Andrew Sparrow 

UK Covid: one dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine reduces hospitalisation in over-80s by 80%, data shows – as it happened

Health secretary says data shows that, for over-80s, a single vaccine shot leads to a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisation
  
  


Early evening summary

  • Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has described as “extremely good news” data showing that a single dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine reduces risk of hospitalisation in over-80s by more than 80%. (See 5.34pm.) He announced the findings at a No 10 press conference. Describing it in more detail, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, also said that data on individuals aged over 70 showed that for both Pfizer and the AstraZeneca jabs there was vaccine effectiveness against illness of approximately 60% after one dose. Van-Tam went on:

[This data] shows us how, if we are patient and we give this vaccine programme time to have its full effect, it is going to hopefully take us into a very different world in the next few months.

Hancock ended the press conference by saying the link between Covid infections and deaths had now been broken. He said.

The effectiveness of the vaccine on protecting people, and on reducing transmission, is critical to the roadmap [for lifting lockdown restrictions] ... The data that we’ve published today shows that the roadmap is achievable, because it shows that we will be able to break the link from cases through to hospitalisations and to deaths, and until now in the pandemic that link from cases through to hospitalisations and deaths has been unbreakable. And we have demonstrated with the data today that the vaccines can break that link, and that is down to the power of science. So it’s good news for everybody.

  • Boris Johnson has said the recovery might be “much stronger” than pessimists expect. His economic forecast ahead of the budget was noticeably more upbeat than Rishi Sunak’s, because the chancellor has been instead stressing the need for the government to take measures to bring the deficit under control. (See 2.45pm.)
  • Downing Street has dismissed suggestions that Boris Johnson has raised unrealistic hopes for people hoping to be able to go on holiday abroad this summer. (See 1.38pm.)

That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

Updated

Hancock says new vaccine data shows link between cases and deaths can be broken

Q: What do you make of the EU plan for a vaccine passport?

Hancock says the UK is working with international partners on this. The EU is part of the discussion, as are other partners.

But he says you already need a test to visit the EU. He say certification will cover being vaccinated and getting tested.

Q: What step in relaxing the lockdown are you most concerned about?

Hancock says the government has set up its tests so that the data can allow for safe steps down this map.

Van-Tam says he is not worried about any particular step. He is more concerned about ensuring there is enough time between each step [five weeks, in the government’s plan] to allow the impact of measures to be assessed.

Hancock says the data about vaccine effectiveness is critical to the rollout of the roadmap.

Today’s data shows that roadmap is achievable, because it shows the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths can be broken.

And that’s it. The press conference is over.

Updated

Q: In some parts of the world people are wearing two masks at the same time. Joe Biden is double-masking too. Would you recommend that?

Hopkins says the more layers you have the better; Public Health England recomends at least two, and preferably three, layers in a mask.

They are considering this, she says. But currently they think one mask with at least two layers is enough.

Q: What will you do to ensure that people come forward for their second dose?

Hancock says he has seen the reports from Israel saying some people are not getting a second jab. But getting a second jab is very important, he says. The data for the Pfizer one (the only one for which this data is available) shows that a second jab gives even more protection, he says.

Van-Tam says the human immune system is very complicated, but it is likely a second dose will mature your immune protection, and make it broader, and longer lasting.

Hancock says the new data also supports the decision to allow 12 weeks between first and second doses.

Q: Is there any chance of a foreign summer holiday?

Van-Tam says we are in “a zone of great uncertainty”. He says European countries are running behind the UK in their vaccination programmes. A lot will depend on what policies they impose. So there is “great uncertainty” about what will be possible, he says.

He says he cannot say more than that.

UPDATE: Here is the quote. Van-Tam said:

We are still in a zone of great uncertainty about what the virus will do next.

On top of that, many of the vaccination programmes in Europe - which is a place where we frequently go on holiday abroad - are running behind ours.

Clearly, whether we can go on holiday abroad to places such as Europe depends on what other countries will say and do in terms of foreign tourism.

There has to be great uncertainty at the moment.

Updated

Q: Labour says the P1 variant has been found in countries that are not on the red list, like Germany and Japan. Doesn’t that show the borders are too porous?

Hancock says the proportion of cases that are variants of concern in some cases, like Germany, are exceptionally low. In other countries they are the dominant variant. That is why countries go on the red list, he says.

He says quarantine applies anyway, to countries that are not on the red list.

Q: Do you think today’s figures will put paid to the scepticism about the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe?

Hancock says on some measures the AstraZeneca vaccine is more effective, according to this data, than the Pfizer one. But the Pfizer one is effective too. He says he hopes the data is studied around the world.

Q: How was this allowed to slip through the net?

Hancock says he sees it the other way round; he says it is because of the success of the surveillance operation that these cases were found. He says there is a high chance that it was surge testing that led to the sixth P1 Brazilian variant case being found.

Hopkins urges people to come forward if they do not get a result.

Q: How likely is it that the new variant will derail the process of reopening schools?

Hancock says the government thinks there is no need to change the policy on schools.

In five of the six cases, the authorities have a high degree of confidence those involved followed quarantine.

In the sixth case, the government is trying to find the individual. But there is no further evidence of community spread.

Hopkins says almost 150,000 cases of the infection have been sequenced this year, and these are the only six cases of this variant found.

Q: Do you accept that the Brazilian variant got into the country because you were late introducing hotel quarantine rules?

No, says Hancock. He says that quarantine rules were already in place. And he says a travel ban on arrivals from Brazil was in place too.

Q: What practical impact will these vaccine figures have?

Van-Tam says over time he expects to see a lower level of disease, less infection among the vulnerable, and less severe illness among vaccinated people who do get ill. The proportion of severe cases (to mild cases) should decrease.

But this does not mean the problem is fixed, he says.

Updated

Single dose of Pfizer or AZ vaccine reduces risk of hospitalisation in over-80s by more than 80%, new research suggests

Van-Tam is now setting out new details of the new Public Health England report.

Here is the news release. And here is an extract.

Today Public Health England (PHE) has submitted a pre-print of a real-world study that shows that both the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines are highly effective in reducing Covid-19 infections among older people aged 70 years and over. Since January, protection against symptomatic Covid, four weeks after the first dose, ranged between 57 and 61% for one dose of Pfizer and between 60 and 73% for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine ...

In the over-80s, data suggest that a single dose of either vaccine is more than 80% effective at preventing hospitalisation, around three to four weeks after the jab. There is also evidence for the Pfizer vaccine, which suggests it leads to an 83% reduction in deaths from Covid-19.

The data also shows symptomatic infections in over-70s decreasing from around three weeks after one dose of both vaccines.

The new analysis adds to growing evidence that the vaccines are working and are highly effective in protecting people against severe illness, hospitalisation and death.

Summarising the results, Van-Tam says some of the results are subject to wide confidence levels (ie, there is considerable uncertainty as to what the correct figure might be).

But he says is is confident in saying one dose of vaccine among over-70s reduces the risk of infection by at least 60%, and reduces the risk of hospitalisation by at least 80%.

The full academic paper is here.

Updated

Hopkins is now giving details of what is being done to contact people who may have come into contact with other arrivals who tested positive with the P1 Brazilian variant.

She says about 0.3% of people who get tested do not give their full details.

Updated

Hancock says there is also data out today showing that, for severe infection in the over-70s, a single vaccine shot leads to a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisation.

And he says the study suggests that, after 35 days, the protection from the AstraZeneca vaccine is even higher than from the Pfizer one.

Covid admissions among the over-80s to intensive care units have fallen to single figures, he says.

He says over-60s are now being invited to get vaccinated.

New funding is being made available for the vaccine rollout, he says.

And he repeats the appeal for someone who may have got tested on 12 or 13 February, but who did not receive a result, to come forward. They may be the missing person with the P1 Brazilian variant.

Updated

Hancock says Public Health England is publishing new data about the performance of the vaccine.

This may be the research featured in the Mail on Sunday yesterday.

Hancock shows a chart showing how the death rate among the elderly, who have been vaccinated, is falling faster than among younger people.

Updated

Matt Hancock starts his press conference by saying 20 million people have now been vaccinated.

Here is the slide.

Hancock praises in particular the role played by the medical regulator and by the civil service.

And he praises the public. He says 94% of people are willing to be vaccinated.

Cameron says Johnson wrong to scrap DfID, and May wrong to let cabinet secretary be national security adviser

In his evidence to the joint committee on national security strategy David Cameron also criticised decisions taken by his two successors, Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

On May’s decision to combine the post of cabinet secretary and national security adviser (she let Sir Mark Sedwill do both), he said:

I think it was for instance a very bad mistake combining cabinet secretary and national security adviser - they are two jobs.

For one person, even if you were a cross of Einstein, Wittgenstein and Mother Teresa, you couldn’t possibly do both jobs and I think that temporarily weakened the national security council.

And on Johnson’s decision to scrap the Department for International Development (DfID), Cameron said:

I think abolishing DfID is a mistake too for all sorts of reasons but one of which is actually having the Foreign Office voice around the [national security council] table and the DfID voice around the table I think is important - they are not necessarily the same thing.

Can you really expect the foreign secretary to do all of the diplomatic stuff and be able to speak to the development brief as well? That’s quite a task, so I think it is good to have both.

Matt Hancock's press conference

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is about to hold a press conference.

He is appearing with Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, and Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England.

Cameron tells MPs Brexit referendum was needed because 'there really was a problem'

David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister, has been giving evidence to the joint committee on national security strategy. Mostly his comments so far have concentrated on the value of the national security council, which he set up, but he also defended his decision to hold a referendum on EU membership. In response to a question from Labour’s Darren Jones, Cameron said he did not agree with people who said a referendum was unnecessary because there was no problem with EU membership. He said:

I thought we needed to confront the issue because I could see ... partly the single currency had changed the EU quite fundamentally, and that change was happening in front of our eyes. And we had to confront this issue of how to try and either find a better place for Britain within the EU, which I think my negotiation achieved, or take a different path. And that required a referendum to do that.

You can disagree with that argument, but it was an argument that was properly had amongst senior ministers ...

But I do disagree with people who say they’re simply wasn’t a problem. There really was a problem and I was confronted with this quite early in my premiership over the issue, for instance, of bailing out Eurozone countries.

Updated

UK records 104 further Covid deaths – lowest daily total for more than four months

The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard, and the key numbers are all heading in the right direction.

  • The UK has recorded 104 further Covid deaths – its lowest daily total for more than four months. The headline figure on this measure has not been this low since Monday 26 October, when 102 deaths were recorded. Over the last seven days the total number of deaths is now almost 35% down on the total for the previous week.
  • The UK has recorded 5,455 further cases – its lowest daily total for more than five months. The headline figure has not been this low since Monday 28 September, when 4,044 new cases were recorded. Week on week, new cases are down 28.7%.
  • 185,900 people in the UK had their first dose of a vaccine yesterday.

Updated

In a pre-budget video, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, all but confirms he will extend the furlough scheme beyond April in his statement on Wednesday. He says:

Throughout this crisis I have always been determined to make sure the government is doing what it can to provide support to get through this enormously difficult time and that’s not going to stop.

People should be reassured that we are going to continue to be there to support them as we get through this difficult period and emerge – hopefully stronger – on the other side.

Updated

The European commission has said it expects the UK to finish the construction of permanent border control posts in Northern Ireland. (See 3.44pm.) Daniel Ferrie, a commission spokesman, said:

We have received reassurances that these announcements last week are not going to affect the current work of the temporary border control posts in Northern Ireland, so the relevant checks and controls are continuing to take place as usual.

We expect the same commitment when it comes to the UK government’s obligations under the protocol regarding the permanent facilities that need to be put in place ... by the middle of 2021, in line with the protocol and also in line with the joint committee decisions from last December.

Updated

Covid-19 case rates for three of the four UK nations have dropped below the symbolic level of 100 cases per 100,000 people, suggesting lockdown restrictions across the country are continuing to drive down the overall spread of the virus, PA Media reports. PA says:

Wales currently has the lowest rate among the four nations, with 65.7 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to February 24.

This is the lowest rate for Wales since the seven days to September 22, 2020.

Both Scotland and Northern Ireland are now just below 100 cases per 100,000 people.

Scotland currently has a seven-day rate of 95.7 cases per 100,000, the lowest since October 4, while Northern Ireland is at 97.0, the lowest since September 28.

England remains just above 100, at 102.8 cases per 100,000 - the lowest rate since October 1.

Northern Ireland has recorded two further Covid deaths and 138 further cases.

There were three days last week when the daily death toll was also two. But apart from yesterday, when 136 new cases were recorded, new cases have not been this low since September.

Updated

A total of 17,812,739 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 28 February, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 170,947 on the previous day’s figures.

As PA Media reports, of this number, 17,212,804 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 161,559 on the previous day, while 599,935 were a second dose, an increase of 9,388.

Updated

A Stormont minister has been challenged by executive colleagues over his controversial decision to halt work on permanent inspection posts for Brexit port checks in Northern Ireland, PA Media reports. PA says:

The move by DUP agriculture minister Gordon Lyons was debated during a scheduled meeting of the devolved executive on Monday morning.

Ministers from Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance party - the three pro-remain executive parties - contend that he does not have the authority to act unilaterally on issues considered significant or controversial.

It is understood Brenda King, the attorney general, concurred with this view on Monday and advised that, under the terms of the ministerial code, Lyons would be required to bring such proposals to the wider executive.

Lyons is set to hold talks with King ahead of further discussions on the matter on Tuesday.

NHS England has recorded 127 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.

This is the lowest daily total on this measure for almost four months. It has not been this low since Sunday 8 November, when 122 hospital deaths were recorded.

In an interview on the World at One Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, said the discovery of six cases of the P1 Brazilian variant showed that border controls needed to be tighter. He said:

It shows that it needs to be tightened up still further because if we are going to protect the road map out of lockdown then the name of the game is going to be stop new variants coming in, some of which may end up being immune to the new vaccines.

But he also said the country was in a better position than it was last year.

The fact that we are going to this trouble over one person who has gone missing says to me that we are in much better shape than we were three months ago, six months ago, where we wouldn’t have been anywhere near that.

Hospitality could start reopening in Wales before Easter, says Drakeford

The first stages of reopening the hospitality industry in Wales could begin before Easter, the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said.

Drakeford told a press conference in Cardiff that schools and non-essential retail were higher priorities for the next review of restrictions, due on 12 March. He said:

Beyond that, another three weeks away, if we are able to offer a start to the hospitality industry, with the reopening of self-contained accommodation for the Easter period, those will be the major milestones.

If all of that is done safely and if the numbers in Wales continue to improve, then we will look for the reopening of other sectors, and that will of course include hospitality.

The first minister said there were “encouraging signs” that the worst of the second of coronavirus is behind the country. The seven-day incidence rate of coronavirus across Wales has fallen to 64 cases per 100,000 people, with the rate below 100 cases per 100,000 people in every part of Wales. He said:

All of these are encouraging signs that the worst of the second wave is hopefully behind us and we can look forward together with confidence to more positive days and weeks ahead of us.

But he criticised the UK government’s approach to international travel and said he “remained concerned” about travel into the UK, particularly due to new variants being seen in different parts of the world.

Last September, Covid-19 cases in Wales were “undoubtedly driven up” partly because people returned from holidays abroad and brought the virus with them, he said.

“I would do it in the opposite way to the UK government, this is the case I’ve tried to make to them,” Drakeford said. The UK government’s approach is that all international travel is acceptable apart from 33 countries on a red list. Drakeford went on:

I would do it the opposite. I would say we shouldn’t be having international travel but here is a list of countries where we are confident that things are under control, where there are testing regimes, where we will be confident that people returning from there would not be posing a threat to us.

Updated

Johnson says recovery could be 'much stronger' than pessimists think

Boris Johnson has also been speaking about the economy today. In his media interviews during his school visit, he said he thought the recovery might be “much stronger” than pessimists expected. He said:

Everybody has heard what Rishi has been saying about the importance of being frank with ourselves about the state of the public finances.

Yes, of course, it’s been expensive to look after everybody throughout the pandemic.

But I have no doubt that if we get it right, as I’m sure we can, we can have a strong, jobs-led recovery, that I think could be much stronger than many of the pessimists have been saying over the last six months or so.

Johnson may have been reading the Financial Times, which this morning has a story (paywall) saying “having predicted the economy would grow 7.9 per cent in the final three quarters of this year, [the Office for Budget Responsibility will in its report alongside the budget on Wednesday] predict a faster recovery because the speed and efficacy of the vaccine rollout has surpassed even its most optimistic expectations from November”.

But what’s interesting is the deliberate contrast of tone from Sunak. In TV interviews yesterday Sunak repeatedly stressed that he would be using his budget speech to “level” with the public, in the sense of being honest with them about the need to raise taxes to protect the public finances. (In his interview with Andrew Marr, Sunak used the phrase seven times.) And in an interview (paywall) with the Financial Times published at the end of last week, Sunak made the same point. He told the paper:

There are some people who think you can ignore the problem [the size of the government’s deficit]. And, worse, there are some people who think there isn’t a problem at all. I don’t think that.

Sunak did not say who these “some people” were, but many Tories on the fiscal prudence wing of the party may have taken this (or at least the first category) as a reference to Johnson.

Today Johnson was effectively presenting an antidote to the message from his gloomster colleague.

What is not clear, though, is whether this represents a tension in the relationship, or a clever, economic messaging version of ‘good cop/bad cop’.

Updated

Scientists say that England is in “a much better place than ever before” for reopening schools safely and that additional measures including the repeat use of controversial lateral flow tests will help keep virus spread down.

They were commenting following the publication of new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which showed that school staff are “at no greater risk” of Covid 19 infection than other working-age adults.

They warned, however, it would be “naive” to think infections and the R-rate will not got go up once schools fully reopen on 8 March, but said the benefit for pupils being back at school far outweighed the risks.

According to the latest ONS data, 14.99% of school staff tested positive for coronavirus antibodies last December suggesting a previous infection compared with 18.22% for working age adults. Rates were slightly higher among secondary staff than primary.

The data did however show a huge geographical disparity in antibody positivity rates with secondary school staff in Manchester highest at 27.95%, compared with Reading which was lowest at 2.86% when measured last December.

Dr Shamez Ladhani, a Public Health England consultant epidemiologist and chief inspector of the study, said:

Where we are now is in a really amazing place for reopening schools in the right way.

The country is still in lockdown, the infection rates are falling, very, very rapidly, community infection and transmissions are going to be very low when they go back to school and we’re not sending people back into town because we want the kids to be safe.

Updated

Sunak to hold first post-budget press conference by a chancellor on Wednesday

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, says he will hold a press conference after his budget on Wednesday. It will be the first time a chancellor has ever done this, he says.

Sunak is probably right, although there has been no special rule saying chancellors cannot or should not hold a press conference after delivering their budget. In the past it probably did not happen because, after delivering a speech lasting an hour, and taking questions from MPs for another hour or more, the last thing most chancellors want to do is take even more questions in public.

But with the government holding near-daily press conferences anyway (something that never happened pre-Covid), maybe Sunak thought it would look odd if he did not show up.

Whether or not the journalists will be grateful will be another matter. On budget day political and economic journalists trying to speed-read a mountain of documents from the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility containing dozens and dozens of stories. The last thing we’ll want to do, I suspect, is break off for an hour to listen to the chancellor mostly repeat what he said earlier.

Teachers at no greater risk of Covid infection than other workers, ONS survey suggests

School staff in England are not at a higher risk of Covid-19 infection than other working-age adults in their local communities, new ONS figures suggest. As PA Media reports, around 14.99% of school staff tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in December, which indicate a past infection, lower than the estimate of 18.22% for working-age adults, according to a small study of schools.

Stormont ministers have asked civil servants to finalise details of Northern Ireland’s lockdown exit strategy, PA Media reports. PA says:

Ministers met today morning to examine the plan for a gradual easing of restrictions in the region.

It is understood officials have been asked to clarify some areas before the executive formally signs off on the blueprint.

It is now looking more likely that the strategy will be made public on Tuesday.

Ministers are due to meet again on Tuesday morning.

Executive discussions on Monday are understood to have been of a technical nature, with ministers generally in agreement on the shape of the document.

Many of the leading unions in Britain - Unison, Unite, the GMB, the NEU, NASUWT and CWU - have joined housing campaigners and the New Economics Foundation thinktank in signing an open letter to the government protesting about a loophole in the eviction ban introduced at the end of last week.

The rule change means that people who owe more than six months’ rent are now at risk of imminent eviction. My colleague Robert Booth explains it in more detail in a story here.

The full text of the letter is on the London Renters Union website. Here is an extract:

The government knows that eviction and homelessness leads to increased Covid transmission and preventable death. The government must act now to prevent the current rent debt crisis from leading to large-scale evictions and homelessness that will impact those who are already the hardest hit by the pandemic ...

Government action must resolve rent debt in a way that shares costs fairly between landlords and taxpayers. Landlords have already received significant financial support from the government over the past 12 months. Stamp duty land tax has been slashed for new property purchases, including for buy-to-let investments, while the Bank of England’s base rate of 0.1% has further fuelled property price rises. Buy-to-let landlords have been eligible for mortgage holidays, but have not been required to pass these on to tenants in the form of a rent holiday. Analysis shows that 45% (£2.7bn) of spending on the coronavirus job retention scheme was used to pay rent between March and October 2020. Half of private rented sector tenancies are let by the 17% of landlords with five or more properties.

Updated

No 10 dismisses claims PM wrong to raise hopes of foreign holidays being allowed

Here are the main lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing.

  • No 10 said the discovery of the P1 Brazilian variant in the England would not stop schools reopening on Monday next week. “Schools will reopen on 8 March as we set out in the road map,” the PM’s spokesman said.
  • The spokesman dismissed suggestions that Boris Johnson had raised unrealistic hopes of people being able to go on holiday abroad this summer. Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, and Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, have both said as much this morning. (See 9.13am and 11.22am). Asked about this claim, the spokesman said that the government had been clear that foreign holiday travel would not be allowed before 17 May at the earliest and said the travel review announced last week should be allowed to take its course.
  • The spokesman refused to criticise a decision by Northern Ireland’s DUP agriculture minister to halt the construction of permanent border control posts in the region. Asked if this was a breach of the Northern Ireland protocol (part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement), the spokesman said this was a matter for the Northern Ireland executive. He said:

That is a matter for the Northern Ireland executive and we obviously remain in close contact with them. Goods, including food, continue to flow through ports in Northern Ireland with the existing, interim agri-foods facilities in place.

  • The spokesman refused to deny a Daily Mail report claiming that Boris Johnson discussed asking Tory donors to contribute to paying a personal bill he was facing for renovation work to the Downing Street flat where he lives. The Mail story claimed that, after his partner Carrie Symonds ordered an extravagant refurbishment, Johnson was told that he would have to pay most of the cost himself, and that he discussed asking Tory donors to contribute. Asked about the story, the spokesman just said that details of spending on the Downing Street estate would be published in the Cabinet Office’s annual report.

Updated

Scotland’s health secretary, Jeane Freeman, speaking on the anniversary of Scotland’s first Covid case being detected, has downplayed the threat of a fresh outbreak after three Scots flew home with the highly transmissible Brazil variant.

Freeman said NHS contract tracers were now tracing the contacts of the three travellers, including all the passengers on their internal flight and the contacts of those contacts, in an effort to confirm there had been no community transmission of the Brazil “variant of concern”, known as P1.

She said so far no other cases had emerged; all three fliers, who flew to Aberdeen from Heathrow on 29 January on BA1312, after visiting Brazil, had immediately self-isolated on arrival in Scotland.

“There’s currently no reason to believe the P1 variant of the virus is in circulation in Scotland,” she told the Scottish government’s daily regular Covid briefing. Dr Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, concurred. “It does seem to be a fairly contained incident,” he said.

Freeman said Monday was the first anniversary of the first Covid-19 case being detected, and was a sobering landmark. She said:

Our lives have been turned upside down in ways which would have been unimaginable at the beginning of 2020. The last 12 months have brought grief and heartbreak.

People had lost loved ones, their jobs and livelihoods, as well as suffering mental health impacts during lockdown.

There were no deaths recorded overnight, she said, but since last Friday’s Covid briefing, 20 people with positive Covid tests had died. That took Scotland’s total under that measure to 7,131. Last Wednesday National Records of Scotland, a statistics agency, said 9,347 deaths where Covid was on the death certificate had been registered since the start of the pandemic.

Scotland had recorded 202,470 positive cases since 1 March 2020, with 386 overnight, Freeman said.

Updated

Updated

Public Health Wales has recorded three further Covid deaths, and 193 more cases.

This is the lowest daily total for deaths since early December (excluding days when figures were not released, or when there were data problems), and the lowest number of daily cases since September.

Updated

Johnson insists discovery of Brazilian variant in UK won't reverse lockdown easing

Boris Johnson has been speaking to the media during his visit to a school in Stoke-on-Trent. (See 11.41am.) PA Media has filed his quotes. Here are the key points.

  • Johnson insisted the discovery of the P1 Brazilian variant in the UK would not hold up the easing of lockdown. Asked about the comment from Prof Graham Medley, chair of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) on the Today programme this morning about this development might have to lead to opening up going being reversed (see 10.51am), Johnson said:

I haven’t heard that, and our whole strategy is to go forward in a way that is cautious but irreversible. And we don’t think that there’s any reason on this basis to change that now.

  • Johnson defended the government’s border policy. Labour has said the discovery of the P1 Brazilian variant showed it was flawed. (See 11.11am.) But Johnson said:

We have got one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world for stopping people coming in to this country who may have variants of concern.

Asked if the government was too slow to introduce compulsory hotel quarantine for some arrivals, Johnson said:

I don’t think so, we moved as fast as we could to get that going.

It’s a very tough regime - you come here, you immediately get transported to a hotel where you are kept for 10 days, 11 days.

You have to test on day two, you have to test on day eight, and it’s designed to stop the spread of new variants while we continue to roll out the vaccination programme.

He also said a “massive effort” was under way to contain the Brazilian variant, as happened with the South African one.

If you look at what we have done in the case of the South African variant, a massive effort went in there. The same is going on now to contain any spread of the Brazilian variant.

  • He said there was “no reason not to think that our vaccines are effective against these variants of concern at the present time”. He also said Public Health England “don’t think that there is a threat to the wider public”. He said:

We don’t have any reason at the present time to think that our vaccines are ineffective against these new variants of all types.

  • He said he still thought the easing of lockdown restrictions would prove irreversible.
  • He defended the testing regime being introduced in schools. He said:

People do understand how to use them and we are very confident that they will be of use in helping to keep the disease under control, keep it going down as we get schools back open.

  • He confirmed that the government wants to make sentences for people smuggling much tougher. According to the Times (paywall), Priti Patel, the home secretary, wants to introduce a maximum life sentence for this offence. Asked about this story, Johnson said:

It is outrageous that the gangsters, the people smugglers, these thugs, are still putting people’s lives at risks in the way that they are, taking money to help people cross the Channel in unseaworthy vessels, risking their lives.

What we are going to do is to absolutely, ruthlessly stiffen the sentences for anybody who is involved in this kind of people smuggling and trafficking human beings across the Channel.

That is why we are working with the French authorities and others to stop the trade.

  • He said the budget would pave the way for “a strong, jobs-led recovery”.

Updated

Updated

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will host the No 10 press conference at 5pm, Downing Street has said.

Here is the full text of the speech Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, gave at a Bloomberg event this morning.

Mostly it focused on restating Labour’s calls for measures that might better support the economy through the pandemic, like an extension of the furlough scheme, more help for the self-employed, wider eligibility for the £500 self-isolation payments and an extension of business rates relief.

But she also accused Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, of failing to understand the link between the health crisis and the economic crisis. She said:

In the false belief that it was protecting the economy, the government was too slow to lock down last spring.

That meant the lockdown lasted longer and was more severe, doing more damage to businesses and jobs.

Then, in autumn, infection rates were rising again. Labour, heeding the advice of Sage, proposed a circuit break, to coincide with half term and get the virus under control.

But the chancellor reportedly convinced the prime minister to overrule Sage.

Updated

Among the many challenges facing teachers in England at the moment as they prepare for all pupils to return from Monday next week is the danger that Boris Johnson might show up. He has been making repeated visits to schools in recent weeks, and he was at it again this morning, visiting a school in Stoke-on-Trent.

When I’ve got a report of what he had to say, I’ll post the words.

Updated

Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, told Times Radio this morning he was “not panicking, but concerned” about the discovery of three cases of the P1 Brazilian variant in Scotland.

And on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland he said the three people had all arrived in Scotland from Brazil “via quite a circuitous route”, and that “there’s no suggestion they had symptoms on the plane or were involved in lots of contacts.

He went on:

It’s the first time we [have found] this particular Brazilian strain in Scotland, and that worries us a little bit, but people shouldn’t get too concerned. [There is] no community spread, no evidence it’s gone anywhere else.

And the reason why we’re worried scientifically is we’re not absolutely certain that this version is amenable to the natural immunity some people already have and the artificial immunity we’re creating with vaccination.

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Dodds says future Labour government would not renegotiate Brexit deal immediately

Back at her Q&A, Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is asked if a future Labour government would push to rejoin the customs union.

Dodds says we have a deal. She says she wants financial services to have better access, provided through a memorandum of understanding [that both sides are meant to be negotiating now]. She goes on:

But would we be seeking to immediately renegotiate this deal? No, we’ve got to make the current deal work.

But she says she is not blase about the problems firms are having with customs arrangements.

Updated

Welsh first minister says he worries 'hugely' about PM's stance on summer foreign holidays

Speaking at the same virtual meeting with Welsh businesses to mark St David’s Day (see 11.11am), Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, has called for border controls to be made tougher, not looser. He said Boris Johnson’s comments about the possibility of foreign holidays being allowed this summer worried him “hugely”. He said:

It worries me hugely to hear the prime minister say that he intends to reopen international travel in May of this year.

Our September in Wales was made far more difficult by the fact that we had a big importation of the virus from France, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey. Every day I will be reading of new outbreaks of people who have gone away, caught the virus and brought it back with them.

If ever there was a year to be staying at home and to be enjoying all the fantastic things Wales has to offer, this must be it.

I would build the walls higher for now against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe.

As explained earlier (see 9.13am), Johnson has not said that he will definitely allow international travel from May. But the roadmap for easing lockdown published this week did raise this as a possibility, leading to a surge in bookings for foreign holidays.

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'Virus doesn't travel by direct flights' - Starmer says Brazilian variant shows why PM's border policy flawed

Sir Keir Starmer has said the discovery of the P1 Brazilian variant in the UK shows the government has not “secured our borders in the way we should have done”.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with Welsh businesses to mark St David’s Day, Starmer said:

It demonstrates the slowness of the government to close off even the major routes, but also the unwillingness to confront the fact that the virus doesn’t travel by direct flights.

We know from last summer that a lot of virus came in from countries where it didn’t originate in, but people were coming indirect, and that’s the way people travel.

I still think we haven’t secured our borders in the way we should have done, and the sooner that’s done the better.

Q: What support would Labour offer the travel industry?

Dodds says the government promised a deal for the aviation sector. But it has not delivered it. Aviation needs a planned change in the future as the economy decarbonises. But that is not what is happening now. Instead it is facing abrupt change. That is devastating for communities dependent on that industry, she says.

Q: It is important to rein in the deficit?

Dodds says in the future you have to make the public finances more sustainable.

But she says the chancellor has been privately telling Tory MPs he wants to raise taxes now so he can cut them before the election.

Q: How will you re-establish Labour’s reputation for economic competence?

Dodds says the Labour government in Wales has been spending money responsibly. And she says the Tory government has missed its fiscal targets. But she says it is frustrating that Labour is not where she would like it to be on economic competence.

Q: Do you need to have a higher profile personally?

Dodds says, during the pandemic, Labour has adopted a constructive approach to opposition. It wants to see the fight against Covid succeed. In other circumstances politics might have been operating differently, she says.

Updated

Anneliese Dodds' Q&A

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is now taking questions after her speech.

Q: You says now is not the time to raise taxes. So when is the time to raise taxes?

Dodds says Labour has been very clear that now is not the time for tax rises.

On when it would be right, she says they have to be guided by the economic situation. There are big anomalies in the tax system. Taxes on bricks are higher than taxes on clicks. But at the moment the need is to focus on getting the country on the road to recovery.

Q: So would you vote against an increase in corporation tax for the short term? And vote for it going up in the longer term?

Dodds says they will wait and see what is announced. She says Tory governments have pulled corporation tax away from the international average. So they would look with interest at any plan to change that, especially if it were combined with changes to business rates.

But if the chancellor imposes taxes rises “right now”, Labour would say that it’s not the time for that.

Updated

Government may need to return to varying restrictions in England by region, says Sage expert

On the Today programme this morning Prof Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and chair of the the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M - a subgroup of Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group of Emergencies), said the discovery of the P1 Brazilian variant in the UK showed why it was possible that the UK might have to “go backwards” in terms of relaxing restrictions. He said:

It is a variant of concern but we are going to be faced with these in the next six months as we move towards relaxing measures - there are going to be challenges on the way - and there is always a risk that we might have to go backwards, and that’s what nobody wants to do is to actually open up and then have to close down again.

He also suggested that the government may have to return to a system of regional restrictions in England. He explained:

We are already seeing, and when we start opening up we will see more, variation in terms of prevalence around different parts of the country

At the moment all the thinking that I’ve seen - but I’m sure there’s others - that has been largely national in terms of thinking about what the data are that we need to guide the process of releasing these measures.

But the data will show different things in different parts of the country, and so the challenge will be what do you do in terms of opening things up when in one place it says it’s a good idea, in other places it says it isn’t?

We’ll have to look at those regional variations because they are likely to be just as big as they were last summer and in the autumn.

Boris Johnson’s plan for easing lockdown restrictions in England is based on the premise that all parts of the country will move to lighter rules at the same time. This is the opposite of the tiering approach adopted last autumn. Johnson has argued that a national approach is justified because the Covid situation is similar across all regions of England. But at the Downing Street press conference on Friday the government presented a slide showing that in 20% of English local authority areas Covid cases are rising.

Updated

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, has just started giving her speech on the economy. There is a live feed here. I will post a summary once I’ve read the text, although if there is a Q&A, I’ll cover that as it happens.

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, was in the government hot seat on the news programmes this morning. Here are some of the main points he was making.

  • Zahawi explained why the authorities had not been able to trace one of the three people in England who has tested positive with the P1 Brazilian variant of coronavirus. The person was using a home test kit, or a test kit provided by the local council, and did not fill in the test card properly, he said. He went on:

We are working with the postal service to try and get other data to try and locate them, and this appeal is a belt and braces to try and make sure we locate them as quickly as possible.
  • He said that 50m lateral flow tests had been delivered to schools in England. He went on:

[Schools] have already done about three million tests, even before we set out the road map to reopening by March 8. Teachers will be tested twice a week, even in secondary schools and colleges will be tested twice a week. There’s a big infrastructure of testing going into schools.

  • He said he expected the rate of vaccination to double over the next 10 weeks. He said:

You have seen the numbers tick up of second doses - yesterday I think we were at 800,000 second doses.

And in March you will see that number increase even more, because obviously those who had the first dose in January will be getting their second dose.

The NHS have got all the protocols in place to deliver that, as well as of course continuing to do the first dose.

March will be a very big month for us. We’ll probably going to be twice the rate over the next 10 weeks as we have done over the past 10 or 11 weeks.

  • He rejected claims the government had dithered when it came to imposing hotel quarantine for arrivals from high-risk countries. He said:

I would say to you that the border controls that we have are pretty stringent. Even countries that had hotel quarantine, like Australia, still have to deal with the variants actually challenging them in the same way they challenge us.

Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London, told BBC Breakfast this morning that the discovery of the P1 Brazil variant in England highlighted the “failures in quarantine policy”. She said:

Sage has advised that, unless we had a comprehensive, managed quarantine policy at our borders, something like this would happen. But unfortunately it’s something that we’ve been quite complacent about; now we’re just seeing the consequences of that.

Gurdasani was referring to this warning contained in minutes (pdf) from a meeting of Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, held on 21 January. It said:

Measures to reduce importations are most important when domestic prevalence (either overall or of particular variants of concern) is low and when importation could result in R>1. No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully preventing the importation of cases or new variants (moderate confidence, moderate evidence) ...

Reactive, geographically targeted travel bans cannot be relied upon to stop importation of new variants, due to the lag between the emergence and identification of variants of concern, as well as the potential for indirect travel via a third country (moderate confidence, moderate evidence).

Updated

On its website South Gloucestershire council has given details of where surge testing is taking place in response to the discovery of two cases of the P1 Brazil variant in the borough. Here are the postcode sectors where people are being asked to get tested:

BS32 0
BS32 8
BS32 9
BS34 5
BS34 6

Prof Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told Times Radio this morning that people should be “somewhat worried” about the discovery of the Brazilian variant P1 in the UK. Asked how worried people should be, he replied:

Somewhat worried but not total panic, perhaps.

It’s somewhat more worrying than the UK variant, the Kent variant, that we’re used to talking about, because it covers the double whammy, we think, of being more transmissible and somewhat better at evading neutralising antibodies.

Altmann said research in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where many people were thought to be immune because so many people were infected during the first wave, suggested the new variant was “breaking through” antibodies built up by previous infection. He said:

It was expected that there would be quite a high level of protection there because analysis of antibodies in blood bank samples showed [Manaus] had one of the highest levels of immunity in the world coming into the second wave, perhaps more than 70%, and yet they’re seeing this enormous wave of reinfections.

So, if you put two and two together their assumption is that’s because the new variant is breaking through those antibodies. But if that hadn’t really been proven yet, it looks likely.

Here is a briefing (pdf) on the P1 Brazilian variant produced by Nervtag, the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, at the end of January. It said:

It is possible that the P1 variant will show similar patterns of antigenic escape [ie resistance to immunity] to vaccine-acquired immunity as the B1351 variant [the so-called South African varian], due to similar genomic profiles, in particular the presence of E484K. However, there remains no direct evidence for antigenic escape from vaccine-acquired immunity in the P1 variant.

Updated

Brazil variant may make foreign summer holidays impossible, ministers warned

Good morning. As my colleague Linda Geddes reports in our overnight story, the discovery of six cases of the highly transmissible Brazilian coronavirus variant in the UK - three in England, and three in Scotland - has revived concerns that the border controls imposed by the UK government are not tough enough. Her story is here.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, was on the Today programme this morning saying that ministers have repeatedly been told that the measures currently in place in England may be inadequate. She made the same points in a thread on Twitter last night with accompanying “I told you so” evidence.

On the Today programme she made a further point, saying that the latest development illustrated why summer holidays abroad might not be possible this year. When she was asked if she thought the government would have to ban holiday flights over the summer, she replied:

You’re right, there is a concern about whether the government is raising expectations about summer holidays that they may not be able to meet, because this will depend on the relationship between the spread of these new variants and what happens with the vaccine, and the timetable about things like boosters for the vaccine.

And we’ve been advised on the committee by scientists that these border measures, and the strength of these border measures, becomes even more important as domestic cases fall. So as our own cases fall, and as the economy and society opens up, they argue that that’s when you actually need stronger measures at the border, rather than reducing them.

The trouble is at the moment the government is encouraging people to think that those summer holidays are all going to be possible and international travel is going to return.

To be fair to the government, ministers have never said that foreign summer holidays will definitely be possible. Going abroad for a holiday is currently against the law, and, when asked, ministers say it is too soon to say what will be allowed in the summer.

But when Boris Johnson published his roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions in England last Monday, he announced a review of the rules for global travel that will report by 12 April, and the roadmap (pdf) said that once the review was published, “the government will determine when international travel should resume, which will be no earlier than 17 May”. That prompted a surge in foreign holiday bookings.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its latest Covid schools infection survey for England.

10.30am: Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, gives a speech on the economy.

12pm: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.

12.15pm: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, holds a coronavirus briefing.

12.15pm: Jeane Freeman, the Scottish government’s health secretary, holds a coronavirus briefing.

4pm: David Cameron, the former PM, gives evidence to the joint committee on national security strategy.

5pm: No 10 may hold a press conference.

Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.

Here is our global coronavirus live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

 

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