UK coronavirus: France could quarantine British visitors; UK reports 1,441 new cases in a day — as it happened
That’s all from the UK coronavirus live blog today, thanks for following along.
You can continue reading our coverage over on the global coronavirus blog, as France reports another record rise in cases and Spain closes nightclubs and late-night bars.
Here is a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the UK today:
Parts of England to remain in tighter coronavirus lockdown. Large swathes of northern England and Leicester will remain under tighter lockdown for a third week as coronavirus infection rates continue to climb sharply in some districts, the Department of Health and Social Care announced.
Gavin Williamson under pressure to resign over A-level results ‘fiasco’. The education secretary is facing increasing pressure over his department’s handling of this summer’s exam results in England, with the Liberal Democrats calling on him to resign and Labour demanding that the results be replaced by teacher assessments.
France could quarantine British travellers in retaliation over new rules. British visitors to France could face a two-week quarantine, as the French government threatened to retaliate for being removed from the UK safe travel list following a rise in coronavirus cases across the Channel.
UK reports 1,441 new coronavirus cases in a day. An additional 11 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, meaning the country’s total death toll is now 41,358.
Sushi chain Yo! to cut up to 250 jobs and shut 19 restaurants. The chief executive, Richard Hodgson, said the chain needed to take “decisive action to adapt to the lasting changes that the Covid pandemic has brought about”.
Coronavirus infection rates levelling off, English data suggests. New data from the ONS, which covers the period from 3 to 9 August 2020, reveals about one in 1,900 people in the community are now thought to have the virus, with an estimated 3,800 new cases a day.
Airbnb curb on under-25s could be discriminatory, UK lawyers warn. Airbnb’s decision to restrict under-25s in Britain, France and Spain from renting homes could leave the company open to legal challenges under discrimination laws, experts have said.
Manchester crown court closed after coronavirus outbreak. One of England’s busiest criminal courts will remain closed until at least Tuesday after a coronavirus outbreak among staff. Eight members of staff, including six security officers, have tested positive for Covid-19 at the court.
Orkney coronavirus cluster linked to fishing boat from Peterhead. A fishing boat from Peterhead on the north-east coast of mainland Scotland has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of Covid-19 in Orkney, as the local health chief said he was profoundly concerned that the virus was spreading rapidly across the island community.
UK reaches agreements on access to 90m doses of potential Covid-19 vaccines. The government has reached agreements it says will give British citizens early access to 90m doses of two further potential Covid-19 vaccines.
They are a lifeline for parents: somewhere affordable where children can exercise and play. But as soft play centres prepare to reopen on Saturday, industry experts have warned that many will shortly close their doors for good because of new government regulations.
Janice Dunphy, chair of the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attraction’s family entertainment centres’ committee, has said she is considering resigning over guidance issued by the government under Balppa’s name but without consultation over a crucial additional section.
We consulted with the government over the guidance and were happy with the version we had all agreed. But when they released it last night, it contained this extra regulation which we had no knowledge of.
This single section is going to lead to the closure of hundreds of soft play centres.
It’s a slow death for our industry. There’s no way we can survive this new regulation.
The controversial section in the operational guidance for England concerns ventilation in the centres. To achieve sufficient air flow to protect customers from infection from Covid-19, it states: “The maximum occupancy of each indoor facility should be limited by providing a minimum of 100 sq ft per person.”
Paul Kelly, CEO of Balppa, said that the regulation at issue, which he only saw a few hours before it was publicly released by the government, was inserted by Public Health England (PHE).
“We’re not ventilation experts and so we knew that PHE would be putting their expertise about the issue into the guidance, and that their input would be non-negotiable,” he said. “We will now put this guidance out to our members and, if any sticking points emerge, will go back to government and ask if there’s any movement possible.”
Conservative MP Sir Robert Syms said there is “clearly a big problem” over A-level results, with the approach creating a “number of unfairnesses”.
Asked if he had confidence in education secretary Gavin Williamson’s handling of the issue, Syms told BBC Radio 4:
The difficult problem that Gavin had was the decision taken by the government as a whole back at the height of the crisis to cancel the exams – Gavin was on a hiding to nothing whatever he’s done.
He’s doing his best to defend the government line but Gavin’s a realist. I served with him in the whips’ office, [and] Nick Gibb I think is an excellent minister, I have no problems with the ministers, I just think they found themselves in a situation which is a consequence of the crisis.
What they need to do is to be a little bit more open-minded and to hear the pain of some of the students who are finding they actually have been treated badly by the process, a process which I think is flawed.
Russia is not the only country pursuing domestic politics over global cooperation in the fight against coronavirus, writes Stephen Buranyi.
The WHO last week warned against “vaccine nationalism”, noting that unless countries cooperate, an actually successful vaccine could touch off a worldwide frenzy.
Similar to the scramble for PPE gear and testing reagents when governments seized exports, and the US reportedly tried to intercept other nation’s shipments at global ports, demand for vaccine supplies could result in another pitched battle for limited resources – with the added complication that no one knows which project will succeed, so no one is even sure what they’re trying to source yet.
And, while some vaccine projects have promised to make the results as cheap and widely available as possible, others are frighteningly marketised.
Rule-breaking pub landlords are facing a police crackdown for failing to properly record customers’ details as concerns grow about a rising Covid infection rate in Birmingham.
The latest data showed the second city had a rate of 23.6 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 10 August with the trend increasing, according to the NHS Digital progression dashboard.
A climbing rate has caused “concern” among health chiefs, placing Birmingham behind only Sandwell, which to date has been the worst-hit local authority area in the West Midlands.
But during a video-call with journalists on Friday, health bosses said the trend in Sandwell has been decreasing while Birmingham’s is rising.
The focus is now on getting that increase under control, particularly as “thousands of students” will be returning to universities next month, city council leader Ian Ward said.
Clive Wright, a West Midlands regional convenor for the Department of Health and Social Care, said Birmingham’s infection rate rise “right across the city” was down to multiple factors. He said:
It looks as though it’s a combination of people socialising and not maintaining social distancing and perhaps hospitality settings or other gatherings of people and this may be the underlying problem.
Wright said people could do their bit to protect one another by “following the rules”.
Councillor Ward added: “We cannot afford to drop our guard now.”
He urged businesses to contact Public Health England (PHE) as soon as they identified either a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19 among staff or customers.
The council chief added it was the only way to make sure the test and trace system was effective enough to “keep on top of any outbreak”.
But he also turned the spotlight on licensed premises, some of whom have been flouting a legal requirement to take names, addresses and contact details of customers, so they can be traced in the event of an outbreak.
He added:
We are very keen to be working very closely with the police over coming weeks because what we’re noticing across the West Midlands is that as weeks go by the rigour in which pubs in particular are recording names and addresses of customers is dropping off in some locations.
We’d like to encourage the police to re-emphasise to the pubs that they do need to be recording that information.
It is vital that if there is an outbreak they have the names and contact details of all of their customers.
Waheed Saleem, the West Midlands deputy police and crime commissioner, said pubs, bars and clubs needed to act “in a responsible manner”.
He added:
Pubs and clubs – they also have a very clear responsibility to ensure they’re following the guidelines, that they are getting information on those individuals who attend.
We will work closely with the licensing authorities to crack down on those premises that don’t follow rules and are breaking rules.
These rules are there for everyone and they’re there for a reason.
The virus is still out there. We must remember that.
Saleem also said the force was “giving a very clear warning” to organisers of illegal parties and raves, and those thinking of attending them.
“We will not tolerate these gatherings,” he said. “They are illegal and they pose a significant risk both to those who attend and also the people they care about.”
The force had closed down 125 parties and raves since May this year, added Saleem, receiving more than 3,000 calls about events in the same period.
Rates of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England still appear to be levelling off, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest.
The new data, which covers the period from 3 to 9 August 2020, reveals about one in 1,900 people in the community are now thought to have the virus, with an estimated 3,800 new cases per day.
While these data are similar to last week’s figures, the ONS warns they are not directly comparable, as the modelling approach has changed.
Nonetheless the ONS says the results indicate no clear sign of a rise or fall in rates of people testing positive for Covid-19 in England since the week before.
“There is some evidence of a small increase in the percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 in July, following a low point in June, but this appears to have now levelled off,” the ONS team report.
With some travellers desperately trying to return before the deadline, others have decided to stay in France.
The Guardian has spoken to British travellers in France about their response to the new rules.
Airbnb’s decision to restrict under-25s in Britain, France and Spain from renting homes could leave the company open to legal challenges under discrimination laws, experts have said.
The company announced that as part of its crackdown on rowdy parties it would begin testing in Britain, France and Spain a ban on under-25s with less than three positive ratings from renting entire homes close to where they live.
A lawyer has said that the ruling could, however, potentially be in breach of the Equalities Act 2010, which protects people from discrimination based on their age.
Mark Woloshak, head of the dispute resolution department at Slater and Gordon, said:
There are certain protected characteristics that you cannot discriminate against and one of those is age. A good example of this is car insurance. It used to be that companies would charge young men higher premiums because they were considered worse drivers and more likely to get into accidents. So if you were under 25 and a man you would pay more, but it was seen as illegal.
Airbnb could change it in such a way that everyone has to have positive reviews to rent a whole house but they would not be keen on that as it would limit the amount of houses they put through … If the question was that you cannot rent due to negative responses they would have more of an argument.
But it imposes something on them [under-25s] and makes it more difficult than would ordinarily be the case, based on a person’s age so that falls outside the Equalities Act.
Sushi chain Yo! has said it plans to shut 19 of its sites and cut up to 250 jobs in a bid to protect its long-term future.
The chain, which has 59 restaurants and 10 concessions across the UK, announced the cuts as part of a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) restructuring process.
It said that sites earmarked for closure are “no longer financially viable” and have unsustainable rental costs in the current trading environment.
Richard Hodgson, chief executive officer of Yo!, said:
Like the rest of the sector, we need to take decisive action to adapt to the lasting changes that the Covid pandemic has brought about.
While we have already taken measures to reduce costs, rents remain an issue. In the current climate, it’s just not viable for us to keep any sites that no longer perform.
While it’s been a very difficult decision to make and I am very sorry that it will mean losing many of our team members, a CVA has become an essential measure to secure our business for the future, and enable us to protect as many jobs as possible.
A further 1,441 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the UK, taking the country’s total to 316,367.
An additional 11 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, meaning the country’s total death toll is now 41,358.
The death toll in England was revised down by more than 5,000 earlier this week, after it came to light thousands of people who may have recovered from the virus before they died were still counted in the headline number.
According to the latest government data from, a total of 169,857 tests have been processed in the past 24 hours.
Previously the government quietly removed 1.3m coronavirus tests from its data because of double counting.
In the government’s daily coronavirus update on Wednesday, it announced it had lowered the figure for “tests made available” by about 10% and discontinued the metric.
