Covid UK news: Country faces tens of thousands of deaths in second wave, Sage expert warns

Hospital cancels operations as coronavirus patient numbers return to levels last seen in May

A hospital in Yorkshire has said it is cancelling planned surgeries for at least two weeks as the number of coronavirus patients there hits levels not seen since May, writes Shaun Lintern.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals said it was being forced to stop non-urgent surgery and outpatient appointments for two weeks from Tuesday because of the numbers of severely ill Covid-19 patients.

Covid-19 contributes to rise in bitcoin’s value

The price of bitcoin hit a record high for 2020 on Wednesday, after PayPal announced plans to integrate cryptocurrency into its online payment platform, writes Anthony Cuthbertson.

Bitcoin’s price rose by more than 5 per cent following the news, taking its total gains since last week above $1,000. It is currently trading above $12,400.

German health minister contracts Covid-19

Jens Spahn, the German health minister, has tested positive for coronavirus. 

His department said he placed himself in home quarantine following the positive test on Wednesday.

Mr Spahn, 40, was suffering from cold-like symptoms, the ministry said, adding that all people he had been in contact with had been informed.

While Germany's infection rates are lower than in much of Europe, they have been accelerating and hit a daily record of 7,830 on Saturday, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

UK sees over 26,000 new Covid-19 cases, a new daily record

The government announced a record daily total of 26,688 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK on Wednesday. bringing the total number of cases in the UK since the pandemic began to 789,229.

It also said a further 191 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, as of Wednesday. This brings the UK total to 44,158.

Bolsonaro overrules health minister to reject Chinese vaccine

Jair Bolsonaro has overruled his own health minister and rejected his planned purchase of 46 million doses of CoronaVac, a potential vaccine against Covid-19 being tested in Sao Paulo state.

Eduardo Pazuello announced the purchase on Tuesday alongside Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria, a foe of Mr Bolsonaro whose state government is participating in the Chinese jab's development.

"The Brazilian people will not be anyone's guinea pig," Mr Bolsonaro said on his social media channels, adding the shot made by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac was yet to finish its testing phase - which is true of all potential vaccines.

"My decision is to not purchase such a vaccine," he said.

UK faces ‘tens of thousands’ more deaths in second wave, says Sage expert

Tens of thousands more people are likely to die from coronavirus as the second wave grows, a leading scientist has warned.

The near future is a “bleak” one, Sage expert John Edmunds said today.

Prof Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was asked by MPs for his view on the government’s measures and what the trajectory looked like in terms of the number of cases, deaths and pressure on the NHS.

He said: "We're already in Liverpool... elective operations are already being cancelled, so we're already at the stage where that's under strain.

"Elsewhere in the northwest in particular but also in the North and Yorkshire, it's not very far behind.

"So we are already at the point or getting close to the point where the health service in much of the North will be under strain in the next few weeks.

"And... even if we stopped things now, cases and hospitalisations would continue to go up.

"I think if you look at where we are, there's no way we come out of this wave now without counting our deaths in the tens of thousands."

Asked about when the second peak might arrive, Prof Edmunds, he said there would be peaks in the northwest likely within unless extra restrictions were brought in. "Then the rest of the country are weeks behind," he told the Science and Technology and Health and Social Care committees.

"We'll see peaks around Christmas, in the new year of very severe numbers of cases throughout the UK.

"It's slower and lower in the southwest and southeast but in the more urban centres in the UK - and that's the sort of thing we're looking at - very large numbers of cases, hundreds of deaths a day occurring."

He said he believed the UK as a whole would not reach the peak seen in March and April but that some parts such as Liverpool were already there. "So I think we are looking at quite a bleak situation unless we take action, and we have to take action," he added.

“I don't think we should be taking action just specifically in the highest risk areas, but I think we need to take action everywhere else to stop them getting into that kind of rather perilous position.”

Prof Edmunds said his own group was looking at how interventions might work over the winter, but these had not been requested by the government and Sage had not been asked to assess this work. Of Sage, he said: "We haven't specifically been asked to look at different policies quite honestly, so nobody's asking us to say, 'What should we do here?' So these are things that we've really taken on ourselves and decided to look at ourselves."

Four students fined £10,000 each for party

Four Nottingham Trent University students have been fined and suspended over a house party.

The students were fined £10,000 each for breaching coronavirus restrictions after police spotted a house party in the Lenton area of the city.

The university said the students had been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

Nottinghamshire Police said more than 30 people were found hiding in a kitchen, upstairs bedrooms and basement at the party.

The force said that when challenged, the students allegedly claimed they should be having the "time of their lives" and that officers were "spoiling their fun".

Test and trace forced to bring in untrained workers as system is overwhelmed by second wave, leaked email reveals

England’s test and trace service is being forced to draft in untrained staff to carry out clinical assessments of patients infected with coronavirus as the second wave of infections swamps the service, writes Shaun Lintern.

Leaked emails obtained by The Independent show that as of Wednesday, staff from outsourcing firms Serco and Sitel, who have no clinical training, will be working alongside nurses and clinical staff to help assess and contract trace approximately 20,000 cases each day.

Young passing Covid-19 to old in Wales

A rise in serious coronavirus cases in Wales is being driven by young people passing the disease onto older contacts, according to the country’s health minister.

The number of patients being treated for the virus in hospital has increased by 26 per cent since last week, Vaughan Gething said.

Mr Gething told a press conference on Wednesday that the latest figures from Welsh hospitals showed there were 894 Covid-19 patients, the highest figure since June.

There are 43 people in critical care with the virus, which is a 72-per-cent increase since last week, he said, and amounts to one in four of all critical care beds in the country.

"The number of people admitted to hospitals in Wales for treatment of coronavirus symptoms continues to rise each day," Mr Gething said.

"One of the reasons why we are seeing more people being admitted to hospital is because as the virus has become more widespread in Wales, it has spread from younger age groups to older age groups.

"We're seeing worryingly high levels of infection in our older population. This is not unique to Wales. This is a pattern seen across the world. Infections rise quickly, first in young people before spreading into older age groups."

Mr Gething said there is "a very real risk" that Wales's health service would be overwhelmed without action to reduce the spread of the virus.

MPs reject Labour motion on free school meals

MPs have rejected a Labour motion to extend free school meals over the school holidays until Easter 2021 by 322 votes to 261, a majority of 61.

The motion had been supported by Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United footballer who has campaigned on the issue.