Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

15 Sep

15 September 2020

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

Key Announcements:

  • No coronavirus tests are available in the country’s ten worst hotspots for the disease, with shortages likely to continue for weeks.
  • UK Home Secretary Priti Patel told BBC Breakfast it was “wrong to say” that there were no tests available after she was asked about the long delays in trying to book a test in Bolton where the infection rate is the highest in England.
  • Around 695,000 fewer people were on the UK PAYE payroll than at the beginning of the pandemic.
  • The unemployment rate has risen to 4.1 per cent.
  • The Office for National Statistics reports that over five million people were on the Covid-19 Job Retention Scheme in July 2019.
  • Thousands of coronavirus patients in NHS hospitals will be given a new cocktail of antibodies as British researchers expand the world’s largest trial of potential Covid-19 treatments.

Regional/Devolved

  • Households in Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell will not be allowed to mix, from Today.
  • People living in Lanarkshire are not allowed to meet other households indoors.
  • People in Ballymena town, the Belfast council area and certain Northern Irish postcodes are not allowed to go to each other’s homes.
  • People in Caerphilly county are being told not to leave without good reason and should not meet indoors with anyone outside their household.
  • In parts of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Lancashire people cannot meet anyone outside their own household, or support bubble, in an indoor venue.
  • People in Oldham, Blackburn with Darwen and Pendle should not meet anyone from outside their household
  • In Bolton, there are visitor limits on care homes, while hospitality venues will only be able to serve takeaways and must close between 22:00 and 05:00.
  • In Leicester, people cannot meet someone from another household in an indoor public venue. However, they can meet other households outside.
  • People living in Glasgow city, East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire are banned from meeting people from another household inside their home.
  • The Scottish First Minister has said she is seeking “urgent discussions” with UK ministers over delays to results.
  • A new national lockdown could be imposed in Wales within weeks unless people follow the updated rules on social gatherings, the country’s health minister has said.
  • Wales should use micro-quarantines to avoid a second national lockdown in the winter, Plaid Cymru has said.
  • A bank holiday weekend party appears to be “at the heart” of a rapid rise in cases in Newport, ministers believe.
  • The details of more than 18,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus were published online by mistake by Public Health Wales.

International

  • There are nearly 30m coronavirus cases worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 29,136,553 confirmed so far. The number of deaths has passed 925,000.
  • China expects a vaccine to be ready as soon as November.
  • South Korea will secure early supply of the novel coronavirus vaccines for 30m people.

Stakeholders

  • A lack of coronavirus tests for NHS staff is leading to staff absences and services being put at risk, NHS Providers have warned.
  • The Royal College of Psychiatrists say the number of people drinking at higher-risk levels in England rose to more than 8.4m in June – up from 4.8m in February – and the impact of that could be huge.
  • Headteachers have also warned that schools in England are being “severely hampered” by delays in Covid-19 tests for teachers.

Unconfirmed reports

  • Sir Keir Starmer will call on the Government to replace the furlough scheme and outlaw “firing and re-hiring” methods to avoid the “scarring effect” of “mass unemployment”.
  • The number of fans allowed into sporting events after October 1 may be restricted to between 1,000 and 2,500 if the Government decides the coronavirus infection rate is too high to allow stadiums to be up to one-third full.