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UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson to address nation on new measures to tackle outbreak
UK coronavirus: Boris Johnson announces strict lockdown across country
(32 minutes later)
PM to make address at 8.30pm GMT as death toll rises across the country
PM says people can only shop for basic necessities, limits exercise to one form a day, restricts travel only to and from essential work and tells UK to stay at home
The chief medical officer for Scotland, Catherine Calderwood, says this is no longer a rehearsal for something that might happen. She stresses that lives will be lost if we do not change how we live our lives.
Referring to enforcement, Sturgeon says this is not guidance or advice, but a “set of rules to be followed”.
She says powers of enforcement will be handed to government later this week and they will use them, including empowering the police to issue fines and break up gatherings.
That provides greater clarity on Johnson’s address, in which he did not explicitly set out how the enforcement would work and from where it would derive its authority.
Echoing Johnson, Sturgeon says the people of Scotland must stay at home. She repeats the limited set of reasons people can leave. You can see those here.
Scotland’s first minster, Nicola Sturgeon, is now delivering an address setting out what the measures mean for Scotland.
She says the restrictions are “difficult and unprecedented”. She says she will not seek to sugarcoat it, but adds they are essential to protect people.
Here’s the full text of Boris Johnson’s address to the nation, which he has just finished delivering:
Johnson lauds those who have been working to keep the country running – including “everyone from the supermarket staff to the transport workers to the carers to the nurses and doctors on the frontline”. He adds:
Johnson adds that parks will “remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed”.
He says “no prime minister wants to enact measures like this”, adding that he understands the “damage that this disruption is doing”.
He promises to keep the restrictions “under constant review” and that the government will “look again in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows we are able to”.
Johnson has added now that the police will be able to take action where people are not complying with the new measures:
UK citizens are now being ordered to stay in their homes in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus. He says people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following “very limited purposes”:
The prime minister adds:
Boris Johnson outlines the UK’s current approach. He says a “huge national effort” has been needed to halt the spread, adding: “there will come a moment when no health service in the world could possibly cope because there won’t be enough ventilators, enough intensive care beds, enough doctors and nurses”.
He says that’s the reason for physical distancing measures.
The prime minister has delivered a televised address to the nation. He tells Britons the outbreak is the “biggest threat this country has faced for decades”.
A patient with Covid-19 has died in a hospital in the greater Belfast area, Stormont’s health department said. The patient was aged in their late 60s and had underlying health conditions. The health minister, Robin Swann, said:
A patient with Covid-19 has died in a hospital in the greater Belfast area, Stormont’s health department said. The patient was aged in their late 60s and had underlying health conditions. The health minister, Robin Swann, said:
The supreme court building is closing and all proceedings will be carried out remotely, it has been announced. Hearings will take place via video conferencing facilities and the court is closed to the public.
The supreme court building is closing and all proceedings will be carried out remotely, it has been announced. Hearings will take place via video conferencing facilities and the court is closed to the public.
A court statement released today reads:
A court statement released today reads:
John Healey, the shadow housing secretary, has accused the government of breaking a promise to people who rent their homes.
Labour believes the proposals brought forward by the government simply give people facing eviction a longer notice period, rather than protecting them from eviction altogether.
Ministers previously claimed they were introducing a “complete ban on evictions” and promised that landlords would not be able to “start proceedings to evict tenants for at least a three-month period”.
But Healey says the bill still allows landlords to give renters notice of eviction, as long as the notice period is at least three months.
Profiteering from the outbreak should be made a criminal offence, the Commons has heard. The Labour former minister, Chris Bryant, has told MPs:
Bryant called for panic buying to stop and criticised those ignoring expert advice.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, will address the UK on new measures to tackle the coronavirus outbreak in a statement from No 10 at 8.30pm, Downing Street says.
We’ll bring you news of that as it happens right here.
The government has called on universities to “act responsibly” as they scramble to recruit undergraduates for next September with the lure of unconditional offers, warning their actions could destabilise the admissions system and cause volatility in the sector.
Following the government’s announcement that summer exams – including A-levels and BTECs – were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, some universities have switched offers from conditional to unconditional to secure new recruits for the 2020/21 academic year.
The universities minister, Michelle Donelan, has asked them to pause for two weeks while the sector addresses the admissions turmoil, and make no further changes which she says might not be in students’ best interests.
Like almost every other sector, universities face huge uncertainties over the coming months as a result of the pandemic, with fears that many already in deficit risk financial ruin as international students stay away and uncertainty about when the new academic year can start.
Boris Johnson has been chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee, amid growing speculation that he is poised to announce tougher social distancing measures designed to keep people largely in their homes. He is due to make an announcement tonight at 8.30pm. Labour is saying it would back measures to “force” people to stay at home. (See 5.15pm.) And Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has complained that people are still going to work to do jobs that are not essential. (See 1.12pm.) A week ago, when Johnson first announced a dramatic escalation of social distancing, he said people should work from home where possible. Now increasingly ministers want people to stay at home unless their work is essential.
The number of coronavirus patients in the UK who have died has risen to 335. That is a six-fold increase on this time last week. (See 5.52pm.)
Emergency legislation giving ministers sweeping powers to ban gatherings and forcibly quarantine suspected coronavirus patients will be reviewed every six months, Downing Street has announced. Opening the debate on the coronavirus bill, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said he thought that some of the emergency powers in it would never be needed. The bill, which has cross-party support, is due to clear all its Commons stages this evening. There were fewer MPs than normal in the chamber for the debate, and the ones who were there made an effort to keep apart.
Hancock has told MPs that more than 7,500 former clinicians have answered his call to return to the NHS to help out during the coronavirus outbreak. (See 4.26pm.)
Britain’s trains have effectively been nationalised, at least temporarily, after the government suspended rail franchise agreements to avoid train companies collapsing because of the coronavirus.
Caravan parks and campsites in Wales are being closed to visitors from today, Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, has announced. (See 4.49pm.)
The government has asked manufacturers including Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Nissan and JCB to help produce up to 30,000 ventilators in as little as two weeks, amid concern that the 8,175 the NHS has available will not be enough to treat a surge in Covid-19 patients.
Transport for London (TfL) has faced criticism after social media users in London published photographs of packed tube trains on the Monday morning commute, at a time when the government is urging the public to practise social and physical distancing.
Up to 1 million Britons on holiday or on business trips abroad have been asked to return to the UK immediately by the Foreign Office, as they may not be able to get commercial flights within days.
In updated advice, the FCO said British citizens abroad who are resident in the UK should make urgent plans to cut short holidays and other trips and come back home straight away.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said:
The full story is here.
All non-essential businesses in Northern Ireland are being urged to close immediately.Northern Ireland’s first minister Arlene Foster has said there will be a “wave of deaths” in Northern Ireland if people do not obey social distancing rules as the coronavirus will spread.
Her deputy, Michelle O’Neill, urged the public to understand that “this is not a holiday, this is an emergency”.
On Monday 20 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Northern Ireland, bringing the total to 148. Two people have died.
High Street chemist giant Boots has just confirmed to the Guardian that it will be slimming down its wider retail offer to focus its efforts on “supplying communities with the healthcare, pharmacy and essential items that they need” in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
From Tuesday, thousands of staff working on beauty counters such as No7, Liz Earle, Benefit, Fenty and fragrance will not be required to go to work in Boots’s 2,500 stores across the UK. However, they will be given the option of switching to other roles in store if they wish.
In line with restrictions on physical distancing, Boots Opticians and Hearingcare stores across the UK will close, although a fraction will remain open to help those with “essential eye and hearing care needs”. These can be viewed tomorrow here.
Seb James, managing director of Boots UK, said:
In its struggle to meet shoppers’ demands for essentials such as hand sanitiser and family medication, the retailer has warned staff that its warehouses only contain enough supply of paracetamol for another week and a half and that stocks could be depleted by the end of next week.
As of 9am on 23 March, a total of 83,945 people in the UK had been tested for Covid-19: 77,295 negative, 6,650 positive.
As of 1pm, 335 patients who tested positive had died.
Football stars from around the world have implored fans to follow health advice to help stem the tide of coronavirus.
A new campaign between the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Fifa has been launched to “pass the message to kick out coronavirus”.
One of the players participating is Liverpool goalkeeper, Alisson Becker, who is also a WHO ambassador. He said:
