Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

6 August 2020

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

Key Announcements  

• The Bank of England has  kept  the  bank rate  at 0.1 percent. The Bank expects the economy to shrink by 9.5 percent in 2020; their initial estimate was 14 percent. However, they warned that the labour market would take longer to recover.
• ONS figures released yesterday show that a third of the shielding population was uncomfortable returning to work. Labour’s Vicky Foxcroft said: ” issuing back to work notices for the clinical vulnerable with no support has left many facing an impossible choice between their health and their livelihood.”
• Epidemiologist and former Government adviser Neil Ferguson said  that reopening schools in England in September risks a sharp rise in cases.
• The Health Secretary will chair a meeting of his most senior health and data experts to assess the local lockdowns imposed and whether further steps need to be taken.
• Stats on the test and trace system are expected at 11am today after reports this week that many contact tracers have done next to no calls.
• Only 34 percent of office workers are back to their desks in the UK, compared to 75 percent in Germany, Italy and Spain, and 83 percent in France, according to a study by Morgan Stanley reported in the  Mail.

Regional/devolved  

• Scotland reimposed a lockdown in Aberdeen following “a significant outbreak” in infections. People have been advised not to travel to Aberdeen, those in the city have been told not to visit other homes or travel more than five miles for leisure.
• Nicola Sturgeon said that one of the key reasons for the restrictions in Aberdeen is to give schools the best possible chance of returning later this month.
• Nick Gibb said yesterday that all children will return to school in England, but decisions to enforce closures to prevent new outbreaks will be made locally.
• Politicians in North Wales have written  to the Welsh Government after 20,000 tourists visited their beached last weekend.

International     

• The US Government has made a £1bn deal with Johnson and Johnson to secure 100m doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine, FT   
• The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has blamed “complacency” for the country’s “significant rise” in coronavirus cases in recent days.
• Italy threatens to ban Ryanair for alleged coronavirus rule breaking.
• Spain reported 1,772 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, the biggest jump since a national lockdown was lifted in June.
• Amsterdam and the port of Rotterdam made face masks compulsory in certain busy areas, after they registered a worrying spike in cases.

Stakeholders     

• Dozens of MPs have now written  to the PM urging him to lift the ban on casinos, warning 7,000 jobs could soon be lost.
• The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG  said the number of people signing up to find temporary work rose in July at the fastest pace since records began in 1997, the Guardian     For permanent staff, availability grew at the second fastest rate on record – only surpassed to November 2008 during the depths of the financial crisis.
• Nearly half of the UK’s small charities working with the world’s poorest people expect to close within the next 12 months due to lack of financial support, according  to data from the  Small International Development Charities Network  (SIDCN).

Unconfirmed reports   

• The Daily Mail reports  that Belgium will be added to the “red list” of countries on England’s  quarantine list , before the end of the week.
• The Times reports  that  Ministers wasted at least £150 million buying masks with the wrong kind of straps from  an investment company, in a deal brokered by a government adviser who also advises the board of the company.