Coronavirus: Boris Johnson wrongly claims people who self-isolate receive £500 a week, in latest rules blunder

Boris Johnson has blundered over his own Coronavirus rules again, wrongly claiming that people who self-isolate will receive £500 each week.

In fact, only a single £500 payment is made to people who are told to stay at home and who cannot work – and it is only paid to low-earners.

The prime minister’s spokesman admitted his mistake, saying: “There is a one-off payment of £500 to cover the period of self-isolation.”

The gaffe comes after Mr Johnson admitted failing to understand local lockdown restrictions in the North East – and then mixed up the guidelines in Merseyside, in a TV interview. 

Quizzed on Monday morning about the 16,000 missing positive test results, the prime minister urged the public to recognise that self-isolation, when instructed, was “the way to make it work.

“£500 if you do, per week, and a £10,000 fine if you don’t,” he told reporters.

Mr Johnson’s spokesman was asked why it appeared he did not “know his own rules”, but declined to answer.

It came as No 10 said an investigation was underway into the latest testing fiasco – while declining to answer detailed questions ahead of a statement by the health secretary later.

It was caused by a failure in the “transfer of data” between the test-and-trace programme and Public Health England, but the spokesman would not say which organisation was to blame.

However, he insisted the prime minister retained full confidence in Dido Harding, the underfire head of the largely-privatised tracing programme.

The system breakdown is believed to have been caused by an Excel spreadsheet containing lab results reaching its limit and being unable to register an increase in positive tests.

The weekly rate of new Covid-19 cases has soared in dozens of areas of England, following the results blunder, a new analysis showed.

Manchester now has the highest rate in England, with 2,740 cases recorded in the seven days to October 1 – the equivalent of 495.6 cases per 100,000 people, up from 223.2 in the previous week, PA News Agency found.

Liverpool has the second highest rate, up from 287.1 to 456.4, with 2,273 new cases and Knowsley in Merseyside is in third place, up from 300.3 to 452.1, with 682 new cases.

The analysis, based on Public Health England data published on Sunday night, also shows sharp rises in Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Leeds and Sheffield.

However, Downing Street insisted decisions on local lockdowns had not been affected by the blunder over unreported cases.

Additional tracers have been brought in to help track down the contacts of people who should have been told to self-isolate, the spokesman said.

And the number of call attempts was being increased from 10 to 15 to ensure as many contacts as possible were traced.