This live blog is now closed. For the latest coronavirus updates from around the world, you can read our global Covid blog
Wed 28 Jul 2021 18.03 BST
First published on Wed 28 Jul 2021 09.37 BST
6.02pm BST
18:02
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Updated
at 6.28pm BST
5.50pm BST
17:50
The Scottish government has said that it will match what England is doing and let fully vaccinated people from the US and the EU enter the country without quarantining from Monday. But, unlike the Welsh government (see 3.49pm), it is not saying that it is following the UK government with some reluctance. Instead, in his statement confirming the decision, Michael Matheson, the cabinet secretary for net zero, energy and transport, said this was possible because of Scotland’s successful vaccine programme. He said:
This has only been made possible due to the overwhelming success of our vaccination programme here in Scotland when coupled with successful rollouts of vaccination schemes in the EU and US.
Fully vaccinated travellers will be able to travel to Scotland under this significant relaxation of international travel measures, providing a boost for the tourism sector and wider economy while ensuring public health is protected.
The Scottish government says the exemption will cover not just EU countries, but Efta members too, and the European microstates – Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City. Arrivals will be required to show either a EU digital Covid certificate and or the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s white card, known as a CDC card.
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5.38pm BST
17:38
Amanda Pritchard is the new chief executive of NHS England, Boris Johnson has announced. Pritchard was deputy to Simon Stevens, who has just left the post with a peerage, and she will seen as something of a continuity appointment. She is a career NHS manager and her appointment is likely to be welcomed by some NHS chiefs who were worried about the job going to an outsider.
Delighted Amanda Pritchard has been appointed as the new NHS Chief Executive, the first woman in the NHS’s history to hold the post. I look forward to working closely with her.
I want to thank Lord Stevens for his dedicated leadership of the NHS for the past seven years.
5.22pm BST
17:22
Earlier I posted PA Media copy about the government losing a court case about lack of British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation at Covid briefings. (See 2.22pm). But the Cabinet Office has put out a statement saying it is “pleased” about the ruling. This sounds confusing, and to explain why it is necessary to go into the case in a bit more detail.
The Downing Street Covid press conferences have never included an in-room BSL interpreter, in the way that Nicola Sturgeon’s regular briefings in Scotland have. But the government says it raised this with the BBC and from March 2020 the BBC News channel reports included on on-screen BSL interpreter. In May the BBC started making a feed of this available to other broadcasters, and it was also available on social media.
The government lost this case because this on-screen interpretation was not available for two particular data briefings.
But the government feels vindicated because the complainant tried to get the court to accept that on-screen BSL interpretation was not sufficient, and that there should have been an in-room interpreter for all the briefings. The court rejected this argument.
In its statement the Cabinet Office said:
We are pleased that the court ruled our policy of using on-screen British Sign Language interpreters was lawful during the pandemic.
Our priority has always been to reach the largest possible audience with important public information and we will continue to ensure that British Sign Language interpretation is made available during Covid 19 briefings.
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at 5.28pm BST
5.02pm BST
17:02
Here is a question from below the line worth addressing.
@Andrew
Covid positives are coming down thankfully but presumably so are the amount of tests since Schools stopped for holidays.
Do you know the percentage of positive tests compared to the number of tests carried out over the passed few weeks? Can’t say it’s a number I have seen but think it is significant.
Thanks
This is a good question. Test positivity is the proportion of tests that turn out positive. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, was fond of quoting WHO guidance saying that anything above 5% suggests an outbreak is not under control.
Positivity figures for England are included in the UK government’s Covid dashboard, but that are quite hard to find. You need to go into the page for testing, and set the tab to England. That will pull up this chart.
The most recent figures go up to the seven-day period ending on 23 July.
The Scottish figures are shown on a chart on its dashboard, and the actual numbers are in the data files. (See table 5, and one of the columns under the heading additional statistics (v) towards the end of the chart.)
Wales has a positivity chart on the front page of its dashboard.
And Northern Ireland has this positivity chart on its dashboard.
Updated
at 5.09pm BST
4.18pm BST
16:18
The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast is out. Heather Stewart and Rafael Behr discuss “crime week”, as the government attempts to shift the narrative to domestic policies. Plus, Katy Hayward, Daniel Boffey and Jess Sargeant look at what’s behind the latest tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol.
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4.15pm BST
16:15
The UK government has just updated its coronavirus dashboard and, after falling for seven days in a row, the daily number of new cases is starting to rise again. It says 27,734 have been recorded, up from 23,511 yesterday. But that is still well below the figure for this time last week, 44,104. And the total number of new cases over the past week is down 36.1% on the total for the previous week.
The dashboard also says 91 further deaths have been recorded. Yesterday the equivalent figure was 131. But the total number of deaths over the past week is still up on the total for the previous seven days, by 36.1%.
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3.57pm BST
15:57
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told the BBC that countries like Norway and Switzerland (which are not in the EU but which are both in Efta, the European Free Trade Association) would also be covered by the exemption from quarantine for arrivals who are fully vaccinated.
He also said that once this scheme was up and running, the government would decide what it could do for fully-vaccinated people from other parts of the world.
Updated
at 4.01pm BST
3.49pm BST
15:49
Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, has warned that there are “risks” from the government’s decision to let fully-vaccinated people from the US and the EU visit England.
Speaking to BBC News, he said that if it had been up to the Welsh government, it would probably have not agreed to this move. He said:
We have said all along as the Welsh government that we would have taken a different approach to international travel. I still think this is the year when international travel is best avoided. We do not want to see in Wales a situation which we faced in September of last year, when the virus was reimported into Wales by people who have visited other parts of the world.
We would have rather a more precautionary approach by the UK government and have done our best to persuade them of that.
Given that they are making decisions that we probably wouldn’t have made for ourselves, it is very important that the UK government is able to offer us assurances that the risks that will be run – and there are risks whenever people visit from other parts of the world where the virus is in circulation, and where new variants of the disease may be emerging – that proper precautions are in place.
Drakeford said that, for practical reasons, it would be very hard for Wales not to follow the UK’s government’s move, which technically only covers England. That was because most people coming to Wales from outside the UK would be travelling through English airports not Welsh ones, he said.
But he also said that he would be challenging the UK government to show how it could be confident that people being allowed in were properly vaccinated. He went on:
In the United States, for example, there are no vaccine certificates, as I understand. So, how will the UK government know that somebody travelling from the United States has been doubly vaccinated and that it has been done to the same sort of protocols and standards that we would expect in this country?
We need to understand a little better than we do at the moment as to how that evidence will be collected and how that evidence can be provided in a way that we can all rely on.
Drakeford is a Labour first minister, and earlier today Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the UK Labour party, said opening up the borders in this way was “reckless”. (See 11am.) When that was put to him, Drakeford said that his approach to international travel had been more cautious than the UK government’s all along.
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at 4.02pm BST
3.13pm BST
15:13
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said the changes to quarantine rules for fully vaccinated people from the US and the EU decided today will come into force from 4am on Monday.
We’re helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK 👪
From 2nd August at 4am people from these countries will be able to come to the England from an amber country without having to quarantine if they’re fully vaxxed 💉
The changes will apply to fully vaxxed people with an FDA or EMA vaccine 💉 – they’ll still need to do the usual pre-departure test before arrival and take a PCR test on day 2 of returning to the England.
The FDA is the Food and Drug Administration, the US regulator, and the EMA is the European Medicines Agency, the European regulator.
We’re also able to confirm the restart of international cruises🚢and flexible testing programmes to help key workers and drive our economic recovery.
Whether you’re a family or a business, this is progress we can all enjoy.
3.04pm BST
15:04
UKinbound, a trade association representing companies working in the inbound tourism sector, has welcomed the news that fully vaccinated travellers from the US and the EU will not have quarantine when visiting England. Joss Croft, CEO of Ukinbound, said:
Today’s announcement that quarantine will be removed for vaccinated US and EU visitors to England is a fantastic step forward that will allow the £28bn inbound tourism sector, which supports over 500,000 jobs across the UK, to finally restart.
However, businesses that are reliant on international visitors still face substantial barriers to recovery, having had virtually no business since March 2020. Even with reciprocity, the valuable 2021 summer season is all but lost for inbound tourism, meaning thousands of businesses and jobs will continue to be at risk over winter.
Updated
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