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Good Morning. Last night, after the number of new coronavirus cases in the UK approached 3,000 for the second day in a row, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, offered a rather chilling warning. “People have become too relaxed,” he said. “Now is the time to re-engage and realize that this is an ongoing threat to us.” Describing the increase in the number of cases as a “big change”, he said;
We’ve been able to relax a bit over the summer, sickness levels have been pretty low in the UK over the summer, but these latest figures really show us that people would like to say ‘well it’s gone’ – this hasn’t missing. And if we’re not careful, if we don’t take this incredibly seriously from now on, we’re going to have a bumpy ride for the next several months.
This morning Robert Jenrick, the secretary of communities, was doing the round of broadcast interviews on behalf of the government and essentially endorsed Van-Tam’s message. He urged people to be “very careful.”
The coronavirus is still with us, so we must all be very careful. There is a worrying increase in cases and it reminds us that we have to continue to follow the guide.
Although we are encouraged to return to the workplace to support jobs, coffees, etc., we must do so responsibly … No one wants to see a return to full national restrictions of the kind we had earlier this year.
And he said young people, among whom new infections are increasing the fastest, had a particular responsibility to be careful.
We have to continue to insist on the message. Of course, people in those age categories are unlikely to feel extremely ill as a result of having the virus, but they can pass it on to other people. Younger people have the responsibility to not only stay home, obviously to go out and go to work and enjoy pubs and restaurants, but to do so according to guidelines.
This will no doubt come up in the cabinet this morning, and MPs will hear from Matt Hancock, the health secretary later.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30 am: Boris Johnson chair cabinet.
9.30 am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.
9.30 am: Andrew Lloyd Webber and other leading figures in the arts testify to the Commons culture committee about the site’s reopening.
11am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, testifies to the Commons health committee on social care.
12:00 h: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
12:15 pm: Nicola Sturgeon, the Prime Minister of Scotland, conducts a briefing on the coronavirus.
12.30 pm: Brandon Lewis, the secretary of Northern Ireland, responds to an urgent question from the Commons about the Northern Ireland protocol.
Around 1:15 pm: Hancock makes a Commons statement on the coronavirus.
And, of course, trade talks between the UK and the EU are resuming in London.
Politics Live has doubled as the UK’s coronavirus live blog for some time and given the way the Covid crisis overshadows everything, for the foreseeable future it will still focus primarily on the coronavirus. But we’ll also cover non-Covid political stories, like Brexit, and where they seem most important and interesting, they will take precedence.
Here’s our global coronavirus live blog.
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