Coronavirus news – live: UK reports new record daily death toll, as PM warns there is ‘more to come’
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Your support makes all the difference.The government has released figures showing a record number of daily deaths for the second day running, as 1,820 people died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus – the highest number since the pandemic began.
Prime minister Boris Johnson blamed the “appalling” death toll on a new variant of the disease as he warned “there will be more to come”.
The leap in fatalities - up more than 10 per cent on the previous record - came as the team behind the Oxford vaccine was understood to be planning new versions of its jab in response to the different coronavirus variants that have emerged in the UK and elsewhere.
Scientists at the university were found to be assessing the ability of their jab to tackle new variants as another team of researchers found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was likely to provide protection against the one first detected in the UK.
The new study suggests the Pfizer jab can overcome a number of genetic changes in the virus after testing the vaccine against a synthetic virus with 10 mutations that are characteristic of the UK variant.
However, separate research has suggested that vaccines may be less effective against the new variant of coronavirus that emerged in South Africa.
Pressure on hospitals won’t let up until ‘well into the spring’
The immense pressure bearing down on hospitals around the country will no let up until “well into the spring", a leading intensive care doctor has warned.
“The fact that people perceive that intensive care units up and down the country are coping doesn't mean that we have actually not been overwhelmed, because we have,” Dr Daniele Bryden, vice-dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, told Sky News.
“NHS staff have been transferring patients across the country for critical care, we have been using other staff groups to help us deliver care and intensive care nurses have been looking after significantly more patients than they normally would do.
“So it's an adjustment of the term 'coping', I think, really.”
First two hospital trusts set to begin 24-hour Covid vaccination
Two two hospital trusts in the midlands are set to begin a pilot of 24-hour coronavirus vaccinations today.
The University Hospitals of Birmingham and Nottingham’s Sherwood Forest Hospitals Foundation Trust were selected as the first two trusts in the country to provide round-the-clock jabs.
There is expected to be a focus on hospital staff for late night vaccinations, according to the BBC.
Priti Patel says government should have closed borders last March to stop coronavirus
The UK’s borders should have been closed last March to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Priti Patel has said.
The home secretary said she advocated the measure at the time but suggested she was overruled by others in government.
"On 'should have have closed our borders earlier', the answer is yes," she told a meeting of Conservative supporters last night, according to a recording of the event obtained by the Guido Fawkes website.
Read the full story from Policy Correspondent Jon Stone here:
Priti Patel says government should have closed borders last March to stop coronavirus
Home Secretary says she wanted to close borders last year but appears to suggest she was overruled
Not time to discuss government mismanagement of Covid, says Patel
Priti Patel said it was not the time to talk about whether the government had mismanaged the pandemic.
Speaking as the UK headed towards another grim milestone with coronavirus deaths nearing 100,000, the home secretary told BBC Breakfast: “I don't think this is the time to talk about mismanagement.
“Governments respond very differently - we've seen that across the world, but based on the facts, the science, the evidence that has been presented to us as decision-makers. We have seen harrowing death tolls around the world.”
Police and frontline workers planned to get Covid vaccine priority, says Patel
The home secretary said work is underway to move police, fire and other frontline workers forward in the queue for coronavirus vaccines.
“The health secretary and I are working to absolutely make that happen," Priti Patel told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “I will be very clear about that."
She said “logistical plans” were in place already, adding “If the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation says [prioritising] is a possibility, we can make it happen.”
Pfizer vaccine likely to protect against UK coronavirus variant, new research shows
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is likely to provide protection against the coronavirus variant first detected in the UK, new research shows.
Analysis of blood taken from vaccine trial participants suggests the Pfizer jab can overcome more mutations in the Covid variant than previously known.
Follow updates on this breaking story here:
Pfizer vaccine likely to provide protection against UK coronavirus variant, new research shows
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is likely to provide protection against the coronavirus variant first detected in the UK, new research shows.
Government pauses key part of school testing plan
The government has paused a key part of their testing plan for schools following advice from Public Health England, who said the balance between risks and benefits was “unclear”.
Daily rapid coronavirus testing had been made available to staff and students if they were indentified as a close contact of a confirmed Covid-19 case, allowing them to forgo self-isolation if negative.
But experts have since warned the plan could leave infected people in school, due to concerns over the accuracy of Lateral Flow Devices being used.
Read the full story from Zoe Tidman here:
Government pauses key part of school testing plan following PHE recommendation
It comes around a month after programme of daily rapid testing as an alternative to self-isolation was announced for schools
Some hospitals like ‘war zones’, says Vallance
Some British hospitals look like war zones as doctors struggle to cope with an influx of coronavirus patients, the government's top scientific adviser said this morning.
“It may not look like it when you go for a walk in the park, but when you go into a hospital, this is very, very bad at the moment with enormous pressure and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with,” Sir Patrick Vallance told Sky News.
“There have been huge numbers of cases, the NHS is under enormous pressure at the moment.”
Reaction to Priti Patel’s Covid border admission
Several opposition politicians have reacted with exasperation after Priti Patel said she pushed for borders to be closed last March when the pandemic first took hold in the UK.
Her opposite number, Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, said “This is a shocking admission from the home secretary about the government’s failure to secure the UK’s borders against Covid," and called for a review of border policy.
Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, suggested Ms Patel ought to have been able to close the borders by strength of her position. And shadow justice secretary David Lammy spoke out along the same line.
The countries where fewer have died in total than in just 24 hours in UK
Following yesterday’s grim record of 1,610 daily deaths from coronavirus, Rory Sullivan has taken a look around the world to find countries that have seen fewer fatalities throughout the entire pandemic than Britain did in one day.
Any guesses? Have a read here:
Countries where fewer have died in total than in just 24 hours in UK
Dozens of nations have each seen fewer than 1,610 Covid-19 deaths
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