UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson says he ‘will not hesitate’ to impose new quarantines if needed
That’s all from me, Caroline Davies, for today. Once again, thank you for your time. Live coverage continues on our global live blog:
Here’s a summary of some of today’s major UK coronavirus news:
Nicola Sturgeon has apologised to tens of thousands of Scottish teenagers whose exam results were downgraded last weekand promised urgent changes to their awards.The first minister attempted to defuse a growing crisis for her government by confirming that her deputy, John Swinney, would lay out proposals to regrade results in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday.
NHS test and trace is cutting 6,000 contact tracer jobs and allocating roles to regional teams to work with councils, following criticism by local authorities that the centrally-run system was failing to tackle local outbreaks.
At the launch of the “Time Out to Help Out” campaign to ensure workers still get paid when they are asked to self isolate, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said schools were “exposed to the risk of real harm” if the government doesn’t step in.
A newly described disease that occurs in children and is linked to Covid-19 has caused significant changes in white blood cells, experts say.
A survey by Scotland’s largest teachers’ union, the EIS, has found a large majority of teachers are worried about the safety of reopening schools this week, with most saying they wanted smaller class sizes, much greater cleaning and priority testing for pupils and staff.
Boris Johnson has reaffirmed Downing Street’s warning that it will “not hesitate” to impose quarantine restrictions on countries, as fears grow that France is next to be removed from the government’s travel corridor list amid a rise in Covid-19 cases.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson, said the “latest research … one of the largest studies on the coronavirus in schools in the world” – makes it clear “there is little evidence that the virus is transmitted at school”.
Rape survivors are among those voicing deep concerns about the stigma and ensuing “mask rage” attached to not wearing a face covering in shops, on transport and in other public places, prompting calls for better recognition of legitimate reasons why people are exempt.
The UK government’s “eat out to help out” scheme triggered a surge in the number of people visiting high streets and shopping malls last week, especially during the evenings.
Revised figures on the government’s coronavirus data dashboard last updated at 5.53pm [see earlier posting at 16.47]. It is now saying 21 deaths, bringing the total to 46,526.
NHS test and trace is cutting 6,000 contact tracer jobs and allocating roles to regional teams to work with councils, following criticism by local authorities that the centrally-run system was failing to tackle local outbreaks.
The government announced on Monday that local and national teams would work together to make sure they reach as many people as possible who have been in contact with someone who has coronavirus. The change means that the number of national contact tracers will be reduced from 18,000 to 12,000 on 24 August.
Currently, a national system is used to contact those who are at risk of having contracted the virus but the move means tracers will focus on specific areas and if they cannot make contact with a resident within a set period of time, local public health officials can use the data provided by NHS test and trace to follow up.
Read the full report by Sarah Marsh and Josh Halliday here:
Scientists have called for routine Covid testing of teachers and pupils alongside a robust test-and-trace system, amid a debate over how to safely reopen schools inEngland, Nicola Davis reports.
On Sunday, the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, said teachers and pupils should have weekly tests, but Nick Gibb, the schools minister, ruled out the idea, saying instead that those who are symptomatic should be tested.
Now researchers behind a report from Delve, a multidisciplinary group convened by the Royal Society, have said routine testing will be necessary when the majority of children return to school.
Dr Ines Hassan, a researcher in the global health governance programme at the University of Edinburgh and a lead author of the report, said the group were recommending the widespread and regular screening of all staff in schools, including those who are asymptomatic.
Read Nicola’s full report here:
Those planning on heading to Greece for a summer vacation will be greeted with a night curfew from Monday for restaurants and bars in some of its top tourist destinations after coronavirus infections hit a new high.
A government spokeswoman also announced new entry restrictions for Balkan arrivals and passengers flying in from several EU countries.
Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias said the infection curve was “rising dangerously.”
Areas in which eateries and bars will be closed from midnight to 07:00 am include the popular islands of Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu, Crete, Rhodes, Zakynthos and Kos, spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said in a televised address.
Some of these destinations are known for late-night clubbing.
The cities of Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos and Katerini were also affected, as was the Halkidiki peninsula which is popular with Balkan visitors.
The restrictions will be in place from Tuesday to August 23. In addition, all passengers on flights from Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden arriving from August 17 must provide a negative COVID-19 result obtained up to 72 hours before entry, as must all land border arrivals.
And only 750 people will be allowed in daily from Albania as of August 16,
The UK has recorded a further eight coronavirus deaths, according to today’s update on the government’s coronavirus data dashboard. The official headline total for deaths is now 46,574.
This is a Public Health England figure for the UK as a whole.
The PHE figure is suspect because it includes people in England who tested positive for coronavirus and died – even if they died of something else.
But the main problem with the headline total is that it is an underestimate because it does not include people who died from coronavirus without testing positive.
Edit: the dashboard is now saying 21 deaths bringing the total to 46,526.
The TUC will hold its annual congress at its London conference centre over two days next month, it has been announced.
A small invited group will be present in Congress House on September 14 and 15, while union members across Britain will join the event online.
TUC20 will focus on the impact of coronavirus and what action is needed to protect jobs and livelihoods in the weeks and months ahead.
The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, and the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, will deliver their keynote speeches in person.
Other items on the agenda include demands for a pay rise for key workers, and debates on safe working, public services, the challenges facing parents and shielded workers and the impact of Covid-19 on BME workers. O’Grady said:
Working people must not pay the price of the pandemic, and the government must act now to stop mass unemployment. Congress is our chance to come together and debate our priorities for the year ahead. We will hear from the leader of the opposition, from union general secretaries and from frontline and key workers.
This year’s Congress has to be different, to keep us all safe. We are delighted to be able to welcome trade unionists and working people from across the UK to join Congress online.
Away from coronavirus, there been reaction to the Guardian exclusive that Downing Street is planning a controversial intervention to reverse the record decline in rape prosecutions by imposing targets on police and prosecutors.
In a highly unusual move, the prime minister’s crime and justice taskforce is planning to set targets for police to refer more high-quality rape cases to the Crown Prosecution Service and for the CPS to prosecute and bring more rape cases to trial, the Guardian reported this morning.
The shadow attorney general, Lord Falconer has now put out a statement, explaining why political interference would compromise the CPS.
He said:
The number of rape prosecutions has fallen dramatically over the last few years because the CPS unduly raised the bar for bringing cases to court. The CPS, not Downing Street, must decide in individual cases who is prosecuted. Rape prosecutions in England and Wales are at their lowest ever, but they can increase without compromising CPS independence. More needs to be done to ensure that victims have faith that the criminal justice system will be there to support them throughout.
Boris Johnson’s spokesman denied that a target would be imposed, my colleague Peter Walker reports.
“No,” he said. “Quotas or numerical targets would undermine prosecutorial impartiality where cases are individual by nature, and require a specific set of considerations in each instance.
“We are determined to protect victims of and to give them the confidence that everything will be done to bring offenders to justice.
“A review of the criminal justice response to rape and to sexual offences was commissioned in March last year by the National Criminal Justice Board. That review is due to report in the autumn, and I wouldn’t want to pre-empt its findings or recommendations.”
Asked whether this timetable was too slow, the spokesman said: “I don’t think that is the case. We are determined to do everything that we can to ensure that these appalling crimes are tackled effectively and victims are supported, but it’s obviously very important that we do this in a way that is sensitive and gets this right.”
One senior local health official, who did not want to speak on the record, said he interpreted the move as “the government saying we can’t do this only from London”.
Whether or not you interpret it as shifting the blame and responsibility [to local teams], I wouldn’t go that far but it’s a reflection that it can’t be either/or – it has to be both [local and national].
The work of two local authority chief executives who were seconded to the national test and trace system – Carolyn Wilkins of Oldham council, and previously Tom Riordan of Leeds council – is said to have “definitively swung the balance” towards local leaders in recent weeks.
Directors of public health were expressing increasing frustration with the centrally-run national system before the shift in approach. One said:
If you look on a map, it’s really clear: there’s probably one case a week in Surrey. It’s not quite like that in Blackburn with Darwen, for instance.
We’ve shifted from a single, universal pandemic across the whole country to a series of localised flare-ups. That’s why the nimbleness and ability to get on top of things at a local level really does matter.
People who have been in contact with confirmed coronavirus cases may get a knock on their door if tracers are unable to reach them over the phone under plans to strengthen regional test and trace powers in England announced by health officials.
In pilot schemes, this has meant that local authorities have been able to visit people at homes where national contact tracers have been unable to reach them. It comes after criticism that the national system was not tapping into local knowledge.
Now, NHS Test and Trace will provide local authorities across England with a dedicated team of contact tracers for local areas.
The government announced plans to strengthen regional contact tracing so more people can be reached. Dido Harding, the executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, said:
NHS Test and Trace is one of the largest contact tracing and testing systems anywhere in the world, and was built rapidly, drawing on the UK’s existing health protection networks, to stop the spread of coronavirus.
At the height of the pandemic, we ensured the system had extra capacity in place to cope with potential peaks in the virus.
We have always been clear that NHS Test and Trace must be local by default and that we do not operate alone – we work with and through partners across the country.
As we learn more about the spread of the disease, we are able to move to our planned next step and become even more effective in tackling the virus.
After successful trials in a small number of local areas, I am very pleased to announce that we are now offering this integrated localised approach to all local authorities to ensure we can reach more people in their communities and stop the spread of Covid-19.
At the launch ofthe “Time Out to Help Out” campaign to ensure workers still get paid when they are asked to self-isolate, Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, has said schools – particularly those in poorer areas – would be “exposed to the risk of real harm” if government doesn’t step in.
If this issue is not fixed, we will not be reopening schools in the safest way that we possibly can. We would be leaving a situation in place where people aren’t being supported to do their duty and self-isolate and consequently we will be allowing more of the virus to circulate in communities than should be.
The reality is that it will be schools in some of the poorer communities that will be most at risk because of the higher number of people living in those communities in low-paid, precarious work.
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said schools were partly staffed by many low-paid workers in insecure often-outsourced contracts who, unless the government offers them support, will face “making that choice between doing the right thing by your community and your family taking a big hit financially”.
That isn’t good for our public health. I hope the government will see sense and see this as a critical part of that schools reopening plan.
And Liverpool’s mayor, Steve Rotheram, said a fortnight without pay “really could push many people into destitution, into arrears with rent, especially if they don’t qualify for the meagre pittance that is SSP or if they’re paid weekly”.
A newly described disease that occurs in children and is linked to Covid-19 has caused significant changes in white blood cells, experts say.
The discovery may allow doctors to better assess their young patients’ condition and predict their resistance to current treatments, a new study suggests.
Paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome temporally associated with Sars-CoV-2 infection (Pims-TS) is a new disease which shares some features with Kawasaki disease, as well as toxic shock syndrome.
Scientists looked at blood samples from children admitted with the diseases to Birmingham children’s hospital during the UK’s lockdown. They found large changes in the monocytes, a type of white blood cell, in patients with Pims-TS and Kawasaki disease, according to a pre-print which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The co-lead author Dr Graham Taylor, from the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the University of Birmingham, said:
Our study is the first to reveal that Kawasaki’s disease and Pims-TS are both characterised by profound changes in the numbers of monocytes and their genetic make-up.
Our results require confirmation in a larger patient cohort, but the changes we have observed are likely to be highly relevant, potentially allowing us to predict the disease resistance of children with Pims-TS and Kawasaki’s disease, as well as identifying alternative therapies for both diseases.
A further six people who tested positive have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,419, NHS England has said.
The patients were aged between 65 and 93 and all had known underlying health conditions. No deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
The region with the highest number of deaths was the south-east with four. There were also two deaths in the north-east and Yorkshire but all other regions of England recorded no deaths for the same time period, including the north-west, where local lockdown measures are in place around Greater Manchester, according to the official figures.
