Author: Sumon Admin

Boris Johnson is heading for a COVID showdown with MPs amid a backlash over a six-week wait for the ending of self-isolation rules. Conservative MPs and business leaders have reacted furiously after Health Secretary Sajid Javid said children and fully vaccinated adults will have to follow current self-isolation rules until 16 August. This means they will have to stay at home for 10 days if they come into close contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus. Health Secretary Sajid Javid has said infections could rise to more than 100,000 cases a day in August, meaning millions of Britons could get COVID-19 over the summer. With the latest figures from NHS Test and Trace suggesting that an average of about three close contacts are being identified for every confirmed case ...

Long Covid will increase in the UK, particularly among the young, unless infection rates are kept down, the government’s chief medical adviser has warned. Chris Whitty urged the nation to push hell for leather to make sure everyone is vaccinated as he predicted a difficult winter ahead. The deaths from Covid I think are mercifully going to be much lower in this wave compared to the previous ones as a proportion of cases but long Covid remains, I think, a worry, he told a conference organised by the Local Government Association. He made his comments after the British government said it will scrap the need for face coverings and social distancing from 19 July, while admitting the pandemic was very far from the end. The new health secretary Sajid Javid also announced that those who have...

Boris Johnson is poised to announce that social distancing will be scrapped in England from 19 July as people will be asked to use their own judgement to manage the risk of Covid-19. The prime minister will lead a Downing Street press conference on Monday where he will say that the country must learn to live with this virus amid concerns from scientists that the government is moving too fast with ending all restrictions. It came as London mayor Sadiq Khan called for masks to remain mandatory on public transport and argued that this would be the simplest and safest policy over the coming weeks. On Monday morning, care minister Helen Whately declined to say that Covid-19 was under control but argued that the government did not expect rising case rates to lead to a significant increase i...

Ireland has told the British government to be realistic and show some honesty amid an ongoing row over post-Brexit trade. Simon Coveney, the country’s foreign minister, dismissed calls to scrap the Northern Ireland protocol from some unionists and said there was a need for the British government, in particular, to show some honesty around what has been agreed. A truce to end the trade row between London and Brussels over the movement of chilled meats from Britain to Northern Ireland dubbed sausage wars is said to be on the horizon ahead of Thursday’s deadline. Elsewhere, opponents of the Northern Ireland Protocol have been dealt a blow after the High Court threw out a bid for the Brexit deal to be declared unlawful.

More than 375,000 pupils are off school as a result of Covid, up from 239,000 the previous week. This includes 275,000 children who have been forced to self-isolate because of a case at school, a 60 per cent increase in the space of a week, according to the latest official data. Figures published today by the Department for Education (DfE) show that 5.1 per cent of all children in England were not at school last Thursday due to a Covid-related reason, up from 3.3 per cent the week before. Sajid Javid, in his first appearance in the Commons as Health Secretary on Monday, vowed to take "fresh advice" on the issue of children being sent home from school to self-isolate. This week the Department for Education issued guidance to schools on Monday suggesting that isolation could be ...

People who have been double-dosed with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could have a stronger immune response if they were given a different jab as a booster, a leading scientist has said. Professor Matthew Snape from the Oxford Vaccine Group said the mix and match approach may result in additional protection against coronavirus. He made the comments following the results of a clinical trial comparing the current UK strategy of giving two doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines against a combination of the two jabs. Results showed people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine first, followed four weeks later by a Pfizer dose, produced antibody levels nine times higher than those given two doses of the Oxford jab. Meanwhile, one of the Oxford vaccine's developers has s...

Labour has criticised Boris Johnson’s handling of the Hancock scandal as too slow, too weak and likened Sajid Javid’s appointment as Britain’s new health secretary to putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said the prime minister still has serious questions to answer over the issue and said Matt Hancock’s resignation was far from the end of the matter. Earlier Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth described his counterpart as an architect of austerity who oversaw NHS cutbacks during his time as chancellor between 2019 and 2020. Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Mr Ashworth warned that the government, including Mr Javid, who stepped into the role last night after Matt Hancock resigned following a major breach of Covid regulations, must start focus...

Matt Hancock has apologised for breaking coronavirus rules after pictures emerged of him kissing a close aide. The health secretary admitted he breached social distancing rules following The Sun's overnight story showing photographs of him kissing Gina Coladangelo, a close friend who is a taxpayer-funded adviser to his department. The security camera pictures were reportedly taken on 6 May, when indoor meetings with people from a different household were not allowed. He said: "I accept that I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances. I have let people down and am very sorry. Labour said Hancock's position has become hopelessly untenable and called on Boris Johnson to sack him. However, Downing Street said the prime minister has "accepted" Hancock's apology and ...