Live Covid News: Latest Brazil Variation and Vaccine Updates

A former conservative health minister has said it is the “wrong time” to restrict pay for NHS workers who have gone “the extra mile” during the pandemic.

In a sign that a conservative rebellion may be brewing over the government’s recommendation for a 1% salary increase, Congressman Dr. Dan Poulter has called for the proposal to be reconsidered.

Dr Poulter, who has been helping on the front lines of the NHS during the pandemic, said it is “very valid” that ministers are paying attention to repaying the £ 400bn borrowed during the coronavirus crisis, but it is “time. wrong to be making this decision. “

A leading doctor has estimated that the NHS will have to treat up to one million people for Covid long after the pandemic.

My colleague Emily Goddard Explain:

Staff will go on strike in two courts over coronavirus safety concerns, amid claims that workers are “deeply disappointed” and “concerned for their safety.”

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union at Liverpool Law Courts and Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London backed the industrial action.

Follow our breaking news story for more updates:

A leading expert cautioned that the UK should not “screw it up” when schools reopen next week.

Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the SPI-M group, which advises the government, said the next few weeks will be “crucial” in the battle against the global pandemic.

Our Whitehall Editor Kate devlin has more details:

The reopening of schools in England for all pupils on Monday marks the “beginning of the road back to normalcy,” the Education Secretary said.

Gavin Williamson wrote in Sun: “We are all looking forward to Monday and I want everyone to enjoy this moment as it is, and that is the beginning of the road back to normality.”

“Our cautious approach and the wide range of safety measures will allow the children to get going immediately.

“We will all be helping to drive their learning, but more importantly, we can let them remain children again.”

A court order appears to show that Boris Johnson misled parliament about publishing coronavirus contracts.

The prime minister claimed that the contracts were “there on record for all to see”, but a final order issued by the High Court says the government had in fact only published “608 of 708 relevant contracts.”

Our policy correspondent Jon stone and political correspondent Ashley cowburn explain:

Dr. Mike Tildesley, a member of the government’s SPI-M modeling advisory panel, has said that parents should maintain social distancing and follow other rules while dropping their children off at school.

He told Times Radio: “The fact that you are not at home with your young children is not an excuse to go out and mingle with other people that you would not have otherwise.

“With open schools we may be able to keep the R number below one, but if we’re going to do it, we all have to continue to follow all the other rules.”

He added that the drop in Covid-19 rates is likely due to lockdown measures and that the impact of vaccines “hopefully is yet to come.”

Professor Ravindra Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threat Advisory Group (Nervtag), has said that coronavirus vaccines need to be “redesigned for next year with some of the key mutations present” so that they can prevent the transmission of variants “if they were going to take off in the next few months.”

He added that it was “inevitable that the list (of mutations) grows because in many areas of the world transmission is still significant and transmission amounts to chronic infections.”

“On the other hand, we can take comfort in the fact that the virus is doing very similar things in all these variants, which is why some very common themes and very common mutations appear, so it helps us to design the next generation of vaccines. “he told Times Radio.

Professor Sheila Bird, a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, has said that every positive rapid result test from a school student should be verified with a PCR test to ensure that it is accurate.

Ask on BBC Radio 4’s Today program on the probability of a false positive reading from a lateral flow test, said: “Very likely.”

He added: “In the current circumstances, when the incidence of infection is low, the false positive rate with lateral flow tests remains absolutely to be determined in the context of schools, but it can be between one and three per 1,000 children. .

“So to differentiate a false positive from a true positive is to do that confirmation by PCR.”

An infectious disease expert has said that “the next few weeks will be crucial” in keeping coronavirus infections low as schools reopen.

Dr. Mike Tildesley, a member of the government’s SPI-M modeling advisory panel, told Times Radio that children returning to classrooms will see an increase in the reproductive number, or R-value, of the virus, while more vaccines would cause a reduction.

He said: “We need to do this balancing act right and we have to open up to the rhythm of vaccines and keep the R number in check, so to speak.”

“Things are definitely going in the right direction, but the next few weeks will be crucial for us to monitor what happens when schools open.

“Hopefully we can keep everything under control and, more importantly, we can avoid an increase in hospitalizations.”