Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

29 October 2020

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

Key Announcements:

• According to Government data, the number of new confirmed cases of Coronavirus was 24,701 yesterday and 310 people sadly lost their lives due to virus.
• Imperial College London has published a report this morning which finds that approximately 100,000 people in England are catching the virus every day. It also concludes that the virus is doubling every nine days, and that the national R rate has increased to 1.6.
• Justice Secretary Robert Buckland appeared on Peston last night, where he indicated that Christmas in its “fullest sense” may not be possible due to the rise in infections throughout the UK.
• The Times reports that a German vaccine backed by Pfizer could be expected to be ready for distribution before Christmas. The Government has already bought enough doses for 20 million people.
• The Guardian reports that up to 10 per cent of England’s population could be tested for coronavirus every week as part of the “Operation Moonshot ” mass screening plan.

Regional /Devolved

• Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has assured businesses in Wales that they will be open on “essentially the same terms” after Wales’ firebreak lockdown ends . He also admitted that the Welsh Government could have worked more closely with supermarkets on his decision to bar them from selling non-essential goods.
• Nottinghamshire is set to be put under ‘Tier 3 plus’ measures, which will see the added restriction of prohibiting the sale of alcohol after 9pm in shops among others. The lockdown and additional measures will apply from Friday.
• Regions with areas in Tier 2 include: Berkshire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Durham, Essex, Leicestershire, London, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Tees Valley, Tyne and Wear, the West Midlands, and West Yorkshire.
• Regions with areas in Tier 3 include: Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, the Liverpool City Region and South Yorkshire. Nottinghamshire will move into tier three tomorrow, on the 30th of October.
• Further guidance, including a postcode search tool, is available here .

International

• French President Emmanuel Macron announced last night that there will be a national lockdown from Friday, with many businesses, including restaurants and bars, to be closed. Schools, public services and some factories will remain open. The lockdown will run through December, with a review in 15 days.
• In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that bars, restaurants and many non-essential businesses nationwide will be closed from Monday in an effort to stop the surge of cases. The policy is set to run through to the end of November, with a review during the middle of the month.
• After a rapid surge in cases, Switzerland has amended its quarantine rules and will now only require passengers from four countries to self-isolate for ten days. Currently, the country has 760 cases per 100,000 people.

Stakeholders

• The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report on consumer spending during lockdown. Tom Waters, Senior Research Economist at IFS and an author of the report, said “spending falls have been higher among higher income groups, and more than outweigh falls in income, with the opposite true for the poor. This means, on average, richer households have accumulated savings faster than normal whereas poorer households have run them down or accumulated debts”.
• Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary responding to the latest interim findings from the Imperial College London said, “This study, combined with the tragic news that 300 people died from the virus yesterday, demonstrates the seriousness of the situation we are now in”.