Britain is to restart tracing the contacts of people who have had coronavirus symptoms, the health secretary has said, reverting to a policy recommended by the World Health Organization but abandoned by the UK as the numbers of cases and deaths began to rise in early March.

Nothing like an “appearance” in front of a select committee to focus a minister’s mind – the value of scrutiny, Owl

Sarah Boseley  www.theguardian.com 

Matt Hancock told the health select committee on Friday [today 17 April] that police, fire, prison and Department of Work and Pensions staff would now be eligible for coronavirus testing, amid growing concerns that the country will miss its target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April.

A former director of the WHO told the hearing that contact tracing, testing and isolation could have continued for longer across the UK and would have enabled the government to lock down London while leaving other areas of the country with fewer restrictions.

Prof Anthony Costello, the head of the Institute for Global Health at University College London, pointed out that Yorkshire had fewer than 10 cases identified in 300,000-400,000 people around the time that contact tracing and community testing were halted and, as such, could have avoided a complete lockdown.

Critics have said the UK was too quick to stop the universal testing of people with symptoms, and following up with their recent contacts, who could then be asked to self-isolate.

The WHO has repeatedly urged governments to pursue the strategy, which has been key to stopping epidemics around the world in modern times. “Tracing every contact must be the backbone of the response in every country,” the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in March.

Other countries such as Singapore and South Korea, have successfully used it to contain their outbreaks, while Germany, which has a far lower case and death rate than the UK, has also worked hard on contact tracing.

But on 12 March, Boris Johnson announced that the UK epidemic could no longer be contained that way. Testing was then restricted to those who were admitted to hospital, and contact tracing was stopped. The numbers of cases and deaths in the UK soared and a lockdown was imposed on 23 March.

Hancock said on Friday that the government would rebuild the teams of contact tracers as part of a renewed testing and tracing strategy.

His predecessor Jeremy Hunt, who is chair of the health select committee of MPs where Hancock was giving evidence, pointed out that South Korea had up to 1,000 contact tracers. “Public Health England had 290 people doing this at their peak, but they now say it has been wound down. Are we going to build it up again?” he asked.

Hancock said yes and that contact tracing teams would be part of a strategy that included the use of a phone app to identify recent contacts and warn them that they might need to self-isolate.

“That brings together teams from NHSX, who are leading on the app, with a huge array of partners that are working within that, [and] from Public Health England, who are the experts on what we refer to as external contact tracing,” he told the committee.

“The app is itself a contact tracing app, that is the point of it, to be able to assist individuals to do contact tracing themselves by notifying people who they have been in close contact with when they have downloaded the app. And then of course link that to testing, so people can get the tests.”

Testing, tracing and isolating the contacts of people with Covid-19 is expected to be a key part of the exit strategy for every country that has imposed a lockdown, as a way to keep control of the epidemic. Asked if he accepted that comprehensive contact tracing would need to be in place to lift the UK lockdown, Hancock said the government was working “incredibly hard” on the WHO-recommended strategy.

“We do need to have comprehensive test, track and trace in place as soon as possible,” he said. “And we need to get the technology right, we need to have the people, and we’re building that resource, and obviously we need to have the testing and we’re ramping that up as well. So we do need to have all three of those in place and we’re working incredibly hard to make sure that we are.”

Earlier, Costello said the nationwide lockdown could have been avoided, with only the capital facing severe restrictions.

He said the example of 10 identified cases in 300,000-400,000 people in Yorkshire meant that in such areas people could have continued to go about their lives and work while maintaining physical distancing.

Hancock admitted the government had discussed it. “We did consider having a London-specific lockdown and decided it was better to do it across the country as a whole.”

This was because people would be travelling between London and other parts of the UK and, he said, it was striking how the country had come together to observe the restrictions. “To separate one part of the country from another has downsides in terms of the national unity we have seen in the response.”

Johnson’s spokesman later declined to say anything beyond Hancock’s words on the possible scale of testing needed to implement a full regime of contact tracing.

He also declined to comment on why the UK did not isolate or trace people arriving in the country from overseas, while adding that this policy could potentially change in the future: “We’ve always said that we don’t rule out taking steps if that’s what the science advises.”

Optimism surrounding a potential new treatment for Covid-19 has boosted the FTSE 100 stock index (3%), amid claims that a drug called remdesivir has spurred rapid recovery in 113 patients. www.theguardian.com

However, a more sober assessment comes from the Financial Times:

Gilead’s coronavirus drug: why experts are cautious on its prospects

Clive Cookson www.ft.com

Of all the drugs being tested to fight the new coronavirus, people have invested most hope in remdesivir. A leaked report on Thursday night of positive results from a clinical trial of remdesivir in Chicago caused shares in its manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, to rise 14 per cent in after-hours trading and sparked an overall market rally in Asia and Europe.

What is remdesivir?

Remdesivir emerged from a collaboration to find antiviral drugs during the west African Ebola epidemic of 2013-16 that involved Gilead, the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It works by jamming the molecular machinery that some viruses use to build their genes as they replicate.

Clinical trials against Ebola virus first in west Africa and then in the Democratic Republic of Congo gave promising results but those outbreaks fizzled out before remdesivir had been fully evaluated to the satisfaction of medical regulators. It remains an unlicensed medicine everywhere.

Pharmacologists who surveyed existing drugs for possible effectiveness against Covid-19 when the pandemic started immediately saw potential in remdesivir, because the new coronavirus shares important features in common with Ebola. Both viruses carry their genes in a single strand of RNA, a sister molecule to the DNA that makes up animal and plant genomes.

Since January, scientists in several parts of the world have been carrying out clinical trials with Covid-19 patients, starting in China, but none has yet given unequivocal evidence of efficacy.

What results have come out of the Chicago trial?

The overnight excitement over the trial at University of Chicago Medicine does not come from any official disclosure of results but from a video leaked to Stat, a healthcare publication. Kathleen Mullane, an infectious disease specialist at the hospital, enthused to medical colleagues about the benefits of daily infusions of remdesivir in 125 Covid-19 patients. 

Dr Mullane said the patients, most of whom were severely ill, experienced rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms; nearly all were discharged in less than a week, according to Stat. She has confirmed that the video is genuine but declined to comment further.

Both Gilead and the hospital urged caution. “Information from an internal forum for research colleagues concerning work in progress was released without authorisation,” said University of Chicago Medicine. “Drawing any conclusions at this point is premature and scientifically unsound.”

What remains uncertain?

Almost everything. Even if the positive findings from Chicago are confirmed when they are officially released, probably later this month, sceptics will point out that it is what researchers call an “open label trial” in which everyone knows that remdesivir is being infused. The progression of Covid-19 is variable and unpredictable — and the positive results might have been good luck.

Statistically valid evidence will come from the large “randomised controlled studies” that Gilead is carrying out with medical collaborators around the world. In these trials, patients are divided at random into two groups, one receiving remdesivir and the other a placebo that looks the same but contains inactive ingredients. The studies are double-blind, meaning trial investigators and participants would not know who is receiving remdesivir or placebo.

Even if remdesivir gives positive results in these controlled trials, questions will remain about whether Gilead can produce enough remdesivir to satisfy what would be a huge demand worldwide. The University of Oxford wanted to include remdesivir in its current large clinical trial to test the efficacy of existing drugs against Covid-19 but was unable to obtain sufficient quantities.

How does remdesivir compare with other potential treatments for Covid-19?

With the pharmaceutical world devoting immense resources to the battle against coronavirus, more than 100 potential Covid-19 medicines are in various stages of testing.

Remdesivir is among the most promising candidates in the antiviral category, which attack coronavirus directly. These are likely to be particularly effective in the early stages of the disease, when the virus is replicating rapidly and symptoms beginning to emerge.

A second category of drug aims to damp down the excessive immune response and inflammation that can damage the lungs and other vital organs in patients with more advanced severe disease. Medicines developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders are being tested against Covid-19.

There is now no clear difference between cities and the countryside when it comes to predicted COVID cases. London is no longer a key hotspot for predicted cases, and the latest hotspots are all spread out across the UK. 

Owl notes that both the Wales and Scotland Governments and their NHS support Tim Spector’s app and have been encouraging people to sign up but there appears to be no official backing from the UK Government – looks like a case of “Not Invented Here” to Owl. (Would be funny if it weren’t so serious a matter)

(Interactive map is worth a view. )  

Press release April 16th, 2020 covid.joinzoe.com

London, UK – The number of cases of predicted symptomatic COVID has fallen from 2 million to 582,640 in just over two weeks (01 April to 15 April) according to the latest data from the new COVID Symptom Tracker app. In Wales the figures dropped by 70% from 98,025 cases to 29,157 cases. In Scotland it fell by 73% from 137,583 to 36,723  (01 April to 15 April). However, the figures suggest there are still a large number of infectious people in the UK, which should be considered carefully before lifting the lockdown in the coming weeks. 

Developed by researchers at King’s College London and healthcare science company, ZOE, the COVID Symptom Tracker has also uncovered that there is now no clear difference between cities and the countryside when it comes to predicted COVID cases. London is no longer a key hotspot for predicted cases, and the latest hotspots are all spread out across the UK. 

The two current hotspots or areas that have not reduced as fast, as of today, are Corby (England) with 3.2% of people with symptomatic COVID (estimated) and Boston (Lincolnshire) with 3.1% of people with symptomatic COVID (estimated). All the latest figures are on the interactive map.

The research team at King’s College London and ZOE are working around the clock to analyse the data to generate new insights about the disease and its progression. For example, they have discovered that loss of smell or taste is common and an even stronger predictor of being tested positive for COVID-19 than fever. 

Lead researcher Professor Tim Spector from King’s College London, says, 

“It’s very reassuring to see that the number of predicted symptomatic COVID cases is continuing to fall day on day across the UK, but with deaths still high, this is definitely not the time for complacency. We believe our population symptoms are changing around two weeks before most people are admitted to hospital. The data from the app is giving us insight into just how common the virus is and how differently it affects people. We are learning something new each day, all of which is being shared directly with the NHS and health planners.”

“With the Government today announcing that it is extending the lockdown by three weeks, we urge the UK government to make sure it is using all the information it has to hand to prevent avoidable errors when the lift down does happen. What the data tell us is that there is still a large number of infectious people in the UK with mild symptoms, so to quickly lift the lockdown would not be appropriate. We are working closely with NHS Wales and NHS Scotland to explore how the app can be used to speed up and guide the lockdown lift. It can work as an early alert, before hospital testing, flagging up any particular spikes in new symptom cases.” 

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank every single person who is already participating, and would urge everyone else to download the app and check in every day, whether you are experiencing any symptoms or feeling fine. It takes us one minute a day for people to become part of the world’s largest stay at home science experiment and help the UK fight this virus.”

The app is supported by The Welsh Government, NHS Wales, The Scottish Government and NHS Scotland, all of which have been activity appealing to the public to download a new COVID Symptom Tracker app to help fight COVID-19.

Research methodology available here.

A design and access statement for the planning application, submitted by Clinton Devon Estates says the development would bring forward ‘much needed’ and affordable housing which will increase ‘viability’ of the village.

“Up to forty-three percent of the new homes will be ‘affordable’.” Owl hopes councillors who approved this application were aware of the great significance that they should have given to the two two-letter words “UP TO”. Anyone taking bets on the actual number?

Callum Lawton  www.midweekherald.co.uk

The homes will be built on land adjacent to Short Furlong.

The sloped site is 0.9 hectares and is adjacent to the established built-up area of Beer to the west of the settlement.

A design and access statement for the planning application, submitted by Clinton Devon Estates, said: “All houses are two to three storeys in height and are designed to step up or down the slope to accommodate levels.

“The proposed vehicular point of access off the existing Short Furlong has been identified on the eastern boundary of the site.

“The same access point will also serve pedestrians.”

The document said the development would bring forward ‘much needed’ and affordable housing which will increase ‘viability’ of the village.

Up to forty-three percent of the new homes will be ‘affordable’.

The dwellings will comprise four one-bed flats, four two-bed houses, 12 three-bed houses and ten four-bed houses.

This short article illustrates a Public Health England mindset that baffles Owl. 

Owl vividly remembers BBC news showing passengers disembarking from the last commercial flight to leave Wuhan before China imposed lockdown (around the end of January). They were being given a leaflet about symptoms etc but no one was collecting names or contact details or any information on where they were going. Similarly, neither GP’s nor NHS 111 are  keeping any record of who is/has self isolated with Covid symptoms.

Lack of recording, let alone testing, in the article below is explained as follows: “The epidemiological impact of keeping travel open is very small because there’s already large transmission here.” But aren’t we trying to reduce this to a minimum – Owl?

Only makes the eventual task of living with a manageable level of Covid-19 infection harder.

Graeme Paton  www.thetimes.co.uk

At least 15,000 people a day are flying into the UK without checks on their medical condition, the health secretary admitted yesterday.

Matt Hancock said that the equivalent of 105,000 passengers a week were entering the UK from countries including those with serious coronavirus outbreaks such as the US, China, Spain and Italy. Criticism has mounted over the failure to impose health checks or a compulsory period in quarantine for people arriving at UK airports. The US has banned entry for people from Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

The government has insisted that routine health screening for all passengers on arrival would do nothing to halt the spread of Covid-19 because of the scale of the outbreak in the UK. The incubation period of up to two weeks for infected people also means that testing often fails to identify sufferers.

This week it emerged that a second border force worker at Heathrow had died from coronavirus, prompting calls for personal protective equipment for all frontline workers. Yesterday Easyjet said that it expected to be forced to keep middle seats empty when flights resume to maintain social distancing. However, speaking on Good Morning Britain on ITV, Mr Hancock defended the government’s position.

“We don’t test at airports because the number of people coming through has dropped dramatically,” he said. “The epidemiological impact of keeping travel open is very small because there’s already large transmission here.”

 “The government has been too slow to enlist British textile firms to make protective gear for the NHS, according to industry figures, who say they have been desperate to contribute to the “war effort”.

Faced with a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the Cabinet Office has only recently begun scrambling to source it from UK suppliers and has now outsourced the process to consultants from accountancy group Deloitte.

Industry figures said too much emphasis had been placed on high-profile names such as Burberry, the luxury fashion house that Matt Hancock said on 3 April was producing medical gowns.” (See below Owl)

‘I need gowns, can I call Burberry?’ NHS trust boss asks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52319576

The director of a large NHS trust has contacted the BBC asking for the phone numbers of Burberry and Barbour because he does not have enough gowns for his staff working on coronavirus wards.

He said his trust had “less than 24 hours supply and [with the] weekend coming up” he was hugely concerned.

The trust is in the south of England but the BBC is not naming it.

The Department of Health said it was working “around the clock” to provide protective equipment where needed.

For a number of weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and government ministers have said during press briefings and interviews that Burberry will begin making personal protective equipment (PPE) on behalf of the government as one of the answers to a critical shortage.

Burberry said at the end of March it would repurpose its trenchcoat factory in Castleford, West Yorkshire, to make non-surgical gowns and masks for hospital patients.

The government has been criticised for not providing enough PPE for NHS and other care workers to protect them while looking after patients with the virus.

Government ‘ignores’ UK textiles firms desperate to make PPE

Rob Davies www.theguardian.com

The government has been too slow to enlist British textile firms to make protective gear for the NHS, according to industry figures, who say they have been desperate to contribute to the “war effort”.

Faced with a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the Cabinet Office has only recently begun scrambling to source it from UK suppliers and has now outsourced the process to consultants from accountancy group Deloitte.

Industry figures said too much emphasis had been placed on high-profile names such as Burberry, the luxury fashion house that Matt Hancock said on 3 April was producing medical gowns.

Kate Hills, the founder of Make It British, which promotes brands that manufacture in the UK, said the government was ignoring less well-known textile specialists in favour of household names that play well with the public. “They’re just picking out brand names,” she said.

“The people who can make this PPE are not well-known names, they are contract manufacturers behind the scenes. They’ve filled in the government’s request forms and heard nothing back.”

A separate source with knowledge of the fashion industry’s efforts said: “You can’t put all your eggs in that one Burberry basket.”

Hills said UK firms had been clamouring to help supply the NHS for more than a month, but that the government had instead focused on brands such as Burberry, as well as sourcing equipment from overseas.

“The number one priority was to secure anything already made that they could get on a plane from other countries. We don’t have the capacity and the products ready off the shelf because for years the NHS have been procuring products from cheap overseas suppliers.

“We have to put the supply chain back together from scratch. It’s almost as if there had to be a desperate need before they looked on their own doorstep.”

One major clothing supplier, who asked not to be named, said their firm had also struggled to get interest from the government. “The level that we’re scaling up is embarrassing. If the borders shut and we couldn’t bring in masks from China, we’d be screwed.”

The source said the process of getting protective clothing out to the NHS was mired in confusion from the government about the regulatory and testing regime for PPE.

Officials have been exploring ways to waive the usual regulatory requirements – as has happened with medical ventilators – but the process has been slow to get off the ground.

One difficulty with sourcing medical gowns is that they are typically made from fabric known as SMMS that combines two types of non-woven material, called meltblown and spunbond.

Amid a global shortage, the Scottish fabric specialist Don & Low received an order last week from the government for a spunbond laminate that would meet the same international standard.

Don & Low, which is based in Forfar, will eventually be able to make enough material for up to 1.5m gowns a month, but cannot reach full-scale production until May. The company is supplying the material to Burberry, among other companies, but has sent only trial fabrics to the fashion house so far.

Will Campbell, Don & Low’s sales manager, said: “You’re setting up a supply chain from the ground up. If you were doing this without a pandemic, you’d do it over a year or more. The fact that it’s been done in three weeks is fairly admirable.

“But you can’t get away from the fact that hospitals are running out of PPE.”

One of the few UK fashion houses that has already produced PPE is Barbour, which has delivered disposable gowns and medical scrubs from its South Shields factory to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Smaller suppliers have also been delivering their own homespun protective equipment to hospitals on a more ad hoc basis. They include the designer Patrick Grant, founder of the Community Clothing initiative, alongside projects called the Emergency Designer Network and ScrubHub.

The carmaker Nissan said on on Thursday that its Sunderland car plant, the UK’s largest, will deliver 100,000 face visors per week to the NHS.

The government-owned Royal Mint, in Llantrisant, south Wales, has been making medical visors for the NHS after developing a successful prototype to help protect frontline care workers.

A host of firms, including chemicals giant Ineos, beer firm Brewdog and several gin distilleries, have been producing hand sanitiser.

A government spokesperson said: “We are in discussions with a range of British firms on providing PPE for the NHS as well as sourcing it from abroad.

“The Cabinet Office has a dedicated team to help fast-track the regulatory approval process and has published the specifications for a wide range of items to support manufacturers to produce PPE, helping ensure equipment can reach health and social care workers as quickly as possible.”

The Guardian has approached Burberry for comment.

All seems a bit muddled to Owl. Is the blame game over the 100,000 testing target causing a diversion from focusing on real issues? Shouldn’t we be building a country-wide Public Health tracing and testing capability, based on the 5,000 contact tracing experts already employed by councils? 

“Almost half of Britain’s capacity is going to waste, with ministers risking a row with the health service by pinning responsibility on a “lack of demand” among frontline workers.”

Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor | Kat Lay, Health Correspondent | Eleni Courea, Political Reporter www.thetimes.co.uk

Home coronavirus swab tests delivered by Amazon are being tested as a way out of lockdown amid finger-pointing over who is to blame for unused testing capacity.

Almost half of Britain’s capacity is going to waste, with ministers risking a row with the health service by pinning responsibility on a “lack of demand” among frontline workers.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has pledged that 100,000 tests a day would be carried out by the end of the month. The government says that there is capacity to do 35,000 a day but only 18,665 tests were carried out in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.

To boost the numbers the government is looking at testing other key workers such as the police, prison staff and firefighters, as well as studying whether more regular testing for some health staff is needed.

The Times understands that a pilot is beginning this week of a home-testing service using Amazon logistics that sends swabs to people’s homes and tells them to take a sample from their throats an hour before they are picked up. Results are sent back by text message, with the aim of completing the process in less than 48 hours. The scheme is separate from the attempt, so far unsuccessful, to find a home antibody test that shows who has recovered from the virus.

The pilot will begin with key workers. But with mass testing and contact tracing of suspected cases considered key to eventually exiting lockdown, the government wants to make the present swab test available to people self- isolating at home once restrictions start to be lifted.

The move comes amid frustration over why the capacity is not being fully used. Whitehall officials believe that all NHS staff who are self-isolating could be checked today if they came forward.

They have criticised health service delays in putting doctors and nurses forward, insisting that tests are available for those who need them, and hinting at a reluctance among some to be checked and return to the front line.

However, doctors’ leaders insist that demand outstrips supply, blaming a failure to make swabs convenient and available to staff, including by using drive-through centres that ill workers may find difficult to get to. They have also said that there is confusion about eligibility for testing.

The leader of the UK’s biggest farming organisation says she is optimistic that British workers will come forward to rescue the harvest and keep the nation fed, instead of having to rely on flying in overseas workers.

Fiona Harvey  www.theguardian.com 

“A lot of signs are optimistic and we have really positive news,” said Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union. “We are hearing people are very keen [to work on farms]. There does seem to be a real swell of support from people to do this.”

She said workers who had been furloughed were allowed to top up their income through farm work, and many others who had lost their jobs would see it as a lifeline, as well as a way to help the country through the coronavirus crisis.

Workers have been flown in this week on charter flights from Romania, despite travel restrictions and fears for their health and safety. Germany has also been recruiting farm workers by air from eastern Europe. About 80,000 workers are likely to be needed this year, leading to calls for a “land army” of paid workers to join farms.

Batters said there was still time for more people to sign up, as the critical period for the UK’s harvest would not begin until next month. “We will know much more when we get to May,” she said.

However, even if the labour shortages are less severe than some have predicted, farmers across the country are still facing a struggle to stay in business as their supply chains have been turned upside down by the coronavirus crisis.

For farmers, the biggest single problem is that before the lockdown about half of the food consumed in the UK was eaten outside the home, in cafes, restaurants and pubs. Now they are closed, supermarkets are struggling to keep up with demand for grocery shopping, but farmers used to supplying the catering trade have few ways of getting their produce to consumers. “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to switch,” said Batters.

Food must meet different standards when sold through supermarkets, and adapting the supply chain takes longer than farmers have to sell their perishable produce. “If you’re a potato farmer, and you sold to fish and chip shops, you can’t just start selling your produce direct. You can sell some at the end of the farm drive, but that’s only going to make a small difference,” said Batters.

Ministers have been slow to act, said Martin Lines, chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network. “We have heard very little from the government on how they will be supporting farmers to effectively make this transition and we urge them to look at appropriate ways to deliver a clear food delivery strategy that supports short, sustainable supply chains during the pandemic and beyond,” he said.

Selling directly to consumers remains difficult, even for farmers who have set up their business that way. Charlie Cole, a livestock farmer at Broughgammon farm in Northern Ireland, said: “It’s been an absolute nightmare. Our business is completely dependent on us selling directly to the customer. So now that the government restrictions are in place, the farmers’ markets and street food events have come to a close and we’ve had to shut the cafe in the farm shop, which are all usually reliable sources of income.”

The cancellation of Wimbledon means its strawberry supplier in Kent is faced with 33 tonnes of perishable soft fruit with no market. Marion Regan, whose great-grandfather established Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent in 1893 with a Covent Garden stall, is now looking at alternatives. “We will find a home for them,” she told the Oxford Farming Conference podcast. She said she was talking to food banks as well as commercial outlets.

The difference between what we eat at home and our tastes when eating out is also causing problems. Our love of mince is a menace to livestock farmers, who have seen the meat market collapse even while supermarkets have been stocking their shelves with meat imported from Poland. People are eating far more mince, which is cheap and comes from the tougher end of the animal, instead of the more expensive cuts, such as steak, that we tend to choose when eating out.

As farmers need to sell whole carcasses, they are forced to sell at far below the true value. “If everyone wants mince, the carcass is massively devalued,” said Batters. “People want to buy British beef. If it has to be mince, OK, but you must balance the carcass [if necessary by mincing prime cuts] and stabilise the price, or people will go out of business.”

Coffee shops used to account for a large proportion of the UK’s fresh milk sales, but when drinking at home people tend not to make the milky cappuccinos and lattes that they would buy when out. Dairy farmers are seeing prices so low that some have been throwing fresh milk down the drain without a buyer to collect it from the farm.

Supermarkets imposed buying limits to stop people stocking up on some items, including milk and eggs. But Batters said there was no reason for limiting the amount of dairy produce people can purchase as there was no shortage of supply.

Small farmers were most at risk from the crisis, Batters warned, as they had less to fall back on and were finding it hard to gain credit extensions from their banks.

Farmers who diversified, as they were urged to, into side businesses such as running B&Bs are also finding those sources drying up. “Normally we would make £7,000 off tourism per year, but that income is going to vanish,” said Polly Davies, a tenant farmer in Glamorgan.

Batters will urge ministers at a virtual meeting on Friday to give British farmers a boost by mandating all food bought by public bodies, including the NHS and the army, to come from British producers.

“The government has a key role to play that needs to be recognised,” she said. “If there is to be a positive legacy from this crisis, let’s build a more resilient economic future – paying attention to our food and our health, and buying local food, is a key part of that.”

Owl understands that If you have COVID-19 symptoms but are not ill enough to require hospital treatment and are not an NHS worker nor live in the same household as one, then you will not be tested in uk as of now.

Emirates says it has become the first airline in the world to offer its passengers pre-flight coronavirus testing, with the results available in just 10 minutes.

Emirates ‘world’s first airline’ to carry out pre-flight coronavirus tests

Hugh Morris, Travel news editor www.telegraph.co.uk

Dubai’s state-owned carrier worked with the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) to conduct the Covid-19 testing in the check-in area of terminal three of Dubai International Airport for those travelling on a service to Tunisia on Wednesday. 

Emirates said it intends to extend the program to other flights, allowing passengers travelling to countries that require coronavirus test certificates for entry to gain confirmation before flying.

The airline did not reveal the results of Wednesday’s testing, how many people travelled or whether if a passenger tested positive they would be denied boarding. The flight was operated on one of Emirates’ Boeing 777 aircraft, capable of carrying more than 300 passengers. 

The blood test is likely to check for antibodies and may not be a reliable indicator of whether someone is currently infected with coronavirus

“We are working on plans to scale up testing capabilities in the future and extend it to other flights,” said chief operating office Adel Al Redha, adding: “The health and safety of staff and passengers at the airport remain of paramount importance.”

The introduction raises the prospect of more airlines following suit in a bid to help restore flight schedules. Carriers around the world are feeling the financial hit of having to cancel tens of thousands of flights and ground fleets amid the pandemic lockdown; Emirates has cancelled up to 70 per cent of its flights.

Emirates also said it is requiring passengers to wear their own masks at the airport and on board the plane. It said gloves, masks and hand sanitisers have been made mandatory for all employees, too. 

Magazines and other reading material have been removed from the flight and passengers are no longer allowed to take cabin bags on-board, with all luggage to be checked. The airline said all aircraft are undergoing “enhanced cleaning and disinfection processes in Dubai after each journey”.

The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, has registered just under 5,000 cases of coronavirus, and 28 deaths. It has carried out nearly 650,000 tests, giving it the third highest testing rate of its population in the world, behind just Iceland and the Faroe Islands; the UK has carried out just 400,000 tests.

The UAE has a population of just 9.6 million but boasts one of the world’s busiest transport hubs. Dubai International is the fifth busiest airport in the world, welcoming 86.3 million passengers last year. 

Humaid Al Qutami, director general of the DHA, said: “To tackle COVID-19, we have been proactively working with various governmental organisations and the private health sector and we have implemented all necessary measures from public health protection to provision of high-quality health services in line with the latest international guidelines.”