Boris Johnson begged Britons to ‘stay at home this weekend’ today as he moved to cool rising optimism that the coronavirus outbreak is starting to ease and the vaccination drive is making good progress.
As the UK recorded 55,761 new cases – down a fifth on last Friday – the PM issued a video appealing for the public not to weaken, saying they must ‘think twice’ before leaving the house.
Speaking ahead of a press conference at 5pm, he urged everyone to behave as if they have the virus, warning that asymptomatic ‘silent spreaders’ are unwittingly fuelling the crisis and the next person infected ‘could be you’.
The grim message came as the Covid death toll went up by another 1,280, although that was also slightly below the equivalent day last week.
The Prime Minister is facing demands to take advantage of the space created by the tough restrictions to push ahead on vaccinations as figures showed the number of jabs being administered rocketing to 320,000 a day. Almost 3.7million doses have been given out.
Hopes the peak of the second wave has finally passed have grown after a raft of official data and scientific estimates offered the strongest evidence yet that restrictions are tackling the mutant strain.
SAGE said today that the R number is between 1.2 and 1.3 – down from 1.4 last week – and the growth rate was between 2 per cent and 5 per cent a day. However, the group stressed that the data represent the average situation over the past few weeks, rather than the present state of play, with daily cases steadily falling.
Cambridge University researchers have said they believe R is below 1 in the East of England, London, the South East, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Public Health England revealed yesterday that weekly Covid cases fell in every age group except the over-80s, while Department of Health figures showed dozens of boroughs saw a drop in infection rates.
Mr Johnson has shelved the idea of toughening lockdown for now, after days of swirling rumours that non-essential click and collect and exercising with a friend could be banned in England.
But despite the optimism over the vaccine rollout there are still huge challenges, with new figures today showing the economy is on track for a double-dip recession. GDP was down 2.6 per cent during the looser national lockdown in November.
Tory MPs in London and mayor Sadiq Khan are also angry that the capital seems to be lagging behind in the vaccine drive.
SAGE today published its weekly estimates of the R rate across the country and said the rate of spread appears to be coming down in regions that have been in lockdown since they were put in Tier 4 in December – London, the East and the South East
On another tumultuous day in the pandemic:
- One of the Covid variants detected in Brazil is already in the UK, a government scientist has revealed;
- All flights from Portugal and South America were finally banned amid fears over a mutant strain;
- A leading statistics expert has said cases peaked ‘a good few days ago’ and deaths should start to level off in a week to 10 days;
- The UK in on track for another recession after GDP tumbled by 2.6 per cent in November as the second coronavirus lockdown hammered the economy;
- Tory MPs have voiced concerns over the ‘very low’ vaccine rollout in London which lags behind most of England – despite having the highest levels of infection;
- Fears have been voiced about the supply of goods crossing the border amid claims France wants lorry drivers to take PCR tests, which can take three days to give results, rather than rapid lateral flow versions;
- Ministers have unveiled a controversial new government advertising campaign warning meeting someone for a coffee could ‘cost a life’;
- A total of 4.46million people were waiting to start hospital treatment in England at the end of November, the highest since records began;
- A report claimed Covid had caused the largest fall in Britain’s population since the Second World War.
Above is the case rates by age groups in the UK. The highest levels are in the 20-29 and 30-39 age groups, data from the ZOE Covid-19 study shows
Boris Johnson speaks with the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourle and his team by video link in Downing Street yesterday
The latest PHE surveillance update shows an improvement in the outbreak in the week up to January 10
Mr Johnson is expected to take a Downing Street press conference this evening to update the country on the situation.
Another 1,248 laboratory-confirmed fatalities were posted last night, bringing the official death toll to 86,015.
The figure was up 7.4 per cent in a week. Another 4,256 Covid patients were admitted to hospital, meaning there are almost 37,000 NHS beds taken up by infected Britons.
The NHS is expected to remain under huge strain for months to come, as the trend in hospital admissions and deaths lags weeks behind cases.
And Mr Johnson is still facing calls from experts to tighten the controls.
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said last night that he believes the mid-February target for vaccinations will be met and should be raised.
‘Everyone I’ve spoken to who understands what’s happening with vaccination seems to think they will meet this target,’ he told BBC Question Time.
‘So I think they will meet that target, but they need to go further and faster. Because if we were able to vaccinate just under 30 million people, we would reduce hospitalisations and deaths by 99 per cent, and we should be targeting that now.’
Modelling by Cambridge scientists — whose warnings of 4,000 deaths a day spooked No10 into imposing England’s second lockdown — bolstered claims that the original restrictions were working.
The team said cases began to drop on December 21 and that the ban on Christmas mixing in the worst-hit areas worked to cut the spread.
The experts – who believe deaths will peak ‘over the coming days’ – also put the UK’s R-number at now less than one, despite the latest official Government estimate issued last week claiming it was between one and 1.4.
The powerful Covid O Cabinet committee met yesterday to consider the state of play, including signing off a travel ban from South America due to fears over an emerging super-strain in Brazil. However, it did not ramp up the lockdown in England.
Ministers are instead focusing on improving compliance, with an ad campaign delivering alarming messages such as: ‘Don’t let a coffee cost lives.’
Professor Andrew Hayward, director of the University College London (UCL) Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said last week’s data on cases ‘probably relates to the lockdown measures’.
But he told Times Radio: ‘My concern is that what we’ve really got going on here is we’ve more or less split the population in two – those who can afford to stay at home and work and those who can’t.
‘I suspect what we’re really seeing is a very fast decline in those who are staying at home, and either a levelling off or potentially even a continuing increase in those who are continuing to work.’
He said the national picture was also being impacted by the two different strains of the virus.
He added that ‘what concerns me’ is there is more activity than in the first lockdown, with three times as many people now using the London Underground and twice as many people using cars and buses.
Asked if further lockdown measures were necessary, he said: ‘I do’, adding it needed to be possible for ‘those people who can’t afford to work from home to work from home with the right financial packages to support that’.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter of the Statistical Laboratory at Cambridge University has said coronavirus deaths are likely to peak in the next week to 10 days.
Sir David said the lockdown measures were having an impact, with the peak in infections having passed ‘a good few days ago’ which would lead to a reduction in the numbers dying from the disease.
‘They are likely to level off in a week – 10 days maybe – at a peak which is probably going to be bigger than the first wave peak of 1,000-a-day, but then should decline due the reductions in cases that we are seeing and, of course, the vaccine programme,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One.
He warned, however, that hospital admissions would fall more slowly.
While the Government’s plan to vaccinate all over-70s and the clinically extremely vulnerable by mid-February covered around 90 per cent of those dying from the disease, he said only 55 per cent of those being admitted to hospital and 25 per cent of those in intensive care were over 70.
‘We are going to see the reduction in hospitalisations and in particular in intensive care is going to be a lot slower,’ Sir David said.
Tories today voiced concerns about the vaccination drive in London, after Mr Khan yesterday complained about a lack of supplies.
Only two per cent of people in the capital were vaccinated against coronavirus by January 10, compared to five per cent in the North East and Yorkshire. Fewer than 30 per cent of London’s over-80s have had the one dose of the vaccine — compared to the highest figure of 43.8 per cent in the North East and Yorkshire.
The first regional breakdown showed the Midlands had vaccinated the most people against the disease, managing to get first doses to 387,647 in the first month of the roll-out. This was more than double the 186,291 in the East of England and almost twice as many as London’s 199,986.
London has accounted for only 10 per cent of the country’s vaccinations so far despite being home to 16 per cent of the population with some nine million people. The capital and the East are the only regions where the share of vaccines has been smaller than the share of the population.
NHS leaders in the capital insist that London ‘is getting its fair share of vaccine supply’ and added: ‘We have more than 100 vaccination sites up and running across London, including the NHS Covid-19 vaccination centre in the ExCeL London, and more are opening all the time.’
But Tory MP for Wimbledon Stephen Hammond told MailOnline he was ‘concerned’ about the low vaccination rates – and said the capital needed to be ‘prioritised’ because people lived more closely together.
‘I want to make sure London is not left behind. I think they mayor has been rather slow on this,’ the former health minister said.
‘We need to make sure that London is getting the same share of vaccine as the rest of the country, and probably needs slightly higher priority because of the more dense living in London and that’s where some of the more vulnerable rates have been in the second outbreak.’
Other senior Conservatives said they were seeking urgent clarification from ministers on why the numbers were ‘very low’.
Leaked Government targets show that officials are planning to double the number of people protected against Covid next week alone, aiming to hit 500,000 jabs per day and add 3.6million people to the current total 2.6m. Data yesterday suggested that 223,726 jabs were done on Monday, showing the programme is expanding fast.
Modelling by the University of Cambridge, which is used by Public Health England and SAGE, suggests that the overall infection rate in England started to decline on December 21 when it peaked at 117,000 per day
Government scientists put the latest reproductive number – the R rate – for the UK at 1.2 to 1.3, for data examined up to January 11.
The R rate refers to the number of people that an infected person will pass the virus on to, with an R rate above 1 meaning the epidemic is still growing.
The scientists said: ‘There are some initial indications that areas that have had higher prevalence levels and been under tougher restrictions for a longer period of time (East of England, London, and South East) are experiencing a slight decline in the numbers of people infected.
‘Regions such as the North West and South West continue to see infections rise, which is likely to reflect the spread of the new (UK) variant in these areas.
‘The latest figures show that we need to remain vigilant to keep this virus under control, to protect the NHS and save lives.
‘We all need to play our part, and if everyone continues to follow the rules, we can expect to drive down the R number across the country.’
The data from Cambridge University’s ‘Nowcast’ modelling team seem to back up suggestions that cases were starting to come down at the start of the year.
Their analysis of deaths and hospital admissions suggests that coronavirus infections for England as a whole peaked at 117,000 per day on December 21 and have been falling almost consistently since to 60,200 per day by January 8.
The researchers, who work alongside Public Health England, suggested that infections remained high and rising in the East Midlands, North East, North West and South West into the New Year.
But in other areas where lockdowns were tougher in December, including the East of England, London and the South East – as well as the West Midlands and Yorkshire & The Humber – infections appeared to have started tumbling after Christmas.
They estimated that there are between 2,500 and 6,500 infections per day in the East, London, North East, South East, South West, West Midlands and Yorkshire & The Humber, but a significantly higher 16,300 per day in the North West.
The team make their calculations, which are fed into SAGE, by looking at confirmed Covid-19 deaths and the death rate, which can lead to estimates of earlier case counts, blood testing to look for numbers of past infections, and also officially recorded positive tests.
Their work has been controversial in the past after they predicted that England could hit 4,000 deaths per day at a peak in December and Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty used the terrifying number at a press conference. Scientists roundly dismissed the figure and the Cambridge team later reduced it significantly to fewer than 1,000.
Meanwhile, Downing Street said the feared Brazilian variant of coronavirus does not appear to affect vaccines, after a top virologist suggested a separate strain from Brazil is already in the country.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said scientists at the Government’s Porton Down research facility are currently investigating the new strain, which has been detected in travellers to Japan.
It has led to travellers from South America and Portugal being banned from entering the UK.
The PM’s spokesman said: ‘As with some of the other variants we’ve seen, the Kent (UK) variant and the South Africa variant, evidence does suggest that it (the concerning Brazil variant) may be more transmissible.
‘More research is required to confirm this and Porton Down will conduct that research but current evidence does not suggest that the strain causes any higher mortality rate or that it affects the vaccines or treatments.’
Downing Street said it had acted ‘as quickly as possible’ to impose the ban on travellers from South America, with the concerning Brazilian strain possibly posing a ‘significant risk to the UK’.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘It’s obviously right that we continue to look at different variants and take action accordingly.
‘As soon as we identified this variant, our teams were quickly working on this and, given that we know this could pose a significant risk to the UK, we acted as quickly as possible, which is why you’ve seen this travel ban from those countries enacted quickly.’
Earlier, Professor Wendy Barclay, G2P-UK lead and head of department of infectious disease and chairwoman in influenza virology at Imperial College London, was forced to clarify her comments after at first suggesting the concerning strain may be in the UK.
She later said: ‘The new Brazilian variant of concern, that was picked up in travellers going to Japan, has not been detected in the UK.
‘Other variants that may have originated from Brazil have been previously found.’
The virologist added that both Brazilian variants have mutations that suggest ‘they might impact the way that some people’s antibodies can see the virus’.
She added: ‘It is really important that we carry out this work now, and carry it out carefully, and in several different laboratories, to really firm up those results because they have big implications.’
Her comments came after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was ‘not aware’ of any cases of the concerning Brazilian strain in the UK which had led him to impose the restrictions, which came into force at 4am on Friday.
Why DO experts say the outbreak is slowing if the death toll is continuing to soar? How 21-day lag between getting infected and becoming severely ill means fatalities won’t peak for another fortnight
Prominent SAGE scientists have claimed Britain’s winter coronavirus wave is flattening after cases fell for four days straight — despite the country recording its worst death toll ever on Wednesday.
Another 1,564 more Covid fatalities were announced yesterday across the UK in the deadliest day since the pandemic began, with the total number of laboratory-confirmed victims on track to pass the grisly 100,000 mark by February.
But Sir Patrick Vallance, No10’s chief scientific officer, and Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling plunged the UK into its first lockdown in March, said there are ‘early signs’ the third national shutdown is slowing the crisis.
They have pointed to the fact that, nationally, the number of people catching Covid is trending downwards, with the 47,525 positive tests yesterday across Britain down by a quarter on last week’s figure.
But there is a roughly three-week time delay between someone catching the disease and dying from it, which means it takes about 21 days for a trend in cases to translate to the fatality figures.
Because Britain only went into lockdown a week ago, daily Covid deaths are likely to continue to rise for at least another fortnight before falling.
Here, MailOnline answers your questions on the UK’s current Covid situation:
Are cases going down everywhere?
Covid infection rates are falling across swathes of authorities in the UK, according to most recent official data up to January 8.
Cases are falling in boroughs in London, the South East and East of England — which were bearing the brunt of the winter wave ahead of the national shutdown on January 4.
Infections in Kent — one of the first areas of England to be slapped with the harshest local lockdown measures — were actually slowing before the third lockdown, suggesting the tough Tier Four restrictions in place there were having some effect.
In London, the number of people testing positive per 100,000 fell from a peak of 1,116 on January 4 to 1,005 by January 7. But there was a slight uptick again on January 8 across every region, according to Department of Health figures.
In the East of England dropped from 856 per 100,000 to 741 and in the South East from 774 to 679 in the same time period.
In areas with the lightest rules, however, cases continued to surge late into the year and, despite almost the entire country getting tougher rules on boxing day, continued to rise into the start of lockdown, with some still going up.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘It is too early to be confident that the data from the past few days have indeed meant we have now reached the peak.
‘The current positive signs may represent a statistical glitch or a short-lived effect causing recent increases to stall only for the surge to be resumed.
‘It is also still too early for this to be driven by the vaccination campaign. Nevertheless if the recent trend is maintained this would be very good news for our NHS.’
Why are infections still going up in some parts of country?
Infections are still going up in some parts of the country because it takes weeks for lockdown measures to take effect.
It is not by chance that the places where cases continue to climb are in areas that enjoyed looser restrictions in December.
For example, the Liverpool city region — formerly Britain’s Covid hotspot — is seeing steep increases in infection rates again.
In Knowsley, where the biggest rise in England happened over the past week, cases were 1,399.3 per 100,000 people in the seven days ending January 9, up from 796.8.
Merseyside was under Tier Two restrictions right up until January, which allowed restaurants, cinemas and gyms to stay open. The same was true for places in the South West. Torbay in Devon saw its case rate double in the last week to 254 per 100,000.
When will hospital admissions start to fall?
Hospital admissions are already falling across London and the South East and are slowing in the East, official figures suggest.
Department of Health statistics show daily admissions in the capital hit their high point on January 6 — on day two of the shutdown — when the seven-day average stood at 864. It dropped to 845 the following day. In the South East, hospitalisations also peaked on January 6 when they reached 662.
And in the East of England — which was plunged into the highest bracket of restrictions at the same time — they had started to level off by January 4 but have not yet started to fall.
But even as admissions have slowed across the capital and in regions first plunged into the toughest bracket, the overall number of patients in hospital is still rising because the number of new cases needing treatment each day is still high.
Almost 36,500 infected Britons were receiving NHS care in January 11.
Despite the glimmer of hope, which comes alongside falling infections, hospital admissions for patients suffering from the virus are also continuing to rise in the South West, North West, North East and Midlands.
The roughly three-week lag between a person catching Covid and falling seriously unwell with it means hospital rates could continue to climb for another fortnight. But they are anticipated to fall after that in line with the infection rate trends.
But when will NHS hospitals start to feel ease in pressure?
The number of coronavirus infections, hospitalisations, admissions to intensive care and deaths is going to keep rising in the UK for weeks, with the peak not hitting until next month, according to a top NHS chief.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said he expects pressure to spike and begin to tail off in February because the third lockdown does not appear to be working as quickly as the one in spring, he claimed.
He warned a health and social care committee of MPs yesterday: ‘It is pretty clear the infection rate is not going to go down as quickly as it did in the first phase.
‘We were hoping for a sharp peak that came sooner and shorter. So something for example where we saw the peak and started to crest it in mid to late January.
‘It now looks like the peak for NHS demand may actually now be in February. Now if that’s right that’s going to basically mean there’s a higher level, and a more extended period of pressure on the NHS than we were expecting even just a week ago.’
A wave of admissions was now hitting the East of England into the Midlands, the North West and South West, after London, the South East and the East bore the brunt of the winter wave.
‘That’s a particular worry because trusts in the Midlands and the North have got significant numbers of patients still in hospital from the second surge.’
Why are deaths still rising?
Deaths always lag weeks behind cases because of the time it takes for patients to catch and fall ill with Covid.
Although it varies from person to person, experts say it takes roughly three weeks for an infected person to succumb to the disease.
For this reason scientists are able to forecast how deaths will trend based on how infections are fluctuating.
UK cases have fallen for four days in a row which appears to show that infections are trending downwards just a week into the national lockdown.
Because infections dropped from last week, it would suggest that deaths will follow in about a fortnight’s time.