Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

08 Mar

8 March 2021

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

Key Announcements:

  • Children in England will return to school from today, with primary schools open for all pupils today and secondary schools expected to phase in return over this week. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said the reopening was the first step to a “sense of normality”.
  • Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, told Sky yesterday that the Government should learn from past mistakes with regard to school reopening: ” I think one of the really important things is to learn from the experiments that have happened in the past. There’s no point adding time here, or moving time there, if you don’t get a groundswell of support. If children simply don’t turn up for extra time, or summer schools for example, you could end up putting a lot of effort into something that doesn’t achieve the objective. So, my concern is to go with the grain of what parents will embrace.”
  • The Guardian are reporting that hundreds of pharmacies in England could be forced to close because the Treasury is demanding repayment of emergency loans it gave them to help stay open during the pandemic.
  • Yesterday, the UK recorded its lowest daily deaths since October, with 82 people dying within 28 days of testing positive for the virus. The total death toll stands at 124,501.

Devolved

  • Primary school classes one to primary three, nurseries and preschool will see a return of children today in Northern Ireland.
  • Data from Traffic Wales and the Welsh Government shows that traffic on Welsh roads is 60 per cent higher than the first lockdown.

International

  • The United States is approaching President Biden’s target of 100m vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, with 90,351,750 doses issued as of yesterday.
  • Reuters is reporting that a senior European Medicines Agency (EMA) official has urged the EU not to grant national approval for the Russian Covid vaccine Sputnik V until the EMA have reviewed it.
  • The Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, delivered a televised address yesterday to warn that the country will probably need stronger restrictions to tackle the rising infection rate.

Stakeholders

  • To mark International Women’s Day, the government is launching a 12-week call for evidence to better understand women’s experiences of the health and care system.
  • All businesses in England are now able to sign up to the government’s free COVID-19 workplace testing programme.
  • Research by the House of Commons Library for the Labour Party indicates that Nurses, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists and other clinicians will be hundreds of pounds worse off in real terms every month if the government’s recommendations of a 1 per cent pay increase are implemented.