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.”
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.
Photo by Chris Jackson – WPA Pool/Getty ImagesBritain’s prime minister Boris Johnson with partner Carrie Symonds
Downing Street has dismissed suggestions that Boris Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds is playing a “central role” in governing the country.
The prime minister’s press secretary Allegra Stratton described such claims as “incorrect”, pointing out that Symonds is on maternity leave and is due to take up a new job as head of communications for the Aspinall Foundation.
It came after the Bow Group, a Tory think-tank, called for an inquiry to determine her role in “governing” the UK, amid concern over her influence in No.10.
Symonds has become embroiled in a storm of briefings about a power struggle between competing factions inside No.10 after two of her allies, Baroness Finn and Henry Newman, were appointed as key Downing Street advisers.
Their appointments were followed by the resignation last week of former Vote Leave staffer and Dominic Cummings ally Oliver Lewis as head of No.10’s union unit, amid claims that the PM accused him of briefing journalists against Symonds’ ally Newman.
Key Johnson adviser Lord Frost, who worked closely with Lewis on Brexit negotiations, was also given a surprise promotion to the cabinet as the power struggle played out last week.
Some anonymous sources have briefed newspapers claiming Symonds’ influence hung over the wrangling.
But Stratton dismissed the claims.
Asked about the Bow Group’s suggestion that Symonds was playing a “central role in running the country, without any authority or accountability to do so”, Stratton told reporters: “It’s incorrect. The PM’s fiancée is on maternity leave, she’s raising their son Wilf and shortly she will be taking up a new role at wildlife charity the Aspinall Foundation.”
Stratton also stressed that the prime minister’s focus has been on the road map to lifting the coronavirus lockdown, which he will unveil on Monday.
Black LGBT+ young people’s mental health has been severely impacted by the pandemic according to groundbreaking new research, HuffPost UK can reveal.
While LGBT+ young people are more than twice as likely to be worried about the state of their mental health than their non-LGBT+ peers since the pandemic began, a new survey by charity Just Like Us has shown that Black young people within this cohort face increased struggles.
Black LGBT+ young people are more likely to be concerned about their mental health with almost two-thirds (61%) worrying about this on a daily basis, compared to just over half (51%) of white LGBT+ young people.
Chief Executive of Just Like Us, Dominic Arnall, says the pandemic is the “biggest risk to the mental health of LGBT+ young people since Section 28” and is calling for greater awareness of the unique issues that young Black people in this group particularly face.
“It’s devastating to see that Black LGBT+ young people have been particularly impacted by the pandemic.
“There needs to be much more awareness around the issues that Black LGBT+ young people are facing, and an intersectional approach needs to be taken to inclusive education in schools and mental health care for young people.
“It’s so important that if you are celebrating LGBT+ History month or School Diversity Week, make sure you include a diverse range of LGBT+ people including Black LGBT+ people and engage with organisations that do specific work in this area.”
Peter Cade
Black LGBT+ young people are also more likely to be experiencing depression, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and alcohol or drug dependence.
For white LGBT+ pupils, the likelihood of experiencing these are significantly lower: just under half of those surveyed say they have or are experiencing depression, an anxiety disorder, and fewer were enduring panic attacks, alcohol or drug dependence.
Black LGBT+ young people are also significantly more likely to be experiencing difficulties at home in lockdown, with a third (29%) reporting daily tension in the place they’re living, compared to a quarter (25%) of white LGBT+ young people.
Last year’s heightened racial tensions around Black Lives Matter protests have also compounded feelings of isolation among young, queer Black people.
Tara Moore
Samuel Picton, 20, who’s of dual ethnicity – white and Black Caribbean – said growing up in a small, predominantly white northern town can be quite isolating, due to limited understanding of being Black and LGBT+.
Speaking to HuffPost UK, he said: “I have friends who, like myself, are Black or mixed race and feel the same. I also know from my experience that the momentum that Black Lives Matter gained last summer had it’s challenges because of the pandemic. The protests were being blamed for a potential rise in Covid-19 cases, and the general experience of being on social media during this time – during a national lockdown – was very draining.”
Supplied
The Yorkshire-based student – who’s cisgender and gay – said while some young people have found an outlet through social media during the lockdown – it can be a toxic place that’s rife with negativity and, in his case, homophobia.
“I was removing people from my social media daily because of negative views. Social media in general can be so damaging to your mental health but I know many will have found an outlet in it during lockdown.
“To complicate things, seeing homophobic tweets from within the Black community then evokes the feeling of being othered within your own community. I’ve definitely been worried about my mental health over the past year because of these things […].”
Picton is a youth ambassador for Just Like Us ambassador and regularly speaks in schools – virtually at the moment – about being LGBT+ to help tackle the issues of isolation these pupils are facing.
Educational institutions need to do more, he said, and in this case use of technology could create safe spaces for students who require it.
“I think that a very small silver lining of this pandemic is that platforms such as Zoom have made it easier to create remote communities and this should definitely be utilised in the future in order to create safe spaces for young Black LGBT+ people,” Picton added.
“Having support groups in the local community would obviously be great, but certain communities may not have the funding, facilities or simply enough openly black LGBT+ people within them to make these groups up. Using Zoom to host groups, workshops, or just general chats with young Black LGBT+ people would definitely help to tackle these issues of isolation.”
Paula Abu
Speaking to the mental and emotional challenges faced by young LGBT+ people more generally, Dominic Arnall from Just Like Us said: “This is the biggest risk to the mental health of LGBT+ young people since Section 28.”
Section 28 of the Local Government Act, enacted in May 1988, prohibited “the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities”
“The pandemic has been a difficult period for everyone, but our research clearly demonstrates the impact of coronavirus and lockdown has not fallen evenly,” the chief executive added.
Moreover, the pandemic has particularly impacted the mental health of LGBT+ young people eligible for free school meals, transgender young people, and LGBT+ young people with a disability – 65% of these groups report are worrying on a daily basis for their mental health.
One secondary school pupil, 14-year-old Matthew, is pansexual and from Coventry. He said: “It has been a really scary time for everyone. I definitely feel less motivated and it’s very quiet.
“I also have had some panic attacks and am worried about being forgotten. If you don’t have a home life where people are accepting of being LGBT+, you need it to be accepted at school so you know it’s OK.”
Just Like Us surveyed 2,934 secondary school pupils (including 1,140 LGBT+ young people) in Years 7-13 (ages 11 to 18) across 375 schools and colleges in December 2020 and January 2021.
The data forms part of a larger report into inclusive education and the experiences of LGBT+ young people that charity Just Like Us is due to publish in June 2021.
Circle Creative Studio via Getty ImagesYoung woman holds a swab into her mouth and holding a medical tube for the coronavirus / covid19 home test
Surge testing is being rolled out in an area of Essex after a case of the South Africa coronavirus variant was found, the Department of Health has announced.
The increased surveillance will be undertaken in the CM13 postcode in Brentwood.
People living in the postcode area are “strongly encouraged” to take a test when offered, whether or not they have any symptoms of the virus.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “Working in partnership with the local authority, additional testing and genomic sequencing is being deployed to the CM13 postcode in Brentwood, Essex, where a single case of the Covid-19 variant first identified in South Africa has been found.”
The variant in question – also known as 501Y.V2 – was first detected in two people who arrived in the UK from South Africa in December 2020. ]
However, new cases have now been identified in people who haven’t travelled to the country, suggesting this variant could be spreading in the community.
The South African variant is thought to be far more transmissible, but not more lethal, than other variants of the coronavirus. There’s also emerging evidence to suggest it is less susceptible to immunity induced by the Covid-19 vaccines.
Surge testing has now been deployed in specific locations across numerous areas in England.
Sequencing of positive PCR tests – swabs that are processed in a laboratory – can take around two weeks, according to Public Health England.
The DHSC has said data on surge testing will be provided “in due course”.
Allowing families or friends to meet outside is “pretty safe” and will not contribute “much” to the spread of coronavirus, a government scientific adviser has said.
Sage member professor John Edmunds said allowing two households to meet outside would have little impact on the Covid R rate, which measures the number of people, on average, that each sick person will infect.
It comes amid reports that Boris Johnson will allow one-on-one outdoor meetings between different households in March and later wider gatherings of two households outside, to allow families to meet at Easter, when he sets out his plan to lift lockdown restrictions on Monday.
Asked if two households socialising outside was likely to have any effect on the R number, Edmunds told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “Not much, mixing outside is pretty safe.”
It came as health secretary Matt Hancock said Covid restrictions will be eased step-by-step, with weeks in between each relaxation.
Schools are the government’s priority and are scheduled to open on March 8 and Hancock said the government wants to see what impact children returning to the classroom has on infection rates before significantly easing other restrictions.
He told Times Radio: “Hence there will be weeks between the steps so that we can watch carefully.”
Hancock also said social distancing measures and the wearing of face coverings are likely to continue but hinted that they may not be legally required once more people are vaccinated.
He added: “I want to see it more about personal responsibility over time as we have vaccinated more and more of the population.”
Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), warned that disruption would continue in schools until children were vaccinated.
The prime minister on Saturday set new targets for vaccinating all over-50s by April 15 and all British adults by the end of July but did not mention children.
Edmunds said: “I think there’s an argument for turning to children (in the vaccine rollout) as fast as we can.
“I mean, I have two children myself, they are in secondary schools and I think that there has been major disruption at schools and there will continue to be major disruption in schools until we have vaccinated our children.”
Edmunds also warned that reopening schools would likely increase the R number close to 1.
If it rises above 1, it means the epidemic is growing again in the UK.
As of Friday, R was estimated to be between 0.6 and 0.9.
Asked if he would be more comfortable opening primary schools and then secondary schools later, Edmunds said: “Obviously I’m just sticking to the epidemiology rather than other needs.
“Of course there’s great needs to get our kids back in schools as fast as we can.
“But sticking to the epidemiology, yeah, of course, it’s always safer to take smaller steps and evaluate.”
Meanwhile, leading Tory lockdown sceptic Mark Harper said all legal Covid restrictions should be lifted by the end of April when all over-50s will have been offered their first vaccine dose.
“We think at that point people should be able to get on with their lives,” the chair of the Covid Recovery Group told Marr.
“The government may still give them health advice and there may be things people do voluntarily, but the legal restrictions should fall away at the end of April.”
He rejected suggestions that restrictions should be kept in place simply to prevent the emergence of new variants, which have more chance of mutating the higher the rate of transmission.
Harper said: “The way you protect against variants is our fantastic genomic sequencing programme and the fact that all of our vaccine developers will respond to changes in the virus by altering the vaccine – that’s the way you protect against variants.
“If we are going to say we are so worried about a future variant that might not be susceptible to the vaccine, that’s a recipe for never unlocking our economy and our society, and I don’t think that’s really an acceptable proposition.”
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have confirmed they will not be returning as working members of the royal family.
The announcement comes 12 months after they said they wanted to quit as senior royals.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed to Her Majesty The Queen that they will not be returning as working members of the royal family.
“Following conversations with the duke, the Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of the royal family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service. The honorary military appointments and royal patronages held by the Duke and Duchess will therefore be returned to Her Majesty, before being redistributed among working members of the royal family.
GettyThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex have stepped down officially as senior members of the royal family
“While all are saddened by their decision, the duke and duchess remain much loved members of the family.”
A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said: “As evidenced by their work over the past year, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain committed to their duty and service to the UK and around the world, and have offered their continued support to the organisations they have represented regardless of official role.
“We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.”
The decision was made after conversations between Harry and members of the royal family.
Sky News raised eyebrows by accidentally tweeting that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate, had quit the royal family, which would have been considerably more surprising.
The error was swiftly corrected.
TwitterSky News mistakenly said the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – William and Kate – were stepping down. The error was swiftly corrected.
Prince Harry will be stepping down from his role as RFU Patron.
We would like to thank Prince Harry for his time and commitment to the RFU both in his position as Patron and Vice Patron. The RFU has greatly valued his contribution to promoting and supporting the game. pic.twitter.com/9Gp3oyuYnD
The Rugby Football League thanks The Duke of Sussex for his time, care and commitment in supporting Rugby League at all levels in recent years – from the children’s game to the Challenge Cup, the England teams and RLWC2021. pic.twitter.com/tijl55hWsJ
The military, Commonwealth and charitable associations whose patronages will revert to the Queen are the Royal Marines, RAF Honington, Royal Navy Small Ships and Diving, the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, The Rugby Football Union, The Rugby Football League, The Royal National Theatre and The Association of Commonwealth Universities.
Harry and Meghan released their shock statement on January 8, 2020, saying they intended to step down and become financially independent, but still support the Queen – a dual role that in the end was unworkable.
They have settled into a new life in the US away from the monarchy secured lucrative multimillion-pound deals with both Netflix and Spotify and established their Archewell foundation.
Keir Starmer has announced he would create a “British recovery bond” to help provide money for investment in communities, as he denied being too “soft” on Boris Johnson.
The Labour leader used a speech on Thursday to call for a new “partnership” between business and the state as the country rebuilds from the coronavirus crisis.
He said next month’s Budget represents a “fork in the road” for society, with a chance to reject the “insecure and unequal economy” of the past and “begin a new chapter in the history of our country”.
Starmer warned Conservative MPs “simply don’t believe that it’s the role of government to tackle inequality or insecurity”.
“I fear that the Conservatives are incapable of seizing this moment. That what we will get on March 3 will be short-term and it won’t even be a fix,” he said.
The Labour leader has been hit by criticism from his own side in recent weeks, with some MPs concerned he has not taken the fight to the government enough.
One MP on Labour’s left-wing told HuffPost UK of Starmer’s speech: “If that’s the new chapter then people won’t be rushing out to buy the book.”
But Starmer said while it was right to support the government when it took the correct action to deal with the pandemic, such as imposing lockdowns, “we have challenged them when we thought they were getting it wrong”.
“I don’t think that’s soft, I think that’s the national interest,” he said. “I think the public would say, in a time like this, you back the things that the government is doing right and you challenge things that you think they are getting wrong.”
Accusing the prime minister of setting out a “roadmap to yesterday”, Starmer said Labour would extend the furlough scheme, end the pay the freeze for key workers and not cut the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.
Labour said people investing their savings in its recovery bond would see it used to rebuild communities and supporting businesses across the country after the pandemic through the new National Infrastructure Bank.
The Bank of England has estimated that by June 2021 households will accumulate £250bn in savings. But it expected on only around 5% of the savings will be spent.
Starmer said his “British recovery bond” was a “longer-term, secure way of investing” for people to see a return on their investments that would also help “build the infrastructure of the future”.
He also said a Labour government would increase support available for new businesses to help create 100,000 start-ups over the next five years.
Photo by Karwai Tang/Getty ImagesA care worker receives the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in Borehamwood.
A man was offered a Covid jab because the NHS had recorded his height as 6cm, meaning he was classified as morbidly obese.
A similar mix-up saw a woman wrongly offered a flu vaccine because she was thought to be 57cm tall instead of 5ft 7ins, while others have also had heights of less than a metre entered in their official records.
It came to light when journalist Liam Thorp tweeted last week that he had been offered his first coronavirus vaccine ahead of schedule, and couldn’t work out why.
“I am really confused why I would be offered at this stage when many more vulnerable or at risk groups haven’t been,” the political editor of the Liverpool Echo wrote.
The confusion cleared up when he rang his GP and discovered his height had been entered as 6.2cm rather than 6ft 2ins, “giving me a BMI of 28,000”.
So I’m not getting a vaccine next week – was feeling weird about why I’d been selected ahead of others so rang GP to check. Turns out they had my height as 6.2cm rather than 6 ft 2, giving me a BMI of 28,000 😂
Cue hilarity, with some people claiming it had them “crying” with laughter and that it was “the single best tweet of the entire pandemic”.
Others chimed in with similar experiences, including one person who said she had been invited for the seasonal flu jab a few weeks ago because her height had been recorded as 57cm rather than 5ft 7ins.
Writer and performer Natasha Hodgson only realised the mix-up when she turned up to receive the jab. “The nurse was brilliant and hilarious about it – she got up my records immediately when it was clear I was not, as was recorded on my records, currently morbidly obese,” she told HuffPost UK.
″[She] scanned my file and then burst out laughing: ‘According to this, you are 57cm tall. You’re a bowling ball!’”
OH SHIT, this happened to me last week! Was flagged as being offered a free flu jab, got there to discover according to NHS records I am 57cm tall and… dense. The nurse looked at me and said “YOU’RE A BOWLING BALL!” https://t.co/jE7TbPVoK0
The mistake was corrected immediately and Hodgson was not given the flu jab. “Obviously it’s good that they’re trying to push people in high-risk groups to get seasonal jabs, but yes, it looks like it’s not quite a perfect system,” she continued.
“To be honest, if I’m 57cm tall and 9 and a half stone, I’m amazed they only want to talk to me about my flu potential.”
Another person told HuffPost UK she had received an invitation to receive the Covid-19 vaccine on Monday because her BMI had been put down as 77 – three times what doctors consider a healthy weight.
“[My GP] was completely unsure how that happened, he says it was an error and that someone just entered it wrong. It makes sense now though as the NHS have been chasing me a lot to get my flu jab!” said town planner Lois-May Chapman.
“The doctor also despite everything being cleared up now with my BMI and myself falling in a healthy weight really encouraged me to get the jab and just count myself and very lucky.”
On Sunday the government confirmed more than 15m of the most vulnerable people in the UK have now had a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Those next in line to receive the jab include all those aged between 50 and 70, as well as those aged between 16 and 64 with underlying health conditions which puts them at higher risk of serious disease and death.
Boris Johnson has set a target of May to give the first jabs to these people, who are in the remaining priority groups five to nine, as set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Boris Johnson has hinted pubs, bars and other hospitality businesses will be the last to reopen when he lifts England’s lockdown in “stages”.
On Monday the prime minister is set to unveil his plan for the easing of restrictions over the coming months.
“It’ll be based firmly on a cautious and prudent approach to coming out of lockdown in such a way as to be irreversible,” he said on Wednesday. “We want to be going one way from now on based on the incredible vaccination rollout.”
Schools are expected to be the first part of society to reopen, with March 8 pencilled in as the earliest possible date.
Asked during a broadcast interview when the hospitality sector could be allowed to reopen in England, Johnson said: “I certainly think we need to go in stages. We need go cautiously.
“You perhaps remember last year we opened up hospitality fully as one of the last things we did. There is obviously an extra risk of transmission from hospitality.”
He added: “Just wait. We will try and say as much as we can on Monday.”
Dame Angela McLean, the chief scientific adviser at the Ministry of Defence, told MPs things were “all moving in the right direction” as infections are falling along with hospitalisation numbers and deaths.
But she also warned the lockdown should be lifted in a “cautious” way. “There’s still a lot of infected people out there,” she said.
The Daily Mail has reported ministers are weighing up allowing domestic holiday lets to open in time for the Easter weekend and that pubs could open in May, but with only two households permitted to mix indoors. According to the paper, the rule of six could then return for mixing inside by June.
Johnson’s comments came after NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson, who represents NHS trusts, said there was a “pretty clear view” the number of coronavirus infections needs to plummet to under 50,000 before lockdown should be eased.
The most recent estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released on Friday, suggested 695,400 people in England had Covid.
According to The Daily Telegraph cases would need to drop to 1,000 per day before lockdown could be softened, a figure suggested by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt earlier this month.
On Tuesday 10,625 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the UK, down from a peak of 68,053 on on January 8. The last time the infection rate was regularly below 1,000 a day was in August.
HuffPost is part of Verizon Media. We and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development.
Your personal data that may be used
Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address
Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps
To enable Verizon Media and our partners to process your personal data select ‘I agree‘, or select ‘Manage settings‘ for more information and to manage your choices. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls.
