Lockdown exit
Buzzfeed News
Builders and shop workers will be encouraged to communicate via radio rather than face to face, employees will be told to work side by side or facing away from each other, and staff will be paired together if they work in close proximity, under draft UK government plans to ease the coronavirus lockdown. BuzzFeed News has obtained all seven of the guidance documents drawn up by cabinet office minister Michael Gove and business secretary Alok Sharma, that will form the basis for the government’s proposals to get people back to work in the coming weeks. The documents cover workers in seven different settings: hotel and restaurant staff; those who work in other people’s homes; factory workers; people working outdoors; people working in vehicles; shop workers; and office workers.
Mail
Millions of Britons face a grim return to work in which all normal social contact remains heavily restricted, a leaked government blueprint revealed yesterday. Ministers are preparing to publish a back-to-work dossier for seven sectors of the economy at the end of this week, detailing the steps employers will have to follow to get staff back into offices. But draft guidance seen by the Daily Mail suggested there will be no return to normality in the foreseeable future with the government telling businesses the restrictions could remain in place for up to a year.
Sun
BORIS Johnson faces an angry revolt from Northern cities over No10 plans to keep some in coronavirus lockdown longer than others. Under the PM’s blueprint to end the nation’s virtual house arrest, the whole nation will see the tough restrictions begin to be eased at the same time, with the end of May targeted. But Downing Street yesterday confirmed they could be swiftly re-imposed on areas that see new local infection spikes. The move to single out specific towns has sparked anger from the nation’s nine regional mayors.
Mirror
The government is considering new wave of “local” lockdown restrictions later this year to stop new spikes of coronavirus in their tracks. At the moment, officials are focused on easing the lockdown at the same pace across the UK – to move as one nation in the Covid-19 crisis. And a “roadmap” is set to be announced on Sunday by Boris Johnson, spelling out how the whole nation might ease restrictions. But its understood officials are looking at changing that approach if there is a rapid new second outbreak of the virus, which needs quick action to be halted.
Telegraph
The “new” normal for working safely in a coronavirus world is detailed in seven separate Government documents obtained by The Telegraph. Draft guidelines for opening up shopping centres, hotels, factories and offices are contained in guidance to be issued by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and circulated privately on Sunday, after consultation with firms, trade bodies and unions. They include such recommendations as installing plexiglass screens between desks in offices and requiring workers not to sit face-to-face but back-to-back or side-to-side.
Tracing app
Times
Everyone in Britain will be told to download an NHS app to save lives and get the country back to work. Ministers plan a nationwide campaign to persuade most of the country to use a track-and-trace smartphone app, which people on the Isle of Wight began to use in a trial last night. In echoes of the “stay at home” campaign, the public will be told that it is their duty to download the app to protect their health and that of their family and friends.
Mirror
Britain is preparing to ease some of the lockdown that has kept us all indoors for six weeks. And to do that, there’s one big thing you’ll need to do – download a new NHS app. The app will be the cornerstone of a “test, track and trace” programme of contact tracing, following anyone who is carrying Covid-19. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it will let the NHS “hunt down and isolate the virus so it is unable to reproduce”. And that in turn “allows us to take a more targeted approach to lockdown” – keeping only the restrictions we really need, while lifting others.
Antibody tests
Sun
MILLIONS of Brits could find out if they’ve had coronavirus as 100 per cent accurate antibody tests are set to be rolled out in two weeks, according to reports. Testing giant Roche Diagnostics has finally created a kit accurate enough to be used at scale – and the firm says it has enough to provide the NHS with hundreds of thousands every week. Recent efforts to produce antibody tests have been plagued by inaccurate results, with the Government allegedly spending £16million on two million kits from China that didn’t work. But Roche Diagnostics’ claims its new serology test can spot 100 per cent of those who have had the virus with “no false negatives”.
Vaccine
Sky News
The health secretary has said he does not think a future COVID-19 vaccine would need to be made compulsory. At Downing Street’s daily coronavirus news briefing, Matt Hancock said: “I think the extent of the public’s reaction following the lockdown shows we will be able to achieve very, very high levels of vaccination without taking that step.” A number of versions of a potential COVID-19 vaccine are being researched worldwide, with more than 600 people taking part in an Oxford University trial. And at a video conference summit hosted by the European Union, a group of world leaders, organisations and banks joined to together to pledged 7.4bn euros to hunt for a vaccine.
Huffington Post
Health secretary Matt Hancock has warned the anti-vaccination movement that medical research can save lives and “get the world moving again” after the Covid-19 outbreak clears. Speaking at the Downing Street briefing on Monday, the minister said anti-vaxxers should see there was “no greater demonstration in modern history” that proved vaccines were needed than the deadly coronavirus. It comes amid protests across the globe against the use of vaccines and as prime minister Boris Johnson led an international conference which raised £6.6bn for medical research into tackling Covid-19.
Furlough
Telegraph
More than half of Britain’s adult population is now being bankrolled by the state amid warnings from the Chancellor that the furlough scheme could soon cost as much as the NHS. Analysis of official figures shows that 27 million people are now being funded by the Government amid growing concern over the devastating toll to the economy wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. The figure includes people being paid through the furlough scheme and those now claiming benefits after being made unemployed because of the virus. The remainder are public sector workers and pensioners.
Mail
The chancellor Rishi Sunak is under pressure to launch a second wave of furlough payments as the government’s scheme is set to be cut off in June. Industry and manufacturing think-tanks have warned that without further payments up to 35 per cent of jobs could be lost in parts of the UK, as businesses struggle to stay afloat during the nationwide lockdown. The furlough scheme sees the government covering 80 per cent of the wages of employees stuck at home – up to a value of £2,500. So far 140,000 businesses have taken advantage of the offer, an estimated 9million staff members, with the cost coming in at around £42billion for the first three months, according to the Office for Budgetary Responsibility.
ITV News
The Chancellor’s Job Retention Scheme has proved extremely popular since it went live two weeks ago. Already 6.3 million employees in the UK have been “furloughed”, meaning the government is paying 80% of their wages. The idea is that the scheme incentivises companies to hold onto their staff even as the economy heads into a severe recession. The chancellor has already extended the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) scheme once and is under pressure to do so again. Various business groups have warned of mass redundancies unless taxpayer support continues beyond the end of June.
Nightingale hospital
Morning Star
LONDON’S NHS Nightingale hospital will be placed on standby with no new coronavirus admissions expected in the coming days, Downing Street announced today. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said “it’s not likely” that the pop-up hospital at the ExCel centre would be taking new patients while Covid-19 in the capital “remains under control.” He said: “That’s obviously a very positive thing, and we remain grateful to everybody in London for following the government’s advice in helping to protect the NHS.” The field hospital had only 19 patients on Friday, down from a peak of about 35 in April.
iNews
The first NHS Nightingale field hospital is being mothballed, with officials saying the decision was a “positive thing” because it showed the coronavirus crisis in the capital was easing. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that there were no new coronavirus admissions expected at the hospital in east London’s ExCel centre in the coming days. Although it will not accept new patients, the temporary hospital will remain “on standby” should it need to resume operations in the future.
BAME
Breitbart
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) plans to withdraw black and minority ethnic (BAME) health workers from frontline roles in the fight against the coronavirus, in order to reduce the supposedly disproportionate BAME death toll. Amanda Pritchard, the Chief Operating Officer for NHS England and Chief Executive Officer for NHS Improvement, has sent a nine-page letter to health chiefs highlighting “Emerging UK and international data suggest[ing] that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are also being disproportionately affected by Covid-19.”
Elderly
Telegraph
Healthy over-70s look likely to be released from stringent coronavirus social distancing measures, The Telegraph has learned. Ministers are hoping to clarify the rules for pensioners amid criticism that the current guidance is confusing. The move follows reports that people judged to be vulnerable could be shielded from normal life for up to 18 months or until a vaccine is found. Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann warned that Britain faces “social unrest” if the over-70s are forced to endure a longer lockdown than younger generations.
Mail
An urgent review has been launched into whether obesity, ethnicity and gender raise the risk of death from coronavirus. Matt Hancock has ordered health officials to trawl through the records of thousands of pandemic victims. The Health Secretary said it was too early to confirm that weight was a factor but ‘data from around the world’ was suggesting a link. Researchers at the University of Liverpool warned last week that obesity increased the risk of dying from the virus by 37 per cent.
Mirror
Downing Street has refused to rule out the idea of people over-70 being kept in coronavirus lockdown for longer. The government has been warned keeping pensioners under stricter rules as restrictions are eased will lead to “unrest” and could be damaging to people’s mental health. Doctors’ leaders have piled pressure on Boris Johnson not to split people by age when he announces a “roadmap” out of lockdown this week. The Prime Minister is expected to announce on Thursday that lockdown will continue for at least three more weeks.
Sun
OVER-70s should be able to “self-select” whether they are vulnerable or not once the lockdown is eased, ministers have said. It follows criticism that using age-based criteria to lift restrictions would lead to “social unrest”. About 1.5 million “clinically vulnerable people” have been told they must stay in lockdown for at least 12 weeks, with some ministers saying they might need to remain at home until there is a vaccine, which could take a year or more. They include people “aged 70 or older regardless of medical conditions” and those “under 70 with an underlying health condition.”
Virus laws
Breitbart
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of the United Kingdom will begin reviewing every charge, conviction, and sentence that has been brought under emergency laws following reports that overzealous police have wrongfully charged people during the pandemic. Police forces throughout the country have been using the powers granted to the under the act — specifically with the clause dealing with potentially infected people — to charge people that they felt were outdoors without a good excuse.
SAGE
Times
Experts have voiced concerns that the government’s panel of scientific advisers lacks critical areas of expertise, including engineers with experience of large-scale logistics and a specialist on the immune system. The government released a partial list of the members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) after warnings that keeping them secret could erode public trust. It was previously revealed that Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief adviser, had attended some Sage meetings.
Guardian
The government has fundamental questions to answer about its approach to tackling Covid-19, an independent body of experts have said. The Independent Sage committee – a body of 12 scientists and experts set up in parallel to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – is chaired by the former UK government chief scientific adviser Sir David King, who has criticised the official body’s previous lack of transparency. Its members said on Monday that the government needed to make clear whether its objective was to suppress or manage infections of Covid-19, saying the two required very different processes and it was unclear which the government is pursuing.
Welfare
Times
More than two million claims for welfare support have been submitted during the coronavirus pandemic, according to government figures. Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, said that her department had received more than 1.8 million claims for universal credit, its main welfare programme, as well 250,000 claims for jobseeker’s allowance and 20,000 claims for employment support allowance. Separate figures announced by HMRC showed that 6.3 million workers had been furloughed since the job retention scheme opened on April 20.
Blood protein
Mail
Scientists have discovered a protein in the blood that could predict which coronavirus patients will need to be put on ventilators. The protein, known as suPAR, is a marker of disease severity and aggressiveness as well as activating of the immune system. Researchers found COVID-19 patients with high blood levels of suPAR were the most likely to need breathing machines and were intubated the quickest frim being hospitalized.
EU
Independent
UK shops would have suffered food shortages during the pandemic without the EU single market, a senior Brussels official says. In explosive comments, Margaritis Schinas said Britain was “fortunate” it had not crashed out of the bloc when coronavirus struck – even as Boris Johnson vows to do just that in December, if necessary. It was only the close economic ties of the single market that “kept our supermarkets stocked during these difficult times”, the vice-president of the European Commission argued.
Breitbart
Nigel Farage has warned that the European Union will attempt to use the Chinese coronavirus crisis to “trap” the United Kingdom into an extended Brexit transition period. The Brexit Party leader said that Michel Barnier, the EU’s top Brexit negotiator, is trying to create a distinction between the “political Brexit” that was secured by the British people on January 31st, and an “economic Brexit” that is set to occur when the transition period ends in December. “Politically, the UK gave up its small amount of influence within European institutions at the end of January, but the EU retained the ability to impose new directives and laws over us, which we now have no say in deciding,” Mr Farage wrote.
China
Mail
Beijing could face a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into ‘armed confrontation’, an internal Chinese report has warned. The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
Sport
Times
Armchair sports fans will soon have something to cheer as live action returns to screens for the first time in nearly two months. Horse racing will be first out of the stalls with a behind-closed-doors meeting at Longchamp, Paris, planned for next Monday. The sport is making a return thanks to a quirk of the system that categorises it as an agricultural activity. All other French sport remains banned until September. British racing is also pushing strongly to be allowed to restart behind closed doors, arguing that it can do so and still maintain social distancing rules. The British Horseracing Authority has pencilled in a weekend of classic trials for May 23.
Telegraph
Broadcasters are expected to oppose any plans for relegation from the Premier League to be scrapped this season. Although both BT Sport and Sky Sports insist no formal discussion has yet been held on the issue, senior industry sources have suggested to Telegraph Sport that it will be hard to sell ‘Project Restart’ if the remaining 92 games, which are all to be played behind closed doors and at neutral venues, do not have the jeopardy of a relegation battle.
Telegraph
Rugby Union is facing a devastating financial blow after medical guidelines released by the sport’s governing body stated matches should be played behind closed doors until a vaccine exists for Covid-19. With the Rugby Football Union already projecting to lose £50million because of the pandemic, the prospect of the long-term absence of large-scale crowds from major venues would plunge the sport in England – and across the world – into crisis. It is expected that it could be up to 18 months before a vaccine is freely available.
Telegraph
In a move that threatens grave implications for Formula One’s top three of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, the budget cap for each team is to be lowered by £24 million for the 2021 season, with warnings of further cuts in subsequent years as the sport struggles to absorb the financial fallout of the Covid-19 crisis. While a cap of £140 million had already been agreed for next year to encourage closer competition, Ross Brawn, F1’s managing director of motorsport, has compelled teams to accept a lowered ceiling of just £116 million as the full economic impact of the pandemic becomes clear.
On day 43 of Lockdown, the UKofGB have found out, (unsurprisingly), that our Nation is made up of more than the long and the short and the tall ! – We have the wise, the obedient, the frightened, and the pig-ignorant. – The Lockdown breakers are truly against this Nation !
Last December we elected our Government with a leader, and gave them a good majority too. – The Opposition have seen fit to back Government action in this pandemic generally, knowing full well that in the years leading up to the next General Election, many questions will be asked about performance during this crisis, and the financial mess that will inevitably follow ! – Labour can afford to just keep their powder dry for the moment, and very gently make critical observations for entry into Hansard, for future Tory blasting backed by the Common’s records !
Please check out the make up of the SAGE committee now guiding our Government through the Chinese Coronavirus crisis.
The “experts” who are on this Committee are quite frankly scary.
David King heads the Committee and his track record is quite frankly awful.
The other members of the Committee all seem to be fanatical supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and politically way to the left of communism.
Read James Delingpole’s pen pictures of them, currently available on Brietbart.
So if Boris gives me latest i phone I will be safe ? Or have I got to pay for it out of my winter fuel ski money ?
A sunny windy day, Brighton beach. Lifeguard boy tells me its dangerous to swim.
So dont come in then son .
Oh and when did this bug actually mutate…???
This is only anecdotal, but it has been speculated that BAME medical staff who follow strict religious adhereance, headwear, hijabs etc and excessive facial hair, like beards to meet religious beliefs and requirements, find it difficult/impossible to wear protective equipment.
Perhaps that increases the risk of contracting the virus?
I apologise for being dim, but in the above article on BAME and i am not disputing the findings, that “Emerging UK and international data suggest[ing] that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are also being disproportionately affected by Covid-19.” If that is true, can someone explain why CV19 results in India and Pakistan are not as serious as in the UK .
Sorry Grahame, I can only tell you what the papers are saying, not explain it. However, from a personal viewpoint, I could only add one word – ‘declared’ – when talking about the CV19 results in India and Pakistan.
Thank you Debbie. I agree with you entirely. I think also there are different standards amongst the European countries too when deaths are reported.
Graham everyone can make their own vitamin D3 by exposing their skin to sunlight. However the darker the skin the less they make. Take people with skin that’s good for living in Indiia or Pakistan, nearer the equator and put them in England, especially in winter and the’re going to be deficient in Vitamin D3 unless they take a supplement. People who have enough Vitamin D3 in their blood are much less likely to get the China Virus and those that do are much less likely to get it badly. This is not opinion. It has been investigated. Please have a look at the link at the bottom of the comment I posted under today’s ‘Your Daily Betrayal’. Of course white people who don’t go into the sun, perhaps many people in old age homes, and don’t take vitamin D3 will also be deficient. Please help spread this link around. We need to get everyone on board with this. The government is not going to do this for us. In theory if everybody had enough vitamin D3 very few would get the virus the epidemic would be over and they’d have to lift the lockdown.
Michael you have made a point which have not come across before. Thank you.
Just a question – would it not be a good idea for BAME people to take vitamin D3 tablets for their survival? Holland and Barratt sell them.
Grahame you are quite right on this. I’ve spoken to my neighbours (from Nigeria) and my daughter that lives in South Africa telling her to pass on the word.
It continually strikes me that, if over-70s were in fact prevented from going about their normal business (ie because they’re ”vulnerable”), then BAME people should be too.
Oh – but that’d be waycist. Wouldn’t it?
There is no vaccine for stupid. I took a red pill once. Lost my twitter account. Oh how we laughed.
lord help us we are about to be assaulted by a thickos vaccine. Let nature and evolution take its course . CV19 could easily be preperation of immunity for phase 2 or 3 etc. We do not yet know enough. And at this rate aren’t likely to.
Lockdown exit:
“Builders and shop workers will be encouraged to communicate via radio…”
Makes me wonder if the loons in government have any experience of working in the real world. Every day one might think that statements from them cannot get any more stupid; then they do.
Maybe they should be made to work in the post lockdown world that they envisage instead of the ivory towers of government.
No doubt every MP will be issued with a personal radio as they enter the House of Commons and will not be allowed to speak to each other face to face, and will have to seek permission before from the speaker before using their radios. No…………..I thought not. One rule for them and other rule for the rest of us. However it states ‘will be encouraged’ meaning that it will not be compulsory. Every time Matt Hancock opens his mouth, my heart sinks.