Tag Archives: coronavirus

Boris Johnson Says Tough Border Controls Introduced ‘As Fast As We Could’

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Boris Johnson has said he moved “as fast as we could” to impose strict border controls, as health officials hunt for a person in the UK infected with a Brazil variant of Covid.

The prime minister said the government’s hotel quarantine programme, introduced on February 15, was “a very tough regime”.

The variant, known as P1, was first identified on January 10 in people arriving in Japan from Brazil and is thought to have originated in the Brazilian city of Manaus.

On January 14 the government banned travel to the UK from Brazil and other South American countries.

British nationals were still allowed to return but had to isolate for 10 days at home.

On January 27, the government announced plans to force arrivals from a “red list” of 33 countries, including Brazil, to quarantine in hotels.

But it did not come into force until 19 days later.

Public Health England (PHE) has found six UK cases of the P1 variant in the UK.

But one of the infected people, who was thought to have been tested on February 12 or 13, has yet to be identified. 

Asked on Monday if the government had been too slow to implement quarantine hotel measures. Johnson said: “I don’t think so, we moved as fast as we could to get that going.

“It’s a very tough regime. You come here, you immediately get transported to a hotel where you are kept for 10 days, 11 days.

“You have to test on day two, you have to test on day eight, and it’s designed to stop the spread of new variants while we continue to roll out the vaccination programme.

“We don’t have any reason at the present time to think that our vaccines are ineffective against these new variants of all types.”

The prime minister said PHE did not think the cases of the variant were a “threat to the wider public”.

Nick Thomas Symonds, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said the situation showed “unforgivable incompetence” from the government. 

“Despite being warned time and time again, they have failed to act to protect our borders against emerging Covid variants and could put at risk the gains from the vaccine,” he said.

“People will be appalled to hear someone with the Brazilian variant cannot be identified, raising questions about how many others may have been missed by quarantine measures.

“There is no excuse for continuing to ignore Labour’s call for a comprehensive hotel quarantine system.”

Labour has demanded a blanket approach that would see all arrivals placed into hotel quarantine, not just those from a limited number of countries.

MPs were told last week that only 1% of people arriving in the UK every day are required to isolate in hotels. 

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It’s Been One Year Since Trump Boasted 15 Covid Cases Would Soon Be ‘Close To Zero’

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Drew Angerer via Getty Images

More than 500,000 people have now died of Covid-19 in the US alone. It’s Been 1 Year Since Trump Boasted 15 COVID-19 Cases Would Soon Be ‘Close To Zero’

The US hit a tragic anniversary Friday, exactly 12 months after then-president Donald Trump gloated that the nation was doing a “pretty good job” against the spread of Covid-19 and that the 15 reported cases would quickly be “down to close to zero.”

He declared the following day that “like a miracle, it will disappear.”

The US Covid-19 death toll has now surpassed 510,000, with cases in the country topping 28 million.

The New York Daily News used Trump’s quote on the front page when the US passed a half million Covid-19 deaths on Monday. “So Far From Zero” the headline said.

The day before Trump’s 2020 prediction, Dr Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, warned: “We expect we will see community spread in this country. It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”

Trump threatened to fire Messonnier after her warning, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Yet Trump admitted to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward weeks before he claimed Covid-19 would vanish that he knew it was far more dangerous than he had let on.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a February 7 call with Woodward, who reported the conversation in his book “Rage.” “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your … strenuous flus …. This is deadly stuff.′ 

He told Woodward in March: “I wanted to always play it down.”

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Here’s What The Coronavirus R Rate Is Near You

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The UK’s Covid R rate has remained between 0.6 and 0.9, scientists advising the government have said. 

R measures the number of people, on average, that each sick person will infect.

If R is greater than 1 the epidemic is generally seen to be growing; if R is less than 1 the epidemic is shrinking.

The estimate, published on Friday and provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Department for Health and Social Care, is the same as last week.

Here’s what the R rate is in each region

In England as a whole, the R rate is 0.7 to 0.9, while regionally it is as follows:

East of England – 0.6 to 0.8 (last week 0.6 to 0.8)

London – 0.6 to 0.8 (0.6 to 0.8) 

Midlands – 0.7 to 0.9 (0.6 to 0.9) 

North-east and Yorkshire – 0.7 to 0.9 (0.7 to 1.0)

North-west – 0.7 to 0.9 (0.6 to 0.9)

South-east – 0.7 to 0.9 (0.6 to 0.8)

South-west – 0.6 to 0.8 (0.6 to 0.9)

In Scotland the latest figures estimate the R rate is between 0.7 and 0.9, the same as last week.  

In Wales the R rate has also remained the same, estimated to be between 0.7 and 0.9. 

And in Northern Ireland it is estimated to be between 0.8 and 1.5. 

It comes as the government announced it would accept the recommendation from its scientific advisers that the next phase of the vaccine rollout should continue to be based on age.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the under-50s should be give priority in this order:

  • All those aged 40-49 years
  • All those aged 30-39 years
  • All those aged 18-29 years

It rejected demands that key workers, such as teachers, be bumped up the list irrespective of age.

The JCVI said targeting occupational groups would be more complex to deliver and could slow down the vaccine programme, leaving some more vulnerable people at higher risk unvaccinated for longer. 

The latest official figures show 18,691,835 people have so far been offered at least one dose of a vaccine.

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Ministers Bury Government Research Into Why People Need Food Banks

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Press Association

Food bank supplies

Boris Johnson’s government has buried an internal review into whether welfare policies like Universal Credit are driving historic levels of food bank use. 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) began a study in 2018 investigating the impact of Universal Credit and other reforms were having on food poverty. 

Ministers were due to complete work in October 2019 but the snap general election campaign delayed the report, with MPs told it would be published in summer 2020. 

Now, the government appears to have shelved the report altogether.

Welfare minister Will Quince confirmed in a written statement that the DWP has “reallocated resources to prioritise work to help the Covid-19 effort”.

It comes after a Trussell Trust analysis found there had been a 61% increase in food bank use between October and December, and that families with children have been worst-hit by Covid uncertainty. 

Ministers have been under pressure to stamp out food poverty, with Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford leading a high-profile campaign for free school meals. 

Press Association

Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey

Labour MP Neil Coyle, who uncovered that the research has been shelved, told HuffPost UK: “The government claims its policies are not responsible for the dramatic rise in food bank use and food poverty since it came to power a decade ago, but the DWP won’t even publish its own research into how Universal Credit causes food bank dependency.

“Ministers have sat on the findings of government research for a year and a half and appear in deep denial about the level of the problem and the direct impact of their policies.

“Until ministers admit the link between their policies and rising food bank dependency, they will continue to see campaigns like that of Marcus Rashford, expose the extent of the problem their policies have caused and be forced into more humiliating climb-downs and more reactive, stopgap measures which cost taxpayers more overall.” 

The £200,000 DWP study was set up to examine “policy or operational practice that may have contributed to a rise in demand for food bank services”. 

In 2019, UN special rapporteur Philip Alston found that poverty in the UK was “systemic” and “tragic”. 

Quince said in the statement that the government had been supporting families struggling during the pandemic with welfare payments and extra cash handed to councils. 

He said: “Throughout this pandemic, this government has delivered an unprecedented package of support to protect jobs and businesses and, for those in most need, injected billions into the welfare system.

“The new Covid Winter Grant Scheme builds on that support with an additional £170m for local authorities in England, to support families with children and other vulnerable people with the cost of food and essential utilities this winter.” 

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Who Is Accountable For Kemi Badenoch’s Public Attack On Our Journalist?

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Some people call it “cancel culture”. Others call it accountability. Rightly or wrongly, your Twitter feed can get you in trouble at work, or worse. But we’ve now learned that members of our government are not held to the same standards as the rest of us.

It’s almost a month since Britain’s equalities minister posted an eight-tweet thread filled with false allegations about the conduct of HuffPost reporter Nadine White. Nadine had asked Kemi Badenoch, as one of parliament’s most senior Black MPs and the minister with the portfolio for race and inequality, why she hadn’t appeared in a video aimed at increasing uptake of the vaccine among Black people. She emailed the MP’s office, and the Treasury press team, where Badenoch also holds a ministerial role. Rather than respond via either of those channels, the minister fired off a Twitter tirade about how this routine press enquiry was a “sad insight into how some journalists operate”, describing it as “creepy and bizarre”. Nadine was forced to lock her Twitter account after she received abuse.

It took us a couple of hours to file a formal complaint with the Cabinet Office. It took them three and a half weeks to reply, but at last the government has seen fit to answer our complaint. 

Their letter is short and to the point. “I note that the tweets were not issued from a government Twitter account but instead from a personal Twitter account,” writes Cabinet Office permanent secretary Alex Chisholm. “The minister is personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct herself, and for justifying her own actions and conduct. As such, this is a matter on which the minister would be best placed to offer a response.”

The ministerial code states that “ministers of the Crown are expected to maintain high standards of behaviour and to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety”. But not, it seems, on their ministerial Twitter accounts. 

We were not alone in mistakenly thinking that the minister’s verified Twitter account, in which she describes herself as “Treasury & Equalities Minister”, was in some way linked to her job

How stupid of us. It is cold comfort that we were not alone in mistakenly thinking that the minister’s verified Twitter account, in which she describes herself as “Treasury & Equalities Minister”, was in some way linked to her job. The National Union of Journalists called Badenoch’s original outburst about Nadine “frankly weird, completely out of order and an abuse of her privilege”. The Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform flagged the incident as a potential threat to media freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, recorded the attack as a “violation of media freedom”. I wonder how many of Kemi Badenoch’s 40,000 followers are also under the impression that her Twitter account is a reflection of her professional role and work as an elected representative.

Also mistaken was No.10’s race adviser Samuel Kasumu, who was so upset about Kemi Badenoch’s behaviour that he handed in, but was then persuaded to withdraw, his resignation. Apparently unaware of that Kemi Badenoch’s official parliamentary Twitter account is only “personal”, he wrote: “I believe the Ministerial Code was breached. However, more concerning than the act was the lack of response internally. It was not OK or justifiable, but somehow nothing was said. I waited, and waited, for something from the senior leadership team to even point to an expected standard, but it did not materialise.”

Nadine is a reporter who has done crucial work for HuffPost UK on racial inequality in the UK, not least during the Covid pandemic. So it’s just as well that it was not in a ministerial capacity, but from her “personal Twitter account”, that the minister for equalities made a show of not understanding how news works. Had she only had her professional hat on, she might have remembered that journalists send literally hundreds of requests for comment every day to every institution in the UK in order to find out if a story is accurate. We don’t publish stories without doing this – indeed, no story was published in this case.

It is a little confusing that Kemi Badenoch published screenshots of messages sent to her professional address and the Treasury press office in a “personal” capacity. But it’s certainly a relief that, when she declared to her 39,000 followers that Nadine’s conduct was a “sad insight into how some journalists operate”, and accused HuffPost and Nadine of “looking to sow distrust”, she wasn’t speaking as a government minister – because these claims are not only unbecoming of a senior politician, but betray either an alarming ignorance of how the press fits into our democratic system or a cynical display of bad faith.

In the end, Kemi Badenoch broke her silence by contacting a journalist – not Nadine or anyone from HuffPost, but a reporter at her local paper, the Saffron Walden Reporter. In a statement, she repeated her defamatory allegations about Nadine, this time claiming we had “stoked” a “false story” on social media, claims that were withdrawn from publication when it was pointed out that there was no evidence for them.

This apparently did not trouble her ministerial employers in the Cabinet Office or No.10. Perhaps they might like to clarify whether someone is speaking in an official capacity when they begin a statement with the words “as Equalities Minister”. 

It is absurd to any reasonable person to suggest the words of a minister are somehow less accountable if they are written by them on Twitter than a press release, or were given in an interview.

So who is responsible for the actions of the government’s ministers, if not the government? The Cabinet Office was clear: “This is a matter on which the minister would be best placed to offer a response.” No.10 agreed, with the prime minister’s press secretary saying it was “a matter for Kemi Badenoch” –although she added: “That would not be how we in No.10 would deal with these things.” 

Kemi Badenoch’s office, however, does not agree that it her responsibility, telling Nadine this week: “She has nothing further to add beyond what is included in the letter sent earlier today from Alex Chisholm to your editor.” The same Alex Chisholm who made it very clear it was for her to respond.

This story is not just about a government machine that is out of touch with the realities of our digital lives. It is absurd to any reasonable person to suggest that the words of a minister are somehow less accountable if they are written by them on Twitter than if they appeared in a press release, or were given in an interview. If any member of the public were to tweet out emails sent to their work address, accompanied by a slew of false allegations, they would expect a swift call from HR. Indeed, someone might like to tell transport secretary Grant Shapps, who formally announces weekly updates to the government’s travel and quarantine policies through his own Twitter account, whose handle he literally read out in Parliament. 

The ministerial code, which the government concluded Kemi Badenoch had not breached with her public attack on a journalist doing her job, is built around the loftily-titled Seven Principles of Public Life. Hopefully ministers are asked to read it when they enter office. “Accountability,” reads one principle. “Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”

We’re a long way from David Cameron’s famously cringeworthy comment that “too many tweets might make a twat” – ministers of Kemi Badenoch’s generation are all too aware of how useful a platform Twitter is for their political and personal profile. But where they are rightly accountable for their conduct as elected representatives elsewhere in their lives, this effectively allows them impunity online.

The Cabinet Office themselves “noted” to us in their response that “the prime minister’s press secretary has already provided comments on this matter”, suggesting a tacit endorsement of their belief that this is not how a minister should behave. But both institutions apparently felt it was not their place to get involved.

Like a parent banning their teenager’s laptop but leaving them with a phone, Whitehall feels dangerously out of touch in providing such an obvious loophole. Remember next time you see a prospective candidate or councillor cancelled online for tweets they sent at university – our government ministers are allowed to say whatever they like.

Jess Brammar is editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK. Follow her on Twitter @jessbrammar

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Exclusive: Government Blocking Covid Families’ Access To Justice Using Threat Of Costs

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The government has been accused of using money as a way of blocking access to justice for bereaved Covid families.

Human rights lawyer Elkan Abrahamson says the government is using punitive costs orders to stymie the ability of thousands of grieving families to fight for a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

“They’re opposing everyone who’s raising these issues and saying: ‘You’re going to have to pay us a fortune in costs if you lose,’” he said.

“They’re using money as a way of blocking access to justice. That’s what it boils down to.”

Abrahamson, who is head of major inquiries at Broudie Jackson Canter law firm, is acting for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice in bringing legal action against the government.

The group of about 2,500 families is launching judicial review proceedings to try to compel the government to hold a public inquiry.

But before doing so they have been forced to raise substantial sums of money to cover the legal costs they could be forced to pay the government if the action is not successful.

Abrahamson said the government had refused to waive costs when asked by the campaign, but had also declined to tell the group how much it could seek to claim.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice began fundraising and has now got enough money to continue with its bid, which is expected to progress in the near future.

A separate case has shown the significant risks of bringing such legal challenges.

Earlier this month, the government asked for costs of up to £1m in a case brought by the Good Law Project for a judicial review over the award of contracts for personal protective equipment.

The action meant the small, not-for-profit organisation, which is funded by donations from the public, could have been liable for “eye-watering” costs if it lost the case.

“We cannot bear this kind of existential risk,” said Jolyon Maugham QC, director of Good Law Project.

The group applied to the High Court for a cost capping order to restrict the legal costs of both sides, which was granted on February 24.

It had asked for a cap of £100,000 but instead the order was granted at £250,000.

“If we lose the case, we are liable to pay a quarter of a million pounds to government, as well as needing to cover our own legal costs,” said Maugham. 

“Despite huge support from members of the public, generous individuals and organisations, we are still short.”  

Abrahamson said one compelling reason for holding a public inquiry into the pandemic is that the option of pursuing inquest proceedings has been effectively closed off to most families in relation to Covid-19 deaths.

“The coroners are very, very reluctant to actually look into anything more,” he said. “The guidance says if there’s an individual failing you can point to that leads to someone getting Covid, maybe they could look at it, but if it’s a generic failing, you can’t look at it.”

Deaths in relation to care home failings, failure to provide PPE, failings in the 111 system and delays in lockdown all fall outside this remit.

“The chief coroner has said there will be a [public] inquiry, but there isn’t one, that’s the problem,” said Abrahamson.

His firm is dealing with about 150 clients who want inquests to be held into the deaths of their loved ones.

But only five or six of these have actually moved forward to pre-inquest hearings, Abrahamson said.

HuffPost UK has approached the Cabinet Office for comment.

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Gwyneth Paltrow’s Methods For Treating Long Covid Called Out By NHS Medical Director

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A NHS medical director has criticised Gwyneth Paltrow after she revealed her methods for tackling the long Covid symptoms she has been suffering from since contracting the disease last year.

Earlier this month, the Oscar-winning actor-turned lifestyle guru revealed she had tested positive for coronavirus early on in the pandemic. 

She went on to disclose that she had been left with “long-tail fatigue and brain fog” and “high levels of inflammation” in her body.

The 48-year-old has since embarked on a “keto and plant-based” regime, with no sugar and alcohol, and fasts until 11am every day.

But Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, said that “serious science” should be applied and “influencers” have a responsibility after name-checking Gwyneth.

“Like the virus, misinformation carries across borders and it mutates and it evolves,” he told PA.

“So I think YouTube and other social media platforms have a real responsibility and opportunity here.

“In the last few days I see Gwyneth Paltrow is unfortunately suffering from the effects of Covid.

“We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS.

“We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that.”

Writing on her blog on her Goop website last month, the Hollywood star wrote: “So I turned to one of the smartest experts I know in this space, the functional medicine practitioner Dr. Will Cole. After he saw all my labs, he explained that this was a case where the road to healing was going to be longer than usual.”

Gwynnie being Gwynnie, the post then saw her discuss detoxing and other healing methods (including infrared saunas), which you can read more about on her website.

A number of Gwyneth’s A-list peers have spoken out about their own personal experiences of Covid-19, including Tom Hanks, who was among the first public figures to speak out about testing positive for the disease in March 2020.

Hugh Grant also shared recently that he believes he had Covid last February, stating: “It started as just a very strange syndrome where I kept breaking into a terrible sweat. It was like a poncho of sweat, embarrassing really.

“Then my eyeballs felt about three sizes too big and this feeling as though an enormous man was sitting on my chest.”

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Only 1% Of UK Arrivals Are Being Made To Quarantine In Hotels

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Only 1% of people arriving in the UK every day are required to quarantine in government-approved hotels, the Border Force director has revealed.

Speaking to the Commons home affairs committee on Wednesday, Paul Lincoln said “about” 14,000 or 15,000 people were coming into the country per day, which was “95% down” on the usual number for this time of year.

From February 15, people arriving from 33 “red list” countries including Portugal and South Africa have had to spend 10 days in isolation in hotels.

Lincoln said on average 150 people per day were being placed into the facilities.

Arrivals who are not required to quarantine in hotels must self-isolate at home. Lincoln told MPs the compliance with home isolation was “at least 85%”.

Amid concerns about new variants of Covid being imported into the UK, the Border Force director said the number of people arriving with coronavirus was “substantially lower” than 0.5% of the domestic case rate.

But Lincoln was unable to give a precise figure, saying Public Health England (PHE) would be publishing the number “in due course”.

Committee chair and Labour MP Yvette Cooper said the figures showed there was a “very leaky system” of quarantine.

Under England’s current national lockdown, international travel is illegal apart from in some limited circumstances.

But Boris Johnson’s roadmap for lifting the restrictions, announced on Monday, could see international travel could start as early as May 17.

It would need to be approved by a new “Global Travel Taskforce” that is being set up by the government to assess the risk of importing new variants of the virus from overseas.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, told the committee on Tuesday it was “far too early” for people to book holidays abroad.

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Ending Lockdown Too Fast Risks New Covid Variants Emerging, Top Scientist Warns

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

A security guard holds a sign at Blackburn Cathedral, which is being used as a mass vaccination center during the coronavirus outbreak in Blackburn. 

Ending Covid lockdown restrictions too swiftly could run the risk of new vaccine-resistant variants taking hold, top expert Sarah Gilbert has said. 

Speaking to MPs on Wednesday, Oxford University’s professor of vaccinology also warned relaxing restrictions too quickly could boost transmission of the virus. 

It comes after Boris Johnson this week revealed his roadmap out of lockdown, with a pledge to end all social distancing by June 21. 

Gilbert has urged caution, however, telling the Commons’ science and technology committee: “To make sure that we have the lowest chance possible of new variants arising we need to prevent the virus from transmitting between people and we’re now doing that very effectively with the vaccines.”

She added: “We cannot allow only the vaccines to do all the work of protecting the population, while at the current time in the UK we still have relatively high levels of transmission.

“And there is a danger that if measures are lifted too quickly that transmission could increase, and that puts us at a greater risk of selection of new variants that are not so well effectively neutralised by the virus.

“It wouldn’t be all or nothing but it could be a significant change, and we want to minimise the chances of that happening as much as we possibly can.”

Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) agreed “it’s really, really important that we don’t rush this”. 

He said: “I refer back to my original answer about vaccination not being the only way out pandemic.

PA

Prime minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street

“We must go slowly, and the reason is because we want to keep transmission down and we want to keep infection rates down. And if we don’t, we will lose all the benefits of those vaccines that we’ve acquired and in the last few months because we will get the environment for new variant strains to emerge and have ‘vaccine escape’. So it’s really, really important that we don’t rush this.”

Schools are scheduled to reopen on March 8, followed by relaxations of some social distancing measures later in the month. 

Non-essential shops, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and gyms will reopen no earlier than April 12 in the prime minister’s phased plan.

Johnson is under pressure from backbench Tory MPs in the Covid Recovery Group, who have been demanding the government speeds up the plan. 

The PM has argued, however, that England is taking a “cautious but irreversible” path out of lockdown. 

Scientists are still examining new data about how effective the vaccines are in reducing transmission and hospitalisations. 

Philip Dormitzer, vice president and chief scientific officer of viral vaccines at Pfizer, said the company believes its vaccine will protect against the variants seen to date.

He told the committee: “From real world effectiveness data, both UK and in Israel where the UK variant is common, we’re starting to get our first direct evidence, and we are seeing protection against the UK variant that is equivalent to the protection we saw in controlled trials before that variant was circulating.

“For other variants at this point we have to rely more on laboratory data, and the laboratory data thus far, I would say are quite reassuring.

“We do see with the South African variant some reduction in the level of neutralisation.

“So yes these mutations can reduce the level of neutralisation, but they do not reduce the level of neutralisation anywhere near as low as neutralisation that was observed at the time that people were protected in the trial.

“So we think it is likely that the vaccine will protect against the variants that we have seen to date, but the way to be sure is of course the real world data because laboratory measures of immunity cannot be translated directly to known protection –  that requires actually observing protection in the field.”

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Vaccine Passports For Pubs And Theatres To Be Reviewed

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Boris Johnson has said Michael Gove will lead a government review into the possible use of vaccine passports for entry into venues such as pubs and theatres.

The prime minister said Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, would ask for the “best scientific, moral, philosophical, ethical viewpoints” before reaching a conclusion.

But speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday, the day after unveiling his roadmap for ending England’s lockdown, Johnson said there were “deep and complex” ethical issues involved in introducing domestic vaccine passports.

“We’ve never thought in terms of having something that you have to show to go to a pub or a theatre,” he said.

“We can’t be discriminatory against people who for whatever reason can’t have the vaccine, there might be medical reasons why people can’t have a vaccine.”

He said when it came to foreign travel there was “no question” a lot of countries would demand proof people had received a Covid vaccine before being allowed entry.

“It’s going to come on the international stage whatever,” he said.

In December, Gove ruled out the introduction of vaccine passports. “I certainly am not planning to introduce any vaccine passports, and I don’t know anyone else in government who is,” he told Sky News.

Asked if there was a possibility they could be introduced, he added: “No.”

Johnson also said on Tuesday he was “very optimistic” that he will be able to ease all the restrictions by the June 21 target date.

But he said “nothing can be guaranteed” and warned the date could slip if people were not “prudent and continue to follow the guidance in each stage”.

“Some people will say that we’re going to be going too fast, some people will say we’re going too slow,” he added.

“I think the balance is right, I think it is a cautious but irreversible approach, which is exactly what people want to see.”

The relaxing of rules is heavily dependent on the progress of the vaccination programme. 

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme the government is working “incredibly hard” to ensure as many people as possible receive a jab.

“We want to see that vaccine uptake go as high as possible. But it’s absolutely on all of us to come forward and get the vaccine. It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

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