UK Covid live: Johnson hints at end of tiers amid fears over community spread of South African variant
Latest updates: PM hints any lockdown easing will be on national basis; mass testing after two people with no history of travel catch variant
- South African variant of Covid found in eight areas of England
- Half of care home staff at UK’s largest provider have not had vaccine
- Two London clinics mistakenly offer Covid jab to young people
- Joy on Isle of Man as Covid lockdown ends
- Global coronavirus updates – live
One of Nicola Sturgeon’s fiercest internal critics, the lawyer Joanna Cherry QC, has been sacked from the Scottish National party’s front bench at Westminster after a public feud with her deputy leader last week.
Despite hard work, results & a strong reputation I’ve been sacked today from @theSNP front bench. My constituents & fellow party members who gave me a resounding mandate in recent NEC elections should rest assured that I will continue to work hard for them.
Westminster is increasingly irrelevant to Scotland’s constitutional future and @theSNP would do well to radically re-think our strategy.
Good. We need that definition adopted. It needs to be agreed with trans orgs in Scotland and we need to then use it to take action against the transphobes in our party. This is a start. Action needs to be taken against any SNP member who uses or has used transphobic language. t.co/GAFh9ueX5X
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, told the World at One that the vaccines currently being deployed in the UK were effective against the South African variant, although perhaps less effective than they were against the original version. He said:
It may be the case that they are just slightly less efficient than they are against the original Wuhan virus, but doesn’t mean that they are not useful. These vaccines are much more effective than we dared hope in the first place so some reduction in their efficiency is not a disaster. It is just making life more difficult.
A real effort needs to be made to make a circle around it and then eliminate it, if that can be achieved. I think that’s a maybe but it is definitely worth a try.
Read the original article at The Guardian