Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

24 September 2020

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

Key Announcements:

• Chancellor Rishi Sunak will later unveil a plan aimed at supporting businesses and minimising further unemployment as stricter Covid-19 restrictions come into force.
• People living in England and Wales are being urged to download the Government’s official contact-tracing app following its official release. NHS Covid-19 instructs users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they were nearby someone who has the virus.
• The UK could be the first country in the world to carry out Covid “challenge trials” – where healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to test possible vaccines.
• Some 10,000 more deaths than usual have occurred in peoples’ private homes since mid-June, long after the peak in Covid deaths, prompting fears that people may still be avoiding health services and delaying sending their loved ones to care homes.
• The number of daily reported cases in the UK rose by a quarter to 6,178, according to the latest government figures

Regional/Devolved

• The list of local lockdown continues to expand. The full breakdown of the regional restrictions can be viewed here.
• There is “no case” for more areas to be locked down as new measures to control the rising Covid-19 rate need time to work, Wales’ first minister has said.
• Scotland recorded 486 new positive coronavirus tests which represented the biggest single day’s number since mass testing began.
• Northern Ireland ministers will consider whether to follow the rest of the UK in imposing a 22:00 closing time on the hospitality industry.

International

• Global deaths from the coronavirus have passed 975,000, according to figures from the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The number of confirmed cases is almost 31.8 million.
• Two top US public health officials have played down the chances of having a coronavirus vaccine before the election, despite President Donald Trump insisting that one would be available “within weeks”.
• Israel’s cabinet has agreed to a tightening of its second national lockdown in a bid to stem a steep rise in cases. Businesses will face more curbs on operation times from Friday and people will no longer be able to attend street protests as part of travel curbs.
• After relatively few cases early on, Covid-19 began to rise in Denmark in August, prompting guidance to make face masks on public transport mandatory. Bars, restaurants and nightclubs must close by 10pm. The same curfew is applied to private parties, including wedding receptions.
• A surge in new Covid-19 infections is raising doubt about whether Myanmar will be able to hold its general election as scheduled on November 8.

Stakeholders

• Pets at Home said that its full-year underlying pre-tax profit should come in ahead of market expectations, after its retail and veterinary businesses achieved double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in the eight weeks to September 10.
• Coach operator National Express traded “slightly above” its previous guidance for revenues to be about 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels until the end of August. Peer Go Ahead reported falling to a small pre-tax loss after exceptional items, which was slightly ahead of revised guidance. The transport operator was hit by plummeting passenger numbers on its regional bus services and by losses for its German rail businesses due to delayed deliveries of trains and driver shortages.
• Business and union leaders have called on employers to do everything possible to limit job losses as the UK faces up to a bleak winter of continued Covid-19 restrictions.

Unconfirmed reports

• The UK Government has ordered more than 30bn items of personal protective equipment and built up a four-month stockpile of kit as it seeks to avoid the shortages that put NHS staff at risk during the first wave of coronavirus.