United Kingdom

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 ...

Tesco bosses raised the issue at a meeting with the minister for transport, Charlotte Vere, last week warning that the vacancies were creating 48 tonnes of food waste each week, the equivalent of two truck loads. Sources at the supermarket chain said the lorry driver shortage was affecting fresh food with short self life most. The country is facing a summer of food shortages likened to a series of rolling power cuts because of a loss of 100,000 lorry drivers due to Covid and Brexit, industry chiefs have warned. In a letter to Boris Johnson they have called for an urgent intervention to allow eastern European drivers back into the country on special visas, similar to those issued to farm pickers, warning that there is a crisis in the supply chain. They have said shortages of workers in...

The UK has reported 35,204 new cases of the Delta COVID variant in the latest week - a 46% increase. Public Health England (PHE) said two doses of vaccine are still effective at providing protection against risk of hospitalisation. It takes the total number of confirmed cases to 111,157 - with 102,019 of these recorded in England, 7,738 in Scotland, 788 in Wales and 612 in Northern Ireland. Some 42 of the latest cases are the Delta AY.1 sub lineage. Delta plus is thought to be more transmissible than the original Delta variant, according to health officials in India. The Delta variant, first identified in India, now comprises 95% of all sequenced cases, PHE added. Last week, it made up 99% of COVID cases across the UK. PHE said a new strain, Lambda, has been designated as a variant un...

Boris Johnson has said he continues to have “full confidence” in Matt Hancock after the health secretary was accused of having an affair with one of his close aides and breaking Covid rules. The PM’s spokesperson said that Mr Johnson had accepted his minister’s apology and considered the matter closed. On Friday, Mr Hancock said he was very sorry for breaching social distancing guidelines but made clear he did not intend to resign over the matter. I have let people down and am very sorry. I remain focused on working to get the country out of this pandemic, and would be grateful for privacy for my family on this personal matter, the health secretary said. The Sun claimed that Mr Hancock was caught on camera kissing Gina Coladangelo, with the newspaper publishing security pictures repor...