Cambridge doctors record sharp fall in infections after 12 days in Covid test analysis on healthcare workers
A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine can reduce asymptomatic infections by 75%, according to research that suggests the jab could substantially curtail transmission of the disease.
Doctors in Cambridge recorded the sharp fall in infections after 12 days of the first shot in an analysis of Covid tests performed on healthcare workers in the last two weeks of January.
Continue reading...The government is reviewing the options on proof of vaccination or testing status
The idea of vaccine certificates has gained traction in England, as the government weighs their potential usefulness in reopening sectors of society against concerns about privacy and discrimination.
As ministers prepare to launch a review into whether to introduce the documents, here are the key questions to be answered.
Continue reading...Analysis: many on the Tory backbenches want Covid restrictions over by end of April
When Boris Johnson stands at the dispatch box on Monday to deliver his roadmap for easing Covid restrictions for what he hopes will be the final time, there is likely to be a sigh of relief from his scientific advisers who will have won the most recent battle.
Johnson is now gearing up for the next tussle, which will be with his MPs. There is a truce with the cabinet.
Continue reading...PM to unveil proposals for England on Monday, with shops and restaurants facing longer wait
Social contact with loved ones will take precedence over the reopening of shops and hospitality when Boris Johnson sets out his roadmap for lifting restrictions in England on Monday, with school sports and family picnics offered as a trade-off for a longer closure of retail and restaurants.
Johnson will order the reopening of all schools on 8 March and pledge that two families or a group of six friends will be allowed to meet outdoors three weeks later, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...England waits to see if PM will stay restrained or bow to backbench pressure with Covid plan
It was an uncharacteristically subdued Boris Johnson who announced from Downing Street that Britain had surpassed the first, phenomenally ambitious target of giving 15 million people a coronavirus vaccine: this was a success, yes, but it was “no moment to relax”, the prime minister said on Monday.
The boosterish rhetoric has been restrained for several weeks – gone is the talk that led to claims there would be normality by November last year, or that it would be “inhuman” to cancel Christmas. Now, escape from the third lockdown must be “cautious but irreversible”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: government analysis reveals unmet financial needs of many people needing to self-isolate
A “perfect storm” of low wages, cramped housing and failures of the £22bn test-and-trace scheme has led to “stubbornly high” coronavirus rates in England’s most deprived communities, an unpublished government report has found.
A classified analysis by the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), produced last month, concluded that “unmet financial needs” meant people in poorer areas were less likely to be able to self-isolate because they could not afford to lose income.
Continue reading...Analysis: Operation Moonshot rhetoric has been toned down but tests will help spot variants
When the government’s Operation Moonshot plans for mass testing of the population for Covid-19 were first revealed, the intention was to use that as the route out of perpetual cycles of lockdown.
It was described as a £100bn-plus endeavour, with resources likened to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret wartime endeavour led by the US to develop a nuclear bomb.
Continue reading...New modelling identifies more higher-risk adults, of which 800,000 will be offered priority vaccination
Nearly 2 million more people in England will be asked to shield and 800,000 of those offered priority vaccination as a result of new modelling that has identified adults at higher risk from Covid-19 because of a combination of health factors and their circumstances, including ethnicity and low income.
Until now the NHS identified those most at risk on the basis usually of a single underlying health condition, such as specific cancers, together with age. But a more sophisticated modelling tool developed by the University of Oxford has shown that the shielding list should nearly double, adding 1.7 million people on the basis of multiple risk factors.
Continue reading...Backbenchers’ calls dismissed but clamour for a more fixed schedule seems set to increase
Downing Street is pushing back against pressure from Conservative MPs to set a swift timetable to end the lockdown in England after meeting its first major vaccination target, saying any hastiness in reopening could risk undoing the progress made in combating the coronavirus pandemic.
In a sign of the likely battle ahead in the coming weeks, ministers and officials flatly ruled out a demand from Tory backbenchers for all Covid restrictions to be over by the start of May, saying any plan needed to be both more cautious and decided step by step.
Continue reading...Exclusive: early detection hailed as ‘major breakthrough’ for treatment of Britain’s deadliest form of cancer
Thousands of lives could be saved if people at risk of developing Britain’s deadliest cancer were screened to diagnose it before it becomes incurable, a major NHS study has found.
Giving smokers and ex-smokers a CT scan uncovers cancerous lung tumours when they are at an early enough stage so they can still be removed, rather than continuing to grow unnoticed, it shows.
Continue reading...Border staff not briefed about even basics of Covid protection system starting on Monday, says union
Immigration officials expected to enforce a mandatory quarantine intended to protect the UK from new coronavirus variants have not been briefed on even the basics about how the system will work, little more than 48 hours before it begins, the Guardian has been told.
The Immigration Services Union (ISU), which represents many of the Home Office’s immigration officers, said that before the start on Monday of the new policy, staff had not been told if they would be expected to check for arrivals who had not properly declared their status, or when and how those obliged to quarantine would be taken to hotels.
Continue reading...With flights cancelled and travellers having to pay for hotel costs, three people talk about their difficulties returning to Britain
With many flights cancelled, and travellers facing hotel quarantine costs of £1,750 to return from high-risk countries that come into effect on Monday, some British residents have become stuck overseas. Three people have spoken about the difficulties they face in returning to the UK, and the costs they may incur.
Continue reading...Jessica Elgot and John Crace look at why the latest coronavirus travel restrictions might not work the way the government expects. Plus, Helen Davidson and Jon Henley on how the world sees the UK’s Covid response
In response to the myriad of new Covid-19 variants entering the UK, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced in the Commons on Tuesday that travellers arriving from coronavirus hotspots who refuse to adhere to the new restrictions could face £10,000 fines and jail sentences of up to 10 years. The move might seem extreme, but given how long we have known about variants cropping up since the new year, many are asking, is it too little too late?
The housing minister, Robert Jenrick, has announced billions of pounds in extra support to address the cladding crisis exposed after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. Will it be enough to help hundreds of thousands of people feel safe again in their own homes?
Continue reading...The health secretary tries to stay upbeat despite the bad news about the South African variant
It had all been going so well. The government was on track to vaccinate the top four priority groups within the timeframe it had promised. Something that had astonished even Matt Hancock, one of the most naturally optimistic members of the cabinet. But then had come the bad news. Initial trials had suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine didn’t appear to be that effective against the South African variant of the coronavirus and it turned out no one had actually yet got round to agreeing any contracts with hotel chains for quarantining arrivals from countries on the government’s red list.
So it was a somewhat subdued – brittle even – health secretary who fronted Monday’s Downing Street press conference. Hancock tried to remain upbeat but he’s beginning to look frayed around the edges. A year of trying to hold it together, of being that glass-half-full guy, appears to have taken its toll. Outwardly he still looks like one of the first contestants to be thrown off The Apprentice, but his eyes are the giveaway. They are almost dead. Empty hollows. I’m not sure how much longer he can keep this up. Even Tiggers have their breaking point.
Continue reading...The UK vaccine deployment minister, Nadhim Zahawi, says volunteers are being sought for a world-first trial giving a first dose of one vaccine type and a second dose of another. Run by the University of Oxford, it will recruit 820 people over the age of 50 to receive a first dose of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine
Matt Hancock said the government would take firm action to stamp out the South African Covid variant in the UK. The health secretary said 105 cases of the variant have been identified, including 11 without a direct connection to international travel. 'Our mission must be to stop its spread altogether and break its chains of transmission,' he said, as he summarised door-to-door testing efforts taking place in areas affected
Continue reading...Clément Beaune says French would not accept such risks, as he defends EU’s slower progress
Britain has taken “a lot of risks” in its Covid vaccination programme that would be intolerable to the French public, France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, has said in defence of the EU’s record on vaccines.
With 14% of the UK adult population having received a first jab, compared with 3% of people across the 27 EU member states, there is growing discontent in the bloc.
Continue reading...Trade secretary had previously hinted supplies may not be diverted until UK population was vaccinated
The UK could help the EU and other nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies even before the domestic vaccination programme has been completed, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said.
As ministers sought to smooth relations with Brussels after the EU’s much-criticised and swiftly rescinded decision to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Truss sought to stress the need for international cooperation.
Continue reading...The UK can help EU nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said, but only if it does not affect the government’s timetable for vaccinating its own population. She told Sky News's Sophy Ridge: 'We first need to make sure that our population is vaccinated ... It’s a bit too early to say how we would deploy vaccines but we certainly want to work with friends and neighbours, we want to work with developing countries'
US firm Innova believed to be largest beneficiary of contracts after selling millions of Covid tests that are dividing opinion
Dominic Cummings’ plan to test millions of people a day for coronavirus led the government to spend over £800m on quick turnaround tests that were later found in a pilot to give the wrong results as much as 60% of the time, the Guardian can reveal.
Operation Moonshot, a mass testing scheme championed by the prime minister’s former chief adviser, prompted the government to buy huge numbers of so-called lateral flow tests from a company owned by a little-known US private equity house.
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