Almost £30million in Government grant support has been paid to businesses in East Devon in response to the coronavirus lockdown.

Philippa Davies www.sidmouthherald.co.uk

A total of 2,528 qualifying businesses have received the money, which is being distributed by East Devon district council.

The portfolio holder for the economy, Cllr Kevin Blakey, said: “We have written to all eligible businesses and emailed them where possible. We are still waiting to hear from 1,500 businesses and urge them to use the information provided and claim their grant.”

Any businesses that believe they qualify for a grant but have not heard from the council should email businessrates@eastdevon.gov.uk

Cllr Blakey said: “For businesses that do not meet the criteria for grants and other forms of support, please be assured that we are compiling a record of these types of businesses and we are feeding this back to central Government.

“We are aware that there are a number of businesses who have displayed entrepreneurialism and innovation in adapting to the current circumstances, for example, establishing new ways of delivering their business and engaging customers.

“We would like to help showcase such examples and I would encourage you to send these to us.

“This week, we are highlighting the work that Darts Farm have done to quickly launch an online delivery service which is also helping to benefit a range of local suppliers.

“We continue to receive feedback which shows the grants are providing real support during this challenging time.”

The comments include:

“Many thanks for this and a huge thanks for you and all your colleagues, keeping the country running at a time like this.”

“I was really impressed with how quickly EDDC got a system set up. It took a week from applying online to getting the much-needed money, so well done and thank you EDDC.”

“Received remittance advice for my £10,000 yesterday. Only applied a few days ago so thanks for a fast business saving job.”

“I just wanted to say that you and your colleagues at EDDC have managed this grant process wonderfully well. Please convey my thanks to the team at EDDC who have worked through this process so efficiently.”

Information on the business grant support available, and an online application system, can be found here on the EDDC website.

Remember that the official definition of the South West Region includes Gloucester, Wiltshire and Dorset on the eastern boundary.

Welcome news but right now who’s counting? (Maybe they are – see Max Hastings again)

Beth Sharp  www.sidmouthherald.co.uk 

More than £13billion of NHS debt has been written off as part of a wider package of NHS reforms announced by the Health Secretary.

This includes more than £825million of debt in the South West, across 13 NHS trusts.

As of April 1, more than 100 NHS hospitals were rid of historic debt, freeing them up to invest in maintaining vital services and longer-term infrastructure improvements.

It comes alongside new NHS funding model to make sure the NHS has the necessary funding and support to respond to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This is part of a package of major reforms to the NHS financial system, designed in a collaboration between the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, which will begin from the start of the new financial year.

The changes will provide much needed financial support during this unprecedented viral pandemic, as well as laying secure foundations for the longer-term commitments set out last year to support the NHS to become more financially sustainable.

This significant change will mean hospitals will get all the necessary funding to carry out their emergency response, despite many hospitals cancelling or limiting their usual services such as elective surgery or walk-in clinics due to the virus.

Simon Jupp, MP for East Devon, said: “This is great news for the NHS in Devon and provides an opportunity to focus on the future without having to worry about the past.

“I will continue to work closely with our superb NHS as they tackle the virus today and provide first class healthcare for all of us into the future.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock added: “As we tackle this crisis, nobody in our health service should be distracted by their hospital’s past finances.

“The £13.4 billion debt write off will wipe the slate clean and allow NHS hospitals to plan for the future and invest in vital services.

“I remain committed to providing the NHS with whatever it needs to tackle coronavirus, and the changes to the funding model will give the NHS immediate financial certainty to plan and deliver their emergency response.”

107 trusts have an average of £100 million revenue debt each, with the 2 trusts with the highest debts reaching a combined total of over £1 billion.

At times like these we need individuals in Whitehall who know when to cut the red tape (see previous article by Max Hastings)

A supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) has warned that government bureaucracy has made it impossible to buy the necessary supplies.

Tim Shipman  www.thetimes.co.uk

Howard Amor of Seren Plus, a pharmaceutical supplier with 40 years of experience with Chinese suppliers, was contacted three weeks ago by NHS Supply Chain, the agency that buys kit for the health service, and asked to help.

He provided quotes to supply surgical masks, protective suits, eye protection and sanitising gel, pledging to supply samples within three days.

There was no response. Amor has supplied new quotes every seven days as market prices change. “We’ve heard nothing back from the NHS, except one response to complain that our updates had confused them. The NHS is weeks too slow to compete adequately in this volatile market and against other buyers who are way more aggressive,” he said.

“Foreign governments are paying cash (sometimes over the odds) to secure production capacity and stock.”

Instead, the government has offered to pay after 30 days. “The market in China demands payment up front. Suppliers don’t have infinite cash to finance a national crisis. Government needs to find a funding solution.”

A spokesman said the government was processing offers from 6,000 suppliers: “We are working rapidly to get through orders and ensure they meet the safety and quality standards that our NHS staff need. We have delivered more than a billion pieces of PPE equipment to the front line so far.”

Boris Johnson’s government has come under pressure to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic after Michael Gove was forced to admit that the prime minister had missed five key emergency meetings when the crisis first hit.

Peter Walker  www.theguardian.com

With ministers warning that shortages of protective medical gear could continue, test rates remaining stubbornly low and the hospital death toll rising on Sunday to 16,060, some Conservative MPs have expressed private concern that Downing Street does not have a strong grip on the crisis.

Johnson’s role in the decision-making over crucial weeks before the UK-wide lockdown now risks becoming a symbol of that perceived inattention, with Labour saying the prime minister appeared to have been “missing in action” at the time.

His de facto deputy, Gove, sent out on a broadcast round, initially refused to comment on a report in the Sunday Times – which also claims that 279,000 of the UK’s shrinking PPE stockpile was sent to China – saying Johnson had missed five meetings of the government’s Cobra emergency committee in late January and February while he was taking a break at a government country retreat.

“I won’t go through, here, a point-by-point rebuttal of all the things in the Sunday Times story that are a little bit off beam,” Gove told Sky News.

But about 90 minutes later, he told the BBC that Johnson had, indeed, missed all five meetings, saying instead that this was normal. “Most Cobra meetings don’t have the prime minister attending them,” said Gove, whose cabinet title is chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. “That is the whole point.”

Cobra meetings were “led by the relevant secretary of state in the relevant area”, he argued. “The prime minister is aware of all of these decisions and takes some of those decisions. You can take a single fact, wrench it out of context, whip it up in order to create a j’accuse narrative. But that is not fair reporting.”

Addressing the daily No 10 press conference later, the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, reiterated this point, insisting that Johnson had, throughout, “been leading our nation’s effort to combat the coronavirus”.

While it is correct that the Cobra meetings are often chaired by others, in times of national crisis prime ministers have generally been ever present. Gordon Brown’s former press secretary Damian McBride tweeted that Brown, when PM, had chaired every Cobra meeting during the 2007 foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The sense of the government being forced on to the defensive was reinforced by two hugely detailed rebuttals it published on Sunday. One said the Sunday Times article contained “a series of falsehoods and errors”, while another condemned a Financial Times story about supposed confusion in efforts to source privately designed ventilators.

The acknowledgement of Johnson’s absences, some of which took place during a 12-day period in February during which he retreated into privacy at the government’s Chevening country estate in Kent, risks reinforcing a sense of official drift, with the PM still absent as he recovers from coronavirus.

Conservative MPs are barred from speaking to the media about the pandemic without No 10 clearance, but some are known to be worried about the apparent lack of preparation, the continued significant daily rises in deaths, and the lack of a publicly discussed exit strategy from lockdown.

The latest daily deaths figure from the virus in hospitals announced on Sunday was 596, well down on the previous day’s 888. However, Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer speaking alongside Williamson at the press conference, said this could be in part due to lower reporting rates over the weekend.

Asked to predict whether the UK might have passed the peak of the crisis, she declined to “jump to all sorts of positive conclusions”, but said the data connected to hospital admissions looked as if it was “starting to plateau”.

With the number of hospital victims virus now above 16,000, the country is on a similar trajectory to Italy, according to a government-produced chart estimating total deaths including those outside hospital settings.

Harries warned against comparisons with other European countries such as Germany, which has seen just over 4,500 deaths, saying the countries were “at different phases of the pandemic”, while differences in areas such as data and demographics made the area even more complex.

She also defended official preparations for the virus, saying: “We had and we still have a very clear plan – we had a containment phase and it was very successful.”

Ministers spent much of the day trying to quash reports about possible ways the economy and society could gradually emerge from lockdown once the number of Covid-19 cases begins to drop.

Gove rejected reports of a supposed “traffic light” phased return to normality over May and June, starting with schools, nurseries and more shops beginning to open, then moving on to smaller companies, restaurants and then other venues, with distancing measures in place.

This was not the plan, Gove told Sky: “It is the case that we are looking at all of the evidence, but we’ve set some tests which need to be passed before we can think of easing restrictions in this lockdown.” Williamson reiterated the point at the press conference, declining to give a date as to when pupils might return to school.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told the Ridge show that Gove had given “possibly the weakest rebuttal of a detailed exposé in British political history”. There were, he added, “serious questions as to why the prime minister skipped five Cobra meetings throughout February, when the whole world could see how serious this was becoming”.

In this context, he added, the knowledge Johnson had missed key meetings “suggests that early on he was missing in action”.

Johnson remains at his official country retreat of Chequers. Gove said the PM was “in cheerful spirits” and had talked on Friday to Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who is standing in for him.

The government’s target of carrying out 100,000 Covid-19 tests each day by the end of the month has come under criticism from senior scientists, who say it will be impossible to reach.

Hannah Devlin  www.theguardian.com 

Experts told the Guardian that a “macho” focus on headline-grabbing figures had been pursued at the expense of rigorous science.

The Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, said on Sunday that the government was confident that the goal of 100,000 tests daily by the end of April would be met.

However, scepticism is building. On Saturday, only 21,626 tests were carried out.

Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said he viewed the target as impossible. “I cannot see that being achieved,” he said. “It was always designed to be a headline grabber rather than anything else.”

Others said a relentless focus on the number of tests performed each day had led to basic data reporting standards falling by the wayside. Prof Sheila Bird, formerly of the Medical Research Council’s biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The level of incompetence in reporting these tests is outrageous.”

Gove acknowledged on Sunday that the target referred to tests carried out. In the past fortnight the government has placed a growing emphasis on “testing capacity”. It said that although fewer than 22,000 tests were performed on Saturday, labs now had the capacity to carry out 38,000 tests daily, and this had not been fully taken up by hospitals.

Scientists said the distinction was misleading as the logistics of having enough doctors and nurses on the ground to perform swab tests and send off samples continued to be a challenge. “Having the capacity is just the first step,” said Bill Hanage, a British epidemiologist based at Harvard.

Bird said the failure to give breakdowns of how many tests were being carried out on patients in hospital, critical workers and family members of critical workers made it impossible to extract prevalence rates of infection in these different groups and other crucial information that would allow scientists to more accurately assess the status of the outbreak in the UK.

“This macho thing about the number of tests done each day is leading to a reporting standard that makes the data almost uninterpretable,” she said.

Ideally, she said, tests would be reported separately for these different groups and would take into account the fact that hospitalised patients typically have a sequence of three tests over several weeks – an initial positive test followed by two negative tests (the second negative for assurance that the recovering patient is no longer infectious and can be transferred home or to a general ward).

“Reporting the number of tests performed each day is a political requirement, not a scientific requirement,” she added.

Hanage said that even if the 100,000 target were met, this figure was not a relevant measure of the adequacy of the UK’s testing operation. “Aiming for a large number that sounds good is not the way you should be doing this,” he said.

That around a third of those tested in the UK this week had positive results suggests that, while useful for guiding medical treatment, current testing is far below the levels that would be needed for population surveillance.

“The data I’ve been seeing suggests there’s not anywhere near enough testing,” Hanage said. “The way you should be doing it is to build the capacity and ability to run large numbers of tests – enough that only 10% are coming back positive.”

The World Health Organization has repeatedly urged governments to pursue testing and tracing, and some countries, including Singapore and South Korea, have successfully used this approach to contain their outbreaks, while Germany has also continued to carry out contact tracing.

The UK abandoned population testing and contact tracing in early March, when case numbers began to rise steeply, but the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Friday that contact tracing would be reintroduced, including through a proposed NHS smartphone app.

Experts say the ability to rely on this approach to safely exit the lockdown will depend critically on widespread population testing beyond the level needed for diagnosing patients in hospital.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt is now chair of the health select committee. He has been very critical of the government’s response to Covid-19. Can he escape responsibility for cuts made under his watch or for failing to learn the lessons from the last pandemic exercise “Cygnus 2016”?

Steve Topple 19th April 2020 www.thecanary.co 

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has been all over the news during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The media has been treating him as some sort of prophet over the virus. Probably because he now chairs the health select committee. But one tweet has given an important reminder of the hypocrisy of Hunt’s words during this crisis.

Hunt: the coronavirus prophet?

Hunt has been wheeling himself out to any media organisation that will listen. Most recently, he told LBC that the UK should do coronavirus testing where:

        every single person who thinks they’ve got Covid or Covid symptoms gets a very quick test

He’s also been somewhat critical of Boris Johnson’s government’s response. The Canary reported in March, that Hunt called the PM’s plan (or lack thereof) for dealing with coronavirus “surprising and concerning”. It would almost appear that the former NHS boss has an iota of concern over the health of the nation. But don’t be fooled. Because ‘Saint Hunt of Surrey’ is actually partly responsible for the huge crisis the NHS is currently in. And someone on Twitter summed it up perfectly.

Twitter steps in

Many people will be aware of captain Tom Moore. He’s been walking lengths of his garden to raise money for the NHS. At the time of publication, Moore had raised over £25m. So, as Rachael Swindon tweeted:

Yes, it’s true. As Nursing in Practice reported, Hunt was health secretary when the NHS paid £21m for consultants to tell it how to save billions; £26bn according to the Mirror. As the head of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said at the time:

            The Government will struggle to justify this level of spending on management consultants who advise on        cutting nursing staff.

This sort of expertise should already be held within the NHS. It is a false economy when the consultants cost more than the savings they identify.

Now, with an NHS that’s running out of personal protective equipment (PPE), having to beg retired staff to come back, and hospitals declaring critical incidents, the fall out from years of Tory neglect is clear for all to see. Central to this has been Hunt. Yet he, and the media interviewing him, seem to have forgotten that fact.

Steaming hypocrisy

For example, people seem to have forgotten that Hunt was in charge when the NHS did a pandemic ‘drill’. Called Exercise Cygnus, the results showed the government that the NHS wouldn’t cope with something like coronavirus. Yet Hunt and the rest of the government’s health team ignored it. Also, NHS budgets rose in real terms by just 1.4% per year between 2009/10 and 2018/19, when historically (prior to Conservative-led governments) they went up by around 3.7%, on average. Hunt oversaw most of these meagre rises.

Meanwhile, there was a 2 percentage point increase in spending on private companies in the NHS between 2011/12 and 2018/19. Waiting times have been getting worse, staff shortages have been dire, and health inequality has been on the rise.

Yet somehow, Hunt has managed to absolve himself of responsibility for the mess the NHS is in during the coronavirus pandemic. And our media has allowed him to. So, it’s left to people like Swindon to point out the steaming hypocrisy in his mealy-mouthed words.

“Schools could start returning within three weeks under a ‘traffic light’ plan being pushed by senior ministers to ease lockdown misery – amid Cabinet splits over whether the government should risk more deaths from the disease to save the plunging economy.”

“Over-70s face a ‘red light’ for many months more, potentially having to wait for a vaccine before going back to normal life.”

Overall, just under a quarter (22.6%) of the population of East Devon is aged 70+, but in some areas of Sidmouth it’s more like a half (49.9). Good ONS interactive map of where over 70s live can be found here.

James Tapsfield www.dailymail.co.uk

Schools could start returning within three weeks under a ‘traffic light’ plan being pushed by senior ministers to ease lockdown misery – amid Cabinet splits over whether the government should risk more deaths from the disease to save the plunging economy.

The fledgling ‘exit strategy’ would see the country get back up in running in stages after May 11, with primary, GCSE pupils, and nurseries potentially going back part-time.  

Meanwhile, clothes shops and garden centres could be among the ‘non-essential’ stores given a ‘green light’ to reopen with precautions to protect customers. Rail services would be brought up to normal levels, with commuters probably urged to wear facemasks, and the NHS would resume carrying out non-urgent procedures. 

A second ‘amber’ stage later in the summer would see more of the economy revived, with all employees told to go back to work and some social gatherings allowed. 

However, it might not be until later in the year that pubs and restaurants can reopen and sporting events get up and running. And over-70s face a ‘red light’ for many months more, potentially having to wait for a vaccine before going back to normal life.

The proposals are gaining traction amid a mounting backlash at the lack of a clear plan. Senior ministers are divided between those who want to ‘run hot’, using apparent spare capacity in the NHS to relax social distancing soon, and those who fear acting too early will allow the disease to run rampant, according to the Sunday Times. 

After concerns about drift at the heart of power, Boris Johnson is gearing up to take back the reins of government, making calls to ministers from Chequers where he is recuperating from his own health scare with the disease. 

Cabinet minister MIchael Gove tried to dampen down frenzied speculation over loosening of restrictions this morning, saying while it was ‘entirely understandable’ people want to know the way out it was too early to make such decisions. 

Asked if the ‘traffic light’ system was the government’s ‘exit strategy’, Mr Gove told Sky News: ‘No it’s not. It is the case that we are looking at all the evidence. But we have  set some tests that must be passed before we can even think about easing the lockdown.’ 

Although he stressed no decisions had been taken, Mr Gove did hint at the shape of an easing, suggesting pubs and other parts of the hospitality industry will be ‘among the last’ to come back. 

Max Hastings’ view on how to deal with the consequences of a hollowed out state caused by a decade plus of austerity

Max Hastings www.thetimes.co.uk 

It seems mistaken to heap too much blame on the government for the failures in Britain’s response to Covid-19. Instead, our rulers should be judged by how fast they learn from grim experience, and how imaginatively they address the yawning fissures exposed by this earthquake.

Amid many uncertainties, one thing is assured: the state will play a role in all our affairs for the next few years, greater than we have known for 60 or 70 years. The fumbled response thus far represents consequences of generations in which its institutions and instruments have been eroded and run down, as the dynamic of society shifted to the private sector. The NHS could just cope six months ago, but unsurprisingly lacked spare capacity to meet the coronavirus, hence the enlistment of the army to provide logistics, communications and managerial support through its Operation Rescript.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, after suffering decades of shrinkage and political contempt, struggles to address international issues, including the welfare of tens of thousands of British citizens abroad. Meanwhile, we have the police force we deserve, in the absence of effective supervision as well as adequate funding.

The government should be devolving many decisions and supervisory functions to local authorities, rather than persisting with a surely doomed attempt to run everything, and to distribute stupendous sums of public money, direct from Whitehall. But councils, too, are resource-starved, treated by central government as a burden upon national life rather than as a key component of it.

Above all, the civil service at every level has been abused, bypassed, despised, demoralised. Most of its indifferently rewarded high-flyers quit before reaching the highest posts. Permanent secretaries are obliged to share power, though seldom responsibility, with ministers’ often half-witted and unfailingly arrogant spin doctors.

It would be mistaken to idealise past British governments, including wartime ones. In the 20th century, however, weak and incompetent ministers were protected and buttressed by an impressive Whitehall machine. Sir Humphrey Appleby was a valuable article, much brighter than hapless Jim Hacker.

It is such human instruments to execute policy that are today lacking, and must be rediscovered. Not merely this country, but the world, faces years of unprecedented medical, economic and social stress. The critical agent in preserving our societies will be the state, which thus needs our best brains and most competent administrators.

Whitehall is experiencing an invasion of management consultants. Such people are a dubious resource in good times, a wholly inadequate one in bad. There is talk of bringing in clever former ministers — Jeremy Hunt, William Hague, Ken Clarke, Rory Stewart and suchlike. This might be sensible, even essential. Even more pressing, though, is the demand for high-quality administrators lower down the chain.

In the early months of the Second World War, there was regulatory and administrative confusion and bungling at least as great as now. From 1940 onwards, however, Britain mobilised its people more efficiently than any other nation. The British Army never achieved excellence, but the home front did.

The department store chief Lord Woolton ran food, and gave his name to an economical pie. Patrick Hennessy, wunderkind boss of Ford of Dagenham, joined the Ministry of Aircraft Production, to do the heavy lifting for Lord Beaverbrook. The former Trades Union Congress chief Ernest Bevin directed labour. Lord Leathers became responsible for shipping and transport. The “three profs” — Lord Cherwell, John Maynard Keynes and Lionel Robbins — addressed their brilliant minds to the conduct and funding of government.

Nearer the coalface, many of the finest mathematicians in the country were guided towards Bletchley Park. Such academics as Noel Annan, Edgar Williams and Enoch Powell, thrust into ill-fitting uniforms, dramatically raised the quality of service staff work. It is an insufficiently understood aspect of war that it matters least who does the killing — a task requiring little intellect — and much more who generates ideas and steers them towards implementation.

Today, thank goodness, we are not fighting anybody. We need not thrust millions of young men and women into uniform. Yet after generations in which most of the nation’s brightest and best have devoted their lives to making money or spending it in the private sector, now instead their talents are desperately needed on the front line — a new kind of front line, but just as critical as were the beaches 80 years ago.

No such mobilisation is going to happen in five minutes. We are all undergoing a supremely traumatic process of adjustment. But it seems important that those in charge of government should at least identify a direction of travel, a roadmap towards radical measures such as were unthinkable three months ago. They should be planning, for instance, the recruitment of civilian special constables to reinforce a police force that lacks the numbers to handle the law-and-order challenges that lie ahead. They should be considering how best to re-employ the talents of millions who will forfeit their existing jobs.

Ministers, as much as the rest of us, need to acknowledge that we cannot look forward to some happy date this year when normal service will be resumed. We must prepare, instead, for a new world, wherein we can survive and prosper only if we respond to its challenges with courage and imagination.

Foremost is that we should conscript the best possible people to manage the myriad activities of the state, which will, for many moons ahead, intrude unprecedentedly but also, we should hope, constructively upon all our lives. If the government kids itself that McKinsey can supply the answers, then it is asking the wrong questions.

Is EDDC using the best technology to keep democratic local governance  going during lockdown? 

Looks like EDDC is still using Skype when the rest of government is using the more appropriate Zoom.

Council meetings

It is expected that the vast majority of meetings will not need to go ahead because they are not dealing with essential matters during this time of crisis. However, as of now, the council will review the need to hold meetings on a rolling basis. Moving forwards, as a matter of priority, and subject to what Government permits local authorities to do, we are looking at ways of conducting urgent/important meetings remotely using Skype and/or conference calling.

Robert Jenrick, the housing, communities and local government secretary, has “made it clear” to councils that they must keep parks open during the coronavirus lockdown, although he sidestepped calls to apologise for visiting his Herefordshire home.

Owl wonders which of his three homes he returned to after conducting the briefing: his Hereford grade 1 mansion, his £2.5m London house or the property in Southwell near Newark [his constituency]?

Aaron Walawalkar  www.theguardian.com

Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference on the coronavirus outbreak, Jenrick said it “cannot be right” that some councils across the country had closed their parks in recent weeks.

He said that, while the virus “does not discriminate”, lockdown measures are much harder for people who do not have gardens or open spaces for children to run around in.

“People need parks. That’s why I have made it clear to councils that all parks must remain open,” he said.

The announcement comes weeks after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, threatened a ban on outdoor exercise on the weekend that Brockwell Park, in south London, was controversially closed in response to a reported influx of sunbathers. Analysis by the Guardian has revealed that park closures would disproportionately effect the most deprived Londoners.

Jenrick also addressed reports of mourners being turned away from funerals, pointing to the case of 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, from Brixton, who died after contracting Covid-19.

He said the tragedy was compounded after Ismail’s family could not attend his funeral. “That is not right and it shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “For clarity, funerals can go ahead with close family present.”

The government will publish further guidance on funerals, Jenrick said, adding: “I’m also asking councils to keep open or indeed to reopen cemeteries and graveyards … for people to make that private visit and seek solace at the grave of someone you’ve loved or to privately lay flowers.

“There have been times in my life when I have needed to do that. These are small steps, but small mercies can make a difference.”

Jenrick defended his decision to visit his parents’ home earlier this month, despite repeatedly urging the public to stay at home to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The Guardian established that the housing secretary visited his parents in Shropshire, 40 miles from his own home by road, who were already being supported with grocery deliveries by their local community.

Jenrick said in the briefing he had delivered medicines to his elderly parents and that it is “entirely within the guidelines” to do so.

He said he “would not want people to feel concerned that they cannot do something like that to help their own elderly relatives or parents who are in need”.

Jenrick was also asked whether he should apologise to the public for seeming to have broken the rules when visiting his Herefordshire home during the lockdown. He says his house in Herefordshire is his main home, despite the fact his children and wife attend school and work in London.

He responded: “I joined my family at our home in Herefordshire as soon as I was able to do so, as soon as we made the decision that it was no longer necessary to work in person in Westminster.

“I’ve been there since I’ve been working from home and returned to Westminster last night to do this press conference because parliament returns next week.”

The briefing came as the number of people to die in UK hospitals rose by 888 to 15,464.

“When people voted to leave in 2016 they were voting to take back control of our borders,” Priti Patel (Nov 2019)

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

Hundreds of private jets have been used by rich passengers to enter the UK from virus hotspots since the lockdown began.

Britain is already setting itself apart from the rest of the world with few travel restrictions. Many other countries have clamped down on international travellers and imposed quarantine rules.

An investigation identified 545 private jets landing in UK airfields since the lockdown was imposed last month. They have arrived from Spain (25), France (27) and Germany (32). A total of 15 private jets have also arrived from America, according to flight data supplied by WingX, an aviation consultancy. America has the world’s highest Covid-19 death toll, in excess of 38,000.

More than 15,000 passengers are still arriving into the UK each day on normal flights. No routine tests are carried out on arrival.

Private plane operators should carry out due diligence on passengers hiring private jets to see if they conform to the government’s rules on “essential travel” only.

Some wealthy passengers are being misleading about the purposes for private jet hire, however, claiming that they are travelling to family homes, rather than second homes or holiday homes. The UK still operates an open borders policy, unlike 130 other countries that have imposed travel restrictions since the pandemic began.

Professor Gabriel Scally, president of epidemiology and public health at the Royal Society of Medicine, said it was “hard to understand” why the UK persisted in an open borders policy, calling it “most peculiar”.

Justin Bowman, chief executive of the Air Charter Service, the largest private charter service in the world, said: “Governments are facing huge challenges moving people from different parts of the world back to the UK, where they are stranded.

“The airlines stopped pretty much overnight. There are still thousands of people in the wrong place. Many of these flights will be legitimate repatriations from around the world. I would hope those abusing the rules are in the minority.”

The super-rich have also been using private jets to leave the UK. A total of 767 private planes have flown from UK airfields since the lockdown. This includes 115 flights from London Farnborough airport, known for its “discretion and bespoke service”, according to one private jet company’s website.

The most popular destinations for jets leaving the UK during the lockdown were France (34), Germany (34), Spain (30) and Russia (23). Private jet hire to Moscow can cost between £20,000 and £70,000.

Ten private planes have flown to the United Arab Emirates since the lockdown. Industry sources say a private flight to the UAE would cost up to £100,000.

One aviation source said: “These are some of the wealthiest people who count the UK as their home, who are fleeing to second homes since the lockdown was imposed.”

The Civil Aviation Authority, which oversees and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the UK, said it had “no way of knowing if the hire of private aircraft has increased or declined in recent weeks”, as it does not monitor the numbers.

It emerged last week that French police turned back a private jet after a group of wealthy passengers flew from Farnborough to Marseilles for a holiday.

Clive Jackson, founder of the private plane hire firm Victor, said he believed most of the industry was acting responsibly when taking bookings from the public. “We have an obligation not to flout the rules as we have an essential part to play in the Covid crisis, providing genuine medical evacuation and repatriation for families in distress.”

Scotland and Wales are already developing their own exit strategies. Whitehall and No 10 appear to be concentrating on London (as always). The Northern  Metro-Mayors are asking for a seat on COBRA, but who speaks for the regions? The unelected Great South West or the equally unelected Local Enterprise Partnerships? Can our MPs come together as (most of them did) with #pleasecomebacklater

“The role of local government is being massively underplayed in Whitehall”  (Especially, it would seem, with regard to contact tracing – Owl)

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

Boris Johnson faces rising pressure to open up Cobra emergency meetings to political leaders from outside London as plans are drawn up to lift the national lockdown.

Senior ministers privately canvassed several of the country’s metro mayors last week about their thoughts on a staged “regional release” of the lockdown, with London the first to benefit from being freed of restrictions. The response was an unequivocal “no” from regional leaders, who are concerned about a “London-first” approach.

Senior politicians believe a lack of input into Cobra from local government has caused blunders in addressing the growing crisis in care-home infections, a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for care workers, and a confused NHS volunteer scheme that clashes with existing local schemes.

Two of the most powerful civic leaders outside the capital, Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, and Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, said they would support a seat on Cobra for the regions as government planning moves to the “recovery” phase.

“There should be representation for the English regions on Cobra now,” Burnham said. “I’m not saying that for the benefit of Greater Manchester, or any other particular region, but for everybody’s benefit. I think certain decisions might have been made differently if Cobra had had a regional voice from the very start of this crisis.”

A strong regional voice on the Cobra committee could offer practical “on the ground” experience that some government sources say the current “overly centralised” set-up lacks.

“The role of local government is being massively underplayed in Whitehall,” said Burnham, a health secretary under Gordon Brown who led the response to swine flu in 2009. “We have issues in Greater Manchester that I would like the chance to express in Cobra.”

Burnham gave an example of asking the government for PPE for care home workers in Greater Manchester last week. After asking for 500,000 items, which would have lasted care workers one week in the region, just 48,000 arrived.

“This would be something I would have raised with Cobra,” he said. “And it’s a problem not just specific to us but something that is going on across all the regions in the care sector.”

Street said he had been “comfortable” with not being on Cobra due to the emergency meetings so far being about national guidelines and policy-making around the epidemic. But as the focus begins to shift towards a recovery plan after lockdown, he said: “I would definitely want to make the case for the Midlands.”

Lifting the lockdown “sector by sector” would affect regions differently, making it crucial that they had input, both Street and Burnham said.

For example, relaxing restrictions on the car industry and bringing 20,000 workers back to work would help the West Midlands more than other regions, and Liverpool, which depends heavily on tourism for jobs and income, will be hoping for a boost to the hospitality sector.

“We need to be part of those discussions,” said Street, who used to be managing director of John Lewis. “We understand our regions better than anyone.”

Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (Cobra) is used for committees that co-ordinate the government’s response to a national emergency.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has used Cobra meetings to argue that building workers should not be going to work in the capital.

He claimed the prime minister overruled him during Cobra, arguing that building workers could carry out their jobs in relative safety.

Earlier this week, the Government was accused of misleading the public about the scale of the pandemic because it failed to include care home deaths in its daily briefings. Healthcare workers warned that deaths in care homes have been substantially underestimated by official figures.

The number of care home residents who have died of suspected coronavirus may have reached 7,500, according to the latest estimate, The Telegraph has learned.

By Gabriella Swerling, Social Affairs Editor 17 www.telegraph.co.uk

New data collated by Care England, the country’s largest representative body for care homes, suggests the number of deaths from Covid-19 is far higher than its previous estimate of 1,400 from earlier this week.

The number is also far in advance of the official figure from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which has recorded 217 care home deaths from the virus up to April 3 – the most recent date for which official data is available. 

However, as the Government published its daily update on coronavirus hospital deaths on Friday, which showed a rise to 14,576, it emerged that the death toll in UK care homes is suspected to be much bigger than previously feared. 

Professor Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, told The Telegraph that around 7,500 people may have died in care homes as a result of the virus. 

“Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure,” he said. “However, if we look at some of the death rates since April 1 and compare them with previous years’ rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.”

Care England, which represents around 3,800 homes and more than 50,000 residents, gathered data by “taking a sounding” from its homes.

Its estimate comes amid a growing row about the extent of the coronavirus crisis in care homes and the Government’s response, as data from Public Health England confirmed that the elderly have been hardest hit by the virus, with 69 per cent of those who have died aged over 70.

Earlier this week, the Government was accused of misleading the public about the scale of the pandemic because it failed to include care home deaths in its daily briefings. Healthcare workers warned that deaths in care homes have been substantially underestimated by official figures.

Charities said the new data “will send a chill down the spine of anyone with a loved one living in a care home” as they renewed calls for increased provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) to help keep residents and carers safe.

Earlier this week, a leaked letter from care home bosses accused Number 10 of a “shambolic” response to the sector’s crisis, with “paltry” and “haphazard” deliveries of PPE. 

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary said during the daily Downing Street briefing on Thursday that only 15 per cent of care homes had been hit by Covid-19. He told the health and social care committee on Friday that data on the deaths of care home residents with coronavirus will be published “very shortly”.

His pledge came as care professionals claimed they have not seen £1.6 billion which Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor,  announced had been set aside for social care. The Local Government Association (LGA) warned that, without a “cast-iron funding pledge”, councils will be heading towards “financial failure”.

Responding to the Care England data, Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “This is a shocking and utterly heartbreaking estimate that will send a chill down the spine of anyone with a loved one living in a care home. 

“It emphasises just how crucial it is that the Government’s commitments on PPE and testing in care homes are implemented successfully and at speed.

“As we have feared for some time, what’s going on in care homes – not only here but in many other countries too – is a tragedy in the making. It’s too late to avert this entirely, but there’s still time to make a positive difference and save many lives, of staff as well as older people.

“Central and local government and  the care home sector must work together to make this happen. And later, possibly a lot later, we have to ensure this can never happen again.” 

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Every death from this virus is a tragedy, and that is why we are working around the clock to give the social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this global pandemic.

“It is important that we have the best possible reliable data to know how many deaths there are, wherever they occur. In an important step forward, ONS are now providing a breakdown of deaths by place of occurrence.

“We are currently working with CQC and other organisations to understand how to best to provide up to date information about deaths in care homes and elsewhere.”

The coronavirus pandemic has scuppered plans to complete the next stage of a flood protection scheme for a community that gets ‘anxious every time it rains’.

Daniel Clark/LDRS www.midweekherald.co.uk

The first two phases of the flood alleviation scheme for Feniton were completed back in 2016, but numerous delays have since beset the project.

Phase 3, which requires an undertrack crossing of the Exeter to Waterloo rail line, was due to take place in May during a planned 52 hour weekend track closure.

But East Devon District Council has taken the proactive step to postpone non-essential construction work to reduce health risks to workers, local healthcare staff, and local residents as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and as a result.

Cllr Geoff Jung, East Devon District Council’s portfolio holder for the environment, said: “I would stress that this is a temporary delay and that we are totally committed to completing the Feniton Flood scheme as well all the other flood and sea defence schemes that we have currently in hand.”

The decision will result in a delay for construction of phase 3 of the project, but a council spokesman said that they look forward to working with Network Rail to make sure everything is in place for the next possession window they can take to carry out the work.

They added: “Although clearly a delay for phase 3, the fourth and final phase was not due to begin until March 2021, so the overall delay to the scheme completion is minimal. The council’s project team will be working hard to ensure that both phase 3 and 4 can be delivered as soon as practically possible.”

Phase 4, the construction of the remaining culverted sections of the scheme, was set to follow in the summer of 2021, to enable sufficient time for further Government grants to be secured.

Cllr Susie Bond, who represents the Feniton ward, said that the news comes as no surprise, but is still sad and hard for residents to hear.

She added: “This is hugely disappointing, but not unexpected, news given the national emergency in which we find ourselves. We shall look forward to hearing more positive news once the crisis is over and we can work with Network Rail in finding a new possession window.”

Cllr Ben Ingham, the Leader of East Devon District Council, said: “It is a tremendous shame that we have to postpone this vital project for Feniton, especially in light of the hard work to get us this far. However, we cannot take high risks so there must be a delay. But we will be back.”

Cllr Peter Faithfull, Deputy Portfolio Holder for the Environment, added: “While it is extremely frustrating to have to make the decision to delay this work, the risk of flooding has to be placed second to the risk of COVID-19 for both the workers and the residents.”

When councillors in February backed the latest timetable for the works, Andrew Hancock, Service Lead for StreetScene, said: “This project will benefit more than 70 properties in Feniton as well as providing relief from the anxiety of the ever present flood risk.”

The original total project cost was £1.7m but as a result of the years of delays, the revised total project cost had risen to £3.7m.

Severe flooding hit Feniton back in 2008 left the village as “unpassable” and many residents were unable to leave their houses due to the river of floodwater running past their homes. There were also several landslides in the area.

The medieval St Andrew’s Church in Feniton Old Village was left under two feet of water, as were homes in the village centre.

Front gardens of houses were littered with flood-damaged white goods, furniture, books, a caravan and more.

The 4.8m fibreglass boat, the Nina May, is not much to look at but the boat holds nearly a fifth of all fishing rights for the South West of England. The last time Owl looked into it, the Carter company who own it made an operating profit of £2,628,000 in 2017. Based on these figures the Nina May fits the government criteria published yesterday, for the “catching sector” .  (Information on Greenpeace investigation here)

Government announces financial support for England’s fishing businesses

www.gov.uk

More than 1,000 fishing and aquaculture businesses in England will receive direct cash grants through a fisheries support scheme announced today by Environment Secretary George Eustice and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay.

In the latest step to protect businesses affected by coronavirus, plans unveiled today mean that up to £9 million will be available for grants to eligible fishing and aquaculture businesses.

A further £1 million will be made available to support projects to assist fishermen to sell their catch in their local communities. This money will help fishing businesses find new ways to market and sell their catch while traditional markets are restricted, not only supporting the sector but also the local communities that depend on the industry.

Because the majority of fish they catch is usually destined for export, the English fishing fleet which catches fish stocks such as hake, scallops and crab, has been hit by the closure of traditional export markets and the reduction in demand from the hospitality sector.

The support scheme – which will run for up to three months – takes action to meet the immediate needs of the industry by helping English fishing and aquaculture businesses with their fixed costs such as insurance, equipment hire and port costs.

The measures will support English industry, in particular smaller fisherman, during this challenging time and follow an unprecedented package of financial support already announced for small businesses.

The main features of the scheme are:

• For the catching sector, the fund will be open to under-24m vessel owners with fishing licences registered in England who recorded sales of £10,000 or more in 2019.
• Grants will be made to help cover fixed business costs. For the catching sector this will be calculated from the average business costs for the size of the vessel, as surveyed by the industry annually.
• Details of the eligibility criteria, including the criteria for the aquaculture sector and support for local projects, will be announced in due course by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).
• The MMO will administer the fund, contacting eligible registered owners and licence holders directly in stages with details of how to apply, starting on Monday April 20 through to early May.
• Payments will be made for up to three months.

The Government is also exploring methods to reduce the regulatory burden on the fishing fleet. These measures will be agreed jointly by the fisheries administrations and announced in due course.

Ellie Kendall  www.somersetlive.co.uk 

Most of us who use the A303 west of Ilminster can share horror stories about being held up there.

Being stuck behind a tractor on Ham Hill, crawling along in first or second gear.

Waiting to pull out of the Eagle Tavern junction after a hard day’s work in Taunton.

Desperately trying to pass a lorry on the last bit of dual carriageway before you enter the Blackdown Hills.

If you find yourself in this situation, you could be forgiven for wondering why this road hasn’t been turned into a dual carriageway.

And with the coronavirus lockdown continuing for the foreseeable future, many of us will be pining for a clear run to Devon’s beaches or the Cornish coast for a much-needed break when this is all over.

But sadly, improvements to this part of the A303 won’t be happening any time soon – and here’s why…

What’s the road like at the moment?

If you head west from the Southfields roundabout – where the A303 joins the A358 – you’ll find the road alternating between single and dual carriageway, as it does on the Ilminster bypass.

But after the turning to Broadway, it’s single carriageway all the way through to the Devon border at Marsh.

Here the road briefly opens out to two lanes each way again, before shrinking back to one lane around some tight bends and a steep hill or two through the villages east of Honiton, where it joins the A30.

The A30 then opens out to a dual carriageway at Honiton and remains that way all the way through to Exeter.

How did we get to this point?

The government’s first road investment strategy (known as RIS1) was published by the Department for Transport back in February 2015.

It committed the delivery of a large number of transport schemes through Highways England, including improvements to three sections of the A303 and A358:

• A new A303 dual carriageway tunnel under Stonehenge
• Dualling the A303 between Ilchester and Sparkford
• Dualling the A358 between Ilminster and Taunton

Theresa May reaffirmed this when she was prime minister, telling Somerton and Frome MP David Warburton in January 2017 that her government was “committed to creating a dual carriageway on the A303 from the M3 to the M5”.

Since this announcement, progress has been made on all three schemes.

Both the Stonehenge tunnel and Sparkford schemes have gone through public consultation, detailed designs and a public inquiry each (which concluded in October and June 2019 respectively).

A final decision on the Sparkford scheme was due on December 12, but this was pushed back due to the general election being held on that date.

Decisions on both schemes have been further delayed by the coronavirus outbreak.

The A358 scheme is at a much earlier stage, with Highways England announcing its preferred route in June 2019.

What about the A303 west of Ilminster?

As things stand, the A358 dualling will remove the need for a dual carriageway west of the Southfields roundabout (as far as the government is concerned) – but it wasn’t always certain this would be the case.

A report for Highways England (then called the Highways Agency) back in 2015 looked at options for dualling three sections of the main road between Ilminster and Honiton:

• The A303 between Broadway and the Eagle Tavern pub
• The A303 between the Stopgate Cross junction (the B3170 towards Taunton) and Rawridge Hill (where the A303 meets the A30)
• The A30 between Rawridge Hill and Honiton

Devon County Council put forward detailed proposals in 2017 for dualling the A30 between Honiton and the junction with the A303 (also known as Devonshire Inn).

The route put forward would have bypassed the village of Monkton to the south, with the old A30 running alongside up to a new junction with the A303 and the A30 through to Chard via Yarcombe.

These proposals were submitted to the DfT in early-2017, but have not been taken forward to date.

Why hasn’t anything happened?

Notwithstanding the cost of these proposals – nearly £180M at 2015 prices – the scheme faced a fair amount of opposition from environmental and transport groups.

The Blackdown Hills is an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) – meaning it enjoys a similar level of legal protection as the UK’s national parks.

As such, it is difficult to carry out any large-scale development or infrastructure building here – such as a dual carriageway – without undermining the character of the area and the quality of life of the people living in it.

James MacColl, head of campaigns at the Campaign for Better Transport, was incredibly vocal in his opposition to the plans back in August 2016.

Speaking at the time, he said: “You cannot protect and enhance an AONB by building a road through it.

“New roads create new traffic, which the Blackdown Hills and nearby towns need like a hole in the head.

“What Devon County Council should be considering is how to get unnecessary trips off the road including through long term investment in local public transport.”

[Owl has a lot of experience on how development in an AONB can be justified by observing many years of EDDC decisions in the EasT Devon AONB. The small print let out clause in the NPPF can be found in paragraph 172:  Planning permission should be refused for major development other than in exceptional circumstances, and where it can be demonstrated that the development is in the public interest. Consideration of such applications should include an assessment of: a) the need for the development, including in terms of any national considerations, and the impact of permitting it, or refusing it, upon the local economy……]

Have any changes been made?

As part of RIS1, Highways England did undertake some smaller scale improvements to the A303 and A30 – changing little things here and there to make the existing route safer, rather than dualling small sections.

A spokesman said: “We committed in RIS1 to undertake smaller scale improvements in the Blackdown Hills.

“As part of this we undertook a safety study, which generated a safety scheme consisting of a number of minor improvements, including improved lining and signing between Marsh and Honiton.

“The signage, lining and resurfacing scheme encompassed work along various sections of the A30, including the removal of a shared third lane to the east of Honiton and improved signage at Rawridge Hill. The work was completed in March.”

On the Somerset site of the border, some minor changes were put in place at the Eagle Tavern junction – a busy staggered junction, frequently used by farm vehicles and traffic coming through the Blackdown Hills from Taunton to avoid the M5.

But Highways England has said it has no immediate plans to make further improvements to this junction.

Their spokesman said: “Regarding the Eagle Tavern junction, the speed limit has been lowered to 50mph in that location, with speed enforcement in place.

“We continually monitor collisions across the region and will always look to the provision of solutions where we can identify issues that highway improvements will have a positive effect.”

What happens next?

As part of the latest road investment strategy (RIS2), Highways England will erect additional signage on the A30 near Honiton later this year.

These will include signs at the junction between the A30 and A35 toward Axminster, and signs east of Honiton to discourage people during U-turns on the single carriageway sections.

In Somerset, a second round of public consultation on the A358 dualling is expected – though the dates won’t be announced until after the current lockdown period ends.

If the DfT grants permission to the Sparkford scheme, work could get under way later this year and be completed by the end of 2022.

The A358 scheme could be completed by 2024 if all goes well with the new consultation, the resulting public inquiry and the government giving the final nod.

Improvements to the Ilminster bypass – long seen as an accident black spot – could be brought forward as part of the next road investment strategy (RIS3) after 2025.

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

Is he putting too much faith in  NHSX, a phone app to identify recent contacts and warn them that they might need to self-isolate, still being developed?

Experts widely report that 60% of the population would have to participate for such an app to be effective. 

Editorial  www.theguardian.com 

“If you ask me whether any Bluetooth contact tracing system deployed or under development, anywhere in the world, is ready to replace manual contact tracing [to deal with coronavirus], I will say … the answer is, no.” Those are not the words of a tech luddite but were posted by Jason Bay, head of digital services of the world’s most wired-up city state, Singapore. The island has seen only 10 deaths out of a population of 5.6 million and its response has been celebrated as a model approach to the virus. Singapore used large-scale testing of citizens and a digital app – TraceTogether – to track the spread of the Sars-Cov-2 infection.

But technology is no panacea to the crisis. With just 12% of Singaporeans using the app, Mr Bay correctly observes the quality of data analysis is only as good as the quality of the data provided. “False positives and false negatives have real-life (and death) consequences,” he writes. “We use TraceTogether to supplement (manual) contact tracing – not replace it.”

In the west the privacy challenges of smartphone apps are complex, and we must resist attempts to normalise any level of totalitarian surveillance. Yet the speed of the spread of the viral pathogen makes it difficult to see how such technology can be avoided. In such a system a person who develops symptoms and then, say, tests positive for Covid-19 lets his or her phone app know of their infection. This is then broadcast to every other app in the network which then searches their records to see if they have been close to the infected individual’s phone since the time of infection. For this to work in the UK an app must hold data temporarily and anonymously, be installed at users’ discretion, and have privacy at its core.

But this is only the first step. Until we develop a vaccine or a treatment, infections will have to be detected quickly, and infected individuals possibly quarantined. The bottom line is that to contain the epidemic and prevent another spike we will need an army of public health workers for ongoing testing and monitoring. How many would be needed? In Wuhan there were 81 public health officials for every 100,000 people. In New Zealand’s success story – just nine deaths in a country of 5 million people – the comparable figure was four. But those low staffing levels can be maintained because New Zealand had the outbreak under better control and the islands’ remoteness makes it easier to track visitors.

A study for Johns Hopkins university in the US suggests that with Covid-19 circulating widely for many weeks, and without sufficient levels of testing, a region might need 15-30 public health workers per 100,000 people to bring the crisis under control. In the UK that would mean a new coronavirus workforce of 10,000-20,000 people to work in a system that Conservative governments since 2010 have starved of cash. We cannot allow tech evangelism to obscure the need to start funding, finding and training workers so the country can be kept safe.

Councils in England have warned that the coronavirus crisis is pushing them to the brink of financial failure.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52331282

The Local Government Association (LGA) said without more funding some authorities would be forced to cut “vital” services.

Councils face increased costs from supporting vulnerable people, while income from fees and rates is falling.

The government said it was providing £1.6bn extra to help them “provide services” during the pandemic.

The LGA welcomed this, but said more money was needed and called for a “cast-iron commitment” to cover the costs of coronavirus-related work.

Analysis by Alex Forsyth, BBC Political Correspondent

Many councils were already under severe financial strain before the coronavirus crisis, particularly those responsible for social care.

Since 2010 many local authorities have had to cut services to balance the books. The crisis has resulted in extra pressure on services that support the most vulnerable: the elderly, disabled and homeless.

At the same time income from fees and charges has dried up, and there’s fear that council tax revenues may fall as people face financial hardship.

At the start of this crisis, council leaders said they largely felt reassured by government promises of support. Now – with so much demand on the Treasury – there’s scepticism about how much more funding will be forthcoming.

Local government, which often feels like a forgotten frontline service, wants to ensure its voice is heard among the calls for support. Hence this stark warning about the potential consequences for crucial services if it doesn’t get more cash.

The LGA says councils are spending more on helping disabled, older and homeless people through the crisis, but are no longer raising money from leisure and planning services, which have been suspended.

Richard Watts, chairman of the LGA’s resources board, said: “Additional funding is urgently needed to help councils get through this crisis, support the vulnerable and adapt to life once we defeat this virus, when our local services will be needed more than ever to help communities rebuild.

“It would be wrong and unacceptable if councils are then forced to make further cutbacks to the very services that will have helped the nation through this crisis and the key workers who are producing heroics on the front line see their jobs placed at risk.”

The government has announced councils will be able to defer £2.6bn in business rate payments owed to central government.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “We’ve already provided £1.6bn of additional funding and have announced new measures to help ease immediate cash flow pressures faced by councils in England.”

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

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

Sarah Boseley  www.theguardian.com 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clive Cookson www.ft.com

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

What is remdesivir?

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

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

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

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

What results have come out of the Chicago trial?

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

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

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

What remains uncertain?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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