Ministers warn blockade could stay for MONTHS until new cases drop to hundreds

Ministers have warned that the blockade must remain in place for months until the number of new cases falls below 1,000 per day after Professor Chris Whitty raised the specter of a second peak much worse than the first.

The total number of new coronavirus deaths in all settings was 674 on Thursday, up from 765 the day before, but there was a jump in the number of new cases to 6,032 from 4,076 the day before.

Although this was due in part to increased evidence, ministers say they want daily infections to drop to hundreds before the blockage is alleviated, The Daily Telegraph reported. Britain has not fallen by the hundreds since March 23.

In his first Downing Street briefing since leaving the intensive care unit, Boris Johnson said he would present a “menu of options” next week on how the UK could get out of the peak it said we had passed.

He claimed that efforts to strengthen the NHS had prevented a “reasonable worst case scenario” of 500,000 deaths if we had not blocked. But it dashed hopes of any premature relief from the restrictions, saying that if the ‘R’ value (the rate of virus reproduction) were allowed to rise above one, the outbreak would increase again.

Germany’s rising infection rate as a result of easing its measures, when its daily rate was well below ours at 2,000, is believed to have generated deep concern among ministers.

It occurs when Professor Whitty warned that ‘Covid-19 is far from over and eradication is technically impossible for this disease’, which could hit us again in the colder months.

England’s medical director said in an online conference: “It is not just on Game Of Thrones that winter is always coming … winter is always worse than summer, spring and autumn for health services.”

And he echoed the Prime Minister’s sentiments about the R-value (now between 0.6 and 0.9), saying that if it did not stay below one, we would be forced into another vicious tsunami of contagion.

Professor Whitty said: ‘We have to make sure that R does not return above one. Because if not we will return to a second wave. It is entirely plausible that a second wave is actually more severe than the first if it is not mitigated.

Johnson said yesterday that efforts to strengthen the NHS had prevented a “reasonable worst case scenario” of 500,000 deaths if we had not blocked.

Mr. Johnson’s triple plan to be described next week “will explain how we can get our economy to move, our children to go back to school and look after the children, and third, how we can travel to work and get life in the workplace is safer. ”

Johnson also said he “was not going to pretend” that the government had made no mistake in handling the crisis, pointing to EPP supplies. He admitted that they were learning lessons every day.

The hard message came when Johnson put the ‘R’ number, the virus’ reproduction rate, at the center of the battle. He insisted that nothing can be done to allow it to rise above you, which would mean that the outbreak is growing again.

Scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said in the briefing that he believed the R was currently between 0.6 and 0.9 across the country, but in London it is believed to be between 0.5 and 0.7.

Johnson, whose fiancé Carrie Symonds gave birth to her son yesterday, began by sincerely thanking the NHS saying he had been “very, very lucky.” “I want to thank everyone who has been doing such a good job in my absence, and I want to thank the NHS for even including bringing me back here and, I might add, a much happier visit to the hospital yesterday,” he said. said.

In other developments without end in view of the crisis:

• Britain today announced 674 more coronavirus deaths in hospitals, nursing homes and elsewhere, bringing the UK’s official death toll to 26,711;
• A report warned that London’s transport network could be paralyzed when the UK eases the blockade measures after TfL laid off 7,000 employees;
• Ministers have admitted that the government “probably” will not meet Matt Hancock’s goal of conducting 100,000 tests a day, although the numbers have risen to 81,000;
• A survey found that two-thirds of the public believe the government acted too late in imposing the blockade;
• New questions have been raised about the SAGE group amid claims that it has been influenced by politicians and senior officials;
• NHS fundraising hero Tom Moore was promoted to colonel and honored with an RAF air flight to commemorate his centennial;
• Top surgeons have warned that thousands of people will die from Covid-19 if Britain’s strict closure is lifted at this stage, saying the NHS should not be used as a “punching bag” to avoid economic damage;
• Germany has said its coronavirus reproduction rate is 0.76, well below one’s growth level, despite fears of loosening restrictions. But scientists have warned that the UK has less room to maneuver in closure because it has far fewer intensive care beds.

Addressing the audience from behind the podium for the first time in five weeks, Johnson accepted that there have been issues with issues like EPP supplies for front-line staff.

But he insisted: “At no time has our NHS been overwhelmed, no patient was left without a ventilator, no patient was deprived of intensive care, we have five of the seven Nightingale projected wards.”

“ Thanks to that massive collective effort to protect the NHS, we avoided an uncontrollable and catastrophic epidemic where the worst reasonable scenario was 500,000 deaths.

‘Today I can confirm that for the first time we have exceeded the peak of this disease.

‘We have passed the peak and on the downward slope … We have reached the peak.

‘Or rather we have come across what could have been a large peak.

‘As if we had been going through a huge alpine tunnel.

“And now we can see the sunlight and the grass in front of us.”

Johnson said he did not want to “prolong” the blockade any longer and that the government is working on “ingenious” solutions to make the economy work.

“Until this day comes (when an inoculation is ready), and we cannot say exactly when it will be, we will have to overcome this disease with our growing determination and ingenuity,” the prime minister said.

‘Next week I will establish a comprehensive plan to explain how we can make our economy move, that our children go back to school and go to daycare, and thirdly, how we can travel to work and make life on-site. work is safer.

“In short, how can we continue to suppress the disease and at the same time restart the economy.”

Johnson said: “What they will get next week is really a road map, a menu of options: the dates and times of each individual measure will largely depend on where we are in the epidemic, what the data is really saying and we are getting much more data every day now and over the next few days. ‘

Referring to his own fight against the disease, which he previously admitted could have gone “any way,” Johnson said the government’s primary goal was always “to save lives.” “I was very, very lucky,” he said. ‘I had wonderful caregivers, wonderful treatment and, let’s be frank, tragically, thousands of people have been less fortunate than me.

“And that is why the objective of this Government is to save lives throughout the country.”

He said, “ Families continue to lose loved ones every day ahead of their time, we mourn for them and with them, but as we grieve, we strengthen ourselves in our determination to defeat this virus so that the entire country return to health, back on your feet.

Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon threw the gun down at a briefing in Edinburgh earlier, saying she believed it would be “too soon” when the formal review takes place next week to lift the restrictions “significantly.” He also voiced alarm that people were already starting to ignore the rules of social distancing: developer traffic rose 10 percent last week in parts of Scotland.

Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan made an even grimmer assessment, warning that “there will not be a return to life as it was” and suggested that it will be a long time before bars and restaurants can reopen.

Despite the hard line in public, frantic behind-the-scenes work has been done to develop an ‘exit plan’. Island communities with controllable transport links will be used to test ways to loosen restrictions and increase community testing. The Isle of Wight will be among the first pilot sites.

Johnson’s appearance at tonight’s press conference will be the first since he took office in Downing Street on Monday, and will come less than 36 hours after his fiancé Carrie Symonds gave birth to his son.

The prime minister has delayed his paternity leave until later in the year as the country struggles to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

At the briefing in Edinburgh today, Ms Sturgeon said: “ It may well be too early, even this time next week, in any meaningful way to safely lift the current restrictions …

“The margins we have to make sure the virus doesn’t take off again are really very tight.”

She said overall traffic in Scotland increased 5 percent in the past week, even though it is still less than a third of pre-closing levels.

“In some of our towns and cities, traffic has been 10% higher than in the previous week,” he said.

He asked people to think about whether they were “a little more active” now than they had been at the beginning of the blockade.

‘You might think it’s just you taking an extra trip, and it’s just a trip. And you may feel like you deserve it after weeks of moderation. Believe me, I really understand all of that.

‘But it all adds up. And if everyone begins to calm down, the virus will quickly take off again and will have devastating consequences for all of us. ”

Writing in the Evening Standard, Mr. Khan took an even tougher line. “There will be no return to life as it was; instead, we face a ‘new normal’ even once the blockade is eased,” he wrote.

‘We may occasionally be able to see our closest loved ones, but interactions will be limited and for a time there will be no larger gatherings.

While nonessential stores may reopen after introducing social distancing measures, it’s hard to see how this can be safely extended to bars, restaurants, or social spaces in a practical way anytime soon.

“And most people who can currently work from home will need to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.”

Attorney General Robert Buckland said in interviews this morning that the mood among the ministers was “extreme caution.”

He said: ‘I think the common thread between governments is one of extreme caution after the evidence from the Sage committee, making sure we don’t do anything prematurely that could risk a second spike. That would be a disaster. ‘

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today program: “ I think that, within the government, a lot of work is already being done on what the future will be like; I think it would be a breach of duty if we did not do that.

‘Certainly in my department, I am looking to the medium-term future as to what summer and autumn will be like in the prison and judicial system. We have to start that work, in fact the work is already underway.

“That, of course, does not mean that we are suddenly going into a new phase: we must be absolutely sure that the five tests that were carried out a few weeks ago will be met, and in particular the need to prevent the second or even The third peak of the disease is clear to me, both in terms of health and the well-being of the economy. ”

A No10 source said of Mr. Johnson’s message: “It will be in the area of ​​how we meet our five tests to get out of the lockdown, the main one of which is making sure we don’t risk another exponential increase in infections.”

“It is still too early to establish details on what the blockade reduction could be like.”

Data released yesterday showed that Britain has one of the worst coronavirus mortality rates in the world, better only than Spain and Belgium per capita.

Revised UK figures, including deaths outside hospitals, showed that there were nine days when the number of deaths exceeded 1,000, ranging from April 7 to April 24.

Johnson chaired the daily morning coronavirus meeting, followed by meetings of his political cabinet and his entire cabinet, the prime minister’s official spokesman said.

Medical director Professor Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance updated ministers on the response to the coronavirus thus far and the progress made to stem the spread of the disease.

Then the secretaries of state updated their colleagues on the work their departments are doing.

The prime minister gave another sign that there is little chance that he will relax before June.

He said at a Westminster briefing: “I think we will have to wait for the review to take place and I do not think it is wise to move that forward.”

“ What you have obviously heard from Chris Whitty is that this is a disease that will exist for a significant period of time – he has said that we have to be realistic, we are going to have to do a lot of things for a long period of time.

The spokesperson added: “We are not ahead of the review, but, as the prime minister has said, the worst thing we could do is relax the measures of social distancing too soon and discard all the progress that has been achieved thanks to the hard work and sacrifice from the British public. ”

Labor leader Keir Starmer said he believed a public investigation into the coronavirus response was now “inevitable.”

“I think the government was slow in closing, slow in testing, slow in protective gear, and now it may be slow in our exit strategy,” he told ITV News.

The “chief medical officer of Wales” warned that “there is a long way to go” in the fight against coronavirus, adding that progress will be “extraordinarily difficult.”

Dr. Frank Atherton said in a virtual meeting of the Welsh Assembly health committee that Covid-19 had “many surprises” that arose daily.

He called for a “more systematic approach” to understand how the virus was affecting the UK and the rest of the world, as each country has different perspectives and responses.

Dr. Atherton said the rate of reproduction of the virus, the number of new cases linked to a single individual, is now less than one in Wales, which means that the blocking measures are working.

But the meeting heard that there is little “leeway” for an increase in infections that is likely if such measures are lifted significantly.

“We are not out of this yet and we have a long way to go,” said Dr. Atherton.

‘This virus has many surprises and they appear daily.

‘Getting out of this situation is extremely difficult.

“It is something that we do not do alone, we do it in concert with our colleagues in the rest of the UK, and we have to continue learning from others.”

‘The virus is not yet done with us. We continue to adapt our strategy and our approaches. ‘

Dr. Atherton said the closure restrictions had been successful in ensuring that the NHS was not overwhelmed, but cautioned that Wales “was not yet out of the woods yet.”

He told the meeting that the “tail bite” was that the completely suppressed transmission risked a second or possibly third wave of the virus.

“That is something that we somehow have to avoid,” he said.

Dominic Raab pointed out the dangers of premature relaxation last night, noting that Germany, while lavishly containing the virus, has now seen an increase in transmission since its opening.

“Chancellor Merkel has made it clear that they may need a second shutdown in Germany if the infection rate continues to rise,” the foreign secretary said at the Downing Street briefing.

Despite the harsh public messages, there is evidence of a broader move to jump-start more of the economy.

DIY stores, fast food chains, coffee shops and garden centers have been expanding their activities.

The ministers have also told the councils to reopen the rubbish.

Ministers are working on a series of guides in the workplace detailing what they might look like once the blockade is alleviated.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma has asked officials to provide advice on how a gradual return to work could be safely managed for seven different types of workplaces, including offices, factories and construction sites.

Businesses will be asked to close canteens and other communal spaces, as well as operate new shift patterns to allow for social distancing and limit pressure on public transportation during rush hour.

Office staff are likely to be encouraged to continue working from home whenever possible.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said a partial reopening of the schools was “in the mix” but that it was “premature” to expect early action given the difficulty of social distancing in them.

A Whitehall source said the quarterly review of the blocking measures, which expires on May 7, would involve only modest changes at best.

“We are looking at whether we can undo the top button and make things more comfortable in one or two places for the economy,” added the source. “But any idea of ​​a general uprising is just wrong.”

The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies will release new evidence to ministers in the coming days, but lifting of many of the restrictions is expected to immediately lead to an increase in the infection rate.

A government source said Johnson will be “very clear that we will not do anything that could risk [this]… because then you are back with the virus spreading exponentially and the risk of a second crash. ‘

In further pressure on the prime minister to be cautious, top surgeons have warned that thousands of people will die from Covid-19 if the blockade is lifted at this stage.

The Royal College of Surgeons said the NHS should not be used as a “punching bag” to avoid damaging the economy.

The RCS said the blockade cannot be loosened at this stage because not enough health care personnel are being tested and there is not enough PPE available for front-line doctors.

Professor Neil Mortensen, RCS President-elect, told the Daily Telegraph: “Just because the NHS has not been overwhelmed thus far, does not mean that the government can use the health service as its economic punching bag.”

“It was very close, and to use Boris Johnson’s own words” we have started to fight the ground, “but the virus has not yet been defeated.”

At last night’s press conference No. 10, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab noted a reported increase in virus cases in Germany, which has facilitated its closure.

He said a similar rebound in the UK “is a very real risk.”

The news came after a day when the number of deaths from coronavirus in the UK increased by 3,811 to 26,097 now that the Government has begun counting people who died in care homes or in their own homes.

It was the first time that the Health Department included people dying outside of hospitals in its daily statistics, and the previous figures have added thousands to the number of deaths, which was 21,678 yesterday.

But a larger increase was expected. The Bureau of National Statistics reported that more than 4,300 people are known to have died in nursing homes before April 17, but the Quality of Care Commission has recorded more than 4,300 in just fifteen days in England alone.

However, the government will only include people who tested positive for the virus in its statistics, despite rationing almost all test kits to hospitals during the first month of the outbreak.

Professor John Newton, head of government testing, explained that officials had been working on the assumption that if a person tested positive for COVID-19 in a home, anyone else who developed symptoms probably also had it and did not need testing. .

The ONS and CQC continue to publish more reliable but slower statistics that include reports of people suspected of having the disease but never diagnosed, and as a result, significantly increasing the number of people who die outside of hospitals.

ONS data suggests that the actual number of victims may be 55 percent higher than the government is allowing, which already puts the figure at over 40,000. Meanwhile, records in Scotland show that hospital deaths now account for just 52 percent of deaths, suggesting the actual number is 43,000. The Financial Times estimates that 47,000 people have already died.

However, today’s Health Department data suggests that hospital patients still account for 83 percent of all deaths, something that is not confirmed by any other statistics published in the UK.

Britain announced today that 765 more hospital patients have died from the coronavirus, of which around 600 died in hospitals. NHS England announced 445 more victims, including a healthy 14-year-old boy, to add 83 declared in Scotland and 73 in Wales.

It occurs as the number of people known to have died in nursing homes increases, and an expert from the University of Cambridge said people may be dying at a faster rate in homes than in hospitals.

The professor, a highly regarded statistical expert and an OBE recipient, spoke of ‘massive and unprecedented spikes’ in the number of deaths in nursing homes and said there was no evidence that nursing homes have overcome the worst. of the outbreak, like the rest of the country is believed to be.

He told MailOnline that the updated death toll was not high enough and that the truth was “at least the same again,” bringing the total to more than 30,000.

Speaking about yesterday’s updated data collection, Professor Spiegelhalter said: ‘It is actually much more than that. [3,811].

‘The true number is probably at least as much as they added today, which would take it well above 30,000. They are doing their best and it is much better than what we have been getting, but it is not the whole picture yet.

‘If you put those two data sets (ONS and CQC) [with] new data being reported [it] It still lacks a few hundred deaths each day.

Separate data released today by Scottish National Registers has made it clear that hospital deaths announced by government officials every day only show a fraction of reality.

Data from the National Registries revealed that hospital patients accounted for only 52 percent of all deaths, while 39 percent occurred in nursing homes and 11 percent elsewhere. When they were added, Scotland’s total death toll for April 26 nearly doubled from 1,262 to 2,272.

Nursing homes, believed to still be under the control of the coronavirus, are hit by disasters, and the government faces strong criticism for alleged failures to help the industry prepare.

In England and Wales, the number of residents dying from any cause has nearly tripled in a month, from around 2,500 a week in March to 7,300 in a single week in April; more than 2,000 of the latter were confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Reports from the Quality of Care Commission (CQC) suggest that care homes are now seeing around 400 deaths from coronavirus each day, on average, a figure similar to that of hospitals in England .

The way the data is backward means that the real picture of what is happening in care homes is unclear because we currently only have statistics from two weeks ago.

The true scale of the crisis has also been masked by a lack of routine testing, which means that hundreds of elderly residents may have died undiagnosed.

Public Health England data has revealed that nearly a third of all nursing homes in the country have reported outbreaks of coronavirus.

Planes warn they could take FOUR HOURS with additional health checks and much higher ticket prices after shutdown ends, experts warn

by LARA KEAY for MailOnline

Boarding an aircraft could take up to four hours when passengers can fly again once the coronavirus blockade is relieved, it was claimed today.

Flyers could be asked to arrive at airports four hours in advance to allow for health checks and social distancing measures, an expert warns.

Flights will be more expensive because airlines will only be allowed to have a limited number of people on board to ensure they are kept two meters away.

This will drive up ticket prices and create an “uncomfortable” flight experience for another five years, another travel expert told The Times.

Andrew Charlton, director gerente de la consultora Aviation Advocacy, dijo al periódico: ‘Incluso si comienza a llover vacunas esta noche, todavía estamos esperando dos años al menos para volver a los niveles vistos antes del brote, y probablemente va a ser más como cinco años.

“Habrá menos vuelos, menos asientos disponibles, los precios subirán y habrá condiciones muy incómodas debido a las demandas de usar equipo de protección personal y mantener el distanciamiento social”.

A principios de este mes, easyJet anunció que planea mantener vacíos los asientos intermedios en sus aviones cuando reinicie los vuelos.

Pero el analista de la aerolínea Chris Tarry afirma que mantener una brecha de dos metros entre los pasajeros significaría que el 80 por ciento de los asientos tendría que estar vacío.

Para asegurarse de que las aerolíneas sigan siendo rentables, tendrán que subir los precios de los boletos exponencialmente, dijo a The Times.

También significaría que también se abolirían las rutas poco utilizadas.

Los viajes aéreos se han desplomado en todo el mundo para detener la propagación del coronavirus de un país a otro, con aeropuertos casi vacíos, excepto por un pequeño número de vuelos de repatriación.

British Airways reveló que tiene planes de despedir a 12,000 trabajadores, un cuarto de toda su fuerza laboral, después de ser golpeado por el brote de COVID-19.

Virgin Atlantic entró en administración en Australia con el fundador Sir Richard Branson tratando desesperadamente de aferrarse al negocio del Reino Unido.

Wizz Air se convertirá en la primera aerolínea comercial en comenzar a operar nuevamente en el Reino Unido mañana, pero dice que todos los pasajeros deben usar máscaras faciales.

Operará 15 rutas desde el aeropuerto de Luton a una variedad de destinos, incluidos Budapest, Lisboa y Tenerife.

Lufthansa está comenzando de nuevo el lunes, pero les ha dicho a todos los pasajeros que usen una máscara facial o una bufanda que les cubra la boca y la nariz.

El Gobierno ha dejado en claro que los viajes al extranjero estarán fuera del alcance de la mayoría de las personas en 2020.

Aquellos que esperan volar en sus vacaciones de verano se sentirán decepcionados, con muchos destinos europeos como Italia, España y Francia brutalmente afectados por el virus.

Los ministros le han dicho a los británicos que tampoco intercambien sus escapadas con vacaciones, advirtiendo que los lugares de belleza como Cornwall y Snowdonia no tienen la infraestructura del NHS para hacer frente si los visitantes caen enfermos.

En los cruceros, los pasajeros también se enfrentarán a rigurosos controles médicos.

La compañía de cruceros más grande del Reino Unido, P&O, está desarrollando planes para introducir una serie de “medidas rigurosas” para garantizar que obedezca las pautas internacionales de salud cuando reinicie las operaciones una vez que la pandemia de coronavirus retroceda.

Otros cambios que se están considerando incluyen la reducción de la capacidad de los barcos, el descarte de los buffets de autoservicio y la implementación de sistemas unidireccionales a bordo.