UK Coronavirus live: Starmer calls on government to establish exit closure strategy | Politics

Helen Whately, the care minister, has been speaking to Sky News. She said more than 1,000 care workers have already been screened for coronaviruses and more than 2,000 have been referred for testing. This contradicts what the shadow care minister Liz Kendall He said last night that only 500 care staff members have been evaluated to date. Whately said:

The test is in progress. In the next few days, the Quality of Care Commission will be calling nearly 30,000 care providers to identify who needs testing and begin lining up people for testing.

Later he told BBC Breakfast:

We have been doing everything we can to protect truly vulnerable people who live in care homes or who receive care at home.

From the moment the coronavirus seemed to be approaching … we have been working very hard to do everything possible to protect those receiving care from this truly horrible and horrible disease.

Nursing home leaders have accused the government of grossly underestimating deaths from the elderly from coronavirus and warned that the disease may be circulating in more than 50% of nursing homes, with significantly higher mortality than official figures.

You can read the full story here –

In a government announcement made overnight, they promised that all nursing home residents and social care staff with Covid-19 symptoms will be screened for the virus as capacity increases. .

Health Secretary Matt Hancock He said he was determined to ensure that everyone who needs a test has access to one, and that testing remains a key part of the government’s coronavirus battle plan.

Currently, only the first five symptomatic residents in a nursing home are evaluated to confirm if there is an outbreak.

Hancock said:

I am deeply aware that people in residential care are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. We are doing everything we can to keep workers, residents and their families safe.

We have already started evaluating social care workers and will implement it across the country in the coming days. And as we continue to scale up our testing program, we will evaluate all current nursing home residents with coronavirus symptoms and all new nursing home residents who are discharged from the hospital.

The announcement follows criticism that the government’s coronavirus strategy has ignored the social care sector, where there is evidence that the virus is widespread.

Shadow Minister of Labor for Social Care Liz Kendall He has said that “only 500 members of the care staff have been evaluated to date,” and social care needs “a much higher priority and focus than hitherto.”

The BBC has seen a leaked document from Public Health England (PHE) saying that items of personal protective equipment (PPE) could be reused by NHS staff as a “last resort.”

It states that masks and gowns may need to be cleaned and reused when stocks run out, and admits that there is currently “reduced capacity to replenish” PPE. Some hospitals have already begun cleaning single-use robes to preserve stocks, according to separate emails seen by the BBC.

You can read the BBC story here.

Good Morning. I am Frances Perraudin and I will guide you through the coronavirus developments this morning in the UK. You can contact me on Twitter at @fperraudin With any questions or advice, I will do my best to respond.

Labor leader Keir Starmer – who should speak to broadcasters this morning – is asking the government to publish its strategy to get out of the coronavirus blockade this week, saying that “silent pressures” on communities across the UK “cannot be underestimated.”

The government is expected to announce an extension of the shutdown tomorrow. Write in a letter to the secretary of foreign affairs Dominic Raab, who is replacing the prime minister while recovering from the virus, Starmer said:

So the question for Thursday is no longer whether the blockade should be extended, but what the government’s position is on how and when it can be eased in due course and on what criteria that decision will be made.

In response to the Labor leader’s demand, a government source said:

Talk about an exit strategy before we reach maximum risks, confusing the critical message that people must stay home to protect our NHS and save lives.

The question of how to safely get the UK out of the blockade has been given more urgency (if that were possible) by a warning from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) yesterday that the UK economy could shrink by 35 % in the coming months. It came shortly after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus could produce a drop in production this year unparalleled since the Great Depression of the 1930s.