UK government death toll surpasses 100,000 after 1,631 new fatalities reportedThe UK reported 20,089 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, compared to Monday’s 22,195. A further 1,631 deaths were reported, up from Monday’s 592. The government’s overall death toll now stands at 100,162.
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths and expressed sorrow after the total UK death toll exceeded 100,000 on nearly every metric, but refused to discuss the reasons why it might be so high.
Downing Street sought to play down any potential row over the EU’s threat to potentially restrict vaccine exports to the UK, saying ministers do not foresee likely disruption to UK vaccine supplies. Health minister Matt Hancock said protectionism was not the right approach after an EU proposal to restrict the exports of shots.
Teachers, police and people with learning disabilities will need to be considered for the next round of Covid-19 vaccinations, said NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens.
The government’s proposed mandatory hotel quarantine measures for travellers arriving from high-risk countries could wipe out nearly £548m a day from the UK economy in lost travel, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
The Scottish government continues to come under fire for its slow pace of vaccine rollout, as UK government sources confirm that Scotland has been supplied with nearly one million doses, yet under half a million Scots have so far received their first dose.
Home secretary Priti Patel claimed in the Commons that the UK Border Force is now conducting “100% compliance checks” on whether people arriving in the country are following quarantine orders.
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, rebuffed calls from MPs for more details on future coronavirus support packages, but said further economic help was coming
The NHS England boss, Sir Simon Stevens, told the the health and social care committee that the government’s pledge to “level up” across the country should include efforts to eliminate health inequalities.
There are now more than 6 million people in the UK who have had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as efforts to speed up the inoculations process continue to intensify. But as more of those in the highest risk age groups get their jabs, there are growing concerns in government about the rates of vaccine hesitancy in some black and minority ethnic communities.
More than 23,000 UK workers at supermarket Lidl are to get a £200 bonus in recognition of their hard work during the pandemic.
Health officials are concerned the West Midlands could soon overtake London to become the region with the highest Covid-19 case rate in the country. National infection rates have fallen by 24% in the past seven days, while the West Midlands has recorded a much slower decline of just 8%.
The German government has challenged reports of a lower-than-expected efficacy rate of the AstraZeneca vaccine for older people, while reiterating concerns about the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant’s data reporting.
The UK’s unemployment rate hit its highest in nearly five years in the three months to November.The Office for National Statistics said the unemployment rate rose to 5% in the three months to the end of November – representing more than 1.7 million people – from 4.9% in the three months to the end of October, reaching the highest level since April 2016. Unemployment was 4% in February before the pandemic struck.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the second week of January had highest Covid deaths in England and Wales since April.
Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling prompted the UK government to impose the first lockdown last March has told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme he believes more action in the autumn of last year could have saved lives.
He said:
The new variant was unpredictable and did change our understanding of how much was needed to control spread, but we did just let the autumn wave get too far.”
Asked if there was one thing that could have made a difference, he added:
In some sense back in March we had much less information to go on than in September.
Had we acted both earlier and with greater stringency back in September when we first saw case numbers going up, and had a policy of keeping case numbers at reasonably low levels, then I think a lot of the deaths we’ve seen - not all by any means, but a lot of the deaths we’ve seen in the last four or five months - could have been avoided.
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths and expressed sorrow after the total UK death toll exceeded 100,000 on nearly every metric, but refused to discuss the reasons why it might be so high.
Hosting a Downing Street press conference after the Office for National Statistics said the UK had passed 100,000 Covid deaths on 7 January, Johnson took a sombre approach, saying it was “hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic”.
The prime minister said:
The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye – I offer my deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one.
But asked several times by journalists why the UK’s death toll was so high, and what he and the government could have done differently, Johnson declined to tackle the question.
When asked what had gone wrong with the UK response, he said:
I think on this day I should just really repeat that I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost, and of course as I was prime minister I take full responsibility for everything that the government has done.
What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could, and continue to do everything that we can, to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage, and a very, very difficult crisis for our country, and we will continue to do that.
Pressed on whether he had reflected on what he could have done differently, Johnson gave a similar answer:
We did everything that we could be minimise suffering and minimise loss of life in this country as a result of the pandemic, and I’m deeply sorry for every life lost.
Charlie Cooper of Politico asks for concrete examples of lessons learned and asks if the PM would urge the EU against the vaccine controls.
Let’s be in no doubt that the UK is is in a radically different position now, from where we were, says Johnson.
Johnson says we now have effective supply chains for PPE, the ability to create lateral flow tests and a vast test and trace industry. The UK is leading the way on genome testing, with 47% of all the genomic analysis in the world is now done in the UK.
We now have viable treatments and are at the forefront of the manufacture of vaccines. He adds:
None of that is, of course, any consolation for the terrible, terrible of life that we’re forced to announce today , but I can tell you that things are really very different now, in the UK.
As a result of the pandemic and and our readiness for any future pandemic is really colossal.
On point about vaccines and the EU, he repeats his earlier point that the creation of these vaccines has been a wonderful example of a multinational cooperation.
I don’t want to see restrictions on the supply of PPE across borders, I didn’t want to see restrictions on the supply of drugs across borders and I don’t want to see restrictions on vaccines or their ingredients across borders. And I think that’s pretty common sensical and it would be widely supported across the EU, as well.
Prof Whitty says we have learnt a “huge amount” scientifically. He says initially they were quite cautious about whether masks were useful but we decided that they were based on increasing levels of evidence.
Scientists didn’t initially didn’t realise the importance of asymptomatic transmission.
There have also been clinical learnings, he says adding that the death rates have gone down as doctors are learning. He adds:
I think we need to realise we’re going to have to continue to learn from this pandemic.
Harry Cole from the Sun asks if the return of schools will be phased by age and region. He asks about “sabre-rattling” in Europe, which today said it was looking at the possibility of blocking exports of the vaccine to third countries like the UK.
Johnson replies that getting school kids back in school continues to be the government’s top priority.
Regarding vaccine supply, he says he has “total confidence in our supplies”.
He says the government “expects and hopes that our EU friends will honour all contracts”, and that the creation of the vaccine has been a multinational effort and the delivery of the vaccine will be multinational as well because the virus knows no borders.
Sam Coates from Sky asks if the PM has not reflected on whether some of the 100,000 deaths could have been prevented if he had made different decisions and followed scientists recommendations more closely.
He asks Prof Whitty if he wishes he had done more to encourage a “circuit-breaker” lockdown suggested by Sage in September, rather than waiting till the end of October. He asks Stevens if he thinks there was too much household mixing in December.
The PM says:
We did everything that we could to minimise suffering and minimise loss of life in this country as a result of the pandemic. And I’m deeply sorry for every, every, every life lost.
He said the government will continue to do everything to minimise life lost.
I continue to urge people to follow that guidance and stay at home and protect the NHS and save lives.
Whitty says the data shows the current situation is different to what we had in September and the new variant has changed the situation very substantially.
The question about when to actually do particular measures has always been a matter of trying to balance. I’ve said this repeatedly throughout this tragic pandemic, balance the things which actually reduce the risk of transmission with all the other things we’re trying to do in terms of society.
Stevens says he defers to Prof Whitty regarding the underlying causes of spread. but he adds:
The facts as we see it in the health service are that on Christmas Day we had 18,000 coronavirus positive patients and now we’ve got just under 33,000.
He says infection rates have rippled up from the south-east and London to the east of England, and then up to the Midlands, which is “consistent with the spread of the new variant of the virus”.
Regarding the vaccine, Whitty says everybody understands the limitation is the number of vaccines available: if you give a vaccine twice to someone, you can only give it to half the number of people over a period of time.
He says the reason for delaying the second dose is to double the number of people who can actually have a vaccine and get some protection. The second point on this is the great majority of the protection comes from the first vaccine.
He said:
We’ve talked very carefully about the ... balance of risk in terms of reducing the number of deaths in the community.
I really want to stress that ... the aim of this is to maximise the number of people who get that first dose, where the great majority of the protection comes from.
Paul Brand of ITV says the PM previously said 20,000 deaths would be a good outcome. How would he describe the outcome of 100,000 deaths that he has presided over? He asks Prof Whitty what he would say to care homes who are expressing concerns about the gap between the first dose of the vaccine and the second dose.
Johnson replies that it is an appalling and tragic loss of life and all we can do now is work together with the tools that we have – of the stay at home principle, plus the vaccines – to beat the virus.
The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, says the government was hoping to contain the number of deaths to 20,000, and it is now five times. She asks what went so wrong. She asks Whitty and Stevens if they can give any idea of the range of the possible totals that they are looking at now.
Johnson replies:
I think on this day I should just really repeat that I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and of course as a prime minister I take full responsibility for everything that the government has done.
What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could and continue to do everything that we can to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering during what has been a very difficult stage of a very, very difficult crisis for our country.
We will continue to do that. Just as every government that is affected by this crisis around the world is continuing to do the same.
Mark asks what education strategy will the government publish to ensure no child is left behind.
Johnson says the government will look very, very carefully at the data of where it’s got to with a vaccination program before they make announcements about the timetables.
He says the government really wanted to keep schools open, and wants to reopen them but it must be done with caution.
He says parents are making “huge efforts”, that school is the best place for pupils and he knows the educational damage that we risk through protracted lockdowns. The government was continuing to put in place all sorts of measures to help teachers, such as 1.3m laptops and investments in catch-up.
Now to questions from the public, Martin asks what the government’s long term plans to allow a return to travel and government working cooperatively with other nations.
Johnson says it will be done as soon as possible but it will depend on getting the infection rate down.
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive Officer of the NHS starts by thanking NHS staff.
He says this Sunday marks a year since the first two patients with coronavirus were treated in hospital in Newcastle, and a year since the first flight returned from Wuhan.
In that year over a quarter of a million severely ill coronavirus patients have been looked after in hospital.
He said NHS staff have been looking after those patients, but they have also experienced it as daughters and sons and as parents. He adds:
And so, this is not a year that anybody’s going to want to remember. But nor is it a year that across the health service any of us will ever forget.
The PM hands over to Prof Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England. He says the number of people testing positive for Covid has peaked at a very high number, but it is coming down.
I want to just put one caution on that, which is the Office of National Statistics data demonstrates a rather slower decrease. And I think we need to be careful that we do not relax too early.
The number of people in hospital with Covid is still an incredibly high number, over 35,000 people, he says. It has flattened off but it is substantially above the peak in April. It looks as if it is coming down very slightly in some areas, including London and the south-east, and the east of England, but there are some areas of the country where it is still not convincingly reducing. NHS staff are working incredibly hard with many very sick, Covid patients, he says.
Whitty says that the number of deaths looks as if it has flattened out, but at a very high level.
The most recent seven day average deaths is 1242 deaths. The number of people dying will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks, he says.
Prime minister promises to 'learn the lessons and reflect and repair'
Johnson says we will remember the courage of working people, not only NHS staff but those in shops, transport workers, police and the armed forces. Johnson says when the pandemic is over “we will make sure we learn the lessons and reflect and prepare.
He adds:
We will commemorate the small acts of kindness the spirit of volunteering and the daily sacrifice of millions who placed their lives on hold, time and again, as we fought each new wave of the virus, buying time for our brilliant scientists to come to our aid. In that moment of commemoration, we will celebrate the genius and perseverance of those who discovered the vaccines and the immense national effort, never seen before in our history, which is now underway to distribute them, one that has seen us immunise over 6.8 million people across the United Kingdom.
And when those vaccines have finally freed us from this virus and put us on a path to recovery, we will make sure we learn the lessons and reflect and prepare.
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