Brexit
Guardian
Boris Johnson is expected to push for an intervention from EU leaders in the faltering trade and security negotiations with the bloc after being warned by advisers that the current talks are on course to fail. There is recognition on both sides of the talks that there is little prospect of agreement on the most contentious issues without a major reset of positions. With the prime minister set to return to Downing Street on Monday, Johnson is expected to press the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and EU nation governments to dedicate attention to the negotiation with the British government. Sources suggested that there would need to be a rethink over the next fortnight in order to rescue the negotiation. The UK will leave the single market and customs union at the end of 2020, after which tariffs will be applied to the trade in goods unless there is a deal agreed.
Yahoo News
Boris Johnson is expected to push for an intervention from EU leaders in the faltering trade and security negotiations with the bloc after being warned by advisers that the current talks are on course to fail. There is recognition on both sides of the talks that there is little prospect of agreement on the most contentious issues without a major reset of positions. With the prime minister set to return to Downing Street on Monday, Johnson is expected to press the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and EU nation governments to dedicate attention to the negotiation with the British government.
Lockdown end
Mail
Boris Johnson arrived back at Number 10 last night to resume charge of Britain’s fight against coronavirus and plan for a loosening of lockdown. The Prime Minister will chair the daily 9.15am pandemic ‘war cabinet’ before hosting a second strategy meeting in the evening to sketch out the baby steps for easing restrictions. But he is not expected to do the daily press conference at 5pm. Allies last night claimed he is keen to ‘modify’ certain social distancing curbs if the scientific guidance affords him the wriggle room. Mr Johnson was whisked through the rear entrance of Downing Street at around 6.30 yesterday evening without fanfare, travelling in a humble Volkswagen people carrier rather than his ministerial Jaguar and police motorcade.
Sky News
Boris Johnson will plunge into a hectic round of back-to-back meetings on coronavirus on his first day back in Downing Street after his life-threatening illness. The prime minister is back at his desk in No 10 after a three-week absence and immediately faces massive decisions on the government’s next moves to stamp out the virus. After chairing the daily COVID-19 “war cabinet” of senior ministers, Mr Johnson is expected to hold one-to-one talks with cabinet colleagues on the progress of their departments in his absence.
Independent
Boris Johnson could set out his plan to ease the coronavirus lockdown within days of his return to Downing Street, according to a report. The prime minister, who returned to No 10 on Sunday evening, has already discussed with ministers the idea of “modifying” the restrictions before the 7 May deadline, The Daily Telegraph said. This message would make it clear to the public that life will not return to normal for some time, it is claimed. The newspaper quoted an unnamed “ally” of the PM as saying: “May 7 is the day when the government is legally obliged to review the lockdown measures but if Boris wants to change the restrictions earlier than that, or at least announce something before that, then he could go sooner.
Telegraph
Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans for how the lockdown could be eased as early as this week after he returned to Downing Street on Sunday night to take full-time control of the coronavirus crisis. The Prime Minister will on Monday morning chair his first meeting of the Covid-19 “war cabinet” since he was taken to hospital more than three weeks ago, and is ready to resume his role hosting televised Number 10 press conferences. Allies have hinted that he could decide to “modify” elements of the lockdown before the May 7 deadline as he is increasingly bullish about the possibility of altering restrictions if scientific advice allows for it.
Times
Britain is at a “delicate and dangerous stage” of the coronavirus outbreak, the government warned yesterday, but behind the scenes it has stepped up planning to ease the lockdown. Advisers have been appointed to help ministers to draw up guidance to enable companies to get back to work and prevent the economy from collapsing. Boris Johnson returned to Downing Street last night ready to resume control of the government response to the outbreak. He has been absent from regular duties for three weeks, including one spent in hospital, after he contracted the virus.
Rebellion
Telegraph
This was the weekend the government always anticipated and feared: the weekend that public observance of the lockdown was put to its severest test yet. It wasn’t just individual acts of rebellion, though there were plenty of those. Gloucestershire police had to turn back daytrippers from five different counties, including some who’d travelled more than 100 miles, while in Wiltshire police stopped an already disqualified driver doing 110mph on the M5 with five children on board. A party of 10 in two cars travelled more than 200 miles for a walk in Snowdonia, before being turned back by police. Gwent Police released a list of the best excuses they had received for flouting, including the foolhardy response to an officer of: “I’m taking my mate into Newport to buy drugs”.
Second wave
Mail
The UK’s coronavirus death toll increased by 413 today – the lowest recorded this month – as NHS bosses said social distancing is ‘paying off’ but warned breaking the rules now could result in a second peak of the deadly disease. Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, said the latest government statistics showed there had been a ‘slight uptick’ in the number of people using their cars and going outside in recent days. He told the daily Downing Street coronavirus press conference that the nation needed to ‘remind ourselves that this has been a really tough four weeks and we don’t want to lose the benefits’ which have resulted from people staying at home.
Star
The UK’s coronavirus death toll could reach 100,000 by the end of the year if the country exits lockdown too soon, an expert who advises the Government has warned. Professor Neil Ferguson claimed no country has been able to successfully shield society’s most vulnerable to the virus while allowing everyone else to go back to normal. He said social distancing would need to remain in place until a vaccine is available. But UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab today said this wasn’t likely to happen until 2021.
Huffington Post
British people need to carry on social distancing or risk losing the benefits of the lockdown by causing another surge in coronavirus cases, NHS England’s medical director has said. Stephen Powis said that despite the death rate, infections and hospital admissions decreasing, now is not the time to say “we’ve done a good job” and stop complying with the restrictions. He spoke as government data showed signs that people might be flouting the stay-at-home measures in increasing numbers, with data suggesting a “slight uptick” in the number of people driving and requesting walking and driving directions on Apple maps.
Immunity
Yahoo News
The World Health Organization (WHO) has rowed back on guidance after claiming there is “no evidence” those who had been infected with coronavirus were immune from the disease. In a briefing note published on Sunday morning, the WHO said “there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection”. But after outcry from the scientific community, the organisation issued a clarification on Sunday – saying that those who had contracted the disease had “some level of protection” from reinfection. In a statement published on Twitter the WHO said: “Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on “immunity passports”.
Nightingale Hospital
Mail
Not a single patient has been treated at Birmingham‘s Nightingale hospital, it emerged yesterday. The temporary hospital, which was built in eight days and has the potential capacity for 4,000 patients over a 75,000 sq ft area, opened on April 10. But West Midlands mayor Andy Street admitted it has ‘not needed to be used’. The facility is one of seven that have either opened recently or are due to open shortly at a cost of millions to treat coronavirus patients. There is growing speculation that some will never be used after regular hospitals cancelled operations and cleared wards to make space for the anticipated surge in sick people.
Star
The number of patients being treated at the NHS’s new showcase Nightingale Hospital fell to just 26 last week. And this has led to one member of staff to label it “a complete waste of money and resources”, according to reports. The NHS has repeatedly said it will be a mark of success if the hospital continues not to operate at full capacity, as it will mean the rest of the NHS has managed well and because the public have helped slow the spread of the virus. The hospital, built in just nine days in response to the coronavirus crisis, is on the site of the ExCeL Centre in the Docklands in east London and has capacity for between 4,000 and 5,000 beds.
Education
Mirror
Sending children back to school as before the lockdown is “inconceivable”, Dominic Raab has admitted. The First Secretary said he wouldn’t be drawn on the details of any scheme but said they would likely replicate some of the social distancing in place at schools currently, which are still being attended by the children of key workers and the most vulnerable. He told Andrew Marr: “I think it’s inconceivable they would come back without further measures”. Ministers are under mounting pressure to set out how they will end the lockdown – and why it took so long to impose.
PPE
Times
Access to PPE for frontline staff is getting worse, according to polling released today as doctors urge the government’s new PPE tsar to be honest with them about supplies. In an open letter to Lord Deighton, six medical royal colleges representing more than 166,000 doctors encourage him to adopt a “duty of candour” similar to that between medics and their patients. Requesting an urgent meeting, they say it is vital that no clinician should be put “in the impossible situation where they have to choose between protecting their own health, or their patients’”.
Independent
More doctors are being forced to treat coronavirus patients without protective equipment, it has been revealed, as Dominic Raab refused to say when shortages would finally end. A third of physicians working in high-risk settings have reported running short of long-sleeved gowns or full-face visors – a situation that has “worsened over the past three weeks”, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said. Of those working in other hospital areas, 40 per cent are not always equipped with eye protection, while 15.5 per cent are sometimes left without fluid-repellent face masks.
Mail
Hundreds of ‘PPE pirates and profiteers’ are exploiting the coronavirus crisis and putting the lives of key workers at risk, a Daily Mail investigation has discovered. Health service leaders accused speculators of flooding the market for protective equipment such as face masks and gowns with vastly overpriced or counterfeit goods. New businesses masquerading as healthcare suppliers are inflating prices by up to 1,000 per cent – as some desperate care homes are being forced to pay up to 10,000 per cent more for vital safety gear for their staff. NHS procurement managers are wasting hours of working time ruling out dubious suppliers from the black market, and have accused fraudsters of profiteering that ‘beggars belief’.
Testing
Times
A “big surge” in the number of coronavirus tests has been promised by the government as it aims to hit its 100,000 daily target by doubling capacity within four days. The military is being brought in to operate mobile testing units in care homes, police stations, fire stations, benefits offices and prisons. George Eustice, the environment secretary, told the daily Downing Street press conference that 29,058 tests had been carried out on Saturday, bringing the total to 669,850, with 152,840 people having tested positive, an increase of 4,463 on Friday.
Mail
Health bosses look set to miss their own coronavirus testing target with just three days to go, in what would be an embarrassing blow. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, insisted last month that Britain would be conducting 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. But just 29,058 tests took place on Saturday, the latest figures showed last night. The military has been brought in to assist in the drive to hit the target – with mobile testing units sent to care homes, police stations, fire stations, benefits offices and prisons to boost the numbers of key workers who are swabbed.
Tracking app
Sun
CORONAVIRUS was silently spreading through Britain from January, a tracking app suggests – weeks before the first confirmed case. COVID Symptom tracker, created by King’s College London, says its data shows the killer virus was already in the country by the new year. If correct, this is long before the first official cases were identified in Britain – when two Chinese tourists in York tested positive on January 31. The app works by asking 2.6million users to report daily symptoms to track the spread of the virus. “Hundreds” of users reported symptoms similar to those of covid-19 sufferers nearer the new year – with some claiming they thought they had it in December.
ITV News
Australians have been quick to embrace their government’s new voluntary coronavirus tracking app, despite some privacy concerns. The government had hoped one million people would download COVIDSafe within five days after it was launched on Sunday evening. But by Monday morning, more than 1.1 million people had installed it. “At 6:00am, it was 1.13 million Australians who had downloaded the app,” Health Minister Greg Hunt told local media on Monday morning. “We got the first million within five hours. We had been hoping, our best hope, was we might get to one million in five days.”
Vaccine
Times
The first secretary of state, who deputised for the prime minister while he recovered from Covid-19, sought to dampen expectations yesterday that the development process would be speedy. He spoke out after the first British human trial of a coronavirus vaccine began in Oxford last week with two volunteers — one injected with a potential vaccine, the other with a control product. Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University and leader of the research team, said that she was “very optimistic it’s going to work”. Up to 1,102 participants aged 18 to 55 are being recruited for the trial.
Mail
Dominic Raab says that a coronavirus vaccine is ‘unlikely to come this year’ as human trials start this week. The Foreign Secretary told Sophy Ridge on Sky this morning that a vaccine probably won’t be available in 2020, despite previously saying it was ‘unlikely to come into play’ until later this year. It comes as Oxford scientists developed accurate antibody kits that work in 20 minutes, announcing they could be producing one million of the tests a week by June. But Mr Raab said despite the progress in testing, a vaccine could continue to elude countries fighting the pandemic.
Sun
DOMINIC RAAB has admitted a coronavirus vaccine is “unlikely to come this year”. In a blow to Britain’s battle with the virus, the Foreign Secretary today warned the process of making a vaccine will take a while. Appearing on Sophy Ridge on Sky, Mr Raab claimed the vaccine could be vital in case of “multiple waves” of the virus. He said: “The antibody test is important because it can tell whether you had the virus, there is also the swab test which says if you currently have the virus.
EU
Times
The European Union’s diplomatic service removed from a report claims of a coronavirus disinformation campaign by China, including evidence that it was targeting France. Leaked emails revealed yesterday that senior advisers to Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, delayed publication of an assessment into disinformation because of “heavy pushback” from Beijing. The report was delayed last week and rewritten before publication on Friday by EU officials to remove allegations described as “key findings” and to soften evidence that the Chinese state and officials were involved.
Breitbart
A number of leftist groups, including political parties and trade unions, have signed a letter declaring the anger that led to the widespread riots over the last week in France is “legitimate.” The letter, which is signed by the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade union, the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, Revolutionary Feminists, the Communist Party of Workers of France, and many others, claims the riots are an expression of “legitimate anger”. Published on the Bondy Blog website, a blog formed after the 2005 Paris riots and catering toward the highly migrant-populated suburbs of France, the letter states that such areas are on the “front line” of the coronavirus outbreak.
Fox News
Animals at two mink farms in the Netherlands have tested positive for coronavirus, according to officials. Dutch Minister of Agriculture Carola Schouten announced the findings in a statement released on Sunday. The animals were identified on farms in Gemert-Bakel and Laarbeek and showed “various symptoms including respiratory problems.” The towns in which the farms are located lie within the Noord Brabant region, which has seen the worst outbreak in the country. Some employees at both farms appeared to have symptoms. The minister announced measures to prevent further spread, such as a “reporting obligation” for farmers, veterinarians and research institutions.
City AM
Germany will seek to impose a financial transactions tax, minimum tax rates and an EU-wide healthcare system on member nations during its upcoming six-month presidency of the bloc. The revolving presidency of the Council of the European Union allows individual countries to set the EU’s agenda during the six months of their stint. German chancellor Angela Merkel said today her country’s presidency, which begins in July, will be “clearly dominated by the issue of combating the pandemic and its consequences”.
Sorry to break in with old news, but I was looking at Saturday`s Daily Telegraph and saw an article by Ian Duncan Smith entitled The West must break the dominance of China.
It wasn`t so much his early comments regarding Chinese covering up the early incidence of Chinese Flu,, but it was a paragraph at the end where he was commenting
“yet instead of free trade causing the country to open up, as its dominance of the world marketplace has expanded, china has instead tightened up with greater central control and more abuses of human rights. Pathetically, after years of Project Kow Tow, we rarely if ever confront it about its behavior..
it is vital that we change all that and break our dependence on this terrible regime”.
Significantly he finished up by saying
“We need to rebalance our relationship with China as we emerge from this crisis, THERE WILL BE NEED FOR FINANCIAL REPARATIONS for the damage it has inflicted.”
I agree wholeheartedly with IDS on this aspect of reparations, just as I urged the USA be penalized for the economic mayhem their state centered mortgage fraud caused in 2008.
Looking like our leaders instinctively love the authority of the Lockdown – Meanwhile the tsunami of economic depression looms ever higher on the horizon but at least we will continue to maintain a flattened curve to get a politically acceptable and orderly rate of death and desease before it sweeps in to do its own insidiously deadly business or rather non business – There will be huge unintended consequencies from this massive experiment in social isolation and economic suspension – All those postponed medical procedures in order to keep the hospitals empty will alone have death rate consequencies – That at least is predictable so many other consequencies will be so obvious afterwards?
“CORONAVIRUS was silently spreading through Britain from January, a tracking app suggests – weeks before the first confirmed case.”
This has been discovered in various places in America where testing was done. With extrapolation this testing revealed the SURVIVAL rate indicating that the Chinese Communist Party Virus was about as severe as the annual flu. What has testing shown here in the UK?
The UK Marxist Stream Media have been strangely silent on this as they have on the successful treatment of patients with hydroxychloroquine.
The deaths with, and a fewer number from the CCP Virus are real enough but the playing around with the information and large numbers of infected people from China flying in at around the same time (and being allowed in without even rudimentary testing for temperature)?
This is looking more and more like a scam every day, just like global warming.
Has anyone had a second wave yet ? if it’s 3, or 30, or 300,. or 3000 . That’s good enough for me. If not good enough for the ” Scientific community”. . Whatever that is.! The Economic Steamroller is coming down the road.. It’s a balancing Act. Assessments have to be made on various ballancing factors that the Media doesn’t even know exist… They are probably not publicised, because ” Not proven “.
The economic steamroller is already on its way and The Civil Service ( as the executive arm ) need to be geared up and ready.. Apparently they have had practice from 2016. Unfortunately they will be relying , as usual, for big business to respond
There is an oversupply of clever, and learned, in the Civil Service. Is there any brilliance.? This and Brexit are huge opportunities.
“The NHS has repeatedly said it will be a mark of success if the hospital continues not to operate at full capacity, as it will mean the rest of the NHS has managed well”
I recall Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister saying much the same thing about their new flagship hospital that had treated no patients.
Lets really get on top of this by building many more empty hospitals, no need for PPE .
Most breakthrows are just that. Breakthroughs.
The massed ranks of Pharma, Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster, are unlikely to break through quickly. It is not in their nature.. Offer £ 1.00 Billion to anyone who can provide the breakthrough. It’s amost always one person. ( See Harrison etc)
Organisations are good for somethings. Committees good for others. Do not forget people.
Brexit:
Has Boris’ illness affected his ability to think clearly? Those “EU leaders” he wants to involve are the very people shouting their need for unacceptable terms on a daily basis. Is this another sign that he is not to be trusted?
Not necessarily Jack. It might be that he knows perfectly well the EU is hopelessly divided on many issues. A complete refusal to give way on fishing for instance speaking direct to France could well hasten an EU collapse.
The Guardian, I see is still at it – project fear ‘tariffs will be applied’ on goods. Will they? Who says? Who would a trade war hurt most us or them? And what would be the WTO position.
We were already seeking to talk to individual nations before Boris’ illness. There’s no knowing what thinking there is behind it.