Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

A series of daily updates for CHO members regarding relevant updates pertaining to Coronavirus from home and abroad.

Dods will be providing a daily bulletin on domestic and international headlines related to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Key Announcements

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson is still struggling with the symptoms of coronavirus and has been admitted to hospital for tests 10 days after being diagnosed with the illness. Downing Street said the decision had been taken on the advice of the Prime Minister’s doctor and was a “precautionary” measure.
• Mr Johnson had been due to emerge from seven days self-isolation on Friday but remained behind closed doors because of a continuing high temperature. Downing Street sources insisted he had not been admitted to hospital as an emergency patient: “It was considered sensible for doctors to see the Prime Minister in person given he has ongoing symptoms. […] He remains in charge of the Government and is in contact with ministerial colleagues and officials”.
• Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer resigned late last night after she was caught breaching the UK-wide coronavirus lockdown by twice visiting her second home. The Scottish Sun published photographs over the weekend of Dr Calderwood visiting her holiday home on the east coast of Scotland, some 44 miles away from her main residence in Edinburgh.
• After issuing an “unreserved” apology and receiving backing to stay in post from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Dr Calderwood issued a further statement issued on Sunday night: “The First Minister and I have had a further conversation this evening and we have agreed that the justifiable focus on my behaviour risks becoming a distraction from the hugely important job that government and the medical profession has to do in getting the country through this coronavirus pandemic. Having worked so hard on the government’s response, that is the last thing I want. The most important thing to me now and over the next few very difficult months is that people across Scotland know what they need to do to reduce the spread of this virus and that means they must have complete trust in those who give them advice.  It is with a heavy heart that I resign as Chief Medical Officer.”
• Boris Johnson has invited opposition leaders for emergency talks on how the UK is tackling the pandemic. The Prime Minister said party leaders “have a duty to work together” to confront the disease. He said he wanted the talks to take place next week, alongside a briefing from Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. Johnson sent the letter just an hour before it was announced that Sir Keir Starmer would succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.
• On Sunday, the Queen said the UK “will succeed” in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, in a message to the country. She thanked people for following government advice to stay at home and praised those “coming together to help others”. She also thanked key workers, saying “every hour” of work “brings us closer to a return to more normal times”.
• The Queen herself is isolating in Windsor Castle, where she said: “While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed – and that success will belong to every one of us”.

International        

• Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès released a  video message  to the nation on Sunday, in which she flagged that the lockdown could be extended until 3 ^rd May.
• Italy reported 525 cases in one day – its lowest daily toll in two weeks and a possible indication the tide may be turning. “This is good news, but we should not let our guard down,” civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told reporters.
• Greece has now quarantined the Malakasa  migrant camp  as a result of coronavirus, after last week sealing off the Ritsona camp.
• Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar will return to work as a medical practitioner during the coronavirus crisis. Varadkar, who worked as a doctor before going into politics, has re-registered as a medical practitioner and offered to work one session per week, the Irish Times  reports .
• Ethiopia, Haiti and Barbados have reported their first coronavirus deaths.
• Sweden has prepared legislation to allow it to take “extraordinary steps” to tackle the crisis, as concerns continued that its unusual “slow spread” strategy was not working.
• Over the weekend, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for a “new Marshall Plan” for the EU’s economic recovery in an  op-ed  for a number of European newspapers; so did Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, also in an  op-ed  for several media outlets. This follows similar demands made by European Council President Charles Michel last month.

Stakeholders        

• New Labour leader Keir Starmer has said the Prime Minister had made “serious mistakes” in his response to the ongoing pandemic. In an article for the Sunday Times , he said: “The public is placing an enormous trust in the government at the moment: it is vital that that trust is met with openness and transparency about those mistakes and the decisions that have been made”. Writing on his first full day as party leader, the former Shadow Brexit Secretary claimed the country was “far behind” on testing and that frontline workers couldn’t get protective equipment due to “blockages in the system”. “The government must listen to our frontline NHS and care workers. We have heard too many stories of staff unable to get the equipment they need to keep them safe or to adequately care for patients”, he said.