Analysis: cabinet colleagues horrified over wrangling between Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid
Cabinet ministers were already waiting in No 10 on Monday morning when it became clear the sign-off for the prime minister’s much-anticipated end to Covid regulations was not going to be as perfunctory as they had imagined.
A festering row between Rishi Sunak’s Treasury and Sajid Javid’s health department was responsible, first reported by the Guardian last week and still unresolved.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson indicates last restrictions could be eased from next week and free testing will end soon
The country is “in a different world” from when the Covid pandemic started, Boris Johnson has said, meaning the last remaining restrictions can begin to be lifted from next week.
Ahead of an announcement on Monday about the government’s “living with Covid” strategy, the prime minister signalled free mass testing would end imminently and told people to return to the office and “get their confidence back”.
Continue reading...PM to announce end to legal duty to quarantine next week as part of ‘living with Covid’ measures
The prime minister is to announce the end of the legal duty to self-isolate after testing positive for Covid-19 next week.
Downing Street said Boris Johnson will lay out his intentions to repeal all pandemic regulations that restrict public freedoms in England as part of his “living with Covid” plan on Monday.
Continue reading...Council chair says decision not guided by data or made in consultation with health profession
Ending all Covid restrictions is premature and “not based on current evidence”, the British Medical Association has said, as experts warned dropping testing and self-isolation could lead to a surge in cases.
Boris Johnson told MPs last week that he was preparing to lift the legal requirement in England to self-isolate on 24 February, a month earlier than originally planned, with a formal announcement expected on Monday.
Continue reading...Yes, we need to do something about obesity. But this new legislation seems unlikely to help
Everything I am, I owe to calories, as Sophia Loren never quite said. I have built myself, one edible unit of energy at a time. In truth I have more than built myself. I am over-engineered, in the way Mussolini’s Milan railway station is over-engineered, or Jason Momoa is over-engineered. See how deftly I compare myself to Momoa? We are exactly the same, him and me. Save that every calorie he consumes turns into a plank of rippling muscle, while mine turn into the greatest muffin top this side of the Greggs cake counter. But it’s all flesh, right?
Ah, calories. Mostly I try to ignore them; to regard them as I do the isobars on a meteorologist’s map which in no way describe the experience of standing outside in a howling gale. I know that not all calories are equal; that calories from carbs impact the body differently to those obtained from protein, for example. I also know that we all process foods differently. I have a metabolism that suggests I may at some point have been gene-spliced with a sloth, and hence spend hours in the gym brutalising myself. I also like my dinner very much. I regard the diet book industry as a massive scam. If a single diet book worked there would be no need to publish another one ever again. But still they come.
Continue reading...Last week Boris Johnson announced that all Covid regulations in England, including the requirement to isolate after testing positive, were due to be abolished on 24 February. Whilst the Omicron variant has caused fewer hospitalisations and deaths than many predicted, some scientists say the changes may be going too far, too soon. Madeleine Finlay gets the Guardian science correspondent Hannah Devlin’s view on whether there’s scientific evidence backing up this decision and what the changes could look like
Archive: Daily Mail, Sky News
Continue reading...Former Tory PM fiercely attacks Johnson and issues barely veiled challenge to MPs to remove him
Boris Johnson broke lockdown laws, appears to believe rules do not apply to him and is creating an atmosphere of mistrust in politics that threatens the long-term democratic future of the UK, Sir John Major has said.
In a fierce and wide-ranging attack, Major said Johnson had regularly sent ministers out to “defend the indefensible”, with the truth seen as “optional”, and was badly tarnishing the UK’s reputation overseas with populist-style “megaphone diplomacy”.
Continue reading...Analysis: Plans to end isolation rules have been gleefully announced, but questions about infection control remain
As the threat of the Omicron wave has receded in England, the government has been quick to move the conversation on to “living with Covid”.
It was inevitable that this would mean the eventual lifting of legal restrictions, including the need to self-isolate. But even given the optimistic tone in recent weeks, Boris Johnson’s announcement on Wednesday came sooner than many expected.
Continue reading...How does England’s move to end self-isolation compare with rules in other European countries?
Boris Johnson has announced plans to abolish the legal requirement for people in England to self-isolate, even if they test positive for the coronavirus and have symptoms.
The move, planned for later this month, would represent “an important step for this country as we move out of the pandemic”, said the prime minister’s spokesperson. “It shows that the hard work of the British people is paying off.”
Continue reading...Culture secretary dismisses resignation calls over ‘partygate’ after another Tory says PM should go
The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has rejected calls for Boris Johnson to resign in order to restore trust after the “partygate” scandal, claiming that the “vast majority” of the party were behind the prime minister.
It comes after the former schools minister, Nick Gibb, became the latest Conservative MP to publicly call for Johnson to go, citing constituents “furious about the double standards” and the prime minster’s “inaccurate” statements in the Commons.
Continue reading...As most UK countries start including reinfections in overall total, we look at why this is happening now
With reinfections now included in the daily Covid case numbers for most countries in the UK, we take a look at why the shift matters.
Continue reading...Nuvaxovid is similar to flu jab and may have reduced side-effects, which could persuade vaccine holdouts
The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax has been approved by the UK regulator for use in people over the age of 18.
The vaccine will not be immediately widely available as its use as part of the UK’s vaccination programme will be considered by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Continue reading...Dozen UK companies given VIP fast-track contracts to supply PPE to NHS paid idled staff at taxpayers’ expense
Companies handed a combined £1.3bn in controversial fast-track Covid contracts with minimal scrutiny also claimed at least £1m in furlough grants, it can be revealed.
Analysis of the accounts of companies that won lucrative emergency contracts to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS during the height of the pandemic shows 12 also claimed funds to put staff on furlough at taxpayers’ expense.
Continue reading...My friend Peter Greaves, who has died aged 89, was a health and nutrition officer for Unicef whose work made a huge difference to children’s lives around the world. He was an early advocate of low-cost interventions including immunisation, oral rehydration and breastfeeding.
While he was Unicef’s chief nutrition adviser in the mid-1980s, he managed to get Unicef and the World Health Organization to agree on the final draft of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. This document helped transform global maternal care policies.
Continue reading...Minister says lower severity of Omicron variant ‘opens the window for us to look at it’
Downing Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.
A decision would be made “in the course of the next few days”, according to Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury. He said the lower severity of the Omicron variant of Covid did “open a space” for the policy to be reversed.
Continue reading...Requirement to take lateral flow test will end from 4am on 11 February, cheered by airlines as a ‘landmark’
Coronavirus testing for double-vaccinated travellers arriving in the UK will be scrapped from 4am on 11 February.
In a boost for travel firms and families planning trips abroad, eligible passengers will no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test (LFT). The change will save families about £100 a trip. The industry body Airlines UK said it was a “landmark day”.
Continue reading...Coronavirus pandemic’s finishing line has not yet come clearly into focus for millions of people
“We must learn to live with Covid in the same way we have to live with flu,” Sajid Javid told the nation this week. For most people, the parallel with flu is now valid: vaccinations and acquired immunity have defanged Covid to the point that there is no longer much risk of becoming severely unwell.
However, the pandemic’s finishing line has not yet come clearly into focus for a sizeable minority in society. In England, 3.7 million people fall in the clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) category, including those with blood cancers, an organ transplant, kidney disease and other conditions linked to immunosuppression.
Continue reading...Analysis: Experts say when the rules are relaxed there tends to be a gradual erosion of protective behaviours
All plan B measures in England will be lifted next week, meaning an end to compulsory mask-wearing in shops, vaccine certificates for entering venues, and guidance to work from home. But are the public ready to embrace these freedoms just weeks after Covid cases in the UK hit a record high and with daily deaths higher now than when the measures were introduced?
Some are likely to feel more than ready to cast aside restrictions that have been financially and personally cumbersome, while others may fear things are moving too quickly. Regardless of the range of attitudes, changing the rules will shift behaviour.
Continue reading...Former minister demands PM’s resignation in Commons, one Conservative MP defects and others clamour for concessions
Boris Johnson has faced a defection and a demand to quit from one of his most senior MPs during a dramatic day in Westminster, with even allies of the prime minister warning the current situation cannot go on.
David Davis caused shockwaves when he told Johnson in the Commons: “In the name of God, go.” Less than an hour earlier, Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, quit the Conservatives and joined Labour in fury at the Downing Street parties scandal.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson has announced updates to Covid regulations as plan B measures are due to expire. The work-from-home mandate will be dropped, as will mandatory face mask-wearing, including in classrooms. Rules over self-isolation after a positive Covid test remain in place
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