Coronavirus news - live: 'Completely wrong' to say Boris Johnson's mass testing plan will save Christmas, Vallance warns

Still a ‘reasonable chance’ of vaccine ‘next year, some time’, England’s chief scientific officer says

There are around 200 vaccine projects across the world, eight of those which are in the last stage of clinical trials, England’s chief scientific officer has said.

We will have some indication, hopefully by the end. of the year, of which vaccines work and have the right safety profile, Sir Patrick Vallance said, adding that “many of these vaccines are showing the right immune response” against the virus, but it is uncertain how long that immunity lasts.

In the UK, the vaccines taskforce has made sure that six of the most advanced vaccines will be available - in four different classes of vaccine.

There’s a “reasonable chance” that vaccines could be available “next year, some time”.

Speaking of the progress on therapeutics, Sir Patrick said more than 500 medicines are currently being trialled globally. He said the UK’s vast trials had shown that dexamethasone work very effectively for patients requiring oxygen.

“It’s very important that as we go into winter and we get more infections - and I think that’s inevitable, we will see more infections - that we run clinical trials in the UK to get answers to questions," he said. 

"We shouldn’t just guess what works, we need to test, and therefore all of us, any of us who are unfortunate enough to catch it, it’s important that we volunteer to be in clinical trials.”

Boris Johnson announces 'review' of plans to allow fans into stadiums from October

The government will “revise and review” plans to allow fans back into sporting events from 1 October after Boris Johnson imposed a maximum limit of six people to attend social gatherings, Jack de Menezes and Jamie Gardner report.

The prime minister said on Wednesday that any gatherings indoors or outdoors featuring more than six people will be made illegal from Monday, and although the planned pilot events on sport will now face a review regarding if they are safe enough to go ahead, elite professional sport will still continue.

“We must revise plans to pilot larger audiences in stadiums & review our intention to return audiences to stadiums from the 1st October,” Johnson said, adding that “organised sport will still be able to proceed”.

Oliver Dowden, the secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, is expected to add further detail on the conditions that will need to be met in order for pilot events to go ahead, as well as whether the 1 October target for a partial return of fans will have to be pushed back, due to the growing number of coronavirus cases in the UK.

New restrictions ‘very unlikely’ to be over in three weeks, Chris Whitty says - as PM ‘hopeful’ that Christmas won’t be 'cancelled’

Boris Johnson has suggested that a “Moon Shot” plan of mass daily testing could play a role in delivering a semi-normal Christmas this year, despite Chris Whitty warning new limits on groups of more than six gathering in England should not be viewed as a “very short term thing”.

“Everybody in the country I think will know … that the period over autumn and winter - which is the period when all respiratory viruses have an advantage, because people crowd together, more things are done indoors, amongst other reasons - is going to be difficult,” said England’s chief medical officer.

“So the period between now and spring is going to be difficult, because this is a respiratory virus. I think in terms of the existing restrictions, people should see this as the next block of time that may not last for many months, but it is very unlikely to be just over in two or three weeks … people shouldn’t see this as a very  short-term thing.”

Asked by ITV’s Robert Peston whether Christmas is cancelled, Boris Johnson replied: "I’m still hopeful, as I’ve said before, that in many ways we could be able - we could be able - to get some aspects of our lives back to normal by Christmas.

“And I talked just now about how you could do that, through that Moon Shot of daily testing - everybody gets a pregnancy-style, rapid turnaround test in the morning, 15 minutes later you know whether you’re infectious or not … and that gives you a kind of passport, a laisez-passer, a freedom to mingle with everybody else who is similarly not infectious in a way that is currently impossible.”

He added: “We’re aiming for that, we’re driving for that. As I’ve said just now, we cannot be 100 per cent sure that we can deliver that in its entirety.”

‘Nothing between Labour and government’ on new restrictions, Keir Starmer says, welcoming new powers for police

“I think all of us are deeply concerned about the raise in infection rate. The whole country's concerned about that,” the Labour leader has said.

"So, we do support the measures that the government have put in place and we would urge the public to comply with the new rules.

"I think the government's now acknowledged that their poor communications were a large part of the problem so that's got to be fixed.

"But they also need to recognise that the testing regime is all over the place at the moment. They can't pretend that's not a problem, so that needs fixing as well.

“But we support the principle of the measures and we ask everybody to follow those rules.”

He added: "I urge everybody to comply with the rules, not to try and find ways round them and there's nothing between the Labour Party and the government on this. We all want people to follow those rules. 

"Now, obviously the police have had a very difficult job, not least because of the poor communications. "I believe that policing by consent and by consensus is best but the police do need the powers they need to back up these rules. "So consent, but with the powers to back up."

Government condemned by health experts for ‘shambolic’ testing system as fury mounts over failings

The government’s national testing system has been condemned as “shambolic” by public health experts, who argue that the UK “missed a great opportunity” to suppress the prevalence of Covid-19 as a result of the service’s shortcomings, Samuel Lovett reports.

Ministers are facing growing fury over the testing programme – once described as “world-beating” by prime minister Boris Johnson – amid reports that people have been unable to get hold of tests or are being told to travel hundreds of miles to a testing centre.

In recent weeks, the government's coronavirus test booking service has advised residents in London to travel to Wales and those in Cumbria to head to Scotland.

One member of the public said he had been forced to make a near-500 mile journey to get a Covid-19 test, only to find the results were then lost.

“The testing system is clearly dysfunctional,” Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told The Independent. “It’s shambolic. We need a functional find, test, trace, isolate and support system – which we don’t have.

“We’ve got people being sent from London to Cardiff or Aberdeen or wherever. The contact tracing system, I’m hearing from my colleagues, is in meltdown at the minute and not working. None of it is joined up, there's no clear lines and the whole thing has been poorly managed from the very beginning.

“In England it's been completely mismanaged. That doesn’t mean we should stand back and do nothing. Somebody really needs to get a grip on this, but the chances of that are extremely remote because quite clearly the PM's attention is elsewhere at the minute."

Coronavirus travel form will be ‘simplified’ and better enforced, PM says

The prime minister has said that the widely ridiculed coronavirus tracking procedures for travellers arriving in the UK are to be tightened, our travel correspondent Simon Calder reports.

Travellers are supposed to complete a passenger locator form in the 48 hours before their return to the UK.

But there have been widespread accounts of travellers using false information, with few checks on arrival.

During today’s Downing Street briefing, Boris Johnson said that the passenger locator form would be “simplified”, and enforced at airports abroad before departure for the UK.

“We will simplify the passenger locator form needed for travel to the UK, and take measures to ensure these are completed and checked before departure.

“Border Force will step up enforcement efforts at the border to ensure that arrivals are complying with the quarantine rules.”

Asked by Sky News whether he was now pinning his hopes for Christmas on his “Moon Shot” mass-testing scheme, Boris Johnson said: "Well we’ve got two big projects that we’re backing.

“The first is the change in public behaviour that we hope to see through the announcements that we’re making today through the rule of six … that we hope will work.

"We’re also hoping, as I said, the Moon Shot approach will work and will be able to deliver lateral flow-type mass testing that will give people the freedom pass, the knowledge that they’re not infectious and can hang out with other people who are not infectious in a sort of pre-Covid way.

“That’s a very ambitious plan but we’re working on it very hard [and] very fast, as you can imagine. We’re backing both those horses and we’re backing them flat out.”

Trump concealed real dangers of coronavirus while playing it down publicly, Bob Woodward claims in new book

Donald Trump admitted that he knew the coronavirus pandemic was far more serious than he led on to the public and concealed the virus’ true dangers, according to a new book, Danielle Zoellner reports.

"This is deadly stuff," Mr Trump told Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward on 7 February.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” the president added during the phone call. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

The president spoke to Mr Woodward in a series of 18 recorded interview that are detailed in the journalist’s upcoming book Rage, which was obtained by CNN. 

During one interview, Mr Trump told the journalist that the virus might be “five times more deadly" than the flu.

These phone calls, which the president agreed could be recorded, show a far different picture from what he was telling the public.

At the same time Mr Trump was admitting the virus could be "five times more deadly’ than the flu, he was publicly saying Covid-19 was no worse than the flu. It would be several weeks before the president and his administration would state the virus was unlike the flu and could be transmitted airborne.

'Completely wrong': Boris Johnson's plans for mass coronavirus testing may not work, government's top scientific adviser warns

The government’s top scientific adviser has poured cold water on ministers’ ambitions to develop mass coronavirus testing programme to reach up to 4 million people within months, our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports.

Launched by health secretary Matt Hancock last month, the programme - codenamed Operation Moon Shot - was talked up again by Boris Johnson today in his first Downing Street press conference since July.

But chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said it would be “completely wrong” to assume that the rapid turn-around tests touted by the prime minister as a panacea for resolving the Covid crisis would even work.

Speaking just moments after Mr Johnson said the Moon Shot project could produce a test to tell people within 15 minutes whether they are infected, Vallance cautioned: “There are, as always with technologies, unknowns and we would be completely wrong to assume this is a slam dunk that can definitely happen.”

And chief medical officer Chris Whitty warned that even if the tests can be produced, it could be a long time before they are available.

“My own view is that I think it is likely that we will have tests of this sort at some point in the not too distant future, but that not too distant future covers quite a wide time range,” said Prof Whitty.

He added: “We do have to be absolutely sure that these tests work and that they work at scale and that is what we’ll need to be trying to develop over the next period.”

Mother left in tears after travelling from Wales to England for coronavirus test - only to be turned away

Kirstie Penman, 21, a student from Wrexham, initially rang her doctor seeking antibiotics for a bad chest but was informed she would need to get a test for Covid-19 instead.

After being driven across the English border to Telford for the nearest available test, a staff member told her that she could not be tested because she had not received a QR code when she booked.

“We were like, 'is this a complete joke, we've just driven from an hour-and-a-half away?', and there was no reassurance or nothing,” Ms Penman told the PA news agency.

"He just said, 'sorry, there's a queue behind you, you'll have to come back when you get the code sent to you'."

"At that point I just started crying, upset because it's a long journey for a test," the mother-of-one added."Then we just had to drive home. There was no other option, really."

After trying various other options to get tested, Ms Penman said she had given up, adding: "There's no way you can get through, it just cuts off, the phone line."

Her GP surgery has now advised that without a test she will have to manage her symptoms at home and keep checking her own breathing, she said.

Additional reporting by PA