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UK coronavirus news: Boris Johnson leads Downing Street briefing for first time since illness
UK coronavirus news: 'We are past the peak' says Boris Johnson as deaths in all settings rise by 674
(30 minutes later)
Minister admits government may fail to hit testing target; death toll in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rises; more than 9,000 fines issued to people breaking lockdown rules, say police
Official UK death toll reaches 26,711; ‘We are on a downward slope,’ says PM, who will unveil plan to lead Britain out of lockdown next week; 81,000 tests carried out on Wednesday
Opinium has some new polling about trust and coronavirus that will shed some light on the controversy generated by the No 10 claim that public confidence in hte media has “collapsed”. (See 1.58pm.) It is good to see the Guardian ahead of all other newspapers in the most trust column. We are not as trusted as the UK government (the public aren’t right about everything), but, looking at the most trusted column (the 7-10 one) Downing Street should be wondering by the Welsh government (a bit) and the Scottish government (a lot) are both trusted more than the UK government.
Q: The UK may have the worst death toll in Europe. What lessons have you learnt from this?
Johnson says people should understand that the collating of data internationally is bedevilled with difficulties. The only real comparison will be possible at the end of this, when you look at total excess deaths.
He says he put in the lockdown at an earlier stage, relatively, than France and Spain.
He says he thinks the UK did the right measures at the right time.
They made it coincide with the peak, he says.
But he says the peak has based.
He says, “broadly speaking”, he thinks they did “the right thing at the right time”.
There was a real risk that people might not get ventilators, or access to intensive care.
This country did come together to protect the NHS, he says.
Whitty says we are “nowhere near the end of this epidemic”. He goes on:
Let’s not go charging in to who’s won and who’s lost.
He says there is an excellent article in today’s Guardian on this by David Spiegelhalter. It says we need to wait to make these comparisons.
Q: National debt is rising by hundreds of billions. How great a risk is there of a new era of austerity after this?
Johnson says he thinks the economy will bounce back strongly.
He says the government will encourage that in a number of ways.
He says he has never liked the term austerity. It won’t be part of his approach, he says.
Q: There have been 26,000 deaths since you last stood at that lectern. And huge economic damage has been done. Are you telling people they will have to wait before you can reopen the economy?
Johnson says we mourn for lives lost, but for the economic damage too. People’s dreams are being shattered. The government has made a huge effort to protect people. It is doing everything it can. He pays tribute to Rishi Sunak. But if the UK is to bounce back as strongly as it can, we must not have another bout of this, or “another bad spike”. That is why we have to calibrate our measures so carefully, he says.
That might involve finding “new ways, more ingenious ways” of suppressing the disease too.
Q: What level has R have to be?
Whitty says there is no obvious answer. But it must be below 1. If it is above 1, exponential growth in the disease will happen.
But he warns that there are other health impacts of coronavirus.
Vallance says before this we were talking of the “doubling time” of the epidemic. We are now talking about the “halving time” he says.
Katie from Liverpool asks what help is available for people with mental health issues.
Johnson says this is very important. He says the fact that pressure has been taken off the NHS means it now has the capacity to deal with other patients.
He says money is being put into mental healthcare charities.
This is why it is all the more urgent to come out of lockdown, but to continue to suppress the disease.
Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, says the gov.uk website has contact details not just for the NHS, but for organisations like the Samaritans. If people are feeling low, they should use these numbers. There are people out there to help you.
Johnson says it is vital that people use these helplines.
Johnson is now taking questions from members of the public.
Michelle from Cornwall asks what the plan is for tourism in places like Cornwall. She says she is getting questions daily about when lets will open again.
Johnson says people have been staying away. It is vital that that does not fray yet. Next week the government will publish a road map, listing options. As for dates, that will depend on the data.
He says he does want to reopen tourism. But they have to get the timing right.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, is presenting the daily slides now.
Here is the chart for hospital admissions, which are coming down.
Here is the chart showing the decrease in the number of deaths.
That video sounded very much like one produced to explain why the lockdown will not be relaxed next week.
A video is now being played explaining the five tests.
It focuses on the R number.
And it explains how if R is more than 1, the virus will spread quickly.
If it is less than 1, the rate of infection will slow down and come under control.
In March, at its peak, R was around 3.
But since then, thanks to the social distancing measures, it has fallen below 1.
But it is vital it stays below 1, the video says, and the government will be monitoring it carefully.
Johnson says that at no stage has the NHS been overwhelmed.
He says the UK avoided an “uncontrollable and catastrophic” epidemic that could have caused 500,000 deaths.
He says he can confirm that the UK is now “past the peak”.
(In fact, that has been obvious for some time.)
He says the UK will have to beat this “by our resolve and ingenuity”.
He says he will publish a comprehensive plan next week.
It will cover three things: how we can restart the economy; how we can get our children back to school; and how we can get people into work.
There will be five key tests, he says.
First, we must be able to protect the NHS and its ability to cope.
Second, there must be a sustained fall in deaths.
Third, the infection rate must be falling.
Fourth, we must deal with the challenges of testing and PPE.
And, fifth, we must ensure that there is no second peak that could overwhelm the NHS.
He says we can see the pasture ahead of us. But it is vital not to run straight into another disaster.
That means nothing we do can lift the R, the reproduction number, above 1.
Boris Johnson is holding his press conference.
He says 81,611 tests were carried out yesterday.
He says there have now been 26,711 coronavirus deaths in the whole of the UK in all settings, an increase of 674 on yesterday.
(These figures are just for people who tested positive for coronavirus. They do not include people who may have died from coronavirus who were not tested.)
Opinium has some new polling about trust and coronavirus that will shed some light on the controversy generated by the No 10 claim that public confidence in the media has “collapsed”. (See 1.58pm.) It is good to see the Guardian ahead of all other newspapers in the trust column. We are not as trusted as the UK government (the public aren’t right about everything), but, looking at the most trusted column (the 7-10 one) Downing Street should be wondering by the Welsh government (a bit) and the Scottish government (a lot) are both trusted more than the UK government.
Downing Street has released this picture of Boris Johnson chairing a largely digital cabinet meeting this morning.
Downing Street has released this picture of Boris Johnson chairing a largely digital cabinet meeting this morning.
From the BBC’s health editor, Hugh Pym
From the BBC’s health editor, Hugh Pym:
The health department in Northern Ireland has now released today’s detailed coronavirus figures. The headline numbers were announced by the health minister, Robin Swann, earlier. (See 3.12pm.)
The health department in Northern Ireland has now released today’s detailed coronavirus figures. The headline numbers were announced by the health minister, Robin Swann, earlier. (See 3.12pm.)
The Guardian’s latest Science Weekly podcast is out. Sarah Boseley talks to Prof Helen McShane about why there has been interest in the tuberculosis vaccine and whether it could play a role in protecting us against Covid-19.
The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued a stern warning that GCSE and A-level grade assessments this summer should not unfairly penalise children from minority ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as disabled pupils and those with special educational needs.
David Isaac, the EHRC’s executive chair, said Ofqual, England’s exams regulator, should warn schools to account for potential bias in making assessments to determine grades in the place of exams.
“If we don’t get this right the future of some disadvantaged young people is severely at risk. We can’t let the crisis happening now affect the future of disadvantaged pupils when so many, particularly disabled pupils and those of ethnic minority background, already face an uphill battle,” Isaac said.
“At this time it is critically important that public authorities meet the requirements of the public sector equality duty, and consider the needs and disadvantages facing pupils with different protected characteristics when they are deciding and implementing their response to the coronavirus emergency.”
In its response to Ofqual’s consultation, the EHRC called for teachers to be told how to “minimise the risk of conscious or unconscious bias” in assessing pupils, and for pupils to have a “meaningful and timely route of appeal, including on grounds of suspected unlawful discrimination”.
In March the government and Ofqual announced that formal exams for A-levels and GCSEs would be scrapped and replaced by assessments by schools, moderated by examination boards and Ofqual’s formula to award individual grades to each pupil. Governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have adopted similar methods.
A spokesperson for Ofqual said: “We do recognise there are concerns about the potential for students to be disadvantaged by this approach and published an equality impact assessment, informed by a review of research literature on bias in teacher assessments, when our consultation was launched. We have and will be engaging further with organisations and groups that have raised concerns about this issue.“Our standardisation model will be designed to ensure, so far as is possible, that students are not advantaged or disadvantaged on the basis of their socio-economic background or because they have a particular protected characteristic.
“Students who do not feel their calculated grade reflects their performance will also have the opportunity to sit an exam in the autumn. We will shortly consult on details of the autumn exam series – we hope anyone with views about how the series might run, or its impact on particular students, will respond to our further consultation.”
Here is a good question from below the line.
There is no accurate running total, but the Office for Budget Responsibility produced a good, provisional guess in the report (pdf) it published two weeks ago looking at the impact of coronavirus on the public finances. The news reports focused on the OBR’s suggestion that GDP could fall by 35% in the second quarter of the year, leading to unemployment rising by more than 2m, and so these figures were slightly overlooked.
These OBR figures are based partly on government policies already announced and partly based on a “reference scenario” - a plausible assumption as to what might happen, including a three month lockdown followed by three months of partial lockdown.
The figures are breathtaking. The government would have to spend an extra £100bn this year, the OBR suggests. The figures are on page 18, or in this chart here.
But that’s only the start. The OBR also looked at the amount the government was likely to lose through lost tax revenue, and this sum came to an astonishing £130bn for this financial year. The chart is on page 20.
That is why the OBR thinks the coronavirus crisis could see government borrowing rise by more than £200bn, creating the biggest single-year deficit since world war two.
Public Health Wales has released this week’s survey of how the public feel about the coronavirus and its impact on their lives. The survey is the second full report after an initial pilot to quiz members of the public, and involved more than 679 Welsh residents selected at random, with results adjusted to population demographics.Among results, the survey reveals 11% of people think they have had coronavirus – down from 13% the week before – with 9% unsure. “Of those that think they have been infected, 8% have had this confirmed with a test,” the survey adds. What’s more, 12% of people say a family member or friend has been hospitalised or died from Covid-19, up from 8% the week before. And while 58% of people think the government is doing a good job, 26% disagree or disagree strongly.The virus also appears to be fuelling concerns, with 65% of those living with children worried about the children’s wellbeing and almost one in five worrying a lot about their mental health. A similar proportion, 20%, said they worry a lot about losing their job or getting a new one.Prof Karen Hughes, who coordinates the survey for Public Health Wales, added: “Week on week, we are monitoring the views and behaviours of people in Wales during the coronavirus restrictions. Over the coming weeks we will be examining how age, gender and poverty affect people’s ability to cope and ensure such information is available to those delivering support services.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases among prison staff has outripped prisoners for the first time since the lockdown restrictions were imposed, the latest daily update from the Ministry of Justice shows.As at 5pm on Wednesday, 341 prisoners had tested positive for the coronavirus across 72 prisons, a 1% rise in 24 hours, while 364 prison staff across 64 prisons were confirmed to have the virus, an 8% rise in the same period. Prison staff have had access to testing, while prisoner testing has been “limited and variable”, according to a recent Public Health England report.There are around 81,100 prisoners in England and Wales across 117 prisons, and around 33,000 staff work in the public sector prisons.The figures published by the MoJ are not live cases but include individuals who have recovered.
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As lockdown transforms the UK into a nation of DIY barbers and hairstylists, Community Integrated Care - one of Britain’s biggest social care charities - is asking celebrities and the public to “show they care” with their hair.
The #CareWithHair challenge encourages people to share their DIY hair styling experiences on social media and donate the money they would have spent on professional hair treatments. All money raised will help support the wellbeing of social care workers and the people they support through the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Famous faces committed to taking part include several leading Super League rugby league stars, such as Peter Mata’utia (Castleford Tigers), Willie Isa (Wigan Warriors), and Danny Walker (Warrington Wolves), England Rugby and Saracens hero Owen Farrell as well as England lioness and Manchester City footballer Georgia Stanway - shown clipping the hair of boyfriend and rugby player Oliver Ashall - and Sky Sports host Terry O’Connor.
Parliamentarians in Wales have been told there is “no easy way out” of the coronavirus crisis. Giving evidence to the Welsh assembly’s health committee, Dr Rob Orford, Wales’ chief scientific adviser for health, said the government did not have “a lot of headroom” because infection levels would increase if lockdown restrictions were significantly lifted. He said:
More than 9,000 fines have been handed to people in England and Wales for allegedly flouting coronavirus lockdown laws, according to new figures. As PA Media reports, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said 8,877 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) had been recorded by forces in England between March 27 and April 27, while 299 were issued in Wales over the same period. Some 397 were for repeat offenders, with one person fined six times.
Police have been given powers to hand out a £60 penalty, that is reduced to £30 if paid within two weeks, for breaches of the government’s restriction of movement rules.
