Covid News Live: Level and Block Updates As UK Cases Rise

The political editor of The Independent, Andrew Woodcock, reports:

England’s city councils are given new powers to close deals for up to seven days to introduce safe Covid measures, with fines of up to £ 4,000 for those who fail to comply.

The new orders will be available as the country reopens after the second shutdown on Dec. 2, Downing Street said.

According to a Coronavirus Restriction Notice issued by a local authority, businesses such as shops, pubs or restaurants can be closed for up to seven days to carry out improvements to their hygiene and social distancing agreements. An Immediate Restriction Notice will close any establishment that poses a risk to public health for 48 hours.

Failure to comply with any of the orders will carry a fine of up to £ 4,000.

In the meantime, less serious breaches can be dealt with with a Coronavirus Improvement Notice, which allows companies to continue operating for 48 hours while they implement changes to their safe Covid measures, with a maximum fine of £ 2,000 per breach.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “Local authorities play a crucial role in promoting regulatory compliance and taking enforcement action when facilities are not following the rules.

“Until now, local authorities have benefited from imposing fines based on non-compliance with legal obligations to be protected by Covid. These new powers will allow them to formally request improvements or close premises ”.

Matt Hancock has outlined his vision for a revolution in healthcare that would see millions of people routinely tested for viruses like the flu, just as they have been for Covid-19.

The health secretary told parliamentarians that mass testing should become the norm to do more to prevent, rather than simply treat, disease. He also criticized what he suggested was a culture in the UK where staff “work like soldiers” and go to work when sick, which could pass infections to others.

The change would be made possible by the “global scale diagnostic capability” that the UK has built to combat the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

The independentit is Kate devlin Y Shaun lintern have the story:

A new analysis by the Health Foundation think tank suggests that this year and next, the total health costs of Covid-19 could be as high as £ 40bn, most at £ 27bn for protective equipment and conducting the national test and tracking service.

While Rishi Sunak is set to reveal an additional £ 3bn investment for the NHS as part of his spending review on Wednesday, is it enough to save the NHS from another Covid tsunami this winter?

Our health correspondent, Shaun lintern, discusses what these costs mean moving forward, especially considering that vaccine launch is potentially only a few weeks away:

Matt Hancock has said that the university’s testing capacity was not used initially because it was a “matter of scale.”

The health secretary told the Health and Welfare Committee today: “We are now using the capacity of the university more and more, but that is because we have such capacity in the massive Lighthouse Labs that they were also able to go and join the capacity more small and scientific in this one.

“So it was all about scale.”

“It’s a bit like PPE when people were complaining that they could produce, you know, 10,000 dresses and we didn’t give them a contract,” he said, before adding, “Well, 10,000 dresses … it’s just a matter of scale. “

Mr. Hancock ended by saying that the government had “absolutely succeeded in driving massive expansion in scale.”

Meeting people inside homes could be riskier than in pubs when it comes to spreading the coronavirus, a government scientific adviser has warned.

Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Lucy Yardley, a professor of health psychology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said people are more likely to “let their guard down” inside homes.

Read more about why socializing at home could be a “particularly risky” idea:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he hopes the government can lift some of its “most damaging social distancing interventions.”

“After Easter, we think we’ll be back to normal,” Hancock said Tuesday morning.

While the health secretary said that some measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, such as hand washing and basic social distancing, will likely be with us for some time, he said it is hoped that some of the “interventions from most harmful social distancing. “

Whether or not they are, he said, will likely depend largely on how soon distribution of the vaccine can get underway.

Residents of areas designated as “level 3” at the end of England’s blockade are expected to be able to travel abroad from 2 December, according to the government’s new plan.

At present, no one in England can travel to the country or abroad for pleasure.

However, as of one minute after midnight on December 2, people living in levels 1 and 2 have been informed that they can take vacations.

For residents of Level 3 areas, the government says: “Avoid traveling outside the area except when necessary, such as for work, education, youth services, health care, or care responsibilities.”

However, on Tuesday morning, Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps said Level 3 residents should be able to go abroad “if they go directly to an airport.”

The statement has sparked calls for clarity. Meanwhile, our travel correspondent Simon Calder breaks down what we know about the rules:

The number of reported weekly deaths related to the coronavirus surpassed 2,000 in England and Wales for the first time since May, new data shows.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, there were 2,466 Covid-19-related deaths recorded in the week ending November 13.

The number represents the highest in England and Wales since the week ending May 22, when 2,589 deaths were recorded.

It also represents an increase of 529 deaths from the previous week, which ended on November 6, when 1,937 deaths related to Covid-19 were recorded.

With England poised to enter a new strengthened three-tier system to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, many will wonder to what level their area could fall.

Here, Olivia Petter discusses what the new tier system will look like and how you can find out what tier your area is at:

Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps has said that “only a fool” would suggest that there are no things the government “could and should have done better in the years and decades leading up to [the coronavirus pandemic]”.

Speaking in Good morning Great BritainShapps said: “This country has not traditionally had a testing capability, so we entered this crisis with the ability to test 2,000 people a day. That was it.

“Now we can test 538,000 per day; very soon it will increase to more than a million, because there are two new mega laboratories, capable of doing 300,000 each,” he said. “Again, we didn’t have a domestic PPE production industry. We now have more than 70% of our PPE coming from the UK.”

On managing nursing homes amid the pandemic, Shapps said: “Once again, I think many lessons will be learned.”