UK Covid live: infections decrease in England and Wales, and rise slightly in Scotland; R number up a little | Politics

Here’s the government response to the story we reported earlier (see 10.02am) on Labour calling for an investigation into whether former prime minister David Cameron reportedly lobbying for a specialist bank that has since gone bust to handle extra government-backed Covid loans.

The Financial Times reported that Greensill wanted to have its cap lifted so it could lend up to 200 million as part of the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme (CLBILS), increasing its limit of £50 million at the time.

The Treasury said it had turned down the request to change the rules around access to the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).

Downing Street has declined to say whether Cameron lobbied his former university colleague prime minister Boris Johnson or a special adviser in No 10.

A No 10 spokesman said:

Senior officials and ministers routinely meet with a range of private sector stakeholders. During the Covid pandemic the Government received many representations from the entire spectrum of British business. HM Treasury considered the representations made by the company with proper and due process and the decision was taken not to provide the support requested.

A Treasury spokesman said:

Treasury officials regularly meet with stakeholders to discuss our economic response to Covid. The meetings in question were primarily about broadening the scope of CCFF to enable access for providers of supply chain finance, which – following a call for evidence and discussions with several other firms within the sector – we decided against and informed the businesses concerned.

Half of adults in England are likely to have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, new figures from NHS England indicate.

In total, 22,337,590 people had received a first jab as of March 18. Based on estimates by the Office for National Statistics, this is equivalent of 50.5% of the population of England aged 18 and over.

As of yesterday, 1,419,950 people have now had both doses of the vaccine: the equivalent of 3.2% of the adult population of England.

Wales could see a third wave of coronavirus and enter into further lockdowns, the First Minister has warned.

Speaking as Paris enters a month-long Covid-19 lockdown amid rising numbers of cases, Mark Drakeford said: “Nobody should think that we are immune from that, nobody should think we can drop our guard and plan on the basis that coronavirus has gone away.”

Expressing his “concern” about the situation in France, he said: “I’ve never come to this podium and said to people in Wales that coronavirus is all over and that it will be completely behind us during this calendar year.

“I hope it will be and I absolutely hope it will be, but I don’t think it’s responsible to say to people that is a guarantee that anybody could offer them.”

So how high are the infection rates in Wales at the moment?

There have been a further 201 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 207,438.

Public Health Wales reported a further nine deaths, taking the country’s total death toll from the pandemic to 5,476.

So far, more than 1.2 million people had received a first dose of the vaccine in Wales, and nearly 320,000 second doses have been administered in Wales – one in 10 of the population.

The Metropolitan Police have urged people not to join anti-lockdown protests planned in central London this weekend, warning that participants risk arrest.

The Met said a “significant policing operation” would be in place in London throughout Saturday, as it planned to tackle several protests.

Expected demonstrations include a rally at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park to support a mayoral bid by anti-lockdown activist Piers Corbyn.

Protesters are also planning to take to the streets over plans to give police in England and Wales more power to impose restrictions on non-violent protests, including those deemed too noisy or a nuisance. The proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill could see protesters face a fine or jail.

“Those gathering will be encouraged to return home, if they do not, they face necessary and proportionate enforcement action,” it said. “This could be a fixed penalty notice, or arrest.”

The R rate in the UK is now between 0.6 and 0.9.

This marks a slight change from last week, when the rate was between 0.6 and 0.8, meaning it may have increased.

The growth rate range of infections has changed from -7% to -4% per day as of 12 March 2021 to -6% to -3% per day, indicating that the rate of decrease in infections is slowing.

Boris Johnson’s spokesman has also faced questions after Prof Neil Ferguson, who spurred the UK’s decision to go into lockdown last March, earlier warned that a “significant fraction” of European cases were likely to be of the South African variant, which it is feared the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could be less effective against.

Asked about Ferguson’s remarks, the spokesman said:

What I would say in relation to those specific comments, we already have strong measures in place at the border as you will be aware. It is currently illegal to go on holiday and anyone arriving in England has to self-isolate, take two mandatory PCR tests on day two and day eight of their 10-day isolation period, and have a negative test before travel as well.

Modelling is showing that a combination of specific policy options such as pre-departure testing and isolation are effective measures for mitigating the public health risk.

Pressed on whether some EU countries could be placed on the “red list”, meaning a stint quarantining in a hotel upon arrival in England, the spokesman replied: “I would point you back to the wide variety of strong measures that we have in place at the border. We have them in place and believe them to be strong and robust measures.”

Downing Street has said the UK government is in “constant contact” with vaccine suppliers following a delay of a shipment from India.

Reports (see 9.32am) have suggested that ministers are in secret talks with India in a bid to release the doses to avoid a supply drop next month.

A spokesman for the prime minister said:

I would say we are in constant contact with all manufacturers to understand and address potential variations in supply.

I would reiterate the point about the words from the prime minister where he was very clear that the Indian government hasn’t stopped any export of the vaccine and any delay …is very frequent in vaccine rollout programmes.

Drakeford said the overall public health situation in Wales remained “stable” at about 44 cases per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 3.9%.

We are closely monitoring the situation in Anglesey and Merthyr Tydfil where clusters of cases, linked to household and social mixing, have driven up the rates. We are particularly concerned about an apparent reluctance in some places, to engage with contact tracing teams.

That contact is vital. It means we can identify the source of infection and how far it has spread. This work becomes even more important as we start to relax restrictions. We need to act fast because the Kent variant is now the dominant form of the virus and it spreads quickly.”

And he sketched a vision of the Wales of the future as the first anniversary of the pandemic approaches.

Our thoughts will naturally turn to the events of the last year and will of course be with all those families who have lost someone they loved to this cruel virus. But this is also an opportunity to look to the future. Wales after the pandemic will be different.

I want it to be a place where everyone has a future. Where all our young people have a good education and a job. Where no-one is held back or left behind. We’re laying the foundations for that future today – locking in those silver linings to emerge from the darkness of the last 12 months.

Wales’s first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said the country has “flexible plans” to deal with the delay in vaccine supplies to the UK from India.

Over the last few days, we’ve been vaccinating more than 1% of the population every day. This is testament to the hard work of hundreds of people across Wales working in more than 600 vaccination centres.

But we could do even more if we had more vaccine. Unfortunately, there has been a delay in the supply of vaccines – a four-week hold-up in a shipment of vaccines to the UK from India.

He said the NHS was making “rapid progress” in vaccinating priority groups five to nine. He told the Welsh government briefing more than 1.2 million people have already said yes to the vaccine.

Almost 40% of people in their 50s and 62% of people in group six – that’s people with an underlying health condition – have had their first dose. More than 318,000 people have completed the full two doses and we have the highest second dose vaccination rate in the UK.

Public Health Wales said a total of 1,204,101 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had now been given in Wales, an increase of 23,946 from the previous day. The agency said 318,976 second doses had also been given, an increase of 14,565.

Covid infections and hospital admissions with the virus are continuing to decrease across England and Wales, and are level in Northern Ireland the Office for National Statistics has said, but there are early signs of an increase in Scotland.

In England, the infection rate has decreased in the West Midlands, east of England, south west and London, but the trend across the rest of the country is uncertain and the east Midlands also has seen early signs of an increase.

Around one-in-three people of those surveyed across Britain also had antibodies last month, a steep rise, with 94% of people saying they have either received, accepted an offer for, or would be likely to have the vaccine

The percentage of people testing positive for Covid in Wales has also decreased in recent weeks but the rate appears to have slowed. The positivity rate appears level in Northern Ireland and has appeared to show some increase in Scotland in the week ending 13 March, the ONS said.

The number of registered deaths involving Covid in England and Wales also decreased decreased in the week ending 5 March.

An earlier lockdown would have saved the lives of London bus drivers, an independent review has concluded.

PA reports:

The University College London (UCL) study found that some of the deaths of workers infected by Covid-19 in March 2020 “would not have happened” if movement restrictions and measures to stop the spread of the virus were imposed sooner.

The research, commissioned by Transport for London (TfL), focused on the 27 London bus drivers who had been working in February 2020 and died from coronavirus between March and May.

UCL’s report found that London bus drivers were three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than the UK average. It also noted that safety measures such as hand sanitisers, enhanced cleaning and covering holes in protective screens were introduced too late for many of those who died.

TfL insisted it “moved quickly” to ensure bus companies took action to stop the spread of the virus.

Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford vaccine group, has said that statement by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) yesterday calling the AstraZeneca vaccine safe and effective would help “rebuild confidence”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:

This is incredibly reassuring, the processes are working, the safety monitoring that we all expect from our authorities is happening. This is extremely good news and we should be reassured that process is working exactly and moving along exactly as it should.

I think what they have very clearly stated is that we absolutely are confident in use of the vaccine, that it’s not associated with the blood clots as was originally raised.