Boris Johnson admits government could have handled crisis differently in early months – as it happened

• Boris Johnson admitted the government could have handled the UK’s coronavirus outbreak differently and there were lessons to be learned, including on the timing of the lockdown. One year on from taking office, the prime minister told BBC News the government had underestimated the extent of asymptomatic transmission and didn’t fully understand the coronavirus in the “first few weeks and months” of the pandemic. It marked a significant departure from his previous insistence that the government took “the right decisions at the right time” based on scientific advice.

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• A lack of PPE, inadequate testing, and discharging people from hospitals into care homes were the key mistakes made by the UK government in its approach to England, MPs were told. The responses, seen exclusively by the Guardian, were given as part of a major coronavirus inquiry. Older people were “catastrophically let down” and many died before their time, according to the Age UK charity, and the BMA said the government’s testing and tracing capabilities at the start of the crisis fell “far short” of what was needed and left the infection to “spread unchecked”. The Unite union doctors group said the government had been slow and had “squandered” weeks of valuable time.
  
• The Office for National Statistics estimates that 27,700 people had coronavirus in England last week, suggesting cases have either remained stable over recent weeks or have potentially started to rise. In the latest report, published on Friday, the number of new infections in the week of 13 to 19 July were estimated at 2,800 per day, compared with 1,700 per day the week before.
• Separately, the government published its latest estimates of the R number, which reflects the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to. In England, R stands at 0.8 to 1, meaning the pandemic is stable and potentially in decline. Growth rates published alongside the latest R values suggest infections are falling by 1% to 4% per day.
• The UK government’s tally of Covid-associated deaths rose by 123 to 45,677.

That’s it from me from the UK side. Thank you for reading along and to everybody who got in touch throughout the day. If you would like to continue following the Guardian’s coronavirus coverage, head over to the global live blog for the worldwide picture.

University students returning home at the end of term could risk spreading coronavirus across the country if there are outbreaks on campus, government scientific advisers have warned.

Students who go home after falling ill with Covid-19 to avoid having to quarantine alone could also create an “issue” when British universities reopen their campuses in September, they say.

In a document published by Sage, scientists advising the government said student migration at the end of term warrants more attention as universities could “act as amplifiers”.

They warned:

If there is an outbreak at a university (even if not widespread transmission), then students returning home could pose a risk for spread across the UK.

This will be further exacerbated if people return infected but asymptomatic. Students are also more likely to be integrated with the wider community at their home address.

The deputy artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company has warned that the theatre world will become unable to support diverse communities if “the pain continues”.

Erica Whyman said there was “real risk” many theatre companies could close for a substantial length of time if they were not able to reopen before Christmas. She warned that young actors and those from diverse backgrounds would suffer most from the impact of theatre closures, especially in the regions.

Whyman told the PA news agency:

I think some we won’t see recover, that has to be said out loud.

There will be some that cannot find their way back from that crisis, because if they can’t get back open by Christmas that’s getting on for nine months they will be closed, and they will have lost the income from that critical Christmas period.

Last week, Boris Johnson announced that live indoor theatre and concerts would be able to resume with socially distanced audiences from 1 August – subject to the success of pilots.

Whyman added:

In the main we are charities – not all of us, some of us are in the commercial sector – but most of us are charities. We are driven by a mission to share theatre and theatre-making with the widest possible community. And we just won’t be fit to do that if the pain continues.

She said she was “very worried about the most diverse talent in our industry”, adding:

Younger generations in the main who are more diverse in a number of ways, in their socioeconomic background, ethnic background, artists who identify as deaf or disabled.

We have seen many more people come into the performing arts in the last decade and that has been a very good thing. And we know from research we have already conducted that they are the most likely to leave, to not feel they can stick out in this kind of economic climate.

The government has previously announced a £1.57bn support package for the arts, with music venues, theatres, museums, galleries, independent cinemas and heritage sites eligible for emergency grants and loans.

Whyman said:

We were very glad and relieved to hear about the package of money that will be distributed to the performing arts but at this moment it’s really important to say we still don’t know when that will be.

Responding to the BBC interview, Sir Ed Davey, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, said:

At last Boris Johnson has admitted what we have all known for some time – this government made fundamental mistakes in their handling of the coronavirus crisis.

However, to try and minimise this as there were some things they could have done differently is not only an enormous understatement, but it is an insult to all those who tragically lost loved ones to the virus.

This interview has given people more questions than answers.

With no remorse for the catastrophic mistakes such as the failure to protect our care homes or a refusal to put a comprehensive plan in place for a second wave, it is clear the prime minister has learnt nothing over the course of the last few months.

Boris Johnson’s comments today prove why an immediate independent inquiry is so essential.

The prime minister and his government must be faced with the reality of where they went wrong, so that they can learn from their mistakes which have led to tragic consequences.

24 Jul 202012.32 EDT

Steven Morris

The free flu vaccination programme in Wales will be extended to citizens over 50 and to households of shielded people – subject to confirmation from the UK government that there will be enough vaccine to go round.

The Welsh government said existing eligible groups including those aged over 65 years, pregnant women and people with medical conditions should be vaccinated first. Increasing uptake in health and social care workers will also be a key priority this winter.

The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said:

This winter more than ever we need to protect the most vulnerable in our community and continue to protect our NHS.

By extending the flu vaccine to more people than ever before we can help prevent people becoming ill and reduce pressure on the NHS this winter. I would urge anyone who is eligible to have the vaccine.

Labour’s shadow health and social care secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has said the prime minister “has finally admitted the government has mishandled its response to the coronavirus”.

Responding to Boris Johnson’s remarks in an interview with the BBC, he said:

This finally puts to bed the prime minister’s previous claim his government ‘took the right decisions at the right time’.

He added:

It was too slow to acknowledge the threat of the virus, too slow to enter lockdown and too slow to take this crisis seriously.

The threat of a second wave is still very real.

It is imperative the government learns the lessons of its mistakes so we can help to save lives.

It’s significant that Boris Johnson has reflected and acknowledged that the government could have handled things differently in the early stages of the UK outbreak; ministers have previously uniformly insisted that they took “the right decisions at the right time” based on the scientific advice at the time.

On the first anniversary of his taking office, Johnson also promised to go “further” and “faster” in changing the country.

Last week the prime minister promised an “independent” inquiry into the UK’s approach during the pandemic, but there have yet to be any details released on its scope or timing.

The prime minister said the country was “vulnerable” to a resurgence of coronavirus, particularly in the winter.

But he denied, under questioning from BBC News, that ministers had been too slow to act during the initial wave, saying:

No, on the contrary, no if you look at the timing of every single piece of advice that we got from our advisers, from Sage, you will find that whenever they said that we needed to take a particular step, actually, we stuck to that advice like glue.

On his winter warning, he added:

Collectively, this country has done an incredible thing to get the disease down to the levels it’s at. But we all know that it can come back.

And we can see what’s happening in other countries – I won’t name them – but you can see the resurgence that’s happening. We know that we’re vulnerable there.

So that’s why we’re getting on now with our preparations for the winter ... a massive flu vaccination programme, stockpiling PPE, making sure that we ramp up test and trace, and making sure that people get tested if they have symptoms.

Johnson also said there were things his government “could have done differently” during the handling of the pandemic.

Maybe there were things we could have done differently and of course there will be time to understand what exactly we could have done, or done differently.

When you listen to the scientists, the questions that you’ve asked are actually very open questions as far as they are concerned.

And there will be a time obviously to consider all those issues.

In an admittance that the government didn’t understand Covid-19 sufficiently in its “first few weeks and months”, the prime minister told the BBC:

We didn’t understand [the virus] in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months.

And I think probably, the single thing that we didn’t see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person to person.

I think it’s fair to say that there are things that we need to learn about how we handled it in the early stages ... there will be plenty of opportunities to learn the lessons of what happened.