Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

9 June 2021

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

Key Announcements:

• There were 6,048 new cases of Covid-19 reported yesterday across the UK, and 13 deaths within 28 days of a positive test. In terms of vaccinations, 40,573,517 people have received a first dose of a vaccine and 28,227,362 have received a second dose.
• George Eustice, the environment secretary, said Britons should “holiday at home” because of the threat posed by coronavirus variants.
• Rishi Sunak is willing to accept a delay of up to four weeks to the final stage of England’s reopening roadmap, the Guardian reports.
• Nearly 500,000 vaccine appointments were booked by midday on Tuesday in a “Glastonbury-style” rush after the rollout was expanded to 25 to 29-year-olds in England, the NHS said.
• Millions of people in Greater Manchester and Lancashire have been urged not to travel far and testing has increased to control the spread of the Indian variant.
• England’s Euro 2020 group matches at Wembley Stadium will be the UK’s first sporting events where proof of being fully vaccinated will be used to gain entry.
• GPs have been encouraged by NHS England to see any children under five with coughs or breathing problems face to face.
• The British scientist, Professor Sarah Gilbert, who designed the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is to be honoured this weekend, The Times reports.

Regional/Devolved

• Passengers on a cruise ship touring the UK have been told they will not be allowed to disembark in Scotland due to local Covid restrictions.
• Scotland’s new education secretary has made a “cast-iron guarantee ” that no young person will be further disadvantaged by this year’s assessments.
• Children in Scotland aged between 12 and 15 will be vaccinated as quickly as possible if experts recommend it, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.
• Extra Covid testing is being offered in parts of southern Scotland due to a cluster which experts say is being fuelled by the Delta variant.
• Health chiefs in Wales say they are concerned about the Delta variant’s spread across Wales as Covid rules are relaxed.

International

• The US has eased travel restrictions for many countries – with 61 being lowered from a Level 4 “avoid all travel” rating. But most passengers from the UK are still banned from travelling to the US.
• Guangzhou city in China has ordered the closure of cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and other indoor entertainment venues following an outbreak.
• Pfizer is to begin testing its Covid-19 vaccine on a larger cohort of thousands of children under 12 years old in the US, Finland, Poland and Spain after selecting a lower dose of the shot in an earlier stage of the trial.
• Many thousands of vaccine doses have been destroyed in African countries after exceeding their expiry dates amid a reluctance to be inoculated and a lack of medical infrastructure, while some jabs were donated relatively late in their shelf life.

Stakeholders

• Ofcom found UK adults spent an average of three hours and 47 minutes online daily during the pandemic.
• Less than a quarter of pubs are confident they will still be in business at the end of the summer, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.