Covid UK lockdown announcement live: Boris Johnson to delay easing

Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of workers feel they have made a bad decision about debt during the pandemic, a report has found.

This includes more than half (51 per cent) of 18 to 24-year-olds – an age group which has been particularly hard hit by the crisis – according to Aviva.

People aged 35 to 39 are also more likely than average to say they had made a bad decision about debt during the pandemic, with 36 per cent agreeing.

More than a quarter (29 per cent) of those surveyed said they have had to borrow to replace lost income, while 30 per cent are concerned their money will run out.

Theatres Trust director Jon Morgan said a four-week delay to the end of lockdown restrictions is “wholly understandable” but will be “difficult” for the theatres sector.

He said: “Today’s news of a four-week delay to Step 4 of the reopening road map is wholly understandable, given the rise in the infection numbers and the Delta variant.

“However, it will be difficult for theatres, who were depending on being able to reopen at full capacity and will already have committed considerable resources in preparation without the safety net of a theatre sector insurance scheme.”

He added: “It is vital that the additional £408 million allocated to the Culture Recovery Fund in the Budget is distributed quickly and targeted to those organisations most impacted by this setback.”

Anthony Costello, professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London, suggested that if the Test and Trace system had had an “army” of contact tracers then the government would not be considering a delay to lockdown.

He told Sky News: “The question is, why are we in this position? The NHS has done a fantastic job on vaccines but why has there been such poor investment in public health infection control to suppress these outbreaks?

“Patrick Vallance got it right in February when he said that as the numbers come down it is essential that we do do find, test, trace and isolate.

“And our failure to do that three times in the past has led to three national lockdowns and 150,000 deaths.

“I’m quite angry about this. Where is the £38bn going into Test and Trace for local public health? Why are the test results so slow? Why haven’t we got (an) adequate army of contact tracers? We’re in a war, we should have an army on the ground.”

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, told BBC Breakfast “buying extra weeks will provide greater protection and greater assurance”, allowing more adults to get a first or second dose of vaccine.

She added: “We’re just not yet clear, as we’ve discussed many times before, about the link between the proportion of people vaccinated and what’s happening with people going into hospital.”

She said delaying easing restrictions and vaccinating more people means the link between cases and the number of people in hospital “will be even weaker”.

Former chief scientific adviser Professor Sir Mark Walport has warned the country is “in the grip of the early stages of a third wave” of coronavirus.

The expert said the number of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 is rising, but not with the intensity seen in previous waves of the virus.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “Sadly we are in the grip of the early stages of a third wave of the virus and it is this Delta variant, the so-called Indian variant, which has a very significant transmission advantage over the previous Alpha variant, the so-called Kent variant – it’s about 60 per cent more transmissible.

“We’ve got 7,000 cases on average per day at the moment, and a doubling time which is somewhere around a week.

“More than 90 per cent of the new infections in the UK are of this variant, and it is rising in most parts of the country, though not all.”

Boris Johnson will announce the decision on the 21 June easing of restrictions at a press conference at 6pm today, Downing Street has confirmed.

The prime minister will be joined by England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.

Boris Johnson is expected to announce a four-week delay to easing remaining lockdown restrictions at a press conference today.

My colleague Joanna Taylor has put together this guide on when and where to watch the briefing:

Health minister Edward Argar has said he does not rule out shortening the gap between coronavirus vaccine doses for younger adults in England.

“We have shortened the gap for the over-50s from 12 to eight weeks,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“But we will be guided by the advice of JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) and the scientists on this.

“At the moment, we believe the right thing to do is to shorten the gap for the over-50s, but we are always open to scientific advice.

“If that is the scientific advice, of course we will look at it very carefully – but at the moment the advice we are getting is the approach that we are following, which is the over-50s, and we have got the supplies to do that.”

Professor Devi Sridhar, from the University of Edinburgh, said a third wave of cases largely in younger age groups was already happening “but the worry is that this will slowly move, like it has in previous waves, into older groups”, some of whom are not yet fully protected.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the goal was to “make this a manageable health issue” and use vaccines and testing to “keep the burden off health services”.

She added: “We’re really trying to break that chain between cases and hospitalisations and severe disease and maintain NHS capacity when burnout is already an issue within the NHS.”

Health minister Edward Argar has suggested England’s restrictions on weddings are set to be eased, as he said couples waiting to wed are “very much” in the mind of Boris Johnson at the moment.

“There will be a lot of couples who planned, hoped, to do it, put a line through it, done it again and rescheduled again,” he told Sky News.

“Not only does that cost money, but emotionally that is incredibly difficult for couples who want to have their special day and want to get married.

“Again, I’m not going to pre-empt what the prime minister will say later, but I know that weddings and people in that particular situation will be very much in his mind at the moment, it’s one of the things he has been looking at.”