Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

24 Jun

24 June 2020

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

Key Announcements  

  • Last night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave what is understood to be the final daily Covid-19 press conference. He announced that the public would still be informed of key news, but that the press conference s would take place when the Government had significant announcements.
  • On the latest coronavirus data, Johnson said that 8,309,929 tests had now been carried out in the UK, and 306,210 people had tested positive. 171 people have sadly died yesterday across all settings.
  • Following up from his earlier statement in the Commons, Johnson reiterated that step three in the easing of the lockdown will now implemented from 4 July in England. This will see the two -metre rule reduced to “one -metre plus”, and the re-opening of more non-essential businesses such as  hotels, B & Bs, caravan parks, places of worship, libraries, cafes, bars,  pubs,  cinemas, outdoor playgrounds ,  and hairdressers .
  • Furthermore, he announced, a household  will be permitted to  meet with one other household at a time and stay overnight. People will be permitted to meet inside or outside.
  • Formal guidance for how  England’s pubs, restaurants, hotels and hair salon s should operate once re-opened has now been  published .
  • The BBC  reports  that the  presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Nursing, Physicians and GPs have all signed  a  letter in the British Medical Journal  warning that the UK must now prepare for a second wave of the virus, and  calling for urgent cross-party action  to address the threat.
  • Tata Steel, Britain’s biggest steelmaker,  will be   the first major beneficiary under the  Government’s Project Birch scheme ,  according to the FT. Project Birch   was established to  bail out  firms who have exhausted all other avenues of financial support, and will see Tata Steel receive  a state loan worth hundreds of millions of pounds .

Regional/Devolved  

  • Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will not see the two -metre rule changed.
  • The Northern Irish Executive has  published  a roadmap promoting a Green Growth recovery from lockdown that develops Northern Ireland’s natural assets .
  • Scottish Education Secretary John Swinney  confirmed  yesterday that  the Scottish Government’s aim is for  children to return to school full time in August , dependent  on scientific advice that it is safe, and on precautions being in place in schools .

International     

  • In  Germany , an outbreak of the virus  at a meat processing factory in  Gütersloh  has sparked concerns of a second wave. Almost a quarter of the facility’s 7,000 workers have tested positive,  triggering a new regional lockdown.
  • Brazil  has recorded 39,436 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 1,374 new deaths resulting from the disease. This now puts the number of total confirmed cases in the country at over 1.1 million.
  • In the US , 7 states have recorded their highest coronavirus patient admissions in the pandemic so far , with cases surging following the easing of lockdown. This includes California, which saw more than 5,000 cases recorded in a single day for the first time.

Stakeholders       

  • The chief executive of  PureGym , Humphrey  Cobbold,  said  he  was “bitterly disappointed” by the delay in opening its 269 gyms .  “It is a strange war on obesity that sees pubs and restaurants open before gyms,” he told the Guardian.
  • Professor John Edmunds,  an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine  and member of SAGE, has  noted  that relaxing  the  two -metre rule at the same time as opening bars and restaurants  ” does run the risk of allowing the epidemic to start to regain a foothold “.
  • Ofcom  reports  that the average Briton  now spends a quarter of their waking day online, according to new research .  The research shows that at the height of lockdown, the average UK adult was spending a daily average of four hours and two minutes online .

Unconfirmed reports   

  • The  Times  reports that that  SAGE is unconvinced  that the Government  will be safe to fully reopen England’s schools in September,  despite the   prime minister’s  pledge to do yesterday .