit at University College London, has also said India should be on the red list. She explains why on a Twitter thread starting here.
THREAD on VARIANTS, VACCINES & POTENTIAL FUTURES:
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) April 18, 2021
I’ve been looking at data on sequenced variants. I’ve also been thinking about our vax programme & India.
TLDR: the Indian variant needs to trigger surge testing in England. And India needs to be on red list. 1/23
And here are some of the key tweets.
This chart shows the cumulative number of sequenced cases for the 5 variants.
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) April 18, 2021
Our B117 (Kent) variant grew fast between Sept & Xmas before being controlled by Jan lockdown.
The fastest growing new variant - esp as it started during lockdown - is the Indian one (B1617). 6/23 pic.twitter.com/DFyXsTGn9K
However (showing same plot again), B1617 (India) has gone from under 0.2% to over 1% of cases in *two* weeks.
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) April 18, 2021
It's doubling in number every week - similar to B117 back when it started growing. But B1617 is doing it under much tigher restrictions & more vaxxed people. 10/23 pic.twitter.com/BBejrSKhSg
At current rate of growth, we could be seeing 1000 B1617 cases a week in 4-5 weeks. Still not massive - but v hard to contain without more restrictions.
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) April 18, 2021
It could be dominant by end June - 10-12 weeks away.
It depends on what is driving its growth. 16/23
If it is more infectious than our B117 but susceptible to vaccines then B1617 will likely cause us (maybe big) problems (basically a worse case of the SAGE Spi-M models) https://t.co/En972NpRf4
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) April 18, 2021
but it is self limiting - by Autumn almost all adults could be fully vaxxed. 18/23
Updated
India should be added to travel red list 'sooner rather than later', says government science adviser
On the Today programme this morning Prof Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College and a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said he thought India should be added to the government’s red list of countries with the highest travel restrictions soon. He said:
The evidence of increased transmissibility and escape from immunity [from the Indian variant - see 9.45am] is circumstantial. That said, it’s going to take a number of weeks at least before that evidence gets firmed up and we find out more.
Certainly some countries and areas have taken the view that that’s enough for them to be quite concerned - so for example, Hong Kong has put on a two-week travel ban, which will allow them to find out a little bit more.
Asked if he thought India should be put on the red list, Hayward said:
It’s a balance of harms and benefits and the challenge with that is that the level of harm is quite high because we’re highly connected with India - there’s a lot of economic interaction as well as family and social interaction.
And on the other hand, what we have is an unknown level of risk - my own preference in all of this is to err on the side of caution and to act sooner rather than later. But ultimately, that’s going to be a political decision.
Johnson cancels trip to India because of Covid crisis, as total Indian cases reach 15m
Boris Johnson has cancelled his planned trip to India. No 10 has just released this joint statement from the British and Indian governments.
In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week. Instead, Prime Ministers Modi and Johnson will speak later this month to agree and launch their ambitious plans for the future partnership between the UK and India. They will remain in regular contact beyond this, and look forward to meeting in person later this year.
India has now recorded more than 15m coronavirus cases.
This would have been Johnson’s first major trip overseas since becoming PM.
As my colleague Nicola Davis reported last week, only 77 cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus, B1617, have been found in the UK so far. “It is designated a ‘variant under investigation’ but is worrying researchers as it contains two mutations that it is thought may help the virus to evade the body’s immune responses,” Nicola explained.
This morning Prof Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said he expected B1617 to be upgraded to a “variant of concern” quite soon. That would lead to India being placed on the “red list” for travel, he said (which would probably force Boris Johnson to cancel his trip due to start this weekend). Altmann told Good Morning Britain:
At the moment, this particular variant (from India) is called a variant under investigation, not a variant of concern because it hasn’t been escalated to that level yet.
My assumption from everything I’ve seen is that it will become a variant of concern. When it becomes a variant of concern, I’d be quite surprised if India wasn’t on the red list.
But Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, told the Today programme that B1617 was “probably not at the top tier of mutations that generate the most concern”. He explained:
This variant has a couple of mutations that are among those that we think are important that should be watched carefully, but they’re actually probably not at the very kind of top tier of mutations, for example in the B117 - or Kent variant - or the South African variant, that generate the most concern.
And in terms of spread, clearly this variant has increased in frequency in India around the same time as their very large and tragic recent wave.
But I just don’t think we know yet whether there’s a cause and effect relationship - is this variant driving that spread? Or is it happening at the same time perhaps due to a coincidence?
And one thing to note is that there were some sequences of this variant B1617 seen late last year. And so in some sense, if it really is driving this wave, the fuse has been burning for quite a long time, which would make it look, probably less transmissible than B117 [the Kent variant, which is now the dominant variant in the UK].
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Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, will make a Commons statement this afternoon about the plan for the top six English football clubs to join a new European Super League, my colleague Peter Walker reports.
Oliver Dowden due to make a Commons statement on the European super league later today, about 5pm-ish.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) April 19, 2021
Asked about the proposal on Sky News this morning, Christopher Pincher, the housing minister, said:
Our concern is for the fans, that they have the best possible sporting experience that they possibly can, that they’re able to support their team.
And we don’t want to see a footballing elite, which is by the elite, for the elite, of the elite - we want to make sure grassroots sport is supported and that fans are able to enjoy the kind of experience they’ve had over the past several years.
So if there’s a choice to be made we’re on the side of the fans.
We’ll talk to the Champions League, we’ll talk to the FA, we’ll be talking to all the players involved but fundamentally we need to make sure that football retains its grassroots support, that there is money invested in grassroots football.
We have full coverage of this story on a separate European super league live blog. It’s here.
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Tories claim pandemic will stop PM campaigning in Scotland – despite planned trip to India
Good morning. As we report in the paper today, Boris Johnson is still resisting pressure to cancel his visit to India - even though coronavirus cases in the country are soaring (it has now recorded more than 15m) and there are worries about the discovery of the Indian variant in the UK.
But, according to Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, Covid will stop Johnson visiting Scotland between now and the Holyrood election two weeks on Thursday - even though he is the UK leader of the main opposition party in Scotland and he has visited the country at other stages during the pandemic.
Unlike India, Scotland has got coronavirus cases under control. Only 211 new cases were recorded there yesterday, and for most of the past fortnight the proportion of tests producing a positive result has been below 2% (whereas in early January it was often more than 10%).
This is what Ross told the Today programme when asked this morning if Johnson would be visiting during the campaign.
I’m not sure if he’s going to come up in Scotland in this campaign. He had hoped to come up, and I thought he may come up, but given the pandemic and the restrictions to campaigning I’m not sure that’s likely now.
When it was put to Ross that Johnson had visited Scotland previously when Covid restrictions were in force, Ross replied:
Well, he’s also leading the UK effort for against a global pandemic and I think people understand in this more strange election campaign, in terms of the restrictions that we’ve all got to deal with, that it may not be as easy for the prime minister to come up.
A more plausible reason for Johnson not visiting Scotland is that his opinion ratings in the country make him a one-man vote multiplier for the SNP. Justin Webb, the presenter, asked Ross if he wanted Johnson to visit during the election campaign. Ross said he would welcome Johnson in his own constituency but, despite being pressed by Webb four times on this, he failed to give an unequivocal “yes” to the question. This is what the SNP MP John Nicholson tweeted about the exchanges.
Justin Webb literally laughs at Douglas Ross’ slipperiness on #bbcr4today but pins him down in the end. Boris Johnson won’t join the @ScotTories campaign in #SP21 elections. “He’s too busy”. Aye right.
— JOHN NICOLSON MP (@MrJohnNicolson) April 19, 2021
Here is the agenda for the day.
8am: Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, launches his election manifesto.
9.05am: Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, speaks to the virtual Innovate Finance summit.
11am: The Scottish Tourism Alliance hosts an election hustings.
12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
3.30pm: The NAO and HM Revenue and Customs give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the economic impact of coronavirus.
Also, Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer are both doing visits today, and they should be doing media interviews.
Covid is the issue dominating UK politics this year and Politics Live is often largely or wholly devoted to coronavirus at the moment. But I will be covering non-Covid politics too and - depending on what seems most important and most interesting to readers - sometimes these stories will take precedence.
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.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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