Boris Johnson frees people living ALONE to share overnight visits from Saturday with other singles or group households
- From Saturday two 'households' in England can form 'support bubbles' inside social distancing rules
- They can meet indoors and stay overnight without two-metre rule and other measures applying to them
- But one household must be a single person living alone or sole parent with kids in limit to changes
- Measure designed to help the lonely and isolated unveiled by PM as he faces fury over schools debacle
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Boris Johnson tonight gave the green light for two households to merge into 'support bubbles' from Saturday, but only if one of them contains just one adult.
His move lifted the sex ban for millions of people by freeing boyfriends and girlfriends to meet up indoors without breaking social distancing rules - but not if both parties live in multi-adult houses.
From Saturday two households in England will be able to form 'support bubbles' that allow them to meet indoors and stay overnight together without measures like the two-metre rule applying for the first time in months.
As well as couples, the rule change also allows family members like grandparents living alone to spend time with their grandchildren as the Government seeks to help lonely and isolated people.
But in a move which will dash the hopes of many - and avoid a free-for-all that could increase the spread of the virus - one of the two households in the bubble must be either a single person living alone or a single parent with children.
It means that the sex ban that came in at the start of June despite a general easing of the lockdown, will for some people be scrapped.
Older people living alone will be able to go and stay with their children, or have their grandchildren to stay at their own homes to help with childcare.
It also means single parents can do the same with their own parents - or another single parent - to make it easier for them to juggle work and their families.
The move, announced by the Prime Minister at tonight's Downing Street press conference, is designed to help the UK's 'many lonely or isolated people' who are seen as struggling the most during the months-long lockdown.
The Prime Minister said: 'I know how how difficult the past months have been for people cut off from their family and friends.
'There are still too many people, particularly those who live by themselves, who are by themselves and struggling'.
He admitted that there would be many people disappointed by the restrictions on eligibility but cautioned that the change was not an excuse for a free-for-all.
'We are making this change to support those who are particularly lonely as a result of lockdown measures,' he said.
'It's a targeted intervention to limit the most harmful effects of the current social restrictions.
'It is emphatically not designed for people who don't qualify to start meeting inside other people's homes, because that remains against the law.'
In other coronavirus developments today:
- The UK faces the biggest hit of any major economy, with GDP set to plunge by 11.5 per cent this year, the OECD think-tank warned today;
- Boris Johnson has hinted that the two-metre social distancing rule will be eased as case numbers fall as he faced a Tory backlash over the economic 'devastation' it is causing;
- Covid-19 outbreaks have been worse in areas with major airports and large numbers of travellers passing through them, according to a report from the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP);
- Figures on how many people have been contact traced could finally be published tomorrow, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock has admitted the NHS app is not yet ready to go into use.
The move, announced by the Prime Minister at tonight's Downing Street press conference, is designed to help the UK's 'many lonely or isolated people' who are seen as struggling the most during the months-long lockdown
School children under the age of 15 have a very low chance of dying from coronavirus, according to statistics
The plan announced does not allow two-parent families to form a support bubble with another similar family.
It means that thousands of married couples struggling to hold down their jobs and home-school and care for children will still have to go it alone.
And in another restriction, households cannot be in more than one bubble, meaning some agonising choices to be made.
Additionally, if any members of a bubble come down with coronavirus symptoms, all members of it will have to self-isolate for 14 days as per current advice.
There is no limit on the distance between the two homes in the bubble. Local homes would be preferred but officials accept this is not always possible.
But questions are likely to be asked over how well the scheme can be policed, with No 10 admitting it will be 'based on trust'.
Downing Street also admits many people who are not eligible will be unhappy but said it was important to move slowly to avoid a second peak in coronavirus deaths.
And officials have advised people who are currently shielding not to take part, saying it is too high a risk for them.
The sex ban was revealed at the start of June when new coronavirus regulations ruled no persons may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of two or more persons.
Only those with 'reasonable excuses' are allowed to gather privately - and sex is not one of those reasons listed.
Downing Street admitted at the time that police did not have the power to go into people's homes if they believed the law was being broken, meaning it was almost completely unenforceable.
The announcement came as Britain's coronavirus death toll jumped by 109 to 40,992.
Mr Johnson has also earlier hinted that the two-metre rule will be eased as coronavirus case fall as he faced a Tory backlash over the economic 'devastation' it is causing.
The PM is coming under growing pressure to relax the instruction, which is hampering the return of schools and crippling swathes of UK plc.
Senior Conservatives are increasingly furious, with some branding the premier's leadership on the issue 'pitiful'.
There are claims that the government is preparing a shift in approach next month when pubs are due to get the go-ahead to open gardens.
In the Commons this afternoon, Mr Johnson acknowledged that the advice from SAGE was that the risk did increase significantly as the distance lessened.
But he said: 'There are all sorts of views about the two-metre rule, he's absolutely correct in what he says about the Sage advice.
'But clearly, as the incidence of the disease comes down, as I think members of Sage would confirm, the statistical likelihood of being infected - no matter how close or far you are from somebody who may or may not have coronavirus - goes down.'
Mr Johnson is also feeling the pressure over the failure to ensure all primary school children are back in classrooms before the summer.
He and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer took potshots at each other in the Commons today as parents vented fury about the lack of a plan to get schools back up and running.
In petulant exchanges at PMQs, Mr Johnson faced an onslaught from the Labour leader who accused him of 'flailing around' while millions of children missed out on their education.
But Mr Johnson raged that Sir Keir had been 'flip-flopping' over whether schools were safe to return or not, had not honoured his pledge to work together on the crucial issue, and needed to speak to his 'left-wing friends' in the teaching unions.
'I really think he needs to make up his mind,' the premier swiped.
The two politicians ended up squabbling during the seven-minute clash over whether they had discussed the subject in a phone call, leaving parents none the wiser over when and how children will return to school.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson admitted yesterday that the 'ambition' of getting all primary age children back in class for a month before the summer break has been ditched, just weeks after it was set.
And Government sources have refused to confirm that all pupils at either primary or secondary schools will be able to go back full-time after the holidays, merely saying they hoped 'more' could return.
Children's Commissioner Anne Longfield has accused ministers of 'furloughing childhood', while parents voiced anger that non-essential shops, McDonald's and zoos are reopening on Monday before most schools. Former chief inspector of schools Michael Wilshaw said the government's approach had been a 'mess' and was fuelling a 'tragedy' for young people.
Tory MPs are among those who have demanded a route map to get children back to school. Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, warned that 700,000 of the most vulnerable pupils were doing no work at home at all and many do not even have access to computers, predicting an 'epidemic of educational poverty' without more assistance.
Meanwhile, there is pressure for a Nightingale hospitals-style operation to use community halls and churches as temporary classrooms.
Beleaguered Boris Johnson says it is 'too early to judge' success of UK's coronavirus battle after Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson claims Britain's death toll would have been HALVED if draconian measures were introduced one week earlier
Boris Johnson pleaded with the public not to judge him over the UK's massive coronavirus death toll tonight after a top scientists claimed up to 25,000 British lives could have been saved if lockdown had started just a week sooner.
The Prime Minister struggled under a barrage of questions at tonight's Downing Street press conference after Professor Neil Ferguson's bombshell revelation to MPs this afternoon.
Mr Johnson imposed the lockdown on March 23 on the back of the Imperial College London scientist's grim modelling, which predicted 500,000 people could die if the virus was left unchecked.
But Ferguson, dubbed 'Professor Lockdown' conceded this afternoon that, in hindsight, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the lockdown had come a week earlier.
Britain has officially suffered 40,000 fatalities where Covid-19 was the definite cause of death - the most in Europe and only second to the US.
But the true death toll is thought to be above 50,000 according to estimates which factor in suspected cases who did not receive a test.
Facing the public and reporters tonight Mr Johnson highlighted the number of questions about past actions, when he wanted to focus on the future with an announcement on easing the lockdown for the most isolated Britons
'At the moment it is simply too early to judge ourselves,' he said.
'We simply don't have the answers to all these questions.'
Asked about what his biggest regret from the crisis is, the PM said: 'Of course we are going to have to look back on all of this and learn lessons that we can.
'But, frankly, I think a lot of these questions are still premature.
'There are lots of things, lots of data, things that we still don't know, and this epidemic has a long way to go, alas.
'Not just in this country, but around the world.'
But chief medical officer Professor Christ Whitty was more forthcoming, saying: 'I think there is a long list, actually, of things that we need to look at very seriously.
'If I was to choose one, it would probably be looking at how we could ... speed up testing very early on in the epidemic.
'Many of the problems that we have had came because we were unable to actually work out exactly where we were.'
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour's shadow health and social care secretary, said: 'The tragic reality is Boris Johnson was too slow to take us into lockdown, too slow on PPE for health and care staff, too slow on testing and now too slow on putting in place a functional test and trace regimes.
'Ministers must accept they made mistakes and reassure they have learnt lessons so we can save as many lives as possible and minimise harm from this horrific deadly virus.'
The Prime Minister struggled under a barrage of questions at tonight's Downing Street press conference after Professor Neil Ferguson's bombshell revelation to MPs this afternoon
Britain's death toll from COVID-19 could have been halved if lockdown was introduced a week earlier, 'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson has claimed
Facing the public and reporters tonight Mr Johnson highlighted the number of questions about past actions, when he wanted to focus on the future. 'At the moment it is simply too early to judge ourselves,' he said
Professor Ferguson made the stark admission at a virtual House of Commons Science and Technology Committee briefing today in a rare public appearance since flouting stay at home rules to have secret trysts with his married mistress
Professor Ferguson made the stark admission at a virtual House of Commons Science and Technology Committee briefing.
It was one of only a handful of public appearances made by the former SAGE scientist, who was forced to stand down from the group after flouting stay at home rules to have secret trysts with his married mistress.
Professor Ferguson also claimed that Britain missed 90 per cent of its coronavirus cases because it was not screening passengers at airports, in a thinly-veiled jab at the Government.
The epidemiologist told MPs today: 'The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.
'So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have then reduced the final death toll by at least a half,' Ferguson said.
'So whilst I think the measures ... were warranted ... certainly had we introduced them earlier, we would have seen many fewer deaths.'
Professor Ferguson claimed that a lack of screening at airports was the route cause of Britain's catastrophic outbreak.
He claimed he was sounding the alarm about imported cases coming from Italy and Spain since February.
Professor Ferguson criticised the UK for taking too long to ramp up its testing capacity, which meant swabs were reserved for only very sick Covid patients.
The result was that thousands of infected people were allowed to fly in from Europe and spread the virus through the UK.
Professor Ferguson told MPs: 'We tried very hard to estimate what proportion of cases were being missed. At the time [before lockdown] we didn't have a policy of screening people at borders and we estimated then that two-thirds of cases were being missed.
'What we know now is... it's probably 90 per cent of cases imported to this country were missed.
'These were really decisions made by the Foreign Office and by the Department of Health and Social Care, not by SAGE.
'SAGE recommended that when a country had been identified as having active transmission, we should check travellers from those countries.
'The difficult was we know now, particularly with Spain and Italy, had large epidemics before they even realised. We were just not aware of the scale of transmission in Europe.
'Had we had the testing capacity then certainly screening everybody with symptoms coming in would've given us a much better impression of where infections were coming from.'
Epidemiologist Mark Woolhouse, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and an adviser to Tony Blair's Government during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, told the committee that he feared lockdown would be worse for the nation's health than coronavirus itself.
He said: 'I don't think we will be able to do a full reckoning of the cost of lockdown for some time yet. I have no doubt that lockdown itself will cause a loss of livelihoods, loss of wellbeing and, quite possibly, a loss of lives of itself.
'But we won't be able to balance that out for some time. I fear that, to a degree, in the UK... lockdown may be considerably worse than the disease itself.'
It comes after a study in May predicted 30,000 lives would have been saved if the UK locked down a week before March 23.
The claim was made by mathematical sciences expert Dr John Dagpunar, from the University of Southampton.
He predicted how different scenarios could have affected the progress of the outbreak in Britain and suggested that starting the lockdown on March 16 could have limited the number of deaths to 11,200.
Detailed statistics predict that more than 50,000 people have already died with COVID-19 in the UK, but this study from the University of Southampton suggests that number could have been kept to 11,200 if lockdown was introduced a week earlier
Britain was one of the last countries in Europe to put the rules in place - Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Austria, Spain and Italy had done it days or weeks earlier.
Dr Dagpunar said in his paper 'literally, each day's delay in starting lockdown can result in thousands of extra deaths... it does pose the question as to why lockdown did not occur earlier?'
Dr Dagpunar's study considered the number of people infected with the virus, its rate of reproduction, hospital bed and staff capacity, and the proportion of patients who die, among other factors.
He calculated the death rate to be one per cent, and the pre-lockdown reproduction rate (R) to be 3.18, meaning every 10 patients infected a further 32.
The paper estimated that 4.4 per cent of all patients need hospital treatment, 30 per cent of whom will end up in intensive care.
Of the intensive care patients, a hospital stay lasts 16 days on average and half of them go on to die.
Of the other 70 per cent, a hospital stay averages eight days and 11 per cent die.
Running these factors through an algorithm based on the timing of the UK's outbreak, Dr Dagpunar suggested that the March 23 lockdown could have resulted in a total of around 39,000 deaths. Britain is known to have passed this grim landmark number already.
If lockdown had been started a week earlier, on March 16, the model suggested, there could have been a 'very large reduction' in deaths, limiting them to around 11,200.
The virus would have infected four per cent less of the population in this scenario (two per cent compared to six per cent), the study said, and the demand for hospital beds would have been lower.
Dr Dagpunar said: 'In hindsight [this] clearly illustrates that earlier action was needed and would have saved many lives.'
He said the number of people who would go on to die in the scenarios was 'extremely sensitive' to the timing of the lockdown.
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2020-06-10 18:26:49Z
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