This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson holds press conference on new three-tier restrictions for England
UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson says second national lockdown now 'would do a lot of immediate harm'
(32 minutes later)
‘Not to act would be unforgivable,’ prime minister told MPs earlier, suggesting more areas could move into strictest tier 3
Prime minister holds press conference with Rishi Sunak and Chris Whitty to set out England’s new three-tier lockdown restrictions
From Wednesday, local authorities in the Liverpool city region will move to ‘very high’, he says.
Here is Whitty’s full answer on why he doesn’t think tier 3 measures alone will be enough in the worst-affected areas.
In addition to pubs and bars, gyms, leisure centres, betting shops, adult gaming centres and casinos will close.
From the FT’s Jim Pickard
The majority of the country will for now be at ‘medium’, Johnson says.
Q. Were it not for some mayor and local leaders, other areas especially in the north would already be in the very high category?
Most areas currently under local intervention will be at ‘high’, he says.
Johnson says he’s working with local authorities, particularly with the badly affected regions, to support local test and trace and local enforcement.
And Nottinghamshire, East Cheshire and West Cheshire, and High Peak will also move to ‘high’, he adds.
The primary duty is to save lives and protect the NHS, he adds.
Very high-risk areas will at a minimum see a ban on all social mixing between households in private places including gardens, and pubs and bars must close unless they can operate solely as a restaurant serving alcohol only as part of a main meal, Johnson says.
Whitty says people want straight news - to know the worst and know how to avoid it.
People will also be asked not to travel into or out of very high alert level areas, he adds.
The balancing act is doing things which pull down the R below 1 but with minimal impact on the economy, he says. We should not have any illusions that we can do this without causing harm.
The prime minister is speaking now.
Q. Are you delaying the inevitable by not introducing a second national lockdown?
We must act now, he says.
Johnson says he hopes there won’t be anything like a second national lockdown and if these new measures are properly implemented they can get the R down.
That is why they are simplifying, standardising and in some places toughening local rules in England by introducing three levels of Covid alert:
There’s a need for balance as a second national lockdown would do a lot of immediate harm right now, he adds.
Medium: existing national measures including rule of six and curfew for hospitality.
Q. How do you expect pubs, bars and restaurants forced to close to live off two-thirds of their wages when they can’t pay two-thirds of their bills?
High: extra measures including ban on indoor social mixing between households or support bubbles.
Sunak says at two-thirds this offer is broadly in line with support provided in other European countries.
Very high: for places which without swift action the NHS would be under intolerable pressure. These will be reviewed ever four weeks and not in place indefinitely.
The generosity of the welfare system has been increased, he says.
The prime minister Boris Johnson’s press conference on England’s new three-tier lockdown system is due to start around 7pm. He will be joined by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer.
Q. Are you confident these measures are enough to slow the spread of the disease?
New restrictions banning different households from mixing indoors could be imposed on London as early as this week to prevent rising coronavirus levels, Sadiq Khan has warned.
Whitty says he’s confident these measures will help to slow the spread of the virus further.
The capital is expected to be initially placed on “medium” in the new three-tier system of local alerts for England when they come into force on Wednesday.
He says he’s not confident that tier 3 at the base case would be enough alone, which is why local authorities will have the flexibility to bring in additional things within that.
This would put London with most of the country at the lowest end of the scale, meaning no new restrictions would be imposed immediately and the rule of six and the 10pm curfew staying in place.
These measures only work if everybody buys into them and does their bit, Whitty says.
But the mayor warned that the city could be moved upwards “very quickly - potentially even this week” after the prime minister, Boris Johnson, set out his plans earlier today.
Q. What should vulnerable people who have been shielding do now?
If the city moves up a notch to “high”, then mixing between different households or social bubbles could be banned indoors, including in pubs and restaurants.
Whitty says people who were previously shielding are at greater risk and they are advised to take greater precautions.
A spokesman for the mayor said:
They are trying to approach this is in a different way due to mental distress, he says.
Khan discussed the new alert system with local leaders in the capital on Monday, and they are understood to have agreed further restrictions will soon be needed if the figures continue on the current trajectory.
Charlotte from Chesterfield asks what restrictions can be expected over the festive period.
His spokesman added:
Johnson says they will do their best to get life back to as close to normal as possible for Christmas, but it will depend on people following the measures.
In a joint statement the Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool city mayor, Joe Anderson, and the six city region council leaders say they still urging the government to provide them with further financial support. They say:
Helen from Derby asks about support for industries like the events sector who have been shut down since March due to government restrictions.
That’s all from me for tonight.
Sunak says there is the job support scheme to allow companies who are open but not trading to bring employees back in a scaled back way.
My colleague Lucy Campbell is taking over now. She will be covering the press conference at 7pm with Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.
We need to go further on the rates will continue inexorably to rise, Whitty says.
And here are details of which areas are subject to which alert level. (5.49pm.)
When you see a rise in people over 60 going into hospital, it’s mirrored by a rise in hospital admissions, he says.
The very high alert level (tier 3)
This translates into an increase in hospitalisation, particularly in areas where there is a high transmission, he says.
Liverpool city region: Liverpool, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens, Sefton and Halton.
There has been a rise in the number of people in hospital in every age band, but in particular in those over the age of 85, he says.
The high alert level (tier 2)
There are very variable rates by different age groups, he says.
Cheshire: Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East.
The first rapid rise is in younger people, but then you see rises in older age groups.
The same pattern is being such at a much lower rate elsewhere in the country, he says.
Warrington: Warrington.
And at a much lower rate in these places, he adds.
Derbyshire: High Peak - the wards of: Tintwistle, Padfield, Dinting, St John’s, Old Glossop, Whitfield, Simmondley, Gamesley, Howard Town, Hadfield South, and Hadfield North.
But we should not be lulled into a false sense of security here, he says.
Lancashire: Lancashire, Blackpool, Preston, Blackburn with Darwen, and Burnley.
And in these places at a lower rate, he says.
West Yorkshire: Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, and Wakefield.
Rates since the middle of August have been going up in these places, he says.
South Yorkshire: Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield.
This is really important, Whitty says.
North-east England: Newcastle, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland, Durham, and Northumberland.
The rate in people over 60 is a very good predictor in a bad way of the rates at which people will go into hospital, he says.
Tees Valley: Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington and Hartlepool.
On the left, the map shows the current prevalence of the disease, with the darker colours showing areas where the most transmission is occuring, he says.
West Midlands: Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton and Walsall.
On the right, the map shows the rate of change, with the dark colours showing the most rapid change, he says.
Leicester: Leicester and Oadby and Wigston.
This shows this is now extending beyond the areas in the NW, NE and parts of the Midlands - clear evidence of spread around the country, he says, though still centred on areas of intervention.
Nottingham: Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City.
Prof Chris Whitty is speaking now.
The medium alert level (tier 1)
The first slide shows the prevalance of the virus in the population from 25 September to 1 October.
Everywhere else in England
The number of people with it went down through June to the beginning of September, where it began to rise again, he says.
No 10 has just released this guide to the new rules.
Since then it has risen to the level at the beginning of May, he says.
Some of the wording is not at all clear. Here is the more detailed text explanation that No 10 has sent that makes a bit more sense.
There will also be additional funding for local authorities, he says.
Rules for places at medium alert level (tier 1)
For those entering tier 3, there will be up to £500m provided to fund activities, enforcement, compliance and contact tracing, he says.
Rules for places at high alert level (tier 2)
Businesses legally required to close can now claim a cash grant of up to £3,000 depending on the value of the business premises, Sunak says.
Rules for places at very high alert level (tier 3)
He says he also guarantees an extra £1.3bn of funding for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations if they choose to do something similar.
Some of this wording is not particularly clear either. For example, the rule of six already applies to meetings in gardens and parks. But journalists have received a less garbled briefing. And we were told:
In tier 1, the rule of six continues to apply.
In tier 2, mixing with another household indoors is banned, but mixing with them outside is not banned (subject to the rule of six).
In tier 3, mixing with another household is banned in private gardens too (even if there are no more than six of you).
In the Commons, asked what needs to happen for these local restrictions to be lifted, Boris Johnson says the R number would have to fall below one.
In the Commons Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative, asks Boris Johnson to publish details of why the specific measures are needed in each case. Johnson says the government will do this.
Andy Street, the Conservative mayor for the West Midlands (and arguably the most prominent Tory in local government) has said he is “very disappointed” to see his region go into tier 2, the high risk alert level.
He says that regional leaders were led to believe that this would not happen, that it will mean households now being banned from mixing in places like pubs, that the evidence does not support this and that the hospitality industry will suffer as a result.
He also says that the West Midlands, with an average infection rate of 123 people per 100,000, is being treated the same as Manchester, with 550 infections were 100,000 people.
He says the decision should be reviewed “as soon as possible”.
In the Commons Labour’s Yvette Cooper called on Boris Johnson to “come back from the moon and get back to what’s happening on planet Earth” as she raised concerns over testing. She said:
Johnson said that testing capacity had gone up 28% in the last month, and that by the end of the month the system would be able to process 500,000 tests a day.
Nine thousand students in England currently have Covid and 68 universities are dealing with outbreaks, the universities minister has said.
Michelle Donelan said the figure of 9,000 came from data supplied by universities and was a cumulative figure over seven days, against a total student population of around 2 million.
From next week, she said, the Department for Education would be working with the Office for Students on a new, more transparent data regime to provide figures.
Speaking during education questions in the Commons, Donelan also warned higher education institutions against trying to make a profit by charging self-isolating students £18 a day for food parcels. Donelan said she had already spoken to “many” universities on this issue, and warned she would be writing to follow up.
Students who are trapped in their halls of residence have complained about the cost and quality of the food provided by their universities, with some charged hundreds of pounds for meal packages including baked beans and instant noodles.
More than 2,500 students at Lancaster University have signed a petition urging the university to stop “profiting from self-isolating students” who are paying £17.95 a day for meals the students estimate cost £4.
Donelan told MPs:
Figures posted on the University of Nottingham’s website showed 1,510 of its students had been diagnosed with active cases of Covid-19 during the week ending last Friday, PA Media reports. The figures included 667 students in private accommodation, 523 others living in halls of residence and 310 in purpose-built student accommodation.
The figures on the UK government’s dashboard also show that there are now 3,665 patients in hospital in England with coronavirus.
That is 1,072 more than this time last week (2,593) - a 40% increase.
The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key headline figures.
The UK has recorded 13,972 new cases. That is higher than yesterday (12,872) and higher than the figure for this time last week (12,594), but lower than some days last week.
The UK has recorded 50 further deaths. That is 15 fewer than yesterday.
The Liverpool Chamber of Commerce chief executive, Paul Cherpeau, said businesses across the city were “bewildered, frustrated and angry” by the new restrictions. He said:
In response to a question from the Tory MP Steve Baker, Johnson said that the development of a vaccine “cannot be taken for granted”. He says after 20 years there is still no vaccine for Sars.
