UK coronavirus live: death toll lowered by more than 5,000 after change in how Covid fatalities are counted- as it happened
We’re going to close down this live blog now. Thanks for reading and commenting. Here’s a summary of the day’s events:
A last-minute government U-turn on English A-level results was criticised by the opposition leader. School examinations have been thrown into chaos by the UK’s epidemic and Keir Starmer said the confusion had been made worse still by ministerial incompetence.
“Today’s figures confirm that hard times are here,” the chancellor said. It emerged on Wednesday that the UK was experiencing the worst recession since records began. “Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their jobs, and sadly in the coming months many more will,” Rishi Sunak said.
Lockdown measures in Aberdeen will remain for at least another week. The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said the restrictions would need to stay, though she played down talk of them being extended to other areas.
Aberdeen’s cases primarily affect younger people, it was confirmed. More than two-thirds of the Aberdonians caught up in the outbreak are in their 20s and 30s, and more than 70% of them are male, according to official data. The health board’s figures confirm the cluster centres around younger people who are believed to have caught Covid-19 from a small number of bars.
A new cluster emerged in Glasgow. Eight cases were confirmed by health authorities, who said many of them were linked to a school in the north-east of the city.
More than 5,000 deaths are removed from the UK’s official toll after the government redraws its cut-off point. The Department of Health and Social Care said only those who die within 28 days of testing positive will now be counted in the UK-wide tally, though a 60-day period will apply to a separate set of figures to be published in respect of England.
Police in Manchester said they received widespread reports of flouting of local lockdown rules. Greater Manchester police saw a 25% increase last weekend on the previous one and said they received 540 reports of house gatherings and parties, among other complaints.
If you’d like to continue following the Guardian’s coronavirus coverage, head over to the global live blog:
Responding to the chief executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson’s remarks about the need for a “fit for purpose” test and trace system to be put in place within weeks, the shadow health minister, Justin Madders, has said:
We have been warning for months that a relaxation of lockdown measures must go alongside a fully functioning test and trace system. The government need to listen to the warnings of those working on the frontline and urgently step up work to ensure the system works effectively.
It doesn’t need to be ‘world beating’ it just needs to be effective. Ministers should end their reliance on failing private sector companies and support councils to use local expertise and implement targeted test-and-trace programmes.
Officials said that, as of Wednesday 12 August, the number of all deaths in patients testing positive for Covid-19 within 28 days was 41,329. Earlier government figures said 46,706 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, as of 5pm on Tuesday.
The DHSC said the change came after the UK government and devolved administrations agreed to publish the number of deaths that have occurred within 28 days of a positive lab-confirmed Covid test result each day.
Previously, the UK government’s figures included the death of anyone who died following a positive test at any point. Public Health Scotland, however, had already taken 28 days as the cutoff point.
The four chief medical officers came to an agreement to use a standard measurement. An additional set of figures showing the number of deaths that occur within 60 days of a positive test will also be published in England.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 56,800 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Turning back to the new cluster identified in Glasgow, Dr Linda de Caestecker, the public health director at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), has said:
We want to reassure local people and businesses that this cluster of cases of Covid-19 is being thoroughly investigated and managed by the NHSGGC public health protection team.
An NHSGGC-led assessment group working with Glasgow city council met today to undertake a risk assessment and provide advice to the school and other settings the cases visited … Each of these cases is being managed and followed up in detail, and all of them are isolating at home.
Close contacts are being advised to self-isolate, with health and local environmental health staff “working closely with the school and a number of other local businesses”. De Caestecker added:
All settings that these cases attended during their infectious period are being identified, assessed and are being supported with control measures, and anyone who may have been exposed to these cases is being given appropriate advice.
Anyone affected will be contacted through the Test and Protect service. We want to reassure the wider community and especially pupils and teachers returning to school that there is no added risk due to this cluster.
We also want to remind people to stay off school or work and get tested if they experience any symptoms.
David Linden, the MP for Glasgow East and a former pupil at the school, told the Press Association:
This afternoon, I’ve spoken with the school and I am speaking to NHSGGC to understand better the details surrounding this cluster. First and foremost, public safety is the number one priority and I am reassured that all pupils who tested positive did not attend school today.
I will continue to work with the education authorities and the health board to ensure this situation is managed and that parents can have confidence in sending their children to school.
Students in Wales waiting for their A-level results will not receive a grade lower than their AS-levels, the Welsh education minister has announced.
Kirsty Williams said she was “confident” the system of moderation overseen by regulator Qualifications Wales and exam board WJEC was “fair for students and robust”. In Wales, a different model was used to Scotland and nearly half of pupils’ final mark was based on AS-levels completed last year.
This year’s exams were cancelled across the UK because of the lockdown and there are fears the replacement grading system will create a postcode lottery.
Governments in other parts of the UK have introduced changes to their systems and we must make sure that these alterations do not disadvantage Welsh students. Students in Wales, and prospective employers and universities across the UK, can be assured that their A-level grades reflect their work and externally assessed exams.
Almost half the final grade comes from AS-level exams – this is not the situation elsewhere. Therefore, in building on that completed work, I am giving a guarantee that a learner’s final A-level grade cannot be lower than their AS grade.
If a student receives a final grade that is below that of their previous AS grade, then a revised grade will be issued automatically by WJEC.
This will mean – and I have received assurances from Ucas and universities – that students can speak with confidence to their prospective universities regarding their A-level grades.
Williams said she would be asking Qualifications Wales to “move forward quickly” on any adjustments to the appeals process, to ensure Welsh students are not disadvantaged.
I am confirming today that all appeals will be free for Welsh students, to ensure there is no financial barrier to ensure learners feel their exam grades are fair.
A new cluster of eight cases has emerged in the north-east of Glasgow, including high school pupils whom health officials have told to self-isolate.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the health board for the region, said they are pupils at Bannerman high school in Baillieston, which reopened today as part of the phased return to school across Scotland. The board said none of the affected pupils had been on the premises.
None of the cases are experiencing anything but mild symptoms. The school reopened today but none have actually attended as they are self-isolating at home.
Test and protect staff are contacting anyone who may be affected and there is no current added risk to the wider community due to this cluster of cases.
It said health officials and environmental health officers were working with the schools and several local businesses to trace close contacts of the eight cases.
Close contacts are being advised to self-isolate and being given appropriate advice.
And he stressed his view that the best thing is to get every child back into school in September.
Is there anything more that I can do in order to make that happen? Well, if there is, tell me about this, and I will go out there and I will do it.
We need to see every child back into school – as someone who has a wife and a brother who works in schools, and someone who has children who have, you know, like every child, suffered as a result of not being, I know that the best thing to do is to get everyone back there.
Gavin Williamson arrives at Downing Street for a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday Photograph: DW Images/Rex/Shutterstock
The education secretary Gavin Williamson has apologised to pupils for the disruption to their schooling during the epidemic. Speaking to the BBC, he also described the exams system as “robust” and “fair” after concerns were raised that some pupils could have their results downgraded.
The system, for the overwhelming majority of young people, is going to deliver, you know, credible, strong results for every single one of them. It’s a robust system, it’s a fair system, it’s making sure that young people get the grades that they’ve worked so hard towards.
After the latest figures showed the UK is in a deep recession, the professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and former civil servant Jonathan Portes writes:
As I, and most other economists from across the political spectrum, argued at the very beginning of the lockdown, there is no short-term trade-off between lives and economic growth here. And indeed, today’s figures reinforce this argument. Despite the uncertainties, it is clear the UK has done badly both in human and economic terms.
A further 77 people in the UK have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive, according to official figures.
The government has said 46,706 people have died in such settings, as of 5pm on Tuesday.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 56,800 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. The government also said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 1,009 lab-confirmed cases. Overall, a total of 313,798 cases have been confirmed.
Morgan Vine, the head of policy and influencing at Independent Age, said as many as 85,000 people aged 65 years and older may have suffered the death of a partner since the start of the lockdown, which is almost one and a half times as many as in the same period in each of the five previous years.
She said many of those will have complex grief in later life, which she described as having similar symptoms to PTSD. Vine echoed concerns that the guidance for the clinically vulnerable group is unclear, noting terms such as “take particular care” being confusing for people.
We’ve had lots of people get in touch with us who, for example, are in their early 70s, fit and healthy, and think they should be shielding.
Vine said older people needed bereavement and mental health support, adding:
We’re hearing from people who (were) really confident, really fit, really able who are now anxious about going to the town centre. They haven’t been out for such a long time.
Ruthe Isden, Age UK’s health influencing programme director, told the APPG that governmental guidance did not make it clear what access to services were safe and that some older people were refusing domiciliary care in the community because they felt it was too risky having people coming in and out of their home.
This has had a broad effect on older people’s mental and physical health, some of which we are only just really starting to understand now.
We are starting to see very important and significant evidence that the impact of lockdown, of ongoing social distancing measures, has led to a great deal of what we might say is a deconditioning amongst older people.
People are reporting loss of mobility, increased risk of falls, loss of strength and balance, low mood and people dealing with, particularly dementia, a lack of stimulation which has led to significant levels of cognitive decline.
The government has not responded to the needs of the care sector as effectively as to those of the NHS during the pandemic, MPs have heard.
Health leaders spoke of concerns about guidance on shielding and social distancing being confusing for older people, which led to some healthy over-70s shielding unnecessarily and some too frightened to visit the town centre.
While issues with personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing still persist in the care sector, MPs on the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus heard the NHS received a better response to its concerns. The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:
We certainly felt that, in terms of PPE, we very quickly flagged that there was a problem and we then did a very concerted piece of work, working with the government and with NHS England for improvement.
But certainly for our sector, and I accept it absolutely wasn’t the case for the social care sector, the primary care sector and for example the hospice sector … we felt the government and NHS England did respond pretty rapidly to the feedback that we were giving them.
On testing, Hopson said there needed to be a “fit for purpose” testing regime that needed to be in place by winter. NHS Providers said there needed to be improvements in the current test and trace system before it could be called “world-class”.
We’re sort of getting there but it’s got to be speeded up and it’s got to be in place by winter. And if it’s not, that really is a big problem.
In response to Hopson’s comments, the former health minister Dan Poulter, MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, said:
One thing that struck me was that you felt that on the NHS side, NHS England were very responsive to the concerns that you raised about the availability of PPE. But to paraphrase … on social care there was a government that was perhaps to some extent asleep at the wheel in understanding or responding to that sector.
Hello, this is Kevin Rawlinson back with you for the next few hours. I’ll try to keep an eye on the comments BTL but the best way to get in touch with me is via Twitter, where I’m KevinJRawlinson.
A further six people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,431, NHS England said on Wednesday.
The patients were aged between 57 and 96 and all had known underlying health conditions.
Two deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
