“The inside story of what happened in this period is one of early panic and confusion, of companies with expertise clashing with those seizing the limelight with ambitions to innovate, of questionable designs, and the desperation of a government setting targets and then deciding it didn’t need to meet them after all.

The judgment as to whether ministers have made the right call will be made in the months to come. Either way, the clinicians and medical device experts who spoke to the Guardian say lessons have to be learned.”

Rob Davies  www.theguardian.com 

As realisation dawned that a full-blown coronavirus outbreak was inevitable, the government set British industry a seemingly impossible task.

The NHS had about 8,000 ventilators available but the latest modelling, based on evidence from China, suggested that up to 30,000 would be needed, within a matter of weeks.

During a conference call on Monday 16 March, dozens of manufacturers and medical device specialists were told the grim news and asked to launch a wartime-style effort – dubbed the ventilator challenge – to bridge the gap.

Nearly seven weeks later, things look very different. The NHS has neither needed 30,000 ventilators, nor has it come close to calling on the 18,000 that health secretary Matt Hancock set as a revised target in early April.

The inside story of what happened in this period is one of early panic and confusion, of companies with expertise clashing with those seizing the limelight with ambitions to innovate, of questionable designs, and the desperation of a government setting targets and then deciding it didn’t need to meet them after all.

The judgment as to whether ministers have made the right call will be made in the months to come. Either way, the clinicians and medical device experts who spoke to the Guardian say lessons have to be learned.

The ventilator challenge began on Saturday 14 March, led by chief commercial officer, Gareth Rhys Williams, the civil servant who oversees state procurement.

“I got an email at midnight asking if I could call him [Rhys-Williams],” said Nick Grey, a designer and inventor behind Worcestershire-based technology firm Gtech. “He said the PM had given him a special job: ‘we’re going to need up to 30,000 ventilators in two weeks, is that something you can help with?’”

Building a modern high-quality machine from a standing start would, he believed, have been impossible. But like many other designers and engineers who responded to the rallying cry, Grey believed he could knock up something serviceable.

“I said, ‘If you’re really stuck and people can’t breathe I can produce something that can keep them going.’ It would have had to have been really bad to do that.”

Grey wasn’t the only who was sceptical about producing something more sophisticated. Asking manufacturers to switch from cars or jet engines to specialist medical devices was unrealistic according to Craig Thompson, head of products at Oxfordshire firm Penlon, one of the few specialist ventilator firms in the country.

But at this stage, according to Whitehall sources, ministers were desperate; they believed tens of thousands of people might require ventilation. Basic devices, however undesirable, might have to do.

“We were of the view that we had to back every horse,” said an adviser to a cabinet minister involved in the plans.

The strategy was threefold; buy proven devices from the few small firms that made them, import some from overseas and, most importantly, look to the the ventilator challenge to deliver thousands more machines.

Already though, some experts were concerned at how much credence was being given to the notion that non-specialist companies could build their own simple devices.

“They [the government] were initially talking about a Manley-Blease-style ventilator,” said a source at one specialist ventilator company. “They sent links to it.”

He was referring to a 1960s design by Roger Manley and the Blease Medical company, a major advance at the time but crude by modern standards.

In a document sent to manufacturers, the government said the new devices should ideally be able to support a patient for a number of days, but left open the option to build devices capable of providing support for a few hours to a day.

“These companies were all focused on the big prize of coming up with their own ventilator,” said the source. “I saw videos of some of them … the jerky motion suggested something that hadn’t been fully thought through. They didn’t exactly impress me as far as working concepts go.”

Dr Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, has said that simple devices of this nature would have been “of no use”.

Yet firms with no prior experience were increasingly bullish that they could design and build a prototype within weeks.

One of these was Dyson, the engineering group whose success was built off the back of the bagless vacuum cleaner invented by its founder, Sir James Dyson. On the evening of 25 March, the billionaire Brexit-backer indicated in an email to staff that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had personally asked him for help.

The company had been working with Cambridge-based The Technology Partnership on the CoVent, a breathing device that it believed would help meet the nation’s needs. The government, he said, had ordered 10,000.

Within an hour of the memo to staff, Dyson was sending out mocked-up images of the CoVent. The move angered some of those involved in parallel projects, who felt the buccaneering tone masked the enormity of the challenge.

“Dyson jumping the gun wasn’t helpful to anyone,” said one source. “We were looking at them aghast. Nobody said you had to start from scratch.”

According to one source, the firms that opted to design and build new machines had to lean heavily on support from the medical device regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

“Without the independent regulatory teams, most of these projects would have gone nowhere,” the source said. “It’s easy to say you can just design a ventilator but the safety isn’t just in the design, it’s about how you make them, the quality management, servicing them. It’s not an innovation programme, it was there to meet a clinical need. And that need was always most likely to be met by scaling up manufacture of existing devices.”

Only one group had taken this latter approach and it was quietly making more progress than any other.

The Ventilator Challenge UK consortium, involving more than 20 firms, counted the likes of Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Ford and McLaren among its number. It is on track to deliver thousands of ventilators to the NHS. Rather than reinvent the wheel, the consortium focused on existing designs.

“It was our choice that it was the quickest route,” said Dick Elsy, the consortium’s chairman. “Others pursued the start-from-scratch approach and some [of those projects] have been turned off.”

By early April, Ventilator Challenge UK was inching towards production and imports were starting to trickle through, albeit not in the volume the government had hoped for.

Meanwhile Dyson, defence group Babcock and a group of Cambridge scientists called Sagentia were continuing to work on their new prototypes.

Still though, the numbers were far lower than hoped. The NHS now had close to 9,000 devices but none had yet come from the ventilator challenge.

“The fact is that the industry has answered the call but the government wasn’t shouting early enough,” confided a frustrated source involved in one of the projects in early April.

Despite commissioning multiple new devices with no measurable chance of success, the government hadn’t, in fact, backed every horse.

The UK failed to join an EU procurement scheme that promise to source proven designs, a revelation that led to the prime minister being accused of putting “Brexit over breathing”. The row descended into farce as the government changed its story, first indicating the snub was deliberate before blaming a “communication problem”.

By 5 April though, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had reduced the target to 18,000 ventilators, a more manageable if still rather distant prospect.

Three days later, based on clinical advice, the government upgraded its requirements.

Doctors treating Covid-19 patients had learned that they typically suffered rapid fluid build-up in the lungs, requiring frequent drainage. The initial specifications had not envisaged this and some of the more basic models were not equipped to handle it.

One anaesthetist, who asked not to be named, said the Department of Health and Social Care should have been aware of this issue far earlier.

“We had done strategies for changing over ventilators as people built up fluid. We knew that was going to be the case.”

Other clinicians say doctors’ understanding was constantly changing.

“What I would say is that this is genuinely a new disease,” said Dr Daniele Bryden, vice-dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and an intensive care practitioner who has treated coronavirus patients. “It takes time to understand long-term impacts for the individual.”

Some projects fell by the wayside. Even the high-spec Penlon Prima EOS2, manufactured by Ventilator Challenge UK and now being used in hospitals, had to be sent back to the factory to be refined.

With cancellations and delays like these affecting the race, time appeared to be running out – 10 days after Hancock revised down the ventilator target to 18,000, the NHS still had only 10,000.

Luckily for Covid-19 patients – not to mention the ministers overseeing the ventilator challenge – external factors came to the rescue.

Only about half of Covid-19 patients admitted to intensive care with breathing difficulties were being put on mechanical ventilators.

Martin Allen, a consultant respiratory physician and board member of the British Thoracic Society, explained why.

“In Wuhan, when they tried other ventilation strategies they failed. Everyone needed to go on to invasive ventilation, so there was a concern that spread throughout the rest of the world,” he said.

In Italy though, a lack of the devices forced doctors to try other strategies, such as increased use of Cpap machines, which deliver oxygen via a mask rather than requiring intubation – where oxygen is delivered by the ventilator through a tube inserted into the airway.

Of the experts who spoke to the Guardian, many felt that the ventilator strategy would not have withstood a sterner test.

“The country has been fortunate that we’ve not see the levels we frankly should have expected” said one ventilator expert. “It could have been far worse.”

The government said that it was, at all times, guided by expert scientific advice.

Yet manufacturers felt the plan began too late, while imports that were supposed to number around 8,000 have only just passed 800. Last week it emerged that 250 from China were ditched because doctors feared they might harm or even kill patients.

Of the “new” ventilator projects, none have reached the final stages of testing and the majority – including those made by Sagentia and Dyson – have proved surplus to requirements.

Dr Bryden questioned whether the intense focus on ventilators was ever the most sophisticated approach.

“You cannot save somebody’s life with a piece of equipment alone. You also need someone who knows how to look after the patients.”

Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, believes that a strategy that relied on firms cobbling together life-saving devices in a matter of weeks should teach us more enduring lessons.

“When we look back there will be serious questions to answer about all of the decisions made. What’s been very noticeable is that we always seem to be one step behind on the policy.

“If it’s not ventilators it’s tests, if it’s not tests, it’s PPE. It’s an important lesson that we have to invest, to create overcapacity for these moments.”

“We’ve really cut to the bone in this country far too much.”

Owl has an international following – following a tip off – here is an Aussie view from the Sydney Morning Herald dated 3 May. It’s a devastating examination of our Governments handling of the pandemic.

Bevan Shields www.smh.com.au 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was midway through a radio interview when the phone call came through live to air. On the line was Intisar Chowdhury, whose father Abdul had made a prescient public plea to Boris Johnson in late March.

Through a Facebook post, the 53-year-old consultant urologist for a London hospital had urged the Prime Minister to make sure every health worker in Britain would be given protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. Abdul Mabud Chowdhury died just three weeks later, after contracting the disease.

In his phone call, the doctor’s grieving son asked for answers and an apology: “The public is not expecting the government to handle this perfectly,” he told Hancock. “We just want you to openly acknowledge that there have been mistakes in handling the virus, especially to me and to so many families that have really lost loved ones as a result of this virus and probably as a result of the government not handling it seriously enough.”

Chowdhury seemingly spoke on behalf of a growing chorus of health experts, MPs and members of the public who think Britain’s response to the crisis has suffered from a series of deadly mistakes and miscalculations.

The charges focus on four areas: that healthcare workers struggled to access personal protective equipment, that Britain was too slow to implement a lockdown, that it bungled testing, and that vulnerable care home residents were not properly protected.

Downing Street and key ministers such as Hancock have been reluctant to concede many errors, although their tone has shifted over recent days as the official death toll hit 28,446, one of the highest in the world and well above the 20,000 figure Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance once said the government hoped to not exceed.

Says Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an adviser to the World Health Organisation: “The countries that moved fast have curtailed the epidemic. The countries that delayed have not. It’s as simple as that.”

Dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet medical journal, is even more damning: “The handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK is the most serious science policy failure in a generation.”

Hancock and Johnson had their first discussion together about the virus on January 7. The government’s crisis committee, COBRA, would meet several times over the following weeks and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies started crunching the numbers. The government knew a threat existed but did it fully understand just how bad it could get?

By March 12 a full-scale outbreak had taken hold in Italy and the illness was spreading across Europe. More than 1000 Italians had already died and thousands more were gravely ill in packed hospitals in the country’s hard-hit north. The deadly potential of an invisible killer was becoming more obvious by the hour.

That day, Johnson announced Britain would move from the “contain” phase of the emergency to the “delay” phase. This decision would prove a pivotal moment. The shift meant contact tracing would be abandoned, and testing would be restricted to those only in hospital with symptoms. The move was at odds with the WHO, which urged countries to “test, test, test”, as well as Germany’s much-lauded program of mass testing.

The Prime Minister warned at the March 12 press conference that the “worst public health crisis for a generation” was about to hit the country and that “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time”.

What he did not announce was a lockdown. Or anything close to it. Tougher measures would come but not yet, Johnson said, citing the need to introduce measures when they would have the most impact. But his chief scientific adviser also cast serious doubt on whether closing schools, banning mass gatherings or stopping international flights would ever be effective levers to pull.

Instead, Brits were encouraged to wash their hands and stay home for seven days if they had symptoms. Schools remained open, restaurants and bars traded as usual, and visitors were still allowed into care homes. Flights were arriving from mainland China, even though Australia had banned them six weeks earlier. Heaving public events were still allowed. A Champions League match in Liverpool drew a crowd of 52,000, about 3000 of whom came from Madrid, where a partial lockdown was already in force. More than 250,000 tickets were sold for the Cheltenham horse racing festival. Both events are now being investigated by health officials who suspect they may have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease in the areas surrounding the venues.

By March 16, the government’s advice abruptly strengthened. People were told to stay away from pubs, theatres and clubs, to avoid non-essential travel and to work from home if possible, although the orders were not yet mandatory.

Why the sudden change? The government had just been handed a bombshell piece of research by scientists from Imperial College London warning that taking a light-touch approach to the virus would cause 250,000 deaths in Britain and overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS). Any hope of defeating the virus by building “herd immunity” in the community was smashed. The only way to prevent 250,000 deaths was through draconian measures, the researchers concluded.

Even then, Johnson would not put Britain into lockdown until one week later on March 23. By that point, many other European countries with a much smaller death toll had already been locked down.

Says David Hunter, an Australian-educated professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Oxford: “It’s very easy in hindsight to state the obvious, which is that the lockdown came too late.

“The British response so far is not a model to follow. It has one of the worst epidemics in Europe and the world. That may have happened anyway. There’s no way to know for sure, but some aspects of the response have almost certainly contributed to the high mortality.”

A former Australian high commissioner to Britain, Mike Rann, says crucial mistakes were made right when they had the most damaging impact: “The earliest stages were handled negligently,” Rann says. “A shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn’t happen here.”

Hunter says border closures in Australia and New Zealand stood in stark contrast to Britain, which only briefly imposed restrictions on people flying in from Wuhan. Even today, the few passengers still arriving in Britain are under no obligation to self-isolate.

“Good public health practice would be to, if not close the borders, then at least have some sort of mandatory self-isolation for people coming in during the very early stages of the pandemic,” Hunter says.

“The reasons why the UK did not do it are unclear. Australia, albeit at a different stage of the epidemic, has been highly successful in closing its border, as has New Zealand, and that has almost certainly played a role in the much much lower number of cases.”

Arrivals at Heathrow Airport were half what they normally were in March but still, 3.1 million landed there over the month. Nearly half a million came from the Asia-Pacific; 875,000 were from the European Union, and 711,000 came from North America.

Home Secretary Priti Patel supported a ban on travellers who had been in hotspots but was slapped down by Downing Street, which cited scientific advice that doing so would have little impact on the spread of the infection. When this spat was under way, Australia’s borders had already been closed for a week to all foreign travellers. Australia banned flights from China as early as February 1.

The decision on March 12 to abandon mass testing meant the government could only guess who was infected with the virus and how it was behaving. Government experts at one point estimated as many as 55,000 people had contracted coronavirus, even though there were just 2000 confirmed cases. The extent of its spread would not become obvious until hospitals started to fill with seriously ill patients.

Of the few tests that were available, the results were initially processed by a small number of government-run laboratories. Private sector labs and universities offered to help but now say they were given the cold shoulder before the government eventually embraced them as the answer to ramping up testing.

Nobel prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse told the BBC’s Question Time program that testing was “absolutely critical and hasn’t been handled properly”.

“We know that with this particular disease, you can be infected and have no symptoms. Now, this makes absolutely no sense. We were allowing, potentially, for front-line workers to be on the wards, potentially infecting people, because we weren’t testing.”

Nurse, who is the director of Britain’s largest biomedical research lab, the Francis Crick Institute, likens the addition of private facilities to the flotilla of small boats that rescued British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk and says their call-up was long overdue.

One of the strongest critics of the testing system has been Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary under former prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. Piers Morgan, a polarising morning television presenter and former tabloid newspaper editor, repeatedly mauled government ministers on his Good Morning Britain program about the deficiencies.

Under pressure, Hancock announced a plan to lift the number of tests conducted each day to 100,000 by the end of April. He achieved it − sort of. The government reported 122,000 tests on April 30. The devil is always in the detail, though: about 40,000 were tests mailed to people but not yet returned to labs for results. Regardless, Hancock’s ambitious goal has transformed Britain’s approach to testing and, if sustained, it will make it one of the world’s most prolific testers. The government is also hiring 18,000 “contact tracers” by the middle of May.

Despite the recent surge, those early delays mean Britain has conducted just 10.13 tests per 1000 people, the lowest rate in western Europe. Italy’s rate is 32.73, Ireland’s is 31 and Germany’s is 30.4.

Australia’s testing effort has been double the relative size of Britain’s, despite having a far less serious outbreak. And for all the criticism of the US response to the crisis, the rate of testing there never fell below the rate in Britain in April.

In his first address from Downing Street after his own battle with the virus, Johnson said the government was determined to fix the “challenges” that “have been so knotty and infuriating”.

“I’m not going to minimise the logistical problems we have faced in getting the right protective gear to the right people at the right time, both in the NHS and in care homes. Or the frustrations that we have experienced in expanding the numbers of tests.”

The additional testing capacity has allowed the government to get a better grip on the unfolding toll in Britain’s care homes. It was previously flying blind. Only three weeks ago, even symptomatic care home residents and staff did not qualify for a test. For many weeks, patients were discharged from hospitals and into care homes without being tested to check whether they would be taking a deadly virus to a place where it could unleash havoc.

The Office for National Statistics, which compiles death data based on whether COVID-19 was mentioned on death certificates − believes 4343 care home residents died in England alone in the fortnight ending April 24. In the week ending April 17, 7316 people died in care homes from all causes. This was 2389 more deaths than the week before and almost double the week before that.

Care home deaths were not added to Britain’s official death toll until late last week, and the true extent of the loss is still unclear. In early March, Johnson and his team spoke of “shielding” care home residents during the worst of the epidemic. They have since failed, but are not alone: all badly affected countries in Europe have experienced a wae of death in care homes.

While the Prime Minister has enjoyed a sharp rise in his personal approval ratings since the outbreak began, polling firm Ipsos MORI has recorded a “significant rise” in the number of people that think the government acted too late. Two weeks ago, 57 per cent felt that way but that figure now stands at 66 per cent.

Johnson and Hancock have been keen to stress that Britain has passed through the peak of the virus without the NHS being overwhelmed, pointing to a massive and rapid expansion in capacity and the early purchase of thousands of ventilators.

Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty says the only way to truly compare Britain’s response will be once the pandemic has run its course not just in Britain but in other countries that may yet experience serious outbreaks.

“We are nowhere near the end of this epidemic. There is a very long way to run for every country in the world on this and I think let’s not go charging in to who’s won and who’s lost.”

When “three houses” Robert Jenrick was not required to resign over travelling to his second home, Owl thought this Government was without shame.

A close ally of Boris Johnson has resigned as a minister after being found to have used his position to try to intimidate a member of the public.

Rajeev Syal www.theguardian.com

The international trade minister, Conor Burns, was found by the standards committee to have made a series of veiled threats while attempting to intervene in his father’s dispute over a loan.

The committee recommended a suspension from parliament over multiple breaches of the MPs’ code before No 10 announced his resignation. A Downing Street spokesman said Burns had resigned after the committee’s report.

The commissioner for standards received a complaint from a member of the public connected to a firm with which Burns’s father was in dispute over the repayment of a loan. The complaint centred on a letter sent by Burns, which claimed his father had made extensive attempts over a period of years to reach a settlement on repayment of that loan.

In the letter, written in February 2019 on House of Commons notepaper, Burns stated he was writing on his father’s behalf enclosing an earlier letter sent by his father to the company to which, he stated, no response had been received.

“I am acutely aware that my role in the public eye could well attract interest especially if I were to use parliamentary privilege to raise the case (on which I have taken advice from the house authorities),” Burns wrote.

The MP suggested the complainant, a former senior civil servant whose name was redacted from House of Commons documents, could avoid having him raise the case in the Commons by securing the payment of the loan to his father.

Burns noted the complainant’s “high-profile role” outside the company “could well add to that attention”. By raising the case during parliamentary proceedings, Burns’s words would have been protected from a legal challenge by parliamentary privilege.

When confronted by Kathryn Stone, the commissioner for standards, Burns said he had not sought formal advice. Stone said his behaviour “gives fuel to the belief that members are able and willing to use the privileges accorded them by their membership of the house to benefit their own personal interests”.

“The content of the letter suggests the use of the principal emblem of the house was more deliberate than accidental. And, as I explained in my letter to Mr Burns of 11 June 2019, his reference to having sought advice about privilege from the house authorities was misleading,” Stone wrote.

The report released by the standards committee found that he had also misused parliamentary-headed notepaper. It accused Burns of behaving “disrespectfully” during the investigation and of claiming he had not received a memo from Stone over several months.

The cross-party committee recommended he should apologise in writing to the Commons and to the individual concerned – a recommendation that will need to be signed off by the Commons.

“The right of members of parliament to speak in the chamber without fear or favour is essential to parliament’s ability to scrutinise the executive and to tackle social abuses, particularly if the latter are committed by the rich and powerful who might use the threat of defamation proceedings to deter legitimate criticism.

“Precisely because parliamentary privilege is so important, it is essential to maintaining public respect for parliament that the protection afforded by privilege should not be abused by a member in the pursuit of their purely private and personal interests,” the report said.

Burns, 47, was made a trade minister in July when Johnson became Conservative leader and was a key member of his campaign team. He was elected to represent Bournemouth West in 2010 and defended his seat in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

He served as parliamentary private secretary to Johnson when he was foreign secretary but resigned from the post in July 2018.

Burns expressed his regret in a tweet on Monday. “With deep regret I have decided to resign as Minister of State for International Trade. @BorisJohnson will continue to have my wholehearted support from the backbenches,” he said.

In a separate development, another minister at the Department for International Trade, Greg Hands, was ordered on Monday to apologise for misusing parliamentary stationery to send a letter to thousands of constituents.

In October 2019, the Chelsea and Fulham MP had told the commissioner he was willing to publicly acknowledge he had breached the rules, apologise and reimburse the £4,865 costs. But with the election looming, Hands changed his mind.

The committee said: “It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr Hands may well have been motivated by a desire to avoid the embarrassment of having to make a public apology for breaking parliamentary rules during a general election campaign.”

Yesterday the “alternative Sage” said the Government needs to clarify whether its objective was to suppress or manage infections of Covid-19. Owl is concerned about one, little mentioned, aspect of the long term consequence of  “managing within the capacity of our NHS” .

Owl hears a lot about NHS capacity being measured in terms of the supply of PPE, number of beds and ventilators etc, not much about the limits of human endurance. In a couple of articles Owl has posted recently, Max Hastings has drawn comparisons between this emergency and the way resources are, or have been, mobilised in war. One wartime experience is a recognition of “battle fatigue” and the need  to manage this through “troop rotation” (either as individuals or as units) to maintain full efficiency. (Owl uses the recognised military terms to facilitate research searches.)

Frontline NHS staff have been working at full stretch in extremely stressful conditions. It is unlikely that this peak work rate could , or should, be sustained indefinitely.

Before coming to the article, Owl reports that there is now a substantial “fringe” scientific effort: 

DELVE: Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics is a multi-disciplinary group, convened by the Royal Society, to support a data-driven approach to learning from the different approaches countries are taking to managing the pandemic. 

RAMP: The Royal Society is also convening the Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic (RAMP) initiative to support efforts to model the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. RAMP is bringing modelling expertise from areas other than pandemic modelling to support the pandemic modelling community already working on Coronavirus (COVID-19). 

Nicola Davis  www.theguardian.com 

The government has fundamental questions to answer about its approach to tackling Covid-19, an independent body of experts have said.

The Independent Sage committee – a body of 12 scientists and experts set up in parallel to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – is chaired by the former UK government chief scientific adviser Sir David King, who has criticised the official body’s previous lack of transparency.

Its members said on Monday that the government needed to make clear whether its objective was to suppress or manage infections of Covid-19, saying the two required very different processes and it was unclear which the government is pursuing.

The team have also recommended that new health policies for ports are developed to prevent cases of Covid-19 being imported, particularly as and when restrictions are lifted, while they have stressed the need for better financial support for marginalised groups and the BAME community.

Among other recommendations, they also advise that the government needs to move towards a local approach to testing and tracing.

The group was set up by King and Professor Anthony Costello after concerns about the lack of transparency around the government’s current Sage participants, and the revelation that 16 of the 23 known members are employed by the government. While the official Sage group is known to include behavioural scientists, pandemic modelling experts and infectious disease specialists, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief political adviser, is also known to have attended meetings.

Holding their first meeting on Monday, the Independent Sage group discussed a number of points, including the need to avoid stoking social divisions as lockdown is eased.

“People were very surprised at how adherent the population has been and a lot of that is down to collective solidarity as people have been rising to the challenge,” said Prof Susan Michie, a behavioural psychologist at UCL. “Going forwards, in terms of lifting lockdown, it’s going to to be a very different situation. A lot of thought has to be given to how this will be managed. If it’s not handled well, it risks potential divisions between groups.”

Other topics included the potential benefits to harnessing the island status of the UK and Ireland, as countries such as New Zealand have done, and developing new port health policies.

Prof Gabriel Scally, president of the epidemiology and public health section of the Royal Society of Medicine, noted that unlike many countries, Britain and Ireland have maintained open borders in the face of Covid-19.

“That seems to me, as we go into a situation where we are thinking of lifting restrictions, places us in sudden jeopardy,” he said, adding that a key issue at present in countries including China is cases of coronavirus imported into the country, including from citizens who had returned from travelling abroad.

At a press conference, chaired by the MP David Davis, after the first meeting of the new group, King added that the government needs to manage the pandemic without banking on a vaccine, noting that it remains unclear at present how well the newly developed vaccines will work, while Prof Karl Friston, of University College London, cautioned against placing too great an emphasis on the “effective reproduction number”, or R, which is the average number of people that one infected individual will pass the virus on to and has been a recurring figure in the government’s daily press conferences.

“R in an of itself is not a cause of pathology, death, suffering or any other measurements of those things,” Friston said. Indeed R is not fixed, and is affected by a number of factors, including by policies such as social distancing.

Friston added that the current prevalence of the virus in the population is a more useful figure when it comes to making important policy decisions.

“R is post-hoc reflection, it is a nice statistic, it is easy to model,” he said. “However, it is not really the thing you should be aiming at.”

Hundreds of fish have died after a major pollution incident on an East Devon river at the weekend.

Ten kilometres of river were affected after 100,000 litres of slurry poured into Southleigh Stream near Colyton.

Keith Rossiter  www.devonlive.com

The stream is a tributary of the River Coly, which in turn feeds into the River Axe southeast of the town.

The Environment Agency said it stepped in to investigate after a local farmer reported the loss of 100,000 litres of slurry from a storage tank. The agency said a number of fish had died, and officers were carrying out a fish kill assessment on the River Coly.

An East Devon news website said the farmer dug a ditch to reduce the flow to the stream after he was made aware of the incident, which is understood to have happened on Friday.

Most of the slurry reached the watercourse which was heavily discoloured when officers arrived on site on Sunday, making it difficult to assess the impact of the pollution, the Midweek Herald said.

“The Umborne Brook joins the River Coly at Colyton which will help dilute any pollution,” the Environment Agency told the news site.

“Officers have returned today to carry out a fish kill assessment and consider any further remedial measures.”

The Environment Agency said that it is investigating how slurry entered Southleigh Stream from a large store in the area.

“Our officers have recovered more than 400 dead fish, including brown trout, salmon fry, bullheads, stone loach, minnows and lamprey, and are now looking at the impact on the watercourse’s invertebrates.

“Any future action will be informed by the outcome of our investigation.

East Devon councillor Paul Arnott, who represents Coly Valley, told the Western Morning News yesterday that he understood hundreds of fish had died.

“The ecological impact on the River Coly is a disaster. It’s not just fish but birds and all sorts of other flora and fauna.

“I walk the river with my wife and daughters and appreciate what a beautiful thing it is and how crystal clear the water is.

“But if you go there now, you can’t see the river bed. The water is brown. It’s a tragedy.

“We will be looking for good, strong action from the Environment Agency.”

Ed Parr Ferris, Devon Wildlife Trust conservation manager, said:

“This incident has occurred on a section of river, the River Coly, already classed as in poor condition by the Environment Agency due primarily to agricultural pollution.

“The EA has been focusing attention on agricultural pollution on the River Axe, of which the River Coly is a tributary, due to the failing status of this important river. The Axe is recognised internationally as a Special Area of Conservation for its plants, invertebrates and populations of important fish – Atlantic salmon, bullhead, brook lamprey and sea lamprey.

“The estuary is also a Marine Conservation Zone.

“This is especially concerning as it’s the second major pollution incident on the river in two years which emphasises the need for stronger regulation, alongside advisory support for farming businesses to manage and protect our amazing river wildlife.

“Devon Wildlife Trust is working closely with the Environment Agency and other organisations to better protect and enhance the wildlife and environment in the Axe catchment.”

Morten Morland Times cartoon 4 May

Following Owl’s post reviewing the 207 planning applications, determined by EDDC in April, whilst all committee meetings have been cancelled, a correspondent has been in touch.

This correspondent has drawn Owl’s attention to the latest retrospective application the Carters have made in a catalogue of retrospective applications going back for years.

In Owl’s view it is also one of the most significant in terms of its adverse impact on the environment. Worse even than the Clinton application to extend the Blackhill Engineering site on the disused quarry on Woodbury Common.

This is retrospective application 20/0297/FUL for the partial retention at Ladram Bay of a raised viewing platform including balustrade and storage areas, validated 17 February. It appears to have been made in response to an enforcement notice issued in 2018. Owl has found it difficult to conduct a full audit trail of this application.

The case concerns the construction of a viewing platform and deck projecting through the narrow natural access chine from the camp site to the beach. The platform extends in front of the World Heritage Site (WHS) cliffs towards the east at Ladram Bay. It is supported by piles driven into the beach which will undoubtedly influence the natural erosion process. Owl’s correspondent isn’t sure when this platform first appeared but it was certainly seen in the summer of 2018.

Ladram Bay showing extent of the deck

Owl will start with the planning application form.

On page 4, the answers given in box 12, concerning the reasonable likelihood of the proposal having an adverse effect on designated sites and/or on features of geological significance, are boldly marked “no” in both cases. (Designated sites include SSSI and AONB. The Jurassic WHS is defined by a series of SSSI designations. The sea frontages of the larger towns in East Devon are excluded from the WHS. But for the smaller towns or coves such as Ladram Bay the WHS coverage is continuous across the sea frontage. The definitive DEFRA “Magic” map showing this for Ladram can be found here. The “Magic” map is an invaluable tool providing authoritative geographic information about the natural environment from across government. The information covers rural, urban, coastal and marine environments across Great Britain.)

The applicant cites three main reasons why permission should be granted: to support economic growth and productivity; to provide disabled access and to provide a platform to monitor the safety of swimmers. But it acknowledges that there would be a harmful visual effect from the development. This would be minimised in the summer months by the presence of boats hiding the development but when the beach is not used in the winter months would be very visible. (Judge for yourself from the photo and think how it must look from the coastal cliff path)

Now to comments, and Owl can find no better to make the case than those of Natural England:

The development is set within the boundary of the Ladram Bay to Sidmouth SSSI, the Dorset and East Devon WHS and has significant landscape and visual impacts on these and the East Devon AONB.

Dorset and East Devon WHS: The Dorset and East Devon Coast has an outstanding combination of globally significant geological and geomorphological features. The cliff exposures along the Dorset and East Devon coast provide an almost continuous sequence of rock formations spanning the Mesozoic Era, or some 185 million years of the earth’s history. The area’s important fossil sites and classic coastal geomorphologic features have contributed to the study of earth sciences for over 300 years.

Through a search of the site’s planning history, it is not apparent that the original viewing deck, which this application seeks to secure an extension to, ever received planning permission. Please confirm what date this was granted and any conditions relating to that initial permission. [Does Owl detect a rat hole here?]

We strongly suggest that the Planning Authority enforces the removal of this structure.

Other elements of the planning application excluding the extension to the viewing platform. [Owl emphasis] 

There are a number of developments within the site including various retrospective, permitted and unconsented developments which cumulatively result in a significant impact upon the purposes of designation of the AONB. [More rat holes – Owl?] We consider that without appropriate mitigation this application would:

• have a significant impact on the purposes of designation of the East Devon AONB through landscape changes and visual impacts in this location.

In order to address these cumulative impacts and to mitigate these adverse effects and make the development acceptable, the following mitigation measures are required:

• any permission for the remainder of the elements should be granted for a temporary period in line with NPPF paragraph 167 or development in areas subject to coastal erosion, e.g. for 20 years and with a condition requiring restoration of the site at the end of that period or sooner should it become unsafe due to cliff stability/coastal erosion.

• a comprehensive landscape masterplan for the whole of the Ladram Bay Holiday Park site, incorporating mitigation for this development and also previous unmitigated development impacts, to ensure an overall improvement in the appearance of the site and mitigation of its impact on the landscape of the AONB.

Natural England has also said:

Natural England is likely to oppose any attempts to interfere with natural processes through cliff protection or coastal defences in this location, which could directly impact on the Ladram Bay to Sidmouth SSSI/WHS.

(As might be expected the WHS site have also formally objected)

None of the District Councillors: Alan Dent, Paul Jarvis, Paul Jarvis or the environment supremo Geoff Jung have yet commented. The Parish Council unaccountably have raised “no objection”.

Is there no one who can take the lead to save the environment and, not just ours, but the world’s heritage?

Ladram c.1910

“Thousands of kits are sitting unused, social services chiefs said, because of a lack of clarity about who can administer them.

Residential care homes, which are registered by the Care Quality Commission, are not registered to carry out nursing tasks. Social services officials say they are unsure how far they are allowed to bend the rules on this.”

Sarah Marsh and Diane Taylor, the Guardian, 4 May 2020

Ministers are facing criticism over coronavirus testing as the number of daily tests dropped below 80,000, care home staff reported difficulties in getting checked and home kits were delivered without return envelopes.

On Friday, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the government’s target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April had been achieved, with more than 122,000 provided on the last day of the month. Since then, the number has dropped by more than 40,000, with just 76,496 delivered in the 24 hours up to 9am yesterday.

NHS England’s national medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said: “You will see that testing capacity has ramped up very quickly over the last week or so and we are now at a very high level of testing, over 100,000 – a little bit of a dip in the weekend, but we anticipate that testing capacity will continue to increase.”

The Guardian has learned that just 7% of the 31,000 tests delivered to care homes for residents and staff had been carried out by this weekend.

Thousands of kits are sitting unused, social services chiefs said, because of a lack of clarity about who can administer them.

Residential care homes, which are registered by the Care Quality Commission, are not registered to carry out nursing tasks. Social services officials say they are unsure how far they are allowed to bend the rules on this.

One social services director said: “There’s a major flaw in this plan. Residential care staff are not registered to carry out this procedure. Yesterday not a single person was swabbed in any of our care homes. It’s another fiasco.”

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “Since we announced the further expansion to all symptomatic and asymptomatic care home staff and residents on 28 April we have delivered almost 31,000 tests. The tests are easy to use, with care workers needing to carry out simple swabs.”

The Care Quality Commission said it was not involved in mass testing in care homes.

The government has admitted “a small number” of the home corona-virus tests sent out did not have the right information to be processed. Baschea Walsh was one of those who reported receiving a test without a return envelope. “I asked how to send it back without a return envelope. I was told to chuck it in the bin – I asked them if they could send me an envelope and they said no, I would need to do a new test.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “We are urgently seeking to resolve this so anyone affected can either be provided with a new label or order a replacement kit online, which won’t be counted in the daily figures”

Devonlive have just published an interactive map showing where Covid-19 related deaths have occurred across the country, and in Devon, up to 18 April. Sidmouth Town has the largest recorded number in East Devon (5) – below is a summary including caveats about the data. Go on-line for the details.

www.devonlive.com

A new map shows the true number of people from Devon who have died from coronavirus.

The interactive map, which you can view below [go online], means you are able to see exactly where a person lived, who had COVID-19 mentioned as the underlying cause on the death certificate, or as a contributory factor.

The Pennsylvania and University area in Exeter has the most deaths recorded, with a total of six people from that area having died from coronavirus.

The map only includes deaths that occurred between 1 March 2020 and 17 April 2020 and registered by 18 April 2020 and points on the map are placed at the centre of the local area they represent and do not show the actual location of deaths and the size of the circle is proportional to the number of deaths.

People who die at a Devon hospital could live elsewhere, or a person from the county may have died at another hospital in the country.

You can use the widget above to look at the map – or find your area in the list below [go online].

The map shows a stark contrast between the South West and the rest of the UK.

“………recent figures for cases of Covid-19 which have shown a drop in numbers of new cases in hospitals but reveal significant rises among health and social care workers.

This point was stressed by epidemiologist Anne Johnson at University College London. She said cutting transmissions of Covid-19 to health and social care workers had now emerged as a major priority. “Half of all new infections reported last week were among healthcare workers,” she told the Observer. “This has now become the leading edge of the spread of the disease.”

Robin McKie  www.theguardian.com 

British scientists are racing to try to answer fundamental questions about the Covid-19 virus and its transmission before the lifting of the current national lockdown is approved by the government in the near future. Researchers say relaxing social distancing should occur only once it is understood why new infections of the disease are still being diagnosed in their thousands every day.

Such a rate means efforts to test and trace infected contacts – a key plank in the government’s anti-Covid strategy in coming months – would be quickly overwhelmed. Far more information is needed about the way the coronavirus is transmitted, they say. The new data will feed into the debate about the settings in which lockdown will be lifted first – for instance, whether it’s relatively safe to stage outdoor events.

And last week, several groups launched studies aimed at providing answers. These include projects to analyse how virus-laden aerosols behave in the air in a bid to understand how the disease is passed between humans. In addition, other schemes will target healthcare workers to investigate how the virus is being spread to them from patients and then on to others.

The importance of this latter approach was revealed in recent figures for cases of Covid-19 which have shown a drop in numbers of new cases in hospitals but reveal significant rises among health and social care workers.

This point was stressed by epidemiologist Anne Johnson at University College London. She said cutting transmissions of Covid-19 to health and social care workers had now emerged as a major priority. “Half of all new infections reported last week were among healthcare workers,” she told the Observer. “This has now become the leading edge of the spread of the disease.”

Lack of protective equipment and clothing may have worsened the situation, she added. “However, what is certain is that care workers are still at risk from their patients from whom they can pick up the virus and, in turn, pass it on to their colleagues, to their own families and possibly to other patients. We need to focus on limiting the spread of Covid-19 among health and social care workers as an absolute priority if we want to have a chance of bringing this epidemic to a halt.”

This view was backed by infectious diseases expert Tom Wingfield of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. “The numbers show that the rate of decline of new cases is slower in the UK than other European countries and that is likely to be down to transmission occurring within health and social care settings, transmission in the community despite social distancing and, to a lesser extent, chains of transmission that are still occurring within households, especially in larger households or shared accommodation.”

Half of all new infections reported last week were among healthcare workers. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Last week, researchers at Bristol University launched a major study aimed at finding out precisely how health workers are being infected by the Covid-19 virus. “We have taken a group of 130 health workers and we are going to test them intensively over the next three months,” said Professor Adam Finn, the leader of the project.

“We will take swabs from them twice a week, take blood samples regularly, and catalogue their symptoms – in the expectation that some of them will become infected. Then we will be able to find out when they became infected; how that relates to their symptoms at the time; and how it relates to their immune response. We are going to uncover details of the disease’s natural history because none of this information is known in detail. On the other hand, it is vitally important if we are to understand how this disease behaves.”

Finn said current modelling of the disease – although superb – was based on assumptions. “Essentially, the models are guesswork about the way the virus behaves. To get rid of the guesswork we need to supply evidence about how the virus actually behaves.”

A different approach is being taken by another Bristol University group, led by chemist, Professor Jonathan Reid. His team is studying the way the Covid-19 virus is passed from one person to another. This happens when fairly large droplets are coughed up or sneezed out by infected people. However, it is also possible viruses may be spread by much smaller aerosol particles – although it is unclear if they can carry enough virus to be infectious.

“It is clearly important to find out because aerosols can travel much further than heavier droplets,” said Reid. His team has just constructed a high-containment, automated laboratory containing a device in which clouds of virus-laden aerosol particles can be suspended while researchers alter temperature, humidity, ozone, levels of sunlight and other variables.

“In this way we can study how the virus’s infectivity changes,” added Reid. “That might tell us if it is affected by heat. If it is there might be some seasonality to this epidemic. We could also get a better idea of how to run air conditioning in hospitals, care homes and public spaces – in terms of temperature or humidity – in order to reduce the lifetime of the virus so that exposure to it is reduced.”

Devonlive reviews an extensive list of ideas and suggestions coming from Government and local businesses and MPs.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com

As Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to unveil plans for what happens next in the Covid-19 crisis, we take a look at how Devon and Cornwall will look in the next few months.

The future is looking harsh for the region with tourism and hospitality forming the backbone of the economy and the sector facing the most unanswered questions.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove warned that people will not be able to travel to visit seaside resorts in places such as Devon and Cornwall ‘for some time to come’.

And rather than easing the ban on holidays and travel, harsher fines for those breaching the lockdown rules are expected to be announced.

Tourism industry chiefs and MPs are working with the Government to try to find ways to keep staff and customers safe.

One suggestion is a ‘compliance certificate’ for businesses who prove they can trade in a way that stops the spread of coronavirus infections.

One holiday park owner has come up with a ‘soft opening’ plan by allowing people to take a holiday only within their own health authority area.

So what will reopen, what will stay shut – and how will everyday life change across Devon and Cornwall? We’ve had a look at the main proposals below.

Our teams at Cornwall Live, Devon Live and Plymouth Live are committed to bringing you the latest news, guiding you through this global pandemic and providing the stories that matter.

Our daily news email goes out every afternoon and offers a comprehensive overview of the day.

You can also sign up for the weekend report, to receive the top stories on a Saturday morning.

Or if you wanted something more specific, sign up to read our Truro, Exeter and Torbay newsletters.

Choose which newsletters apply to you from across our Devon and Cornwall titles here – so that you can stay informed, stay home and stay safe.

The PM’s plan will make clear that the UK is not ready to return to business as usual. Some restrictions will be eased, but others – like fines for breaches – will be made harsher than they are now.

Fines – The government is considering raising the penalty for defying lockdown from £60 to £100 for a first offence with a maximum fine rising from just under £1,000 at the moment to £3,200.

Social bubbles – People could meet small bubbles of friends and family in  one of the first steps out of lockdown.  But it will have to be the same small group of people for many weeks, to prevent Covid-19 being passed on more widely.

Schools – will be first to go back, with a phased return. Ministers hope that will be before the summer holidays. Boris Johnson has signalled he wants primary schools to open first, and it has been suggested Year 6 could go back first.

Years 10 and 12 (GCSE and A-level years) would be the first in secondary schools, according to one plan seen by the Sunday Telegraph.

Pubs, big sports events and large social gatherings – Pubs will be the last places to reopen as lockdown is eased, the Government has confirmed. Large indoor events could be banned until 2021.

Devon-based JDWetherspoon boss Tim Martin says he hopes to open his 900-strong stable to pubs from June.

Workplaces – The two-meter apart rules will change the way workspaces look. the Tuesday following the second May bank holiday has been highlighted as a possible date for offices, factories and some shops to re-open. But it looks as if home working will stay the norm where possible.

Sport – smaller, local cricket and grassroots football could return first, as long as spectators can stay in the open air and do not congregate in the club bar after the match.

Public transport – the time ‘is not yet’ right to allow people on to super-spreader, public transport vehicles like buses, trains and planes. But the plans include supermarket-style spacing, one-way systems and hand sanitisers. Firms could stagger work hours to cut the numbers at rush hour.

Tourism and hospitality – Sadly for the South West this vital part of the economy could be one of the last industries to reopen fully. Spaced out tables, screens between customers, paper menus…there are just some of the ideas being thrown around about how the restaurant trade will reopen.

In Parliament Michael Gove told MPs that “at the moment and for some time to come” members of the public should not travel to visit popular seaside resorts.

Cornwall’s tourism chief Malcolm Bell says said that any opening up of the holiday industry would have to be gradual. “You don’t suddenly want five million visitors from across the UK and abroad descending on us. But what’s wrong with somebody from Devon going to a Cornish holiday park? We are both relatively low-risk areas.”

Devon and Cornwall is understandably proud of its renowned stunning coastlines, wide open spaces and gallons of fresh air and thrive from the millions of visitors who come to enjoy our part of the world each year.

However, the outbreak of coronavirus in the UK has changed our day to day lives while the government is calling for the nation to stop all non essential travel in a bid to stop the spread of the disease that has so tragically claimed lives in the UK.

In the South West not only do we have a proportion of elderly people living here, those who are some of the most vulnerable to coronavirus, but we also have NHS trusts that are stretched to capacity without any extra pressure.

We want to help saves lives and help bring an end to the outbreak as soon as we possibly can.

Therefore we are aiming to spread the message of come back later as far and as wide as possible through a campaign launching today – #comebacklater.

The only alternative would be a huge injection of government cash – in the region of £1 billion for Devon and Cornwall – to mothball the tourism industry until 2021, Mr Bell said.

Andrew Baragwanath, owner of Ayr Holiday Park in St Ives  suggests a staged plan: “If for example someone from Truro wanted a couple of days away in St Ives and maintained social distancing measures, the risk to the Royal Cornwall Hospital being overcrowded wouldn’t be much different to as it is now.

“But if we suddenly allowed people from a coronavirus hotspot to travel in one go, then the risk of overloading the hospitals down here is much greater as there are more people.”

The legal date to review the lockdown is Thursday May 7, and Boris Johnson is expected to extend it for another three weeks, possibly with a few minor changes.

But the PM will also – separately – announce a “roadmap” for easing the UK out of lockdown. This is expected later in the week, possibly only on Sunday 10 May.

The timing depends on the “R”, or reproductive rate, of the virus, which must be under one – with infections continually falling.

The ‘R’ number is the average number of people infected by each Covid-19 carrie.

Here at Devon Live, we’re normally all about showing you the best places to eat, drink and generally go out and have a good time.

But as social distancing replaces socialising in the battle to slow the spread of coronavirus, that’s had to change for now.

And in response we’ve created Stay In – because staying at home is the best thing we can all do to support our NHS and save lives.

We’ll be focusing our attention on ways to help you stay entertained at home – from the best film and TV recommendations to live streamed gigs and theatre shows you can watch from your sofa.

From fitness routines you can do at home to cookery tips to help you make the most of a limited larder, we’ll be bringing you daily ideas to help you get through the lockdown.

We’ll continue to champion our local businesses by showing you alternative ways we can all support our local restaurants, bars and venues during this difficult time.

With schools now shut, we know many of you will now be juggling working from home – or going out to work as a key worker – with childcare and home schooling, and we’ll be publishing plenty of family-focused content that will help you to find that balance.

You can also expect plenty of fun stuff to take your mind off the current crisis, from quizzes and activities to good old-fashioned nostalgia.

View all our Stay In articles here. Stay home. Stay safe.

Currently R is about 0.7 because so many people are out of contact with each other. Every time you relax a lockdown rule, R rises again. Ministers say they won’t do anything that pushes the R number back above 1.

The UK must also pass five tests before easing lockdown:

• The NHS is able to cope
• A sustained fall in deaths
• New infections dropping enough
• Adequate testing and PPE
• No risk of a second peak that overwhelms NHS

This would allow businesses to get ready to bring in new social distancing measures for workers, such as screens and spaces between desks, designed to prevent any further spread of coronavirus.

Adam Kucharski, an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is advising the Government and has warned that the virus could spread at an exponential rate if the lockdown is ended too early and certain events are allowed.

How the Government’s post-lockdown safety proposals will work…

• Carrying out risk assessments for Covid-19 at all workplaces
• Keeping people working from home where they can
• Keeping workers two metres apart in the workplace where possible
• Using PPE – face coverings will be useful in some workplaces where social distancing

is impossible, but also for giving people confidence they can go back to work

• Using floor markings and one-way flow at entrances and exits to businesses
• Cutting maximum occupancy in lifts
• Staggering break times to reduce pressure on the break rooms or canteens
• Staggering start times
• Changing workspace layouts and seating plans to let employees work

further apart

• Moving vulnerable workers into lower risk activities where they have the highest chance of remaining two metres away from others or roles where they can work from home
• Introducing more frequent deep cleans of work areas, and cleaning and

disinfecting objects and surfaces that are touched regularly

Owl has already reported on preliminary testing involving the RAF. The Isle of Wight is an intriguing choice. Sky news reports: “It has previously been suggested that areas that trial the app could also have coronavirus lockdown measures eased.”

Jon Stone Policy Correspondent www.independent.co.uk

A new NHS app to help trace those who have come into contact with coronavirus will be rolled out later this month, the government has said.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Sunday morning that the software will “go into testing this week on the Isle of Wight”.

The app is being developed by NHSX, the digital arm of the health service. Matthew Gould, the arm’s chief executive, told MPs last week it would be “ready for when it will be needed” and trialled in a small area.

“That system’s going into testing this week on the Isle of Wight and then later in the month that app will be rolled out and deployed, assuming the tests are successful of course, to the population at large,” Mr Shapps told Sky News.

He added that “the idea is that we will encourage many as people to take this up as possible” , and that it would need at least 50-60 per cent of the population using it to work, adding: “I appreciate for various reasons that not everybody will download it.”

Addressing privacy concerns, Mr Shapps described the situation as “a huge national effort” and said: “It will be the best possible way to help the NHS, in fact it will be an NHS app. It will be completely confidential, the information doesn’t stay on there, you don’t know who the individuals are, but what it will do is alert someone if they’ve been near someone who has coronavirus.”

Other countries such as China, South Korea and Singapore have used contact tracing apps to help suppress the virus while allowing people more freedom than a full lockdown would allow.

Used in tandem with large-scale testing of the population, the apps have proven useful in keeping the transmission rate of the virus low – with a so-called “R” number below 1.

In Europe, Germany has also started to pursue a similar strategy, though concerns have been raised there about privacy.

In some countries, such as India, the app has been made compulsory for workers.

The latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox

Sir Ian Diamond, the UK’s national statistician and head of the UK Statistics Authority, said it was too early to say how many people had had the virus. 

“What we now need to do is monitor the course of the epidemic to understand the proportion of people at any time who are carrying the virus and the proportion of people who have the antivirus,” he told the BBC’s Anrew Marr Show.

He said a new survey to determine additional useful information about the virus was “just starting to get some initial results”.

Daniel Clark www.devonlive.com 

Every week dozens of planning applications are submitted to the local councils, and the coronavirus pandemic has not changed that.

While some council services have been suspended as a result of COVID-19, planning departments are still working as usual to validate and to decide upon applications.

The Devonlive site carries the full list of applications that have been submitted and validated by the various local councils or planning authorities in Devon in the last week.

Owl only copies those below for East Devon.

Will these all be determined under delegated authority?

EAST DEVON

• Change of use of part of existing caravan storage area to permit the siting of 85 storage containers in addition to storage of touring caravans – Hunthay Farm Axminster EX13 5RJ – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9GF7KGHLGS00&activeTab=summary
• Proposed roofing over existing concrete yard – Coryton Farm Kilmington Axminster EX13 7RE – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9CPS5GHLG100&activeTab=summary
• Construction of single storey side and rear extension – 16 Greenway Gardens Budleigh Salterton Devon EX9 6SW – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9CPTTGHLGB00&activeTab=summary
• Construction of porch – 23 Honey Ditches Drive Seaton EX12 2NU – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9AV6XGHLFT00&activeTab=summary
• Proposed roofing over an existing concrete yard and slurry store – Coryton Farm Kilmington Axminster EX13 7RE – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9CPSIGHLG300&activeTab=summary
• Proposed conversion and extension of former chapel to unit of holiday accommodation and provision of associated parking area – Sheldon Chapel Sheldon – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q98XRSGH0GE00&activeTab=summary
• Certificate of lawfulness for the construction of a single storey rear extension – Bonheur Sidmouth Road Honiton EX14 1BE – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q95B6AGHLDV00&activeTab=summary
• Construction of single storey rear extension and provision of cladding – 1 Withycombe Barton Mews St Johns Road Exmouth EX8 5EG – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q95B5HGHLDR00&activeTab=summary
• Construction of single storey side, rear and front extensions (revision to 19/1627/FUL); demolition of an existing outbuilding and construction of new single storey building to provide a therapy/store room (resubmission of expired application 16/0400/FUL) – Khadine Slade Road Ottery St Mary EX11 1JE – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q8FDTHGHL6U00&activeTab=summary
• Certificate of lawfulness for the construction of a single storey extension – Abbotsford Longmeadow Road Lympstone Exmouth EX8 5LE – https://planning.eastdevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q95B6TGHLDY00&activeTab=summary

This is a warning of what could happen with prolonged suspension of full and effective democratic scrutiny of local Government. Parliament has found a way of opening up under lockdown. Some of the select committees have also been very active and effective.

At the moment EDDC has cancelled all meetings, including the Development Management Committee. 

Owl has previously posted lists of planning applications in one week to show that these have not been stopped by lockdown.  Planning applications are being dealt with by planning officers under delegated authority (signed off by Cllr. Mike Howe, Chairman DMC).

Owl has reviewed determined applications by EDDC for April, hopefully other applications are pending the resumption of the DMC. Out of 207 applications, six were withdrawn and only about ten were refused. Perhaps the majority of the nearly 200 applications granted, under delegated authority by planning officers, were for minor alterations such as to dormer windows or small extensions. The larger developments which affect many people should surely be subject to debate by councillors. The 30 houses at Beer, previously reported by Owl, are included in the applications granted permission for April.

EDDC needs to sort out a mechanism of holding a “virtual” DMC very soon.

David Collins, Northern Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk 

Concern is growing that emergency powers given to Manchester city council during the Covid-19 crisis will be used to pass controversial decisions, including plans for the UK’s largest indoor arena, “behind closed doors”.

A £350m concert arena with a capacity of 23,000 is being planned next to Manchester City football club’s stadium. Two other projects — a block of flats and student accommodation — were previously rejected but now look likely to be passed.

The council has suspended its planning committee to ensure social distancing. Campaigners say the emergency arrangements, under which some decisions are taken by the chief executive, Joanne Roney, are not democratic.

Planning applications will now be considered by Roney, the committee chairman, Basil Curley, and his deputy, Nasrin Ali.

The proposed concert venue has been opposed by the operators of the Manchester Arena. Critics say the council has a “conflict of interest” as it has a 20% stake in the land where the arena is to be built. Manchester City’s owner, the Abu Dhabi United Group, controls the rest of the land. It is a partner with the council in city-centre blocks of flats.

John Sharkey of ASM Global, operator of the Manchester Arena, said: “A planning application of this scale and size is a matter for the whole of Manchester.”

The council said it was following national guidance, and that the ability of the public to engage in the planning process had not changed. It said it hoped to move to a “virtual planning committee”.

Owl has never understood why no records appear to have been collected of those self isolating with symptoms  by either NHS 111 or GPs. Such records would be very useful now wouldn’t they?

Hannah Devlin  www.theguardian.com

Is 100,000 enough for tracking and tracing?

The government has been accused of counting some tests prematurely, reportedly expanding its daily count to include tests that have been sent out in the post, rather than those actually carried out in labs. While it denies the charge, regardless of whether the 100,000 target has been met, countries that have taken a “test, trace, isolate” approach are running a far higher proportion of tests to positive cases than the UK. Germany, which is down to fewer than 1,000 daily positive cases, is performing nearly 1m tests per week. South Korea is doing 15,000 tests per day, but has had no more than 100 daily cases since the beginning of April. So, for a robust “test, trace, isolate” regime in the UK, the number of tests would need to be vastly increased or we would need to wait for the number of cases in the community to fall significantly.

Will healthcare workers be screened?

There have been calls for healthcare workers to undergo routine weekly screening to ensure that transmission between staff and patients is minimised. This is particularly important as people are known to be infectious before symptoms appear, meaning that hospitals could become hotspots for infection. However, regular screening of staff requires testing to be performed in hospitals or very nearby, and may also require staff to be available to take swabs. The government’s approach of centralising testing raises questions about how quickly local capacity could be rolled out to facilitate this.

Is the right data being collected and reported?

Questions have been raised about whether the data currently being collected is sufficient to support a “test, trace, isolate” programme, and community surveillance to pick up early signs of upticks in transmission in an area. Are testing centres starting to collect postcode information of those tested, for instance, or are they merely recording whether samples come back positive or negative? There are also concerns among statisticians that data is not being reported in a way that allows useful analysis. For instance, breakdowns of the number of positive tests from hospital patients, health workers and other groups have not been provided, and it is not clear why so many of the tests being performed appear to be repeat tests of the same person on the same day.

Are the right people getting the tests?

The rationale of the prioritisation of different groups – testing has this week been expanded to key workers, those who need to go out to work and over-65s – has not been clearly explained and there are still some groups reporting serious problems getting access to testing. Care home staff, in particular, have struggled to access tests, despite signs that the numbers of deaths in care homes will be very high. Given that care home residents do not have the option to self-isolate, it is crucial that staff are tested – and ideally regularly screened – to keep the virus out.

Is the quality of testing good enough?

In the rapid surge of testing, including at drive-throughs around the country, concerns have emerged about the reliability of test results and delays. Staff working in “mega-labs” have reported concerns about mislabelling of samples and lost results. Some people, including healthcare staff, have complained of waiting days or weeks for a result. There are also concerns that many drive-through sites are asking members of the public to self-administer swab tests, which could result in the samples being suboptimal.

The British government is quietly seeking access to the European Union’s pandemic warning system, despite early reluctance to cooperate on health after Brexit, the Guardian has learned.

Jennifer Rankin www.theguardian.com

The UK is seeking “something akin to membership” of the EU’s early warning and response system (EWRS), which has played a critical role in coordinating Europe’s response to the coronavirus, as well as to earlier pandemics such as bird flu. According to an EU source, this would be “pretty much the same” as membership of the system.

The government’s enthusiasm in the privacy of the negotiating room contrasts with noncommittal public statements. Detailed negotiating objectives published in February merely stated that the UK was “open to exploring cooperation between the UK and EU in other specific and narrowly defined areas where this is in the interest of both sides, for example on matters of health security”.

Health was not even mentioned in the government’s written statement to Parliament, aside from a reference to pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported on 1 March that No 10 had blocked the Department of Health’s request to be part of the EWRS.

A government spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the UK was seeking a form of membership or participation in the EWRS, but referred back to the February negotiating objectives.

In private, the coronavirus, which had claimed at least 26,771 lives in the UK by Thursday, appears to have altered government thinking.

“There was not much appetite from the UK at the beginning,” said the EU source, referring to cooperation on health. “That’s been corrected. They are keen and they are keen to be seen to be keen. Both sides want close cooperation.”

However, the EU is not prepared to offer the UK full membership of the EWRS, an online platform set up in 1998 where public authorities share information about health emergencies.

Instead, EU officials propose to “plug the UK into” the system when a pandemic emerges, similar to arrangements for other non-EU countries.

Health security does not feature in the UK negotiating text sent in private to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, although EU officials have received a “non-paper” outlining government aims on health.

In another sign of rising British interest in European cooperation, the Guardian has established that the UK attended all five of the EU’s health security committee meetings on the coronavirus pandemic in April, a perfect attendance record, compared with a 70% British presence between 17 January and 30 March.

During the April meetings, officials discussed lockdown exit strategies and launching a joint procurement scheme on therapeutics in intensive care. No decision has been taken to launch this bulk-buying programme.

The Guardian first reported in March that the UK was not taking part in any of the EU’s four procurement schemes, missing bulk-buying efforts on personal protective equipment for medical workers, ventilators and testing kit – despite having attended relevant meetings.

Meanwhile, among NHS senior managers there is anxiety that Brexit talks risk “significant elements of health being forgotten about”, said Layla McCay, the international director of the NHS Confederation.

“NHS organisations have been stood up and stood down and stood up again for potentially a no-deal Brexit,” she said. “If a quite thorough future relationship for health matters is not on track come June, then the NHS is going to have to start to prepare for specific disruption next year as a result of Brexit, and it will have to do so while also facing both winter and coronavirus challenges. It will be a significant extra ask.”

British membership of the EWRS and broader EU health network “strengthen our ability to respond as effectively as possible” to health emergencies, McCay added.

The UK government spokesperson said: “The safety and security of our citizens is a top priority. The UK is ready to discuss how our citizens can be kept safe and benefit from continued international cooperation on health security following the end of the transition period, where it is in our mutual interest.

“Any such arrangements must align with the fundamental principles of respecting the UK’s political and economic independence, recognition of the UK and EU’s status as sovereign equals, and ensuring the UK has control over its own laws.”

The government’s former chief scientific adviser is convening a rival panel of experts to offer advice on easing the lockdown.

Tomorrow Sir David King will chair the first meeting of the group, which is designed to act as an independent alternative to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).

Caroline Wheeler, Deputy Political Editor www.thetimes.co.uk 

The move comes after weeks of unease about the transparency of Sage decision-making. It has emerged that 16 of the 23 known members of the committee, which meets in secret, are employed by the government.

The independent group will broadcast live on YouTube and take evidence from global experts. It aims to present the government with “robust, unbiased advice” and some evidence-based policies to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

The committee will formally submit its recommendations to the health and social care select committee, heaping pressure on Boris Johnson as he draws up the government’s lockdown exit strategy.

King, who was chief scientific adviser to two prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, from 2000 to 2007, has previously accused ministers of responding too slowly to the coronavirus outbreak and wrongly allowing the Cheltenham festival and other big events to go ahead in mid-March.

He served under David Cameron and Theresa May as the UK’s climate envoy from 2013 to 2017.

Speaking before tomorrow’s meeting, which will be followed by a news conference, King said: “Science is fundamentally a system based on peer review. When it comes to scientific advice of any kind, transparency is essential.”

He added: “I am not at all critical of the scientists who are putting advice before the government . . . but because there is no transparency the government can say they are following scientific advice but we don’t know that they are.”

Dominic Cummings, a top aide to the prime minister, has attended the secret meetings of Sage.

“Cummings is an adviser to the prime minister. And the chief scientific adviser is an adviser to the prime minister. So there are two voices from the scientific advisory group and I think that’s very dangerous because only one of the two understands the science,” King said.

The committee has a draft agenda and is seeking to end the pandemic “with the fewest casualties possible”.

It is expected to focus on seven key areas. These include the criteria being used to lift the lockdown, how testing and tracing can be achieved, whether the policies on quarantine and the shielding of vulnerable groups are sufficient and how untapped resources can be better deployed.

The committee of 12 will include experts from all key scientific fields from the UK and abroad, including those from countries seemingly at the tail end of the pandemic.

Anthony Costello, the former director of the World Health Organisation and professor of global health at University College London, is among the members of the committee.

Others include: Professor Gabriel Scally, president of the epidemiology & public health section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and current adviser to the government of Ireland; Helen Ward, professor of public health, Imperial College London; and Professor Elias Mossialos, professor of health policy at London School of Economics and an adviser to the Greek government.

Costello said: “We want the meeting to be positive and constructive given that the current Sage has been somewhat opaque and we haven’t been able to see what they are saying or many of their documents. Scientific advice is always based on a debate and we are going to bring together different viewpoints so that the scientific balance can be constructed.”

Cummings has been at the centre of a row over whether he swayed Sage debates during coronavirus meetings.

He has been accused of putting pressure on the scientific body to enforce a lockdown sooner and to shut pubs and restaurants down within two days of a meeting on March 18.

Throughout the coronavirus crisis the government has insisted that all its decisions have been based on the independent advice provided by Sage. But Cummings’s involvement in the group’s meetings has been seized on by critics who have questioned how independent and impartial the advice given to ministers is.

Responding to the claims last week, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Sage provide independent scientific advice to government. No political advisers influence this advice.”

Following the public consultation which took place between 1st November and 14th December 2019 the Newton Poppleford and Harpford Neighbourhood Plan was updated and has now been submitted to East Devon District Council (EDDC).

You can find the updated Neighbourhood Plan and all its supporting documents on the East Devon District Council website by clicking here. You can also find all the public consultation comments which were received within Appendixes 14 and 15. If you’re part of a parish group or committee could you forward this email to other members please?

Due to the current circumstances regarding the coronavirus outbreak, visits to inspect hard copies of the documents at the District or Parish Council Offices will not be possible. However, EDDC will endeavour to make hard copies of the Neighbourhood Plan available on request. To arrange please contact EDDC on email planningpolicy@eastdevon.gov.uk or call 01395 571740, or alternatively contact Newton Poppleford and Harpford Parish Council via the Clerk, Mr Paul Hayward, 07711 929227 / parishclerk@newtonpopplefordpc.co.uk.

East Devon District Council are inviting comments on the updated Neighbourhood Plan. If you would like to make a representation, please send your comments by email (preferably using a separate response form per policy or issue) (see template form attached) to planningpolicy@eastdevon.gov.uk. This is EDDC’s preference in the current circumstances.

However, if you are unable to respond by email, please send your comments in writing to Angela King, Planning Policy Section, East Devon District Council, Blackdown House, Border Road, Honiton, EX14 1EJ. She will endeavour to monitor post received but please note this cannot be guaranteed due to the current situation where staff are primarily working from home. Please therefore also call 01395 571740 to notify them of your written submission and send a copy to Paul Haywood (Clerk), Newton Poppleford and Harpford Parish Council, Plumtree, Old North Street, Axminster, EX13 5QF.

The consultation runs from 18th March 2020 to  New Date of 29th May 2020

Please call or email Angela King if you if you wish to discuss any of the above (aking@eastdevon.gov.uk, Direct Tel: 01395 571740)

“Stay home”, Boris Johnson told us when he announced the lockdown a month ago. Only travel to work “where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.”

But who defines what’s “absolutely necessary”? Unless you work for a non-essential shop or leisure facility (that was closed by order on 23rd March) the answer is always, “your boss”.

Caroline Molloy www.opendemocracy.net 

Everyone agrees we’re in lockdown. Coronavirus has “shut down the whole economy”, the BBC’s Coronavirus Newscast told us last week.

The BBC’s World at One contrasts the situation in the UK, with that of a “different approach” in Sweden, where “not all businesses have closed”. The only debate now is between the hawks and doves on when we allow “a partial reopening of businesses”, the national broadcaster’s daily news email told me on Monday.

Meanwhile Britain seems headed towards the worst death rate in Europe.

Undoubtedly part of the reason for this is that we moved too late to enforce a “lockdown”.

But the other reason is that we don’t actually have a lockdown. The government has allowed people to continue to go to work – and allowed bosses to make people continue to go to work – far more than we’re being led to believe, and far more than most of the media seem to have noticed.

And as openDemocracy has just exposed, across large sections of the economy, many workers in ‘non essential’ jobs are being forced to show up to potentially dangerous workplaces. And some have already got sick. And some have already died.

“Stay home”, Boris Johnson told us when he announced the lockdown a month ago. Only travel to work “where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.”

Whose rules?

But who defines what’s “absolutely necessary”? Unless you work for a non-essential shop or leisure facility (that was closed by order on 23rd March) the answer is always, “your boss”.

Offices, factories, warehouses and (in England) construction sites may all remain open. None have been designated as ‘non-essential’. It’s also been left entirely up to the bosses to decide whether it’s “possible” to do a job from home, and whether to take the government cash to furlough some or all of their workers. Or whether it’s “absolutely necessary” for some or all of its workers to come in. Call centre workers and numerous other groups of workers, meanwhile, have been labelled “key workers” at the stroke of a ministerial pen, irrespective of what they are actually doing – leading to reports of deaths from suspected COVID-19.

It’s not even really accurate to talk about ‘loopholes’ that employers are exploiting. More like a legal void, that the government hopes the media class won’t notice. The baristas and bookshops aren’t there, and who really knows anyone who works in a call centre, factory, or warehouse? When Patrick Vallance’s slides at last Thursday’s Covid press conference revealed that 49% of those still working, are working from home, no-one piped up on Zoom to ask where the other 51% were, or why the government’s official survey hadn’t asked that question.

Earlier this week, an academic at Strathclyde university gave me advance sight of a major survey he’s done of call centre workers. As my colleague and I reported yesterday, it makes for harrowing reading. Many, particularly low paid, workers are still being made to go to work. And it’s not only call centres. There are cleaners, security guards, office staff, construction and warehouse workers.

As the survey showed, many are deeply worried about catching coronavirus either at work or on their journey in. Some are particularly concerned as they, or members of their households, are classed as “vulnerable”, and advised to be particularly careful to maintain social distancing, or even one of the 1.5 million classed as “extremely vulnerable” and instructed to “self-shield” entirely for 12 weeks.

But the government has given them little or no additional protection from unscrupulous employers. I called the Cabinet Office, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Department of Work and Pensions, and Ministry of Justice, to try to get to the bottom of this matter. What legal sanctions were there against employers who threatened to withhold all pay, or even sack, non-essential employees, if they asked not to come in because of concerns about catching the virus?

Such bosses “won’t exactly be breaking a law”, a BEIS spokesperson told me. “There’s nothing [employees] can prosecute people with, but you can point to guidance.”

Even if someone in the employee’s household was defined as “vulnerable”, or “extremely vulnerable”?

There were no new legal protections, the spokesperson confirmed. But workers could go to their union, to Citizens Advice, or to the conciliation service, ACAS, he suggested. “There’s a lot of that going on”.

What if a worker themselves were classified as “vulnerable” or “extremely vulnerable”?

Even here, the BEIS spokesperson offered little reassurance. “There are so many extenuating circumstances in these things.”

Invisible rights

In fact, although neither BEIS nor any of the other departments I spoke to were prepared to tell me, even when I prompted them by asking about health and safety law, there is some legal protection for employees in these kinds of situations. Under existing health and safety legislation, employees who believe their health or indeed that of their family would be put in imminent and serious danger may leave, or refuse to attend the workplace. And employment lawyers like Stuart Brittenden, writing on the website of the Institute of Employment Rights, suggests that if as a result of leaving, or refusing to attend under these current circumstances, someone was dismissed, or had their pay withheld, they’d have a decent chance of success at an Employment Tribunal.

The trouble is, even if employees know about these rights, how many will dare exercise them, when any legal remedy might take months or even years of fighting for, and they could face being sacked and thrown into the inadequate safety net in the meantime? Not to mention those who have looser employment relationships that mean they don’t have these rights at all? Unions are trying to help, of course – but are hobbled by some of the most restrictive anti-union laws in the developed world.

No new laws

And it gets worse. In England, unlike in Scotland and Wales, the government has not even introduced any new legal sanctions if offices, call centres, factories, construction sites, warehouses, and so on, don’t enable social distancing in the workplace. English bosses are expected to “make every effort to comply” with social distancing, but not legally mandated to do anything. Indeed, as “lockdown” progresses, the non-binding guidance has been watered down, so that for example bosses who can’t enable construction workers to stay 2 metres apart are advised to set them to work “side to side” or “back to back” instead. If even that’s not possible, they’re asked to limit close face to face working to 15 minutes.

The Opposition appear to have dropped the demand by then shadow employment minister Rachael Maskell on 31st March for “strict and enforceable closure” of non-essential workplaces, but continue to call for the current guidance around safety at work to be “strictly implemented and enforced” with the help of trade unions.

Meanwhile, the right wing hawks, in particular, seem to have discovered a new concern about the abuse, exclusion and poor conditions that are the reality of many people’s home lives – and are invoking it as a reason to end the lockdown. But the vulnerability and exploitation that is the reality of many people’s working lives is given scant attention.

The media debate when people will feel ready to “decide” to “return” to work, and the Ministry of Justice tells me that people can simply “follow the guidance on the website” to “negotiate with their employers” if there’s any disagreement on that matter. There seems to be a fond fantasy of a world where there’s no such thing as unequal power relations. A world where we haven’t endured 40 years of attacks on workers’ rights, trade unions and social security.

The key worker con

And if the financial pressures on many workers weren’t bad enough, the government has also given employers some handy moral pressure to add into the mix.

The terms “key workers”, “critical workers” and “essential workers” are being thrown around like confetti, workers report – though there’s absolutely no legal basis to use these terms to compel people to come to work. At least no legal basis that the four relevant government department press offices could tell me about when I asked them.

As openDemocracy reported yesterday, this has caused particular anger amongst many such workers. “I do low value personal injury and property damage claims – how could I possibly be an essential worker?! Seems like they are exploiting the system, I am disgusted” was typical of the responses we have seen.

BEIS confirmed that the reference to “key workers” that employers were relying on, was the non-binding, rushed guidance from the Cabinet Office about whose children could keep going to school, and which appears to include the entire financial and telecoms sectors, and many others. Announcing this list as the basis for “key worker” testing, government last week briefed that there were 10 million workers who’d been designated as “essential”, “key workers”, which in reality is between half and a third of all workers.

A BEIS spokesperson told openDemocracy, “I imagine that there will be a number of legal cases when this is all over about whether a job was essential or if it was right for a company to remain open.”

But “when this is all over” will be too late for the workers currently terrified of bosses “playing Russian Roulette with our lives”, the workers who are already sick, and the workers who’ve already died.

“Easing” the lockdown?

And there’s more to come. Whilst firms have applied to furlough 3.2 million people according to figures released last week, some employers seem to be interpreting the 3 week minimum as a maximum, and are now demanding workers return.

One accountant told us:

“They have literally given us the minimum three weeks per the government scheme. There was no discussion or consultation. I did express my worries but that was ignored.” She’s since had a text telling her “My furlough is cancelled. I’m expected back in the office next week….”

“I have asthma and have been hospitalised twice in the last few years with pneumonia…If I get any kind of chest or lung infection, I am always very ill. I also have a tremor condition similar to Parkinsons which is made much worse by stress…My bosses [are] ignoring my concerns and health issues, and ignoring the fact I could easily work from home… There’s no company sick pay during the pandemic…I can’t see any way out of it right now…”

Is this what “getting Britain back on her feet” looks like?

Thousands of low-paid call-centre workers are still being forced to work in ‘dangerous’ jobs – even in centres where colleagues have already died or fallen ill with coronavirus, according to new research seen by openDemocracy. 

Adam Ramsay www.opendemocracy.net 

Thousands of low-paid call-centre workers are still being forced to work in ‘dangerous’ jobs – even in centres where colleagues have already died or fallen ill with coronavirus, according to new research seen by openDemocracy. 

Labour Shadow Minister for Employment Rights Andy McDonald has described the new findings as “deeply concerning”, and Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran has demanded the government urgently clarify whether laws allow unsafe premises to remain open in England.

Researchers at Strathclyde University, who surveyed 2,700 call centre workers, told openDemocracy about “harrowing stories of death… and illness” from respondents, and reported that “huge numbers of call handlers are justifiably fearful”. 

While 52% of survey respondents had been classed as “essential or emergency” workers by their bosses, fewer than one in five believed that their role was in fact essential or emergency. Meanwhile 78% of respondents expressed fear that they would catch Covid-19. 

Call centre workers have been designated ‘key workers’ under the government’s lockdown guidance. However MPs are now calling for the government to close loopholes in England which allow dangerous or unnecessary workplaces to remain open.

In Scotland and Wales emergency laws enforce social distancing measures at work, and the Scottish government has instructed a wider range of non-essential workplaces (such as most construction sites) to close. 

But in England, there are no new laws requiring bosses to comply with social distancing guidelines, nor to close many non-essential workplaces.

The Strathclyde University survey, which included workers at a number of major telecoms and financial services businesses, has been described by Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, as “grim reading”. 

She added: “Bosses who refuse to take steps to protect their workforces should be prosecuted.”

Professor Philip Taylor, who led the research, told openDemocracy of receiving phonecalls from workers in one call centre where a staff member has already died of COVID-19, and two more are in intensive care.

Meanwhile Dominic Hook, who organises financial and legal sector workers at the trade union Unite, told openDemocracy that numerous cases of coronavirus deaths have been reported to him by call centre workers.

Transcripts of interviews seen by openDemocracy show that many of the workers surveyed do not understand why they are being required to keep working. “I do low value personal injury and property damage claims – how could I possibly be an essential worker?” one respondent asked, adding: “It seems like they are exploiting the system, I am disgusted.” 

Many of the interviews show workers afraid of contracting coronavirus after being forced to show up for work. “I’m 58 and have high blood pressure,” said one respondent who sells small investment products. “I just don’t want to die for £9.30 an hour.”

‘‘Only a few months ago I was ‘low skilled’’’

Many respondents expressed cynicism about the reasons they were being required to work.

“I’m going to work during a national lockdown as I am now described by the government as ‘essential’ when only a few months ago I was ‘low skilled’… it’s a joke,” said one respondent. 

A number also described dealing with queries they could do nothing about because other parts of the economy had shut down. Many said they had little or no work, but were still being made to come in, describing being assigned non-urgent tasks such as “tidying up spreadsheets” and “admin work from 8 years ago”.

“All we are saying to customers is ‘I am sorry your engineer cannot come out to your property due to the virus’. We are not actually helping people with necessary issues at this moment,” said one respondent.

“I have spoken with no vulnerable customers, and I haven’t helped anyone with their service,” added another.

Others expressed frustration at being asked to defend the behaviour of their employers. “Customers call up distressed because we have cut off their phone and they need to contact vulnerable family members,” said one. “I have cried and had to leave my desk because I felt so ashamed that we had barred their phone”.

The research also indicates that people with underlying health conditions, whom the NHS has deemed at ‘high risk’ from coronavirus, are continuing to show up for work.

“We are scared,” one respondent said. “There are people who fall in the 12 week [‘high risk’]  isolation bracket who are being told to come into work.”

Another said: “They’re playing Russian roulette with our lives”. 

‘Invisible front line’

Professor Taylor at Strathclyde University said: “Call centre workers work on a largely invisible front line, many now providing essential services – but many not.”

“Hidden from public view too are the serious hazards that so very many are now facing from potential exposure to Covid-19.”

“Even where social distancing is in place it is virtually impossible to implement effectively – and profound concerns exist over sanitisation and cleanliness; most acutely manifest in that perennial bugbear of hot desking.” 

“Combining these hazards with air conditioning systems in sealed buildings circulating re-used air leads huge numbers of call-handlers to be justifiably fearful.”

He added that most call centre work could be done from home, but few firms have adopted this. “There is some best practice where organisations have been seriously committed to making their workers secure through homeworking,” he said, urging that these measures be “widely emulated”. 

‘Urgent letter’ to the Business Secretary

Responding to this research, Liberal Democracy leadership contender Layla Moran has written to Business Secretary Alok Sharma. In a letter seen by openDemocracy, the Oxford West MP asks:

“What action is being taken by the government to protect call centre workers”; “what sanctions has the government introduced for those companies which fail to follow social distancing guidelines in such premises?” and “Will you commit to looking specifically at the question of call centres and their workers and what can be done to stop them becoming major centres of transmission?”.

Shadow worker rights minister Andy McDonald said: “The government’s guidance must be strictly implemented and enforced, in the interests of workers’ safety and to protect public health”. He called for union representatives to be involved to ensure “workplaces are safe to work in now and when we emerge from this crisis.”

Labour MP Clive Lewis MP also commented on the survey, saying: “This research demonstrates what many call centre workers already knew: that many work for companies with little regard for their well being.” 

“Hardly surprising in a sector where major trade unions to this day still campaign ‘for easy access to drinking water’ for call centre staff, where ‘surveillance capitalism’ in the form of software programs monitor everything from toilet breaks to time spent on a call.” 

“This government should give the health and safety executive real teeth and real resources to close any non-essential operations down and force them to furlough their workers on full pay. Anything less fails to take the COVID-19 threat seriously.”

Responding to questions from openDemocracy about unsafe workplaces, a UK government spokesman said there was no intention to follow the Welsh and Scottish government’s example to legislate to enforce social distancing at work, and that “there is no guidance that implies only essential work can continue.”

“I imagine that there will be a number of legal cases when this is all over”, he added.

The Strathclyde University research is ongoing. Any call centre workers can complete the survey here.