Coronavirus news – live: UK reports new record daily death toll, as PM warns there is ‘more to come’

A Skegness hotel has had its alcohol premises licence revoked after pictures were shared online of men drinking pints with the caption “What Lockdown?”

Lincolnshire Police initially received Facebook images of large groups gathered at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Skegness during the November coronavirus lockdown, when pubs had been ordered to close.

Sergent Kim Enderby, alcohol licensing manager for the force, said: “I thought after 29 years in the police there wasn't a lot left to shock me but the way in which this venue was operating was awful.

“Nearly two weeks after the November lockdown had started we found footage of over 15 people in the bar area.

“They were being served pint after pint by the owner of the premises, Mr Sparks.

“At one point over 10 men were crammed round a small table drinking and posing for what we think were the Facebook posts.”

Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs Committee of MPs responsible for scrutinising the work of the Home Office, has responded to Priti Patel’s admission that the government should have taken stronger action to stop the spread of Covid at the border in March:

“This is the first recognition by any minister that the government got things wrong at the border during the first wave of the pandemic. I have been raising the issue of the UK’s weak border measures with the home secretary and the government repeatedly since last March and up until now everyone has defended the decisions made at the start of the pandemic not to have stricter border and quarantine measures in place.  

“The Home Affairs Select Committee was told that up to 10,000 people arrived in or returned to the UK with Covid in March with no testing or quarantine rules in place. Our report found that clearly increased the scale and pace of the pandemic.  

“We repeatedly asked to see the scientific evidence behind the government’s damaging decision on 13 March to lift all self-isolation advice for travellers at the same time that other countries were introducing stronger quarantine requirements, but ministers have never published it and we ended up concluding it did not exist.

“It is welcome that the home secretary is recognising those errors now, but it raises serious questions about who did in fact take the decision, based on what evidence and why on earth did ministers not look at what other countries like South Korea, New Zealand and Australia were doing. It is still inexplicable that the UK’s approach to public health border measures has been so much weaker than elsewhere."

The unequal results of contracting coronavirus have been observed since the early part of the pandemic, despite this little appears to have been done to acknowledge it let alone reduce it by politicians, writes Ian Hamilton for Independent Voices. 

The factors contributing to this inequality are not a mystery they don’t need an enquiry to be uncovered they are also well known. 

Overcrowded housing, insecure employment, pre-existing health issues, being black or from an ethnic minority and poverty are all well-established links to not only contracting coronavirus but dying as a result. 

Latest NHS figures show a further 1,027 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 63,322 since the pandemic began.

Patients were aged between 29 and 101. All bar 49 of them, aged between 37 and 99, had known underlying health conditions.

The deaths were between 14 December and 19 January, with the majority being on or after 12 January.

The Home Office has been accused of “callousness” and “inhumanity” after blaming asylum seekers for the spread of coronavirus in a military camp where hundreds are being held with dozens to a dormitory.

Residents were banned from leaving Napier Barracks, in Kent, after a number of individuals tested positive for Covid-19. They were told they were “not to leave the site under any circumstance” and that if they did they could face arrest.

Since the ban came in last weekend, a considerable number more are said to have contracted the virus. The Independent has seen letters confirming positive test results for six individuals, and residents say there are more than 100 confirmed cases.

Social Affairs Correspondent May Bulman has the full story:

The total number of coronavirus deaths in UK hospitals increased by 1,185 in the biggest single-day rise of the pandemic so far.

England reported 1,027 new fatalities, Scotland reported 92, Wales had 44 and Northern Ireland had 22, bringing the total to 74,807.

Figures tend to spike on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after a lag in reporting over the weekend. This Wednesday’s toll is up from 1,176 on 13 January.

The folks at Statista have compiled this graph showing how the pandemic has affected the mental health of young people in the UK. Based on figures for 16-25 year olds who were asked how happy and confident they felt about different areas of their lives.

Source: The Prince’s Trust Tesco Youth Index

The GMB is calling for school support workers to be prioritised in the vaccine rollout as they are more likely to be off sick because of coronavirus than teachers.

The trade union said official figures showed that 33,267 school support staff workers in England were absent just before Christmas due to the coronavirus, including confirmed and suspected infections and those who had to self-isolate.

Support staff were at the highest occupational exposure to Covid-19 in schools, the GMB said. Figures show an estimated 6.1 per cent of support staff were absent on the last day of school before christmas, compared with 4.4 per cent of teachers and school bosses.

The latest daily death figures have been released, granting the UK another grim record after 1,820 people died within 28 days of testing for coronavirus, the highest number since the pandemic began.

Today’s figure is up more than 200 on yesterday toll, which was a record at the time.

An adviser from the government’s Sage group had warned earlier that daily death tolls would continue to rise for some time despite lockdown measures being introduced a few weeks back due to a lag in hospital admissions after infections. 

More on this breaking story from Vincent Wood here:

As little as 20 per cent of staff in some care homes have received a coronavirus vaccine, the NHS national clinical director for older people has said.

Dr Adrian Hayter said those involved in the vaccination programme must do "better and more" to ensure care home staff get a jab as soon as possible.

While some care homes have seen 70-80 per cent of their staff vaccinated, which he called "fantastic", others have rates as low as 20 per cent.

Overall, 45 per cent of care home staff have received a jab, he said.

Dr Hayter acknowledged there had been delays and that some care homes had found the process "difficult".