Coronavirus news: UK records over 12,800 new cases in highest-ever rise, amid hopes for vaccine by Easter
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Your support makes all the difference.The UK set a new record for daily new cases of coronavirus as Boris Johnson faced widespread criticism for blaming the surging figures on public "complacency".
A further 12,872 cases and 49 deaths were reported on Saturday night and official figures also revealed a rise in the number of patients in hospital and on ventilators.
However the government claimed a backlog of test results dating back more than a week would lead to higher figures “over the coming days”.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of “serial incompetence" and urged the prime minister to draw up a new “roadmap” for recovery.
Officials are increasingly hopeful that a Covid vaccine could be rolled out as early as Easter. Scientists working on an inoculation at Oxford University are hoping it will be ready and approved by the end of this year, while government officials believe they will be able to get the vaccine to all 53 million British adults in less than six months and potentially as quick as three.
Meanwhile in the US, Donald Trump said he was “feeling much better now” after being taken to hospital for treatment for Covid-19.
This breakdown of today’s reported coronavirus cases for England by ‘specimen date’ - the date when the test was taken - reveals the scale of delays involved.
You can find these figures yourself on the government’s Covid dashboard under ‘Cases’.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a close associate of Donald Trump, has checked himself into hospital after testing positive for coronavirus.
Chris Christie checks into hospital as a ‘precautionary measure'
The former New Jersey governor, who has asthma, checked himself into Morristown Medical Center on Saturday afternoon
Tunisia bans gatherings and cuts working hours
Tunisian prime minister Hichem Mechichi has announced a ban on all gatherings and a reduction in working hours for employees in the public sector in order to stop the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
The decision was taken amid fears that hospitals will be unable to cope with a high number of patients because of the shortage of intensive-care beds.
In a speech announcing the latest measures to combat the virus, Mechichi said he gave orders to Tunisia's governors to implement a regional lockdown if necessary. But he said a return to nationwide lockdown was unthinkable because of the economic damage it would cause.
‘What a shambles’
Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port, has questioned the effectiveness of the government’s Test and Trace programme given the delays in processing results.
“Does this mean local lockdowns have been missed because these cases were? What a shambles.”
‘No wonder the PM wanted to blame the public’
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, has said her constituents are “very angry” with Boris Johnson for trying to blame the public for the rise in coronavirus cases.
Cineworld ‘planning to shut all screens’
The UK’s biggest cinema chain is planning to close all its screens and offer redundancy to up to 5,500 staff, according to the Sunday Times.
Cineworld revealed last month that it lost £1.3bn during the lockdown. It had been pinning its hopes on the release of the next James Bond movie next month but that has now been delayed until April 2021.
A staff ‘action group’, which was formed at the start of the nationwide lockdown in March, said yesterday that it now fears mass redundancies. “We need the government to take action now to protect jobs and the cinema industry itself. Cineworld have already shown how quickly they are willing to sack staff en masse and they will not hesitate to do so again.”
If this video is anything to go by, Donald Trump is well and truly getting back to “normal”.
Among the highlights are the claims that he is “feeling much better”, that he is fighting Covid-19 for “people all over the world”, and that he agreed to go to hospital because he didn’t want to stay locked up in the White House.
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