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Here are the morning coronavirus headlines for Friday, November 27, as a union calls for schools to be closed early to help children and teachers avoid having to isolate themselves on Christmas Day.
The UCAC teachers union told the BBC that schools should close on December 11 and change lessons online, but the Welsh government has said schools would only close if there were clear public health reasons.
In a letter to Education Minister Kirsty Williams, the union said there were “serious concerns” among UCAC members “that pupils and students will continue to attend an educational setting one week before Christmas Day.”
Most schools will be broken around Friday, December 18, but if positive cases are found in pupils’ class bubbles, the children would have to isolate themselves for two weeks, which means that some would have to isolate themselves. Christmas day.
Secretary General Dilwyn Roberts-Young said in the letter: “If a pupil or student tested positive for Covid-19 during the last week of the quarter, it would mean that the entire bubble would have to isolate itself, preventing them from joining their family. for Christmas.
“The same could be true for the educational workforce.
“Additionally, Test, Trace and Protect could continue to contact school and university leaders on Christmas Day, which is totally unacceptable.”
Do you think schools close early for Christmas? Leave your comments here.
Talks about new restrictions continue
Talks continue today in Wales on whether further restrictions are needed in the run-up to Christmas.
The Welsh government cabinet met on Thursday to study the possibility of increasing the rules, and further talks will take place on Friday.
Prime Minister Mark Drakeford is scheduled to give the coronavirus briefing on Friday at 12:15 p.m. M.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething was on the BBC’s question time on Thursday night and said: “If we don’t do something, we will be witnesses and we will stand by while people suffer harm.”
“We can’t do that. The government’s responsibility is to take care of the people they are responsible for, the people we serve.
“I already indicated at the beginning of the week that we are looking at different national measures. I always said, like the Prime Minister, going to the firewall that we expected to get to the end of the year, but if the case numbers move in the wrong direction, it is We may have to do something different.
“It is very possible that we will have to do that. The cabinet will meet again on Friday, and we will have to make some decisions. All those decisions, how we take care of ourselves, each other and how we will continue Wales safely.”
Prime Minister faces rebellion while most face tough post-shutdown restrictions
Meanwhile, the decision to place strict restrictions on 99% of England has sparked a furious backlash with Boris Johnson facing a conservative revolt over his post-shutdown plans.
More than 55 million people will be placed on Level 2 and Level 3 measures when the second national shutdown ends on December 2, which means that indoor-home mixing will be effectively prohibited in the vast majority of the country.
Only the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, which make up just over 1% of England’s population, face the lightest Tier 1 coronavirus restrictions.
Large swaths of the Midlands, the Northeast, and the Northwest are at the most restrictive Level 3, accounting for 41.5% of the population, or 23.3 million people.
Most authorities, including London, will be at Level 2, which will cover 57.3% of the country, or 32 million people.
Of those areas to enter Level 3, only eight out of 119 have reported an increase in cases.
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential 1922 Conservative MPs Committee, said the decision would make it “more difficult” to push the measures through Parliament, while the Daily Mail suggested that as many as 70 government MPs were willing to rebel in a vote on regulations. next week.
Some MPs were angered after seeing their areas increased two notches compared to their state before England’s blockade in November.
Don’t hug grandma at Christmas
A review of the levels is scheduled for December 16, but the Times reported that the government does not expect to make any changes until the new year.
Calum Semple, a professor of children’s health and sprout medicine at the University of Liverpool, said that if people wanted to see their family at Christmas, they had to accept stricter rules.
“People want to have five days of fun over Christmas. If they want that leeway, they really have to accept tighter restrictions in the run-up to Christmas,” he told Newsnight.
Despite a planned relaxation of restrictions over the holiday period, England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, warned the public against hugging and kissing elderly relatives “if you want them to survive to be hugged again.”
EasyJet sees big increase in flight searches
Families desperate to see their loved ones over Christmas have helped drive a 200% increase in searches for flights and vacations on Easyjet.
The airline said domestic flight bookings in December had skyrocketed as it emerged that restrictions across the UK would be eased over Christmas.
The most popular routes included London and Bristol to Belfast and from London to Edinburgh. Easyjet saw the jump in searches and bookings between Monday and Wednesday of this week.
Cardiff Police have additional powers
Police have been given additional powers to carry out random checks on vehicles in Cardiff after a chaotic weekend in which people from closed parts of the UK visited the city.
South Wales police say they will use the powers to try to ensure that visitors to Cardiff city center do not break coronavirus rules.
Police will have the power to conduct random checks on vehicles starting at 9 a.m. Friday, when shoppers arrive in town looking for Black Friday deals.
It comes after a weekend of “chaos” in the city, where police believe that people from other parts of the UK “migrated” to the Welsh capital to enjoy the open shops, restaurants and pubs.
England is still locked in and nationwide restrictions on traveling outside the country for non-essential reasons are in effect until December 2.
Meanwhile, teams of coronavirus enforcers are being set up across South Wales to crack down on individuals and businesses failing to comply with the restrictions. Find out more here.
Cases in your area
Latest cases for Wales
Another 28 people have died from coronavirus in Wales and more than 1,200 new positive cases have been confirmed. The cases for your area are here.
The latest statistics released by Public Health Wales (PHW) on Thursday showed 1,251 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Wales, a significant increase from the 907 recorded on Tuesday.
The infection rate in Wales as a whole now stands at 189.4 per 100,000 inhabitants according to the seven days until November 23, compared to 188.2 in the data published on Wednesday (until November 22).
Blaenau gwent remains the county in Wales with the highest infection rate with a seven-day rate of 405.1 , down from 415.1 the day before.
Torfaen is the second highest with a rate of 333.1 , since 315, while Newport is third with 298.7 , from 283.2.
The regulator was formally asked to evaluate the vaccines
The launch of the coronavirus vaccine in the UK could be one step closer after the government formally asked the regulator to evaluate the vaccine against the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
The measure “marks an important first step for the vaccine to be approved for implementation” if it meets safety, efficacy and quality standards, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
It comes a week after the government formally requested the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to evaluate the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “We are working tirelessly to be in the best possible position to implement a vaccine as soon as it is approved by the independent regulator MHRA.”
“We have formally asked the regulator to evaluate the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, understand the data and determine if it meets rigorous safety standards.”
British scientists have defended the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca after questions were raised about the results of their vaccine trial.
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AstraZeneca said it will most likely conduct an additional global clinical trial to assess the efficacy of the jab after a surprising result found that 90% protection was achieved when people received a half dose followed by a full dose.
The pharmaceutical giant has acknowledged that the finding was the result of a dosing error, but said it did not expect any new tests to delay regulatory approval in countries like the UK.
American scientists questioned the lack of detail in the trial results published last week, and the scientific director of the US Operation Warp Speed, the program to supply vaccines to the United States, told US journalists that the The half-dose regimen was only given to people 55 years of age and older. below.
Two in three people have said they are likely to receive a Covid-19 vaccine when one is available, according to the research.
Almost one in 10 (9%) people have said in a survey that they are unlikely to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, while 27% have stated that they are not sure if they are immunized.
The findings, published in the journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, are based on a demographically representative sample of 1,500 adults in the UK.
Scientists around the world hope to find vaccines that work in older people, the group most at risk for Covid-19.
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