Category Archives: Health policy

Covid could overwhelm NHS without more curbs, northern leaders told

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Decision expected on whether to extend tier 3 rules to Greater Manchester and Lancashire

Deaths from coronavirus will continue to rise for at least three weeks and the NHS risks being overwhelmed unless the strictest curbs are imposed on another 4 million people, leaders in northern England have been told.

A decision on whether to extend tier 3 restrictions – closing pubs and restaurants and banning household mixing – to Greater Manchester and Lancashire is expected on Thursday.

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Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’

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Open letter calling for new Covid-19 strategy also signed by ‘Prof Cominic Dummings’

An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

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Pubs and restaurants: do scientists think Covid closures and curfews work?

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While virus can spread easily in crowded indoor venues, 10pm cut-off is questionable

Pubs, bars and restaurants in Scotland will be banned from serving alcohol to customers indoors for more than two weeks, while pubs in northern England face the possibility of tighter restrictions. But what does the science say?

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Scottish pubs lash out at ‘catastrophic’ Covid crackdown

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Bar and restaurant owners say they are ‘getting picked on’ and measures will hit young staff

The Scottish government is facing a fierce backlash after Nicola Sturgeon announced a crackdown on indoor drinking in licensed premises, as one leading adviser said more needed to be done to ensure people were sticking to the rules in their own homes.

Scottish pub, bar and restaurant owners expressed anger and despair at “catastrophic” and “scapegoating” new regulations that are set to last for 16 days across the country, and people on online forums decried the “prohibition” that would result from harsher restrictions in central Scotland.

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Ministers accused of putting lives at risk with Covid data error

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Matt Hancock says no lockdowns need to be changed because of 16,000 unreported cases

Ministers have been accused of “putting lives at risk” through data failures which led to nearly 16,000 coronavirus cases going unreported in England, but Matt Hancock insisted the problem had been addressed.

Updating the Commons after it emerged that data transfer errors between laboratories and Public Health England (PHE) meant 15,841 positive results were left off daily figures between 25 September and 2 October, the health secretary said just over half those missed were now having their contacts traced.

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Did early focus on hand washing and not masks aid spread of Covid-19?

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Increasing number of scientists believe risk from contaminated surfaces may have been overplayed

From the moment coronavirus reached UK shores, public health advice stressed the importance of washing hands and deep-cleaning surfaces to reduce the risk of becoming infected.

The advice was informed by mountains of research into the transmission of other respiratory viruses: it was the best scientists could do with such a new pathogen.

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Leak reveals possible harsher three-tier Covid plan for England

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Exclusive: government documents suggest potential pub closures and stricter social contact rules

A new three-tier lockdown system is being planned for England, with leaked government documents paving the way for potential harsher restrictions including the closure of pubs and a ban on all social contact outside of household groups.

The draft traffic-light-style plan, seen by the Guardian, is designed to simplify the current patchwork of localised restrictions, which apply to about a quarter of the UK. It also reveals tougher measures that could be imposed by the government locally or nationally if Covid cases are not brought under control.

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Coronavirus UK: Sage expert warns of 100 deaths a day within four weeks

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‘We need to make sure that transmission comes down now,’ says Prof Graham Medley

The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll will rise from 34 to 100 a day in three to four weeks’ time, an expert on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has warned.

Infectious disease modelling expert Prof Graham Medley said there is little that can be done now to prevent daily deaths climbing to 100 – but “we need to make sure transmission comes down now” to prevent the figure increasing further.

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What lessons can Europe learn from Sweden’s Covid-19 experience?

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Experts say that while contested ‘light touch’ response warrants study each country must find right approach for them

EU governments that locked down are increasingly emulating the one that did not, but experts warn that Sweden’s Covid approach, relying more on voluntary compliance than coercion, will not suit all – and big questions remain over whether it has worked for Sweden.

As infections surge in several European countries, France, which is currently averaging nearly 12,000 cases a day, has ruled out another national lockdown, instead pursuing a strategy the prime minister, Jean Castex, calls “living with the virus” and imposing local measures.

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Raising of UK Covid alert level opens door to major restrictions

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Chief medical officers agree jump to level 4, meaning virus is ‘high or rising exponentially’

The UK’s Covid-19 alert level has been raised to four, meaning the virus is “high or rising exponentially” – a move which will give Boris Johnson cover for significant new restrictions to stem the surge of the virus.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the change “reflects the significant shift in the current threat posed by coronavirus”. He added: “This country now faces a tipping point in its response and it is vital everybody plays their part now to stop the spread of the virus and protect lives.”

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Can the UK avoid 50,000 Covid-19 cases a day?

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Continued doubling of infection rate feared by top advisers is unlikely to happen, say some experts

On one thing, everyone agrees: the UK is at a turning point.

After a summer of crowded beaches and pubs reopening, followed by children returning to school and employees going back to the workplace, new cases of Covid-19 are definitely on the rise.

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BAME Britons still lack protection from Covid, says doctors’ chief

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More than a third of coronavirus intensive care patients are from ethnic minorities

A third of coronavirus patients in intensive care are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, prompting the head of the British Medical Association to warn that government inaction will be responsible for further disproportionate deaths.

Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA Council chair, was the first public figure to call for an inquiry into whether and why there was a disparity between BAME and white people in Britain in terms of how they were being affected by the pandemic, in April.

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Covid-19: UK test and trace ‘barely functional’ as 11 million face lockdown

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With local lockdowns set to spread, report shows 90% of tests failing to hit turnaround target

The coronavirus test and trace system was condemned as “barely functional” today as its tsar admitted that demand was up to four times capacity, while 90% of tests were failing to hit the 24-hour turnaround target.

The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, relatives and workmates of people diagnosed with Covid-19 – the entire length of the self-isolation period.

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Coronavirus: 86% of doctors in England expect second wave in next six months

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BMA survey also found 90% thought test-and-trace failures were a risk factor

Almost 86% of doctors in England say they expect a second peak of coronavirus in the next six months, according to a new survey, as concern continues to grow over a recent rise in cases.

On Friday, new results from a population-based study suggested the R number for England is now at 1.7, with infections doubling every 7.7 days. While the prevalence of the disease remains lower than it was in the spring, an R value above 1 means cases could grow exponentially.

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‘It’s world-leadingly bad, is what it is’: the week Covid surged again in UK

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Queues for tests are growing, Tory MPs are agitated and doctors are sceptical about the ‘moonshot’

For Alex, an NHS call centre worker, the signs that coronavirus was back in earnest came when his phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

Over the summer, Alex would log on at home to see 70 or 80 people in the queue for advice on booking an appointment for a Covid test. “You’d get answered in a few minutes,” he said. “Last week, that went up to about 100. By this week it was 1,500.”

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Coronavirus cases rise steeply among young people in England

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Rates growing fastest among those aged 10-29, and decreasing in the older age groups

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, implored young people to stick to the rules as Covid-19 infections in the UK rose to their highest levels since early May.

It is not known why case rates are higher among young people, but England-level data shows they are rising steeply.

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Test and trace in the UK: how well are we doing?

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Despite 2.43 people per 1,000 being tested for Covid-19 daily labs are stretched and people are slipping through the net

Ministers say the UK has a greater testing capacity than other countries of its size, with 2.43 people tested each day for every 1,000 in the population. That compares with 1.15 in Germany and France, and one in Spain.

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Mass weekly Covid-19 testing of population to be trialled in England

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Jeremy Hunt says UK should embrace repeat testing as route to more ‘normal life’

The UK government is to trial routine weekly Covid testing of the population as part of preparations to head off a possible winter second wave, as the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt called for such tests to become the norm.

Matt Hancock said the government was committing an extra £500m to scale up testing capacity and launch community pilots trialling the effectiveness of repeat testing in schools and colleges, as well as in the population as a whole. It will also ramp up the trials of a new test kit that it is claimed can provide results within 20 minutes.

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Plymouth divided over teenagers who tested positive for Covid after Greece trip

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Some locals believe the ‘Zante 30’ were selfish while others say they did nothing wrong

They’ve become known – somewhat infamously - as the Zante 30.

Just as the pubs, cafes and shops on the Barbican in Plymouth were gearing up for a bumper bank holiday weekend, with visitors and city residents expected to arrive on the Devon waterside to drink, eat and be merry, the news came.

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