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UK coronavirus live: government publishes new batch of coronavirus papers from Sage UK coronavirus live: chief scientific adviser says testing capacity should have been expanded sooner
(32 minutes later)
Trial begins for new contact-tracing app while government’s top scientists are questioned by MPs Trial begins for new contact-tracing app while government’s top scientists are questioned by MPs and new Sage papers published
Drivers whose MOTs are due during the pandemic shutdown will enjoy a one-year exemption, a minister in Northern Ireland has said.
It would not be possible to accommodate the backlog as well as conduct normal business at testing centres, infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon said.
Drivers will instead apply for MOTs as normal next year. Mallon said:
On 24 March, in the interest of public safety and to tackle the spread of coronavirus, the DVA suspended all vehicle testing for three months, until 22 June.
In the health committee Jeremy Hunt, the chair, is wrapping up. But he has one final question.
Q: What are the chances of a second wave? 70/80%, ie fairly inevitable?
Vallance says, if we do test, track and trace well, and maintain social distancing, we should be able to avoid a second peak.
But he adds one caveat; when winter comes, you will have flu circulating, he says.
And that’s it. The health committee hearing is over.
In lighter news, the comedian Jason Manford has said he was turned down for a job at Tesco that he applied for earlier on in the pandemic “when it looked like supermarkets etc were going to need thousands of extra hands”.
Q: How far are we from having a widespread antibody test?
Vallance says reliable laboratory-based tests are already available.
Q: Why was Atletico Madrid v Liverpool match allowed to go ahead in Liverpool on 11 March when it would not have been allowed in Spain?
Harries says that was not a decision for the chief medical officers.
Good morning everyone. I’m Lucy Campbell, joining the blog for the rest of the day to bring you all the latest developments on coronavirus in the UK. If you’d like to get in touch with news tips or comments, advice and suggestions, please feel free to do so via the usual channels.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.comTwitter: @lucy_campbell_
Q: What is the risk of a second peak being caused by people coming to the UK with infections from other parts of the world, where coronavirus has hit later?
Vallance says Sage looked at this recently. At that point it thought just 0.5% of infections might come in from abroad. But that might change as the case numbers in the UK go down, he says.
Vallance says the idea that you could control this outbreak by stopping travel from one place would not work.
He says the advice from Sage was that either very draconian travel restrictions had to be imposed, or else it was not worth it.
Back in the health committee, Vallance and Harries are asked what they would have done differently.
Vallance says he is sure there are lots of things. He says it is standard in clinical practice to think how you could have done something better.
He says:
But he says Harries was right to say testing on its own does not provide the solution.
He says there will be plenty of opportunity to consider what might have been done better.
Going forward, different countries will try different things. That amounts to an experiment, he says.
But he says different countries have different characteristics.
He says it is not chance that two big, cosmopolitan cities - London and New York - have been hit badly.
What works in Iceland won’t necessarily work in other places, he says.
Harries says the plan was sensible.
But we are in a different world now, she says. She says perhaps we have not thought through the digital aspects of this enough in our planning.
She says we have learned from previous incidents.
As Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, prepares to set out further detail of her plans for easing lockdown restrictions, with specific scenarios for the NHS, schools and businesses, Boris Johnson’s Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, has urged the country to leave lockdown “in lockstep” with the rest of the UK.
“If we can present a simple, clear, united message, it will be much more effective,” he writes in the Scottish Daily Mail.
Re-tweeted approvingly by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jack goes on to criticise the Scottish government for shutting down building sites, which has not happened in the rest of the UK, arguing it is having “a disastrous impact on the Scottish building industry”, and goes on to “applaud businesses, such as the famous shortbread baker Walkers, on Speyside, who used a brief shutdown to figure out safe working practices and who are now back up and running as best they can”.
Here is our story on the ONS figures, by Matthew Weaver and Nicola Davis.Here is our story on the ONS figures, by Matthew Weaver and Nicola Davis.
And this is how it starts.And this is how it starts.
Turning back to the latest ONS weekly death figures (see 9.39am and 10.54am), here are the figures from the detailed data published alongside the ONS report showing where people died with coronavirus in the week ending 24 April.Turning back to the latest ONS weekly death figures (see 9.39am and 10.54am), here are the figures from the detailed data published alongside the ONS report showing where people died with coronavirus in the week ending 24 April.
Hospital deaths - 4,841Hospital deaths - 4,841
Care homes - 2,794Care homes - 2,794
At home - 423At home - 423
Hospices - 110Hospices - 110
Other community settings - 44Other community settings - 44
Elsewhere - 25Elsewhere - 25
That means 59% of coronavirus deaths that week were taking place in hospital, and 34% in care homes.That means 59% of coronavirus deaths that week were taking place in hospital, and 34% in care homes.
Back in the health committee, Harries is asked why BAME people seems to be dying disproportionately from coronavirus.Back in the health committee, Harries is asked why BAME people seems to be dying disproportionately from coronavirus.
Harries says that, once you make allowance for underlying health conditions - conditions like diabetes, that are more prevalent in people from a BAME background - it gets hard to assess what other factors might be relevant.Harries says that, once you make allowance for underlying health conditions - conditions like diabetes, that are more prevalent in people from a BAME background - it gets hard to assess what other factors might be relevant.
She says deprivation and cultural differences could be factors.She says deprivation and cultural differences could be factors.
Turning back to the the ONS latest weekly death figures (see 9.39am), here is the top of the news story from PA Media.Turning back to the the ONS latest weekly death figures (see 9.39am), here is the top of the news story from PA Media.
Hunt is still asking the questions.
Q: Do you still think it was right to give up community testing on 12 March? At the time you said that was not an appropriate intervention.
Harries says the issue is: what capacity the country has?
If the country had an endless capacity for testing, then it might have been right to carry on.
But it is not just testing; you have to look at the capacity to introduce other measures, she says.
She says in Germany the population affected was younger. And in South Korea the outbreaks were very localised.
If you had unlimited capacity, and resources beyond that, then a different approach would have been possible, she says.
Q: But South Korea is closer to virus. They had a super-spreader. And Germany is closer to Italy, and they got this before us. At a No 10 press conference, when asked about the WHO ‘test, test, test’ advice, you said it did not apply to rich countries.
Harries says she would like to clarify what she said. At that point some countries were not testing at all. The WHO was saying they should. She says she was not saying rich countries did not need to test.
But you have to balance your resources, she says.
She says the broad number of tests carried out in Germany has been the same as in Italy. So it is not testing alone that matters. It is the follow-up actions that count too.
Q: Did you tell the government on 12 March that it should be increasing its testing capacity?
Harries says she would not have given that advice personally. But, as the government moved from contain to delay, the intention was to focus testing on where it was most valuable.
She says, when the disease is under control, testing then becomes more important.
Back at the health committee Jeremy Hunt, the chair, turns to the death figures. He addresses Prof Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England.
Q: Why does the UK’s death rate appear so much higher than other European countries’.
Harries says we need to wait until the pandemic is over before we can do a robust comparison. Different countries report deaths in different ways, she says. That makes comparing them “extremely difficult”.
She says one way to compare them would be an age-standardised death rate per head of population.
But countries do not report figures in this manner, she says.
Turning back to the ONS latest weekly death figures (see 9.39am), this is from PA Media, where they have been looking at the figures in more detail.
Vallance says the risk to children is much, much lower than to adults.
But he says it is less clear whether children are just not getting the infection, or whether they are getting it but not showing symptoms.
Q: Does R have to be falling in regions for the lockdown measures to be lifted?
Vallance says R does not vary much. It might be 0.6 in London, and 0.7 elsewhere.
One option would be to relax measures locally. There are pros and cons, he says. But you would have to control travel between regions.
Q: Is there more risk to regions with low levels of infection, and hence low levels of immunity, from the lockdown being relaxed early?
Vallance says there might be 10% antibody positivity in London. And in other places it might be 3 or 4%, he says. But he says the work on this is still ongoing.
He does not think it is higher than in the mid teens anywhere.
He says that means there is nowhere where a large proportion of people might be immune.
Q: Has Sage ever given government just one option?
Vallance says he doubts that Sage has ever given the government just one option.
Back in the health committee, Vallance is asked if Sage always agrees on the advice it gives to ministers.
Vallance says ministers make policy. Sage does not make policy. He says ministers make policy informed by the scientific advice.
Q: But do you reach a consensus?
Vallance says Sage does not just give ministers 16 different opinions.
It tries to set out options.
But it also explains the uncertainty surrounding those options.
Here is an extract from the Sage paper (pdf) prepared for a meeting on 2 April. The note is dated 1 April.
The paper advises that the lockdown restrictions should be lifted “very gradually”. It says:
Back in the health committee Vallance is now talking about masks.
He says the evidence suggests that, in terms of preventing wearers from spreading coronavirus to others, the evidence in favour of masks or face coverings is “marginal but positive”.
In healthcare settings there is a strong case for masks, he says.
He says when people are outdoors, the risk is generally low.
But he says there are circumstances in which masks can be useful. He says the risk of infection at one metre away from an infected source is 10 to 30 times higher than at two metres.
Here are some lines from the Sage documents published this morning picked up already by journalists. These are from the BBC’s Adam Fleming, the Times’ Chris Smyth, and Nick Eardley and David Shukman from the BBC.