Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

20 November 2020

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

Key Announcements:

• The number of people who tested positive for the virus yesterday in the UK was 22,915, with 501 people sadly losing their lives.
• UK borrowing hit its highest October level on record last month at £22.3bn – £10.8bn more than the same time last year.
• Millions of public sector workers in England are to face a pay freeze in the Spending Review next week, news outlets are reporting.
• Just half of close contacts given to England’s NHS Test and Trace are being reached in some areas, according to a BBC investigation.

Devolved

• Northern Ireland is set to face a two-week period of tougher Covid-19 lockdown measures from next Friday (27 November), after the most recent restrictions were lifted just today.
• Level four restrictions come into force in Scotland this evening across 11 council areas, including Glasgow, in some of the toughest Scottish restrictions to date.
• Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the Scottish Government plans to vaccinate 4.4m Scots over the age of 18 in the coming months.
• Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford will reveal the review of the post-firebreak rules today.
• The mass testing of university students in Scotland is set to begin on 30 November.
• A high-speed test for Covid-19 is being made available to the Northern Ireland public for the first time this weekend.
• Cases are down in the North of England, but experts say it’s too soon to know how effective the second lockdown has been.
• ONS figures suggest London seems to be faring better during the second wave, although the effect of restrictions continues to hit hard, with hundreds of London black cabs being mothballed because work has dried up.

International

• The European Union have agreed to pay more than $10bn to secure hundreds of millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
• The US Center for Disease Control is warning Americans against travelling for Thanksgiving, as cases soar past 11.6m.
• China has given almost a million people an experimental Covid vaccine.
• Mexico has passed 100,000 coronavirus deaths.
• India has recorded more than 9m cases with nearly 46,000 new infection confirmed in the last 24 hours.
• The state-wide lockdown that began in South Australia on Wednesday is to be lifted early, after it was discovered the pizza shop worker, whose case triggered the new restrictions, was lying.

Stakeholders

• Hospital bosses are reportedly calling for Tier 3 restrictions to be the ‘new normal’ across the country, and have said that lockdown must remain in some areas.
• Unite and other unions are calling for frontline UK workers to be given priority for the new vaccine, alongside the elderly and healthcare staff.
• In an op-ed for The Times today, former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged the Prime Minister to set an Easter deadline for a return to normal life through mass testing with rapid home-test kits.
• Business owners and leaders in Northern Ireland are reacting to the latest restriction announcements, with many feeling a lack of confidence and trust in the Executive.