Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

03 Dec

3 December 2020

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

Key Announcements:

  • The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has confirmed its priority list for the first phase of the UK’s mass vaccine rollout, which will begin early next week. Compared to the summer provisional list, people in the shielding list have moved up the order, and pregnant women are being advised not to get vaccinated.
  • Care Home residents and their carers will be part of the first tranche of the roll out, however due to logistical difficulties in transporting and separating the doses of the vaccine, care homes will face a wait.
  • Professor Van-Tam warned yesterday that we should expect the supply of the vaccine won’t come all at once and may be on and off, which the UK will have to manage.
  • Extra measures will be taken to “boost fairness and support students” who will be taking their GCSEs and A-level exams in England next summer. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will make the announcement today.
  • Williamson will also set out the return of students to universities in January; students will be told to stagger their return to the campuses over the Christmas period.

Regional /Devolved

  • Nicola Sturgeon has said the vaccine roll out in Scotland will start next Tuesday.
  • The Welsh Government has said that people can now travel between Wales and tier one and two areas in England.
  • Stormont ministers will meet later to discuss if further Covid-19 restrictions will be needed at the end of the current lockdown.

International

  • President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian authorities to begin mass voluntary vaccinations against Covid-19 next week.
  • Germany will extend restrictive measures designed to stem a tide of new COVID-19 infections until 10 January.
  • North America is experiencing record-setting daily cases, the World Health Organization regional director, Carissa Etienne.

Stakeholders

  • The Care Quality Commission said it saw a jump in complaints about such Do Not Resuscitate orders between March and September, raising questions about inappropriate use when care services were under extreme pressure in the first wave of the pandemic.
  • Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds said raising taxes to cover debt repayments should be “some way off” and the Government should focus on jobs now.
  • Former chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies has told MPs that groupthink led advisers when they told ministers to prepare for the wrong sort of pandemic.
  • The APPG on coronavirus will publish its first interim report on the government’s handling of the pandemic later today; Politico reports that that the report will claim the government has failed to learn from other countries and that the relaxation of restrictions over Christmas and the return to a tiered system is a gamble.

Unconfirmed reports

  • The Telegraph reports that key workers will be given priority in the second phase of the vaccine.
  • BBC News understands the UK’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will be to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 68 per cent or 69 per cent by the end of the decade, based on 1990 levels.