Lockdown

Mirror
The UK’s coronavirus lockdown will continue until May 7, Dominic Raab confirmed today. The foreign secretary, standing-in for the Prime Minister who continues his recovery from coronavirus, told the daily Downing Street press conference what the UK had been expecting to hear all week. Earlier today Raab chaired meetings of the Cabinet and Cobra to “consider the advice from [Government advisory group] SAGE on the impact of the existing social distancing measures.” Raab told the press briefing that “now was not the time to give the coronavirus a second chance.” He said: “The worst thing that we could do right now is to ease up too soon, allow a second peak of the virus to hit the NHS and hit the British people. “It would be the worst outcome for our economy and for the country as a whole.”

Sky News
The UK’s coronavirus lockdown will remain in place for at least another three weeks, with the government outlining the conditions for easing restrictions. Although Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said there is light at the end of the tunnel, he warned the country remains “at a delicate and dangerous stage of this pandemic”.   Amid growing pressure to reveal details of an exit plan, Mr Raab revealed there are five factors that the government “must be satisfied of” before measures can be relaxed.

Express
DOMINIC RAAB has confirmed the UK lockdown has been extended in today’s daily press conference. What are the five criteria for lifting the lockdown? First Secretary Dominic Raab  has confirmed the UK-wide lockdown will be extended for another three weeks. He confirms the number of deaths in the UK of those hospitalised with coronavirus has now reached 13,729. Dominic Raab said he wanted to be up front about when the government can relax measures. He lists five points that will influence the Government’s decision: Making sure the NHS can cope; Evidence showing a sustained and consistent fall in daily death rates; Reliable data showing the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels; Being confident in the range of operational challenges, like ensuring testing and the right amount of PPE, are in hand; Being confident any adjustments will not risk a second peak.

Times
Britain was offered “light at the end of the tunnel” at the start of a further three weeks in lockdown with the promise of less social distancing if a five-point test were met. Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Boris Johnson, urged the public to remain patient as he confirmed that the lockdown would remain “at least” until May 7 despite signs that the worst of the pandemic was starting to pass. He said that easing the restrictions now would “risk sacrificing all the progress we have made” and result in a second wave of infections.

Mail
Britain is not ready for the coronavirus lockdown to be lifted even if the government wanted to, a poll revealed today. Research for MailOnline found 80 per cent would not feel safe going back to everyday life at the moment, with nearly 60 per cent saying they are not comfortable leaving the house.  Around half are now resigned to the draconian ‘social distancing’ curbs being in place into June – and 37 per cent say they will keep obeying the rules indefinitely if the government believes it is necessary.

Testing

Times
Home coronavirus swab tests delivered by Amazon are being tested as a way out of lockdown amid finger-pointing over who is to blame for unused testing capacity. Almost half of Britain’s capacity is going to waste, with ministers risking a row with the health service by pinning responsibility on a “lack of demand” among frontline workers. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has pledged that 100,000 tests a day would be carried out by the end of the month. The government says that there is capacity to do 35,000 a day but only 18,665 tests were carried out in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.

Independent
National capacity for coronavirus testing has topped 35,000 a day, but “lack of demand” meant fewer than 16,000 were actually being conducted daily, Downing Street has said. The announcement comes a day after health secretary Matt Hancock denied missing a target of reaching 25,000 capacity by mid-April set by his own department on 18 March, and marks the first time that the figure has been met. But it still leaves Mr Hancock well short of the 100,000-a-day target he has set for the end of the month.

Ventilators

Times
A consortium of British companies will make 15,000 new ventilators in the next few months to fill the NHS’s shortfall. Ministers placed an unexpectedly large order yesterday for the Penlon ESO2 devices, which are the first to receive approval after Boris Johnson challenged industry to join the national fight against coronavirus. The order will bring the number of ventilators in the NHS to more than 25,000. At the start of the pandemic it had only 8,000 and there were fears that hospitals would not have enough to treat the influx of patients.

Independent
Ministers have ordered 15,000 ventilators to treat patients critically ill with coronavirus after the first newly adapted device was approved by the regulator. New ventilators built by Penlon, an Oxfordshire-based firm, have been authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, with hundreds of units due to be built over the next week. The device is the first to be given the go-ahead since Boris Johnson called on British manufacturers to turn their focus to making life-saving ventilators, which help coronavirus patients to breathe.

Face masks

Sun
FACE masks are just as effective as social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus, an expert has claimed. A leading scientist has rejected Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s advice that face masks aren’t helpful in tackling the virus. University of San Francisco data scientists Jeremy Howard, who recently led a global review panel on the effectiveness of masks, said face masks are critical to fight COVID-19. He told ITV’s Peston: “The evidence does not show at all what (Mr Hancock) claimed.” “It actually looks a lot like (face masks) could be one of our most important tools.”

Parliament

Sky News
Plans for a “virtual parliament” to let MPs quiz ministers during the coronavirus outbreak have been approved by authorities. Breaking with nearly 700 years of tradition, around 120 MPs will be able to dial into Zoom calls to ask questions – with a further 50 allowed to sit in the chamber under “strict social distancing rules”. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said the hybrid solution will let MPs “stay close to their communities” and continue “their important work scrutinising the government” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BBC News
Plans to allow MPs to take part in some parliamentary business virtually have been approved by the body responsible for administration in the Commons. The House of Commons Commission said ministers will be quizzed via Zoom for the first time in the House’s 700-year history. This “unprecedented step” will “keep democracy going” during the coronavirus crisis, it said. MPs will have to approve the plan next week when they return on 21 April. It means that up to 120 MPs will be able to take part in proceedings virtually at any one time, while 50 could remain in the chamber under social distancing rules.

Cases

Telegraph
Coronavirus cases could have fallen by 70 per cent in a fortnight, major UK research suggests.  A study by King’s College London, which tracked more than two million people using an app, suggests that cases have dropped dramatically since the country went into lockdown. The modelling predicts that the number of people suffering symptoms of the virus  across Britain has dropped from two million to less than 583,000 over 14 days.  The tracker also suggests there is little difference between urban areas and the countryside when it comes to the prevalence of symptoms.

City AM
The UK has counted another 861 coronavirus deaths today as another 4,618 people tested positive for the infection. That means 13,839 Brits have now died from coronavirus, while the total number of infections has jumped past 100,000. Today’s number of coronavirus deaths is higher than yesterday’s figure for the UK of 761. And today’s infection rate matched yesterday’s total of 4,605. It comes after chief medical officer Chris Whitty yesterday said the UK is “probably” seeing its coronavirus outbreak peak. “We do all think this has flattened out, but sadly we do think high numbers of deaths will continue for a short while,” he said.

Mail
The number of people with coronavirus symptoms has plummeted by more than two thirds in a fortnight, providing more evidence Britain’s lockdown is working. King’s College London researchers, who created the COVID Symptom Tracker app, say the number of people reporting symptoms had fallen 71 per cent in two weeks. Latest analysis from the app estimates that there are now around 582,640 symptomatic coronavirus  patients in the UK, down from 2million on April 1. The finding is in line with official figures which show the daily increase in infections is plateauing.

Education

Times
Durham University is planning to set up online-only degrees as part of a radical restructuring that academics have called cynical and reckless. The university, England’s third oldest, wants to shake up its traditional reputation after falling behind other institutions in its online developments. The amount of face-to-face teaching could fall by 25 per cent and some students would study solely online, while others had a mixture of virtual and physical teaching.

Mail
Students will receive their GCSE and A-level grades on the pre-planned results days in August after exams were cancelled amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government has confirmed. A-level pupils will get their results on August 13 and GCSE students will be given their grades on August 20, the Department for Education (DfE) said. It comes after exams regulator Ofqual said the results would be released no later than originally planned and suggested they could be made available sooner.

Flights

Times
At least 15,000 people a day are flying into the UK without checks on their medical condition, the health secretary admitted yesterday. Matt Hancock said that the equivalent of 105,000 passengers a week were entering the UK from countries including those with serious coronavirus outbreaks such as the US, China, Spain and Italy. Criticism has mounted over the failure to impose health checks or a compulsory period in quarantine for people arriving at UK airports. The US has banned entry for people from Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

Mail
The first plane carrying 150 ‘critically important’ Romanian fruit and vegetable pickers landed at Stansted this afternoon.  The young Romanians, a mix of men and women and all wearing face masks and gloves, filed out of the near empty airport in groups of five to comply with social distancing rules. They were then transported by buses to a 7,000 hectare super farm in East Anglia ahead of the start of the picking season on Monday. The Romanians are joining the fight to save the UK’s harvest with the British ‘land army’, which was created to prevent crops being left rotting in fields.

Times
Scores of Romanian seasonal workers flew into Britain yesterday, prompting concerns that some may have slipped out of a “coronavirus red zone”. A charter flight of 147 workers landed at Stansted airport as part of a push by the farming industry to ease the chronic shortage of seasonal labour. The flight, organised by Air Charter Service, took off from Iasi airport, 90 miles from the city of Suceava, the centre of Romania’s Covid-19 outbreak. There have been 7,707 confirmed cases and 392 deaths in Romania. The UK has 103,093 cases and 13,729 deaths.

Breitbart
A British Border Force officer has begged for testing of airport arrivals over fears of incoming Chinese coronavirus cases, as criticism mounts that while Britons are in house lockdown the country’s external borders remain open. Speaking anonymously for fear of losing his job, the Heathrow border patrol officer told ITV on Wednesday: “We’ve got to start testing people at the airport as soon as they land. And we can easily catch the plane and just do temperature checks. We can easily do it. Just give us the equipment, and we’ll do it.

Brexit

Express
BORIS JOHNSON will reject any grovelling approaches by Brussels to extend the Brexit transition period, Downing Street has today warned. The Prime Minister’s spokesman reaffirmed the Government’s hardline position after the International Monetary Fund to remain under the European Union’s rulebook beyond the end of the year in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. “The Government was elected on a manifesto which made clear the transition period would end on 31 December 2020. That is now enshrined in primary legislation and it remains our policy,” they said.

BBC News
The UK will refuse to extend the Brexit transition period, even if the EU requested a delay, Downing Street says. A spokesman said any extension would keep the UK bound by EU rules when it instead “needs flexibility” to deal with coronavirus. The transition period, due to end on 31 December, was intended to allow the two sides to negotiate a trade deal. On Wednesday, UK and EU negotiators agreed to hold three further rounds of trade talks. Downing St added that an extension would “prolong the delay and uncertainty” around Brexit.

City AM
The UK will refuse any request for a Brexit trade deal extension by the EU, according to the Prime Minister’s official spokesman. On a call to journalists today, the spokesman reiterated the governmnt’s position, saying that an extension to the 31 December deadline would hamper the UK’s longterm response to the coronavirus crisis. UK chief negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier confirmed yesterday that trade talks will re-commence next week. The pair, and their teams, will hold three week-long negotiation rounds via video conference over the next six weeks.

Times
The government has ruled out a delay to Brexit and said that it will need “legislative and economic flexibility” to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. “We will not ask to extend the transition period, and if the EU asks we will say no,” the prime minister’s spokesman said yesterday. “Extending the transition would simply prolong the negotiations, prolong business uncertainty, and delay the moment of control of our borders,” he said.

Express
RISHI SUNAK has sparked panic throughout the European Union with a promise to complete a Brexit deal by December 31, issuing a further warning the transition period will not be extended beyond that date. Last month, the UK and European Union opened talks on a post-Brexit free trade agreement, with the first round of negotiations taking place in Brussels. A team led by Boris Johnson‘s chief negotiator David Frost traveled to the Belgian capital to begin crunch talks with representatives led by EU counterpart Michel Barnier.

Fisheries

ITV News
The fishing industry in England will receive a £10-million bailout after its arkets in the UK and Europe collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 1,000 fishing and aquaculture businesses will receive up to £9 million in direct cash grants with another £1 million available to help fishing operators sell their catch locally, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said in a statement. The grants are to assist with the fixed business costs for up to three months for owners of under-24 metre vessels with English fishing licences who last year recorded sales of at least £10,000.

EU

Mail
The UK is recording the largest number of new coronavirus cases and deaths in Europe and the rate at which they are soaring is ‘frightening’ other EU states, Austria’s health minister said yesterday. In a bombshell press conference, Rudolf Anschober displayed graphs showing the UK’s new cases were head and shoulders above other nations’. The minister highlighted the rapid growth in UK cases – presenting a chart showing the average daily growth in infections over the last 10 days, on which Austria performed best and Britain worst.

Express
POUND STERLING has become the unlikely winner of the coronavirus crisis according to leading economists who claim the currency’s surge against the euro will temper Brussel’s combative stance over Brexit. Pound sterling will continue to surge against the euro as long as the European Union struggles to contain the economic crisis in Italy, according to leading experts. Economists have labelled the British pound sterling as the “winner” in the economic turmoil triggered by Europe’s coronavirus crisis, which has left the future of the entire bloc in doubt. Standard Bank even forecast that sterling will strengthen to 80 pence per euro – a level not reached since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union – and it could go higher.

Independent
Negotiations over a Brexit trade deal should be extended to avoid adding to the uncertainty created across Europe by the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the International Monetary Fund has suggested. It comes as the UK government faces escalating pressure to request an extension to the 11-month transition period – due to end in December – or risk barriers to exports and imports being erected if no deal is reached with the EU. But Downing Street flatly rejected any prospect of delay, saying: “We will not ask to extend the transition period and if the EU asks, we will say No.”

Express
EUROPEAN UNION chiefs are already eyeing up British cash to support the bloc’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, it has emerged. As diplomats and officials draw up their economic rescue plan, some have factored in the possibility of UK taxpayers sending billions of pounds to Brussels. Sources say there is a growing belief that Boris Johnson will eventually decide to extend the post-Brexit transition period. The U-turn would leave the Prime Minister to negotiate a cash contribution for retaining access to the EU’s single market and customs union.

iNews
Emmanuel Macron has warned that the EU faces a “moment of truth” and could collapse unless it supports stricken economies such as Italy as they struggle through the coronavirus pandemic. The French president said that there was “no choice” but to set up a fund that could help to finance member states according to their needs rather than the size of their economies – a plan opposed by Germany and the Netherlands. He warned that the EU must decide whether it is more than a single economic market that fails to show solidarity during the pandemic.

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