Don’t “play your part” but: “flay your fart”; viral clip calls on public to alter speech to curb Covid.

Mark Brown www.theguardian.com 

We’re all familiar with the slew of precautions needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, but what about minding our Ps and Qs? Or, rather, our Ps, Ts and Cs.

With tongue firmly in cheek, a retired PR consultant and translator from Surrey has produced a viral video suggesting the government is to ban certain sounds and letters of the alphabet because they increase the transmission of Covid-19. Instead of “please take care”, we should say “flease nake lare”, the skit says.

Nonsense, of course. But funny. Like a Monty Python sketch, said one Twitter user. Haven’t laughed so hard in months, said another.

Peter Prowse made the video about three weeks ago, and it soon became popular in his wood-working and folk music WhatsApp groups. After the rapper Zuby and Radio 6 Music’s Tom Robinson shared the clip, it became something of a phenomenon.

Prowse purports to be a UK government official calmly telling people that consonants can project the virus much greater distances than vowels. Certain consonants, the plosive sounds, are much worse than others.

“Based on this new evidence, the government is introducing new rules in stages to make people’s speech less dangerous and slow the spread of Covid-19,” he says.

Prowse says that the “puh” sound will be replaced by “fuh”, “tuh” by “nuh” and “cuh” by “luh”. It will be done in tiers … or rather niers.

“Anyone speaking to other feople in a fublic flace will have to stof using the flosive sound,” he warns. “Failure to do so could lead to a fine or even frison. The whole fofulation, even members of farliament, will all have to flay their fart in this.”

Losing the “tuh” sound could be particularly challenging, he concedes. “For example neachers in schools … when neaching the nen nimes nable … we are confident that froblems will be nemforary and measures under nier nwo will help nurn the nide of this fandemic.”

The “cuh” ban would come in nier 3, the video says. “We have lonsidered these measures larefully in line with relommendations from frofessors at Lambridge University.”

Prowse, who lives in Ashtead, said he was astonished by how many people had seen his first attempt at YouTube satire.

It came about after a friend sent him an audio clip of a French comedian doing a similar skit. “I listened to it and it was hilarious. I thought it would be great if somebody translated that into English, but it’s untranslatable really so I just sat down and wrote something based on the same concept,” he said.

He posted it on YouTube. Zuby shared it with his followers and that post has been viewed more than 109,000 times. “It has been extraordinary,” Prowse said. “There have been some people who’ve ripped it off and seem to be claiming it as their own, but that’s the internet for you.”

The clip resonated because of the mixed messaging around coronavirus, he said. “There is a lot of satire around and it is quite hard to identify some of it as satire because it is only slightly more exaggerated than what we are getting from the government at the moment.

“It chops and changes, switches around, fails to foresee what’s obvious to everybody else, and tries to do something about it when it’s too late.”

‘Captain of a rudderless ship’: Tory media turn on Boris Johnson

Nick Hopkins www.theguardian.com 

Normally Conservative-leaning media turned on Boris Johnson on Monday amid rising anger about the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, and the late decision to in effect cancel Christmas.

Here are some of the comments they made …

Daily Mail: ‘Does the prime minister have any idea what he’s doing?’

Mr Johnson’s previous message, ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas’, has morphed into another popular song with a very different tone – ‘Lonely this Christmas’.

Carefully and lovingly laid plans for families to get together for the first time in months were dashed at a stroke. Overnight, the season of goodwill evaporated. And, after yet another screeching U-turn, the question on many lips is: does the prime minister have any idea what he’s doing or where he’s going? Is there a coherent Covid strategy?

Or is he all at sea – the captain of a rudderless ship being controlled by the currents rather than steering a steady course?

Instead of meekly buying into every scientific scare story, Mr Johnson must interrogate each one and come to measured conclusions based on a balance of risk. That is what political leadership is all about. Seize control of events or, sure as shooting, they will seize control of you.

Daily Telegraph leader: ‘This dismal pattern of promising one thing and delivering another …’

Tory MPs critical of the lockdown measures question whether this decision was deliberately delayed until the Commons rose for the recess on Friday, thereby avoiding a possible backbench revolt.

This is denied by ministers who say they were not fully alerted to the spread of the new variant of the virus until Friday night and action could no longer be put off. We concede that these are difficult times for the government but this dismal pattern of promising one thing and delivering another is hardly designed to reinforce public faith and trust in the way this crisis is being handled.

The Times: ‘The mother of all U-turns …’

I worked with Johnson for years. I don’t believe he sets out to be duplicitous or to mislead. He is just desperate to be liked, a trait which is desperately incompatible with leading a country through such a time.

The weekend’s mother of all U-turns must prompt him and those around him to reject their approach to date. In the days and weeks ahead, sober caution must win out over reckless optimism. Instead of cheery promises and cheerleading about Britain’s greatness we need the government to think pessimistically, act early and act decisively. For once, it must get ahead of events – on three fronts.

Clare Foges, columnist

The Sun: ‘No doubt Boris Johnson has made a pig’s ear of things recently …’

There’s no doubt that Boris Johnson has made a pig’s ear of things recently. Hard-up families waking up in tier 4 this morning will long remember the way in which their festive reunions were cancelled at the 11th hour – after the cash had been spent.

But we applaud the PM for standing up to cabinet colleagues who pushed for even more ruinous restrictions. And it’s clear to all but the most fervent Tory-haters that he is at least acting in good faith: his agonised flip-flopping on Christmas is proof that the heartbreaking decision was not made lightly.

The telecoms sector has “no genuine belief” the government will be able to meet its broadband targets, a parliamentary inquiry has found, despite those targets having been cut just weeks ago.

Alex Hern www.theguardian.com 

In its national infrastructure strategy, published in late November, the government announced plans to connect 85% of the country with ultrafast gigabit broadband, which usually requires a fibre-to-the-home connection, by 2025.

That target was a downgrade from a previous goal, affirmed as recently as October, to connect 100% of the country by that date. “There is no genuine belief that it is achievable,” one witness told the DMCS select committee about the nationwide goal.

But despite the reduced ambitions, the committee has warned that the government still risks missing the new target unless it improves management of the infrastructure plan.

“It would not be acceptable having abandoned one unrealistic target, for the government to fail to meet a second, less ambitious, target through lack of effective planning or inadequate investment,” the committee writes in the final report from its inquiry into the UK’s broadband infrastructure.

“The government should outline … how it settled on the new gigabit-capable broadband target of 85% coverage by 2025, a full assessment of how likely it considers it to be met, and the detail of how it plans to deliver it,” the report adds.

The committee was also doubtful that the government’s belated shift to a “technology-neutral” approach would help achieve the target.

Whereas the initial focus had been on securing full-fibre connections, running fibre-optic cables to the doorstep of every home in the UK, the new strategy takes into account other modes of delivering ultrafast broadband, including the latest technology underpinning Virgin Media’s cable TV network, and the fastest varieties of 5G.

While the shift makes sense, the committee reported, “the government must not let it come with a trade-off in performance or longevity: any technologies used to deliver gigabit connectivity must be future-proof.

“Moreover, fibre will be a significant component of other gigabit-capable technologies, such as 5G, and therefore the challenges of rolling out a truly nationwide full-fibre network must not be underestimated.”

The committee also warned that the funding from the government, a £5bn pledge to bring broadband to the hardest to reach fifth of the country, was not enough.

“It is difficult to see how £5bn will be enough to meet the government’s aim [and] it is therefore disappointing that over the next four years, the government will make available only 25% of the £5bn it had committed,” the report finds.

On Tuesday, the Government set out how it intended to spend that tranche of funding, releasing a procurement strategy that prioritised upgrades to homes that do not yet have access to super-fast broadband.

“Today we’ve set out our bold programme of national infrastructure projects to future-proof the UK’s internet networks so we can build back better from coronavirus and create new jobs and economic opportunities,” said Matt Warman, the minister for digital infrastructure. “We will begin these procurements rapidly so broadband providers big and small can move quickly to get the job done and level up communities with this much faster, next generation broadband.”

What a year! Mutant algorithms followed by mutant Covid-19, both pretty scary. – Owl

“Asserting that it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas – and then doing it – sent an alarming message, potentially unnecessarily, to the rest of the world.”

Sarah Boseley www.theguardian.com 

If a new virus sounds scary, a new mutating virus sounds scarier still. In Kent in September, scientists now believe, somebody with Covid was the unlucky first person to pass on a variant form of the coronavirus that is maybe as much as 70% more transmissible than the version we have been used to.

The exponential recent rise in cases now blamed on that incident and the UK government response have sparked alarm around the world, with other countries banning flights into the UK for at least 48 hours while everyone figures out what is going on.

We have the new variant, called B117, to thank for cancelled Christmases. London and much of south-east England are locked away in tier 4, quarantined from families in the rest of the UK.

And beyond Christmas and the New Year, prospects for a return to normality do not look great. Children, who were less likely to be infected by the original coronavirus, may be more susceptible to this one. There is no reason to think they are more likely to be ill, but they could be more likely to get the virus and pass it on. That could conceivably have an impact on the return to school in January.

Scientists knew about the variant on 8 December, when they reviewed cases that had been routinely genome-sequenced – about 10% of the total – to see what was going on.

During the November lockdown, case numbers dropped in most places, but in Kent, they continued to rise. There are two possible explanations for that: firstly, people were not observing the social distancing rules through fatigue or loss of faith in the government. Or, secondly, there is a more transmissible version of the virus about.

Christian Drosten, the celebrated virologist in Germany, told a German broadcaster that it was unclear. “The question is: is this virus being washed up by a coming new wave in that region, or is this virus responsible for creating this wave in the first place?” Drosten said. “That’s an important difference.”

Viruses mutate all the time. Sars-Cov-2 has done so, but no mutation has yet been significant. This time, there are 23 mutations in this one variant.

Experts in the UK on the government’s advisory body Nervtag (New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group), say they now have high confidence that B117 is more transmissible than the original. But, importantly, they have no evidence at the moment that it makes people sicker.

There is no suggestion – yet – that the hygiene, mask-wearing and social distancing rules we have been told to follow will no longer be enough to keep us safe from infection, although Susan Hopkins from Public Health England pointed out that staying 2 metres away from people and spending less than 15 minutes in proximity were notional figures. The further away we stand, and the less time we spend with people outside of our household, the safer we are.

As people mull over their lost festivities and lift a sad glass to distant loved ones on Zoom calls, there is bound to be some bitterness aimed at the government, which pulled the plug with just five days to go.

Ministers assert that they only knew about the rampaging mutant viral strain on Friday, after a Nervtag meeting. Even if that is so, they knew that cases dipped only briefly after the end of the November lockdown and that the rise has been swift and steep after that. Other countries in Europe and other nations in the UK were talking of lockdown before Friday.

The UK is not the only country with B117 cases. It may be because we do more genome sequencing than others that we have picked up so many.

Asserting that it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas – and then doing it – sent an alarming message, potentially unnecessarily, to the rest of the world.

A company with mystery investors and links to the Isle of Man was awarded government contracts worth £200m to supply the UK with personal protective equipment (PPE) after it was placed in a “high-priority lane” for well-connected firms, the Guardian can reveal.

David Conn www.theguardian.com 

PPE Medpro has not revealed the identities of the financiers and businessmen behind the venture, and it remains unclear how its offer to supply PPE came to be processed through a channel created for companies referred by politicians and senior officials.

PPE Medpro was awarded its first contract, for £80.85m to supply 210m face masks, on 12 June. The company secured its second contract two weeks later, for £122m, to supply 25m surgical gowns. Both contracts were awarded directly by the government without competitive tenders under Covid-19 emergency regulations that have waived normal requirements.

Two of the company’s three directors, Anthony Page and Voirrey Coole, are also directors of Knox House Trust, which is part of the Knox Group in the Isle of Man, a tax advisory and wealth management firm run by the businessman Douglas Barrowman.

Page is also registered at Companies House as the sole owner of PPE Medpro, although he has said there is a “group behind PPE Medpro” whose members have decades of experience in distributing medical products. Page has declined to identify the investors due to unspecified “confidentiality obligations”.

The National Audit Office said in a report last month that earlier in the pandemic, as the government grappled with the urgent need to provide frontline workers with PPE, it set up a high-priority lane to assess and process potential leads from “government officials, ministers’ offices, MPs, members of the House of Lords, senior NHS staff and other health professionals”.

Companies processed through the high-priority lane were 10 times more successful in securing PPE contracts, the NAO found, leading to questions about whether some firms profited from political connections.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) minister Lord Bethell said earlier this month that the government did not plan to disclose which companies were given high priority, because “there may be associated commercial implications”. However, a spokesperson for the government confirmed to the Guardian that PPE Medpro’s offer to supply PPE was indeed processed through the high-priority lane.

The NAO report said 47 companies obtained contracts after being processed through the high-priority lane, but identified only two: Ayanda Capital and another, Pestfix, that the DHSC said had been put in that lane by an initial mistake. PPE Medpro is therefore only the third company to have been identified as having been processed through the high-priority lane – and the first the government itself has disclosed as having been referred in that way.

The DHSC declined to say how or why PPE Medpro’s offer was given high priority, or who referred the company. Page told the Guardian via his lawyer that he was unaware that there was a high-priority lane. He said that the UK government “requested assistance” from the group behind PPE Medpro, who had prior experience in the industry, and that the contracts were awarded because the firm could deliver the PPE reliably and at competitive prices.

The contract had been under discussion “for a considerable time” before PPE Medpro was incorporated on 12 May, he said. Asked how the UK government knew the group behind PPE Medpro, and how the request for assistance was made, Page, via his lawyer, declined to explain.

He also did not respond to a question about how the Knox House Trust came to provide services to the group, including the directorships of PPE Medpro and its registered office in London.

Barrowman, the founder and chair of the Knox Group, is married to Michelle Mone, the former owner of Ultimo lingerie and a Conservative peer. She also has a connection to Page, who was previously the registered secretary for her company, MGM Media, which, according to her House of Lords register, manages her personal brand.

A lawyer for Mone and Barrowman told the Guardian that neither of them is an investor, director or shareholder in PPE Medpro, and that neither had any role or function in the company, or in the process by which the contracts were awarded.

Page said that neither he nor anybody involved with PPE Medpro approached any MPs, peers, government officials, ministers, NHS staff or other health professionals as part of making the approach to the government to supply PPE, and that all discussions were with the “correct and appropriate individuals” within the civil service.

“PPE Medpro was not awarded the contract because of company or personal connections to the UK government or the Conservative party,” he said.

The government has rejected accusations that it has operated a “chumocracy” in its award of contracts during the pandemic. The Cabinet Office minister Julia Lopez said last week that the high-priority lane was “a separate mailbox” set up to assess the influx of offers to triage credible leads. “All PPE offers went through the same eight stage checks. This was not a case of special treatment for friends of ministers.”

Jolyon Maugham QC, director of the Good Law Project, said the government should disclose all the companies that came through the high-priority lane. “Slowly it is going to emerge which companies won highly lucrative public contracts having been ushered through the VIP lane,” he said. “There is a serious public interest in the government explaining precisely who was put in that lane, and why.”

It has confirmed that Tesco workers at Exmouth’s superstore have tested positive for coronavirus.

Anita Merritt www.devonlive.com 

The precise number has not been disclosed, but Tesco has assured it is a ‘small number’.

It is believed that no colleague at the store has tested positive for Covid-19 in the last seven days.

A member of staff, who did not wish to be named, told Devon Live that employees have been told of more than four positive cases, but have not been told to isolate.

A Tesco spokesperson said: “A small number of colleagues at our Exmouth superstore have tested positive for Covid-19. Their close contacts have been informed.

“The safety of our colleagues, customers and suppliers remains our number one priority and we are working with local public health authorities, following all Government guidance and taking the relevant precautions.

“We have extensive measures across all of our stores to help keep everyone safe, including protective screens at every checkout, social distancing signage and regular cleaning.”

Yesterday, the latest Covid-19 figures for Devon continued to show infection rates rising steadily and more clusters emerging across the county.

Fremington and Instow in North Devon still had the most new positive cases, 42, during the rolling seven-day period up December 15. Chagford, Princetown and Dartmoor saw a steep rise from 16 to 41 cases.

Elsewhere, Wonford and St Loyes had 16 cases in Exeter. The city has seen a 23 per cent case rate increase over seven days. The average rate per 100,000 of population is just above 100. Surrounding areas are now starting to see increases with Cranbrook, Broadclyst and Stoke Canon registering 22.

Clusters in East Devon included Honiton North & East, (21) and Exmouth Brixignton (20). Rates of infection in both areas were above 300 per 100,000 of population. The current rate across England is 262 and rising.

The cluster map was updated on Sunday afternoon (December 20).

It shows a decreasing number of areas recording three or fewer cases – though much of Mid Devon, South Hams, Torbay and parts of Teignbridge are still relatively free of the virus. Clusters are areas with three or more.

Overall Devon had 944 people with at least one positive test result int he most recent seven day period. The rate per 100,000 across the county, excluding Torbay and Plymouth, was 118.