UK Live Coronavirus: Over 10% of Deaths in England and Wales Now Involve Covid, Says ONS | Politics

Good Morning. Matt hancock, the secretary of health, has been running through the interviews broadcast this morning giving interviews on the back of yesterday’s announcement that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has been shown to be 90% effective in early trials.

Although he emphasized that full safety data for the vaccine was not yet available, he said he had directed the NHS to be ready to begin distributing the vaccine from December. It would be a “colossal exercise,” he said. The government was providing GPs with £ 150 million to fund the program.

Hancock also said that this would be a seven-day-a-week program, in which the vaccine will be distributed through residences, GPs and pharmacists, as well as “access” vaccination centers set up in places like sports halls. The vaccination would continue during the day and “at night,” he said.

We will work across the NHS with the support of the armed forces seven days a week, on weekends, during public holidays, to get this into the arms of the people as quickly as possible.

But Hancock also expressed a note of caution. Yesterday, in a notable exchange on BBC World at One, Sir John Bell, a Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, told the presenter, Sarah Montague, that the news of the vaccine meant that he was now confident that life should return to normal in the spring.

Hancock was more ambiguous. When asked if he agreed with Bell, he replied:

We want life to return to normal as soon as possible. I am not going to put a date because there are many steps that we must follow.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30 am: Boris Johnson chair cabinet.

9.30 am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.

9.30 am: Fiona Hill, Theresa May’s former co-chief of staff, is among several former No. 10 assistants who testified before the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee on the role of the prime minister’s office.

10 am: Amanda Spielman, Ofsted Principal, testifies to the Commons Education Committee.

10.30 am: Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace, provides evidence to Commons’ science and health committees, which are conducting joint investigation into ‘coronavirus: lessons learned’. Other witnesses include Sir John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford University, at 9.45am. M.

12:00 h: Downing Street plans to hold its briefing in the lobby.

12.30 pm: A defense minister responds to an urgent question from the Commons about the use of the armed forces in the deployment of massive tests.

Around 1:00 p.m. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, makes a statement to MPs on the coronavirus.

14:00 h: Nicola Sturgeon, the Prime Minister, makes a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the coronavirus.

Politics Live is now doubling down as the UK’s coronavirus live blog and given the way the Covid crisis overshadows everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we’ll also cover non-Covid political stories, like Brexit, and when they seem more important or interesting, they will take precedence.

Here’s our global coronavirus live blog.

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