Markus Andrews

Covid testing rules are expected to be relaxed to help ease the staffing shortages caused by rising Omicron infections, it has been reported. The changes would allow those who test positive on lateral flow tests to no longer need a follow-up PCR to begin the self-isolation period if they do not have symptoms. The new testing rules could be announced as soon as Wednesday. When asked whether the announcement would be made imminently, health minister Gillian Keegan said: “You may be able to expect some news – I don’t know when.”Ms Keegan told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday morning: “The teams are looking constantly at what makes sense and what works, etc, but I don’t have any official news or updates for you this morning.”She added: “I don’t have any official news on that but I know that the teams are looking at testing and testing regimes.”Ms Keengan explained that there were “many, many more lateral flow tests” and that “they are really accurate when you’ve got a very infectious variant like Omicron.”The Daily Telegraph reported that health officials have drawn up plans to limit PCR tests to people who have symptoms of coronavirus. This would allow those who are asymptomatic – around 40 percent of cases – to return to work more quickly. Under current rules asymptomatic people who test positive on a lateral flow test are asked to order a PCR test to confirm their infection and can only begin their isolation period once they’ve received their positive PCR result. This effectively extends the period of isolation for longer than seven days, especially as some labs are struggling to process PCR tests quickly. Many hospitals have been struggling under increased staff absences and 17 hospitals in Greater Manchester announced yesterday that they would be suspending some non-urgent surgery as 15 percent of staff were off sick. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust announced on Monday that they were experiencing a “critical incident” over “extreme and unprecedented” staff shortages. In an internal memo shared among staff, the NHS trust said that “the rapid increase in staff absent because of sickness is the largest factor in this deterioration in staffing levels, although reduced bank and agency fill is also a factor”. Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, which runs six hospitals in South Cumbria and North Lancashire, reported that staff sickness had gone up from around 7 per cent to over 10 per cent in the last week or so. Referring to the potential change to testing rules, a UK Health Security Agency spokesperson said: “We keep everything under review and any announcement will be made in the normal way.” More

Tories view Boris Johnson as a leader like the discredited Edward Heath rather than their hero Margaret Thatcher, a former cabinet minister has warned him.Liam Fox also agreed that accusations that the prime minister broke Covid rules “will be hard to dispel” – after the controversy over lockdown-busting No 10 parties crashed his poll ratings.The former trade and defence secretary urged Mr Johnson to revamp his “chaotic” Downing Street operation, by appointing “someone with the authority to make the right calls”.But he urged fellow MPs to step back from an expected bid to topple him this year, saying: “This is absolutely the wrong time for the Conservative Party to think about a leadership challenge.”Unhappy Tory MPs are circling after a disastrous two months for Mr Johnson, which began with his bungled bid to fix Commons sleaze rules to rescue the disgraced Owen Paterson.The Omicron crisis has put any attempt to force him out on hold, but the prime minister has been put on notice to change his governing style and end the damaging own goals.In an article for the Conservative Home website, Dr Fox urged fellow MPs to ignore the polls, rather than “engaging in a bout of navel-gazing that will lead to division and paralysis”.But he warned: “This is not remotely to suggest that all is well in the Johnson premiership.“For many Conservatives, including myself, the current government smacks too much of “big tax, big spend, big state”, more reminiscent of Edward Heath than Margaret Thatcher.”Mr Heath, the prime minister between 1970 and 1974, is viewed badly for U-turns which hiked spending – while the three times election-winning Lady Thatcher put the party back on a path of true Conservatism.Dr Fox also warned Mr Johnson must make good on his pledge to axe the trade rules of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which threaten its devolved government.“The question of the Northern Ireland border remains a thorny subject and, for many, a continued border within the United Kingdom is incompatible with the entire ethos of a Conservative and Unionist Party,” he wrote.And, on the No 10 parties, he added: “The current investigation into whether Covid rules were broken has opened a “one rule for one and another rule for others” narrative that will be hard to dispel.“Perhaps more importantly, it has exposed what many of us have believed for some time to be a chaotic internal management system. Johnson has many strengths. Campaigning is one of them, administration is not.“It is important that the prime minister builds the right team around him, with someone with the authority to make the right calls on what needs to go into his box.” More

Parents should be given a £30-a-day catch-up voucher for each day their child is off school because of coronavirus, to help pay for the costs of remote learning, Liberal Democrats have said.The call came as schools in areas of England including Middlesbrough and Birmingham remained closed to pupils after the Christmas break due to significant staff absences.Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson said that Omicron will “wreak havoc” on schools in the coming weeks, with large numbers of pupils likely to be sent home because of illness or staff absences.She accused ministers of leaving schools “woefully unprepared” for the coming chaos, and said they had failed to make support for schoolchildren a priority despite research suggesting that disruption to learning due to the pandemic will cost them as much as £46,000 in lost earnings over their lifetimes.In an open letter to schools earlier this week, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi urged them to “do everything in your power to protect face-to-face learning” but accepted that staff absences will make that impossible for some.He has called on retired teachers to come forward to fill gaps left by isolating colleagues in order to keep lessons going.Ms Wilson said the most recent figures showed around 120,000 students off each week in December.She said that the £30 voucher would cost around £3.6m a week – just over 1 per cent of the government’s initial catch-up fund – and would allow parents to pay for catch-up tutoring.“The Omicron variant is without doubt going to wreak havoc as our schools return this week and the government has left schools woefully underprepared to deal with the chaos this will cause pupils, parents and teachers alike,” she said.“No child should be left behind as we enter a time of unprecedented staff absences and case rates. Funding catch-up vouchers would empower parents to restore their children’s education, which the Conservatives have demonstrated time and again is not their priority.“From a botched catch-up package to a complete failure on getting air purifiers into schools, the Government must act radically so children are given the opportunity to catch up on the education they are missing due to the Conservatives’ incompetence.” More

Patients with suspected heart attacks who have been told to get a lift to hospital are receiving unacceptable care, a health minister has admitted.Gillian Keegan has ordered an investigation into the action taken by North East ambulance service – because Omicron has hit its staff levels – even as the government ruled out further Covid restrictions.“That doesn’t sound to me like that’s an acceptable approach,” the health minister said, as she claimed more ambulance crews are in operation than ever before.“People should be able to get an ambulance if they have a heart attack and that’s why we’ve put that extra funding in place, and why we’ve been building up our ambulance service over the last couple of years.”The head of the North East Ambulance Service has defended its move, arguing rising staff sickness left no alternative if it was to protect “the critically unwell”.It comes as the government shifts it stance, after long insisting the NHS can cope through the winter, rejecting its pleas for tougher curbs to combat the Omicron threat.On Wednesday, Boris Johnson admitted the health service is “under huge pressure” and – for the first time – that parts of it are struggling to stay above water.“I won’t provide a definition of what being overwhelmed would constitute, because I think that different trusts and different places, at different moments, will feel at least temporarily overwhelmed,” he said.Ministers have been accused of setting the bar for “overwhelmed” too high – the health secretary, Sajid Javid, once suggesting it would be children not receiving treatment after car crashes.But NHS staff the current worrying situation – with long ambulance waiting times and cancelled operations and appointments – is evidence that they are already overwhelmed.Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman, said, of heart attack patients being refused an ambulance: “It’s shocking that it’s come to this.”A note from North East Ambulance director, Mathew Beattie, leaked to the Health Service Journal, said call handlers are using taxis to get people to hospital.It gives the example of a person with chest pain who should get an ambulance within 18 minutes, but may now have to wait two hours.The note said staff should “consider asking the patient to be transported by friends or family”, the publication reported.Dr Beattie told the Health Service Journal: “We need to weigh up the risk of delays for ambulances against alternative disposition or transport options. We have no option than to try to work differently.“Patient safety is our top priority and the impact of increased activity and staff sickness, linked to Omicron. meant that we needed to act to protect our response to the critically unwell.”The north east and Yorkshire have experienced the highest rate of growth in hospital admissions – up 122 per cent in one week.There were 1,975 Covid patients in hospitals on Monday, compared with fewer than half that – 889 – the week before. More

Tony Blair’s former defence secretary Geoff Hoon has claimed he was told by Downing Street to “burn” a memo that suggested the invasion of Iraq could be illegal.The ex-Labour minister said his own adviser was told “in no uncertain terms” to get rid of a memo written by former attorney general Lord Goldsmith.Details of Mr Hoon’s claims, which appear in his recently-published memoir See How They Run, comes as the former prime minister faces a campaign to block his knighthood.More than 680,000 people have signed a petition to rescind the gong, and a YouGov poll indicated that 63 per cent of Britons are against the move to turn Mr Blair into Sir Tony.Mr Hoon claimed the order to burn the legal memo came from Jonathan Powell, Sir Tony’s then-chief of staff at No 10, according to details published in the Daily Mail. Mr Powell denies the allegation.The former Labour minister said he was sent a copy of Lord Goldsmith’s memo “under conditions of considerable secrecy” and told he should “not discuss its contents with anyone else”.He wrote: “I read the opinion several times; it was not an easy read. Eventually I came to the view that the attorney general had decided that invading Iraq would be lawful if the Prime Minister believed that it was in the UK’s national interest to do so. It was not exactly the ringing endorsement that the Chief of the Defence Staff was looking for, and in any event, I was not strictly allowed to show it to him or even discuss it with him.”Mr Hoon added: “Moreover, when my Principal Private Secretary, Peter Watkins, called Jonathan Powell in Downing St and asked what he should now do with the document, he was told in no uncertain terms that he should ‘burn it’.”The former defence secretary said he and principal private secretary decided the memo should be locked in a safe at the Ministry of Defence rather than destroy it.Sir Tony’s office described the allegation that the memo was ordered to be burned as “nonsense” when it first emerged in 2015.Mr Powell denied telling Mr Hoon to burn the memo. He told the Daily Mail that Mr Hoon had been sent copies of a separate “minute” on the legality of the invasion months earlier. He had asked Mr Hoon, at the request of Lord Goldsmith, to “destroy the minute – not burn it – and the attorney general’s advice came later”.Human rights lawyer and academic Philippe Sands said Mr Hoon’s claims offered “further confirmation of what has long been known – ministers, parliament and the public were misled by Mr Blair into supporting a war that was seen by many as unlawful and a crime”.He added: “In modern Britain, it seems, such a manifest act of wrongdoing does not preclude the offering of a high-level gong.”Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer came out in support of Sir Tony’s knighthood on Tuesday, saying: “I think he deserves the honour.”Questioned about the strength of feeling about the Blair government’s invasion of Iraq, Sir Keir said: “I understand there are strong views on the Iraq war, there were back at the time and there still are.”He added: “But that does not detract from the fact that Tony Blair was a very successful prime minister of this country and made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people in this country.”The Independent has contacted the office of Tony Blair and the office of Jonathan Powell for comment. More

Boris Johnson has already been forced to introduce social restrictions to combat the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus and rocketing infection numbers in January could ultimately see him forced to tighten them still further.The prime minister has already brought back mandatory mask-wearing on public transport and in shops, cinemas, theatres and places of worship, asked citizens to work from home where possible and made an NHS Covid Pass or negative lateral flow test a necessary requirement for entry to crowded venues and events involving mass gatherings.However, Mr Johnson has so far stuck to his guns and refused to impose tighter restrictions in England for now despite the record-breaking of infection over the New Year, insisting on Monday 3 January that the current “Plan B” measures in place remained the “right” course of action, adding: “The way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path that we’re on.“We’ll keep everything on the review course we keep all measures under review, but the mixture of things that we’re doing at the moment is I think, the right one.”The PM reiterated his hope that Britain would be able to “ride out” the assault from Omicron without further measures in a press conference from Downing Street the following Tuesday evening, despite several NHS trusts reporting “critical incidents” of staff shortages.He previously pledged not to introduce further measures before the Christmas weekend but fears persist they may yet be needed to beat back Omicron, with government scientific advisers pushing for new restrictions as soon as possible to stop the spread and meeting opposition from senior Cabinet ministers reluctant to jeopardise the economy and impose further constraints on public freedom.The prime minister is understood to be waiting for more concrete data on Omicron to become available and for the high case numbers to begin to translate into a wave of mass hospitalisations before he makes a call on ordering a tighter clampdown, a stance that has seen him accused of “dithering” by opponents. The daily statistical update will take place this evening as usual and we can expect to hear more from Mr Johnson in the coming days as the national situation develops. The precise characteristics of the new strain of the virus are still not clear at this early stage in its development, although it is feared it may soon usurp the Delta variant as the dominant strain of Covid-19 given its high transmissibility.Mr Johnson warned the public in December that a “tidal wave” of infections could break on these shores unless people adhere to the current measures, exercise extreme caution and get their vaccine booster jab as a matter of urgency.The rollout of third shots has accordingly been greatly expanded to include all over-18s to address the Omicron threat, placing further pressure on the NHS to administer them.That move came in response to findings by the UK Health Security Agency concluding that two jabs do not offer strong protection against symptomatic infection from Omicron, with the current suite of vaccines less effective against it than they were against Delta.However, that same analysis also concluded that those who had received a booster remained up to 70 per cent protected, underlining the importance of getting a third shot as soon as possible.The UK has meanwhile recorded 246,780 confirmed cases of the strainso far and at least 75 deaths.London mayor Sadiq Khan has declared a major incident over the extent of the Omicron outbreak in the capital while NHS England has announced a return to its highest level of emergency preparedness, level four national incident, meaning that the health service’s response will be coordinated as a national effort, rather than led by individual trusts.Just 59.8 per cent of British adults have had their booster injection so far, although demand is high so that figure should continue to climb rapidly as more people make an appointment and roll up their sleeves. More

The emergence of the Omicron variant is causing concern around the world, not least because it is thought to be highly transmissible and because the 32 mutations of its spike protein suggest it might be able to resist current vaccines.The UK has recorded 246,780 confirmed cases of the strain so far and at least 75 deaths, prompting ongoing fears that more severe social restrictions could soon be imposed on the British public.Although many scientists believe the new variant is milder than previous mutations, it remains unclear how many of the record number of people infected will end up in hospital, severely ill or dying.Prior to Christmas, prime minister Boris Johnson said that no further restrictions would be introduced ahead of the holiday, explaining that “that people could go ahead with their plans”, a decision that allowed him to avoid a repeat of his notorious address of 19 December 2020, when he reluctantly imposed tough new measures at the last minute and dashed the festive hopes of millions.Since then, the UK has continued to experience extremely high levels of Covid infections across the festive period, with total daily cases in England rocketing to a pandemic high of 218,724 on 4 January, according to the UK Health Security Agency.But the government has so far stuck to its guns and refused to impose further Covid restrictions in England for now, with Mr Johnson insisting on Monday that the current “Plan B” restrictions in place remained the “right” course of action, adding: “The way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path that we’re on.“We’ll keep everything on the review course we keep all measures under review, but the mixture of things that we’re doing at the moment is I think, the right one.”That stance was supported by vaccines minister Maggie Throup the following morning, who told Sky News: “Plan B is working, as you can see from the number of hospitalisations – it’s far, far fewer than this time last year… It’s important that we follow the data.”The PM reiterated his hope that Britain would be able to “ride out” the assault from Omicron without further measures in a press conference from Downing Street on Tuesday evening, despite several NHS trusts reporting “critical incidents” of staff shortages. In Scotland, however, Nicola Sturgeon announced fresh restrictions on sporting events and large gatherings and cancelled Edinburgh’s annual Hogmanay street party prior to Christmas, having already asked Scots to keep household mixing to a minimum. Wales and Northern Ireland also imposed new curbs, closing nightclubs and limiting hospitality to the rule of six and returning to table service only. ‘Rule nothing out’In his video message from Downing Street on 21 December when he said the holiday season would be allowed to proceed unchecked, Mr Johnson said: “We can’t rule out any further measures after Christmas – and we’re going to keep a constant eye on the data, and we’ll do whatever it takes to protect public health.”He said ministers were monitoring the data “hour by hour” and that the arguments for taking further action were “very, very finely balanced”.“Unfortunately I must say to people that we will have to reserve the possibility of taking further action to protect the public, to protect public health, to protect our NHS,” he added. “We are looking at all kinds of things to keep Omicron under control and we will rule nothing out.”The prime minister is understood to have been waiting for more data on the variant to become available before he made a decision, a stance that saw him accused of “dithering” by scientists and his political opponents.By contrast, London mayor Sadiq Khan had been decisive when he declared a major incident over the extent of the outbreak in the capital on 18 December, while NHS England announced a return to its highest level of emergency preparedness, level four national incident, meaning that the health service’s response will be coordinated as a national effort, rather than led by individual trusts. Chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance is said to have led the call for fresh measures to drive down infection rates and ease the pressure on the NHS, but these have so far been resisted by senior Cabinet ministers loath to further jeopardise the economy and constrain individual freedom without more data to justify it.Sir Patrick’s fellow advisers have been equally outspoken, with Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), warning that Omicron is “coming at us like an express train” and insisting that the government must give the public a “good, clear message” about how “serious the crisis is”.The prospect of introducing a two-week circuit-breaker lockdown has been mooted – and appears to be broadly popular with the public – with plans made available to ministers for consideration and apparently including a ban on meeting others indoors except for work purposes and limiting pubs and restaurants to outdoor service only. But it is clear the PM hopes the take up of booster vaccines, along with the partial “Plan B” restrictions recently introduced, will be enough to see off the threat.As part of those measures, Britons are currently again being ordered to wear face masks in shops, cinemas, theatres and places of worship and on public transport and to work from home order where possible.The government has further revised its approach to vaccine booster jabs, planning to make them available to all over-18s by the end of December and halving the amount of time between second and third injections from six months to three, all in the hope of staving off the feared “tidal wave” of infections we are already beginning to see. According to official data, almost 34.4m people have received a booster jab to date. Some form of “Plan C” – a circuit-breaker, or tighter restrictions – could be necessary if Omicron starts to disrupt the NHS but there is clearly little political appetite for a fourth national lockdown.But Sage advisers remain unambiguous in calling for stricter curbs, with the influential Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London openly entertaining the possibility for several weeks.The bigger pictureEven before Omicron began to cast its sinister shadow across the globe, many Britons were already glancing anxiously towards the continent as Austria and the Netherlands reintroduced lockdowns in response to spiking cases of Covid-19.The World Health Organisation (WHO) had said it was “very worried” about the spread in Europe and warned 700,000 more deaths could be recorded by March unless urgent action is taken, bringing the total to 2.2 million since the pandemic began.Omicron variant shows just how ‘perilous’ Covid situation is, WHO saysPrior to the latest worrying developments sparked by Omicron, Mr Johnson’s government had been deeply reluctant to reimpose restrictions at all, despite consistently high case numbers.While the vaccines have consistently kept death rates low since the spring, infection levels have remained consistently high, typically hovering around the 40,000-per-day mark but in recent days have been more than double that.Mr Johnson may also be concerned that further restrictions might lead to social disorder, having seen anti-lockdown protests – some of them violent – erupt in Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy and Croatia.Londoners were certainly unhappy about the initial return of the mask mandate, accusing the PM of hypocrisy for declining to wear one himself at several public engagements.However, in other quarters, there appeared to be a clear appetite for new restrictions even before Omicron, at least according to the polls.A survey by Savanta ComRes revealed that 45 per cent of adults would be in favour of a selective lockdown targeting only those who had declined to get their Covid jabs and therefore could pose an ongoing risk to others.But, until Omicron threw a fresh spanner into the works, there was a credible case for believing that the UK was in such a strong position that it could avoid the worst of the outbreak marauding across Europe.Although Britain’s infection rate has remained high for months, it has also been highly stable until recently, lingering at a seven-day average of around 600 daily cases per million people, whereas Austria and the Netherlands have suddenly spiked to 1,500 and 1,250 respectively from well below that starting point since the beginning of October.Part of the reason for this is that the UK was hit by the more infectious Alpha and Delta variants of the coronavirus sooner and was therefore able to tackle them ahead of its European neighbours and unlock earlier. 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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has again tested positive for Covid and will self-isolate for the sixth time since the pandemic began.Deputy leader Angela Rayner will step in and go up against Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions on Tuesday, a party spokesman said.Sir Keir is not thought to have any Covid symptoms but the infection was picked up as part of his regular testing routine.The Labour leader previously tested positive for coronavirus on the day of the Budget in late October, before returning to work in early November.His latest positive test will mean it is the sixth period of self-isolation for the Labour leader since the start of the pandemic.On four occasions between September 2020 and July 2021 Sir Keir stayed at home after family members, staff or contacts tested positive.The positive test comes a day after the Labour leader travelled to Birmingham for a major speech setting out his vision for Britain’s future.On Tuesday, Sir Keir addressed an audience where he promised “straight leadership” based on the values of “security, prosperity and respect” if his party is returned to power.The Labour leader also called for an expansion of testing in schools to avoid year groups being sent home and widespread closures. Sir Keir said Labour would back the self-isolation period being cut from seven to five days, so long as scientific advisers recommended it. His own positive result comes as Covid testing rules are set to be eased to reduce the time people have to spend in isolation, with Mr Johnson under pressure to combat staff absences in key parts of the economy and health service.People who test positive on a lateral flow test will no longer need a confirmatory PCR to begin the self-isolation period if they do not have symptoms, potentially allowing them to return to work earlier, under plans being considered by ministers.The change could be announced on Wednesday as the prime minister argues to his cabinet they should stick by the plan B measures in England – despite admitting parts of the health service will feel “temporarily overwhelmed”. More