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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Children’s groups call for meal provision to extend to families barred from UK state support
Thousands of children from migrant families are at risk of hunger when schools reopen in the UK unless the free meal provision is extended, according to a group of 60 organisations.
The Children’s Society, Action for Children, Project 17 and Unison are among the organisations that have written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to extend free school meals to pupils from low-income migrant families classed as having “no recourse to public funds”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Matt Hancock is advocate of plan to raise tax to cover cost of care in later life
Everyone over 40 would start contributing towards the cost of care in later life under radical plans being studied by ministers to finally end the crisis in social care, the Guardian can reveal.
Under the plan over-40s would have to pay more in tax or national insurance, or be compelled to insure themselves against hefty bills for care when they are older. The money raised would then be used to pay for the help that frail elderly people need with washing, dressing and other activities if still at home, or to cover their stay in a care home.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer presses PM over scientists’ call for preparations for possible second wave
Boris Johnson has indicated he has not read a government-commissioned report setting out urgent measures needed to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus, telling the Commons only that he was “aware” of it.
Johnson was questioned at length by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions about the study by 37 senior doctors and scientists, published this week, and the need for an effective test-and-trace system to mitigate any new outbreak.
Continue reading...Experts say further investigation of link is urgently required and may be relevant to managing pandemic
Air pollution is likely to be increasing the number and severity of Covid-19 infections, according to the UK government’s expert advisers.
In a report published on Wednesday, the experts said further investigation of the link between dirty air and the coronavirus pandemic was “urgently required” and may be relevant to how the pandemic is managed.
Continue reading...The PM’s commission will be the latest in a line of initiatives examining race inequalities
Boris Johnson has announced a “cross-governmental commission” into racial disparities in education, health and criminal justice. It is the latest of a series of reports into ethnic injustices over recent years.
Continue reading...Richard Horton does not hold back in his criticism of the UK’s response to the pandemic and the medical establishment’s part in backing fatal government decisions
There is a school of thought that says now is not the time to criticise the government and its scientific advisers about the way they have handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Wait until all the facts are known and the crisis has subsided, goes this thinking, and then we can analyse the performance of those involved. It’s safe to say that Richard Horton, the editor of the influential medical journal the Lancet, is not part of this school.
An outspoken critic of what he sees as the medical science establishment’s acquiescence to government, he has written a book that he calls a “reckoning” for the “missed opportunities and appalling misjudgments” here and abroad that have led to “the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of citizens”.
Continue reading...Research suggests the average number of people one person infects may be increasing – but opinions differ as to why
With models suggesting that R could have risen above 1 in some parts of the UK, we look at what that means and how concerned we should be:
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing also fears lifting of more restrictions on ‘happy Monday’ is too early
Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmisson has been eroded.
The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.
Continue reading...Britain’s highly rated disease preparation failed on coronavirus – possibly because ministers followed a plan for flu
When the coronavirus struck, the British government repeatedly said it was among the best-prepared countries in the world – with some justification. As recently as October, an international review of pandemic planning ranked the UK the second best prepared country in the world (behind the US).
Two months on, any breezy confidence has evaporated. The government is facing growing complaints over a series of policy missteps that critics say are responsible for the worst death toll in Europe.
Continue reading...Allegations raise questions over Movianto’s management of government stocks during coronavirus outbreak
The private firm contracted to run the government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) was beset by “chaos” at its warehouse that may have resulted in delays in deploying vital supplies to healthcare workers, according to sources who have spoken to the Guardian and ITV News.
The allegations from delivery drivers and other well–placed sources raise questions about whether Movianto, the subsidiary of a US healthcare giant, was able to adequately manage and distribute the nation’s emergency stockpile of PPE for use in a pandemic.
Continue reading...Just one in five want schools, pubs and restaurants to be reopened, according to new poll by Opinium
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Fewer than one in five of the British public believe the time is right to consider reopening schools, restaurants, pubs and stadiums. The findings, in a new poll for the Observer, suggest Boris Johnson will struggle to convince people to return their lives to normal if he tries to ease the lockdown soon.
The poll by Opinium, taken between Wednesday and Friday last week, found 17% of people think the conditions have been met to consider reopening schools, against 67% who say they have not been, and that they should stay closed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: guidance to avoid examining systemic failures is ‘very worrying’, says Labour
Inquests into coronavirus deaths among NHS workers should avoid examining systemic failures in provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), coroners have been told, in a move described by Labour as “very worrying”.
The chief coroner for England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC, has issued guidance that “an inquest would not be a satisfactory means of deciding whether adequate general policies and arrangements were in place for provision of PPE to healthcare workers”.
Continue reading...Brussels says UK was briefed on bulk-buying plan and given ‘ample opportunity’ to join
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is facing fresh pressure over the protection offered to NHS staff after the European commission said the UK had been given “ample opportunity” to join an EU scheme bulk-buying masks, gowns, gloves and goggles.
After a day of confusion in Westminster over the UK’s lack of involvement in the EU’s joint procurement of equipment, a spokesman for the commission appeared to bolster the claim that ministers had taken a “political decision” to opt out.
Continue reading...Heavier sentences for violent criminals among policies aimed at wooing Labour voters
Violent and sexual criminals as well as foreign national offenders who return to the UK will face drastically heavier penalties under measures that will form the centrepiece of a Queen’s speech aimed at wresting the agenda away from the delicate Brexit negotiations.
With just days to go before the deadline for Boris Johnson to clinch a last-ditch Brexit deal in Brussels, the Queen will on Monday set out his government’s priorities for a new session of parliament, including 22 new bills.
Continue reading...Top child psychiatrist appeals to Johnson over Home Office’s ‘almost callous’ decision
A leading children’s psychiatrist plans to quit the NHS and move to Australia because of the Home Office’s “almost callous” refusal to let his mother stay in Britain.
Dr Nishchint Warikoo, the lead psychiatrist for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Hampshire, said he and his family were being “forced to leave” the UK in order to stay together.
Continue reading...The harrowing experiences that Fred Sai faced as a young medical officer in Ghana in the 1960s fuelled his concern about the link between frequent childbearing and preventable death and sickness in mothers and children, and turned him into a passionate campaigner for reproductive rights and health in the developing world.
In his early clinical work, Sai, who has died aged 95, came across many children with protein-energy malnutrition, or kwashiorkor, which in the language of the Ga ethnic group to which he belonged means “the disease of the displaced child”. “I realised that fully a third of my child patients had mothers who were pregnant or had a young sibling born very soon after them,” he told the Lancet in 2012. “The abrupt stopping of breastfeeding was making them sick. I thought that one way to help these women was to teach them family planning and the importance of spacing children properly.”
Continue reading...Individual liability removed but duty requires police, councils and NHS to work together to tackle violence
A new legal duty on public health bodies in England to tackle serious violence, including knife crime, must be backed by cash if it is to be effective, organisations have warned.
The public health duty, requiring bodies to share data, intelligence and knowledge, will be announced by the government this week, following the conclusion of an eight-week consultation.
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