Britain has recorded four new daily Covid deaths and 1,926 cases today as Matt Hancock urged people to hug ‘carefully’ and get jabbed to prevent the new Indian strain spreading ‘like wildfire’.
The government’s Covid dashboard showed there was an eight per cent increase in cases over last week, as most of the UK prepares to loosen Covid restrictions tomorrow.
England recorded three deaths and 1,471 new daily cases of coronavirus.
Scotland has recorded no new deaths and another 292 cases of coronavirus, with the latest daily figures from the Scottish Government showing a test positivity rate of 2 per cent.
With the exception of Glasgow and Moray, mainland Scotland is due to move from Level 2 to Level 3 restrictions on Monday.
There have been a further 54 cases of coronavirus in Wales, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 212,149.
Public Health Wales said there had been one further death, taking the total in the country since the start of the pandemic to 5,559.
Pubs, restaurants and cafes will be able to serve indoors, and cinemas and other businesses allowed to reopen, as Wales moves to Covid alert Level 2 as of Monday.
New evidence gives a ‘high degree of confidence’ that coronavirus vaccines work against the Indian variant, Matt Hancock said as he urged people to get jabbed.
The Health Secretary said on Sunday it is ‘appropriate’ to push on with the major easing of restrictions in England on Monday despite concerns from scientists that it could be 50 per cent more transmissible than the Kent strain.
Hancock also warned people to ‘be careful’ when hugging others tomorrow, as England prepares to open theatres, cinemas and art galleries for the first time this year.
Restaurants and pubs will also be able to serve customers indoors for the first time since December.
Mr Hancock did not rule out the possibility of imposing local lockdowns in areas such as Bolton to stem the spread of the variant, although he said it is ‘relatively widespread in small numbers’ elsewhere.
Ministers are hoping surge testing and the acceleration of second vaccine doses can allow a safe opening up of the nation, with jabs due to be extended to the over-35s this week.
Four people are known to have died from the Indian variant but appearing on TV this morning Mr Hancock said those who had been hospitalised were ‘largely people who are eligible for the vaccine but have not taken it’.
Matt Hancock today warned people to ‘be careful’ when hugging others on Monday, as England prepares to finally unlock
Hancock said five people who have had a single jab have been hospitalised with the Indian variant in Bolton, and one who had received both.
He told The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC: ‘We think that there are five people who have ended up in hospital having had one jab.’
Asked about people who have received two jabs, he said: ‘We think there’s one person, but that person was frail.
‘A small number have had one jab and then there’s one case where they’ve had two jabs and they’ve ended up in hospital and they were frail.’
Asked if anyone had died with the Indian variant after receiving two jabs, Mr Hancock said: ‘Not that we’re aware of.’
Mr Hancock said there are now more than 1,300 cases of the Indian variant in total and it is becoming ‘the dominant strain’ in areas including Bolton and Blackburn in the North West.
But offering good news over plans to ease restrictions without unleashing a fresh wave of infections and deaths, Mr Hancock said there is ‘new very early data’ from Oxford University giving confidence that existing vaccines work against the variant.
‘That means that we can stay on course with our strategy of using the vaccine to deal with the pandemic and opening up carefully and cautiously but we do need to be really very vigilant to the spread of the disease,’ the Health Secretary told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday.
‘We have a high degree of confidence that the vaccine will overcome.’
Oxford University said the data is preliminary and it is unable to share the research because it is not yet written up in a manuscript.
But Sir John Bell, the regius professor of medicine at the university, said the result of lab experiments investigating whether the vaccine neutralises the variant ‘looks okay’.
He told Times Radio: ‘It’s not perfect, but it’s not catastrophically bad.
‘There’s a slight reduction in the ability to neutralise the virus but it’s not very great and certainly not as great as you see with the South African variant… It’s rather close to the Brazilian version where the vaccine serum seems to be very effective in neutralising the virus.’
Mr Hancock warned the highly transmissible variant can ‘spread like wildfire among the unvaccinated groups’ as he urged people to come forward for jabs when eligible.
‘In Bolton, where we’ve seen a number of people in hospital with this new Indian variant, the vast majority of them have been eligible for a jab but not taken the jab,’ he said.
As Government scientific adviser Professor Sir Mark Walport warned the pandemic is at a ‘perilous moment’, Mr Hancock insisted it is right to continue with Monday’s easing of restrictions.
People will be able to socialise indoors in homes, pubs and restaurants, and will be permitted physical contact between households for the first time in more than a year.
The Health Secretary said the extent of the increase of transmissibility of the variant is unknown ‘so that’s why it’s appropriate to continue down the road map but people need to be cautious and careful’.
He did not rule out that the easing may have to be reversed if the Indian variant proves to be very-highly transmissible, and he said the possibility areas such as Bolton could be forced into local lockdown if testing and vaccinations are not effective enough.
‘Given though Bolton has been in some form of kind of a lockdown for a year, it’s not a step we want to take but of course we might have to take it and we will if it’s necessary to protect people,’ he told Ridge.
With surge testing also underway in areas of Blackburn, Sefton and London, Mr Hancock said the Government will decide on June 14 whether all legal restrictions can be ended in the final step of the road map out of lockdown on June 21.
And he confirmed that over-35s will be invited to book their Covid-19 jabs this week.
Theatres, cinemas and art galleries will be allowed to open across the country for the first time this year when more lockdown measures are eased tomorrow
Restaurants and pubs will also be able to serve customers indoors since December. Pictured: A waitress at a bar brings out pints to customers in Edinburgh
Ahead of the big unlock, venues have already begun selling out, with the famous Globe Theatre reportedly sold out until the middle of next month. Pictured: The National Theatre in London is also opening tomorrow
Ahead of the big unlock in England tomorrow, venues have already begun selling out.
Seats at the famous Globe Theatre reportedly unavailable now until the middle of next month
And Grayson Perry’s Manchester Art Gallery exhibition is also said to booked out throughout May and into June.
But delivering a stark reality check, the Health Secretary today warned about the ‘risk’ of meeting indoors.
The warning comes as fears continue over the spread of the Indian Covid variant in the UK.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Mr Hancock said: ‘We should all be careful, we all know the risks, outside is safer than inside – so even though you can, from tomorrow, meet up inside, it’s still better to meet up outside.
‘Of course there are people who have been yearning to have some physical contact – you should do that carefully.
‘If you’ve had both jabs more than two weeks ago, that’s much safer.
Asked who he planned to hug first, with the Government set to relax rules tomorrow on contact with close family and friends, he said: ‘I was asked on Tuesday and I said the thing I’m really looking forward to is hugging my mum, she’s had two jabs – actually dad got quite upset about that.
‘I’m really looking forward to hugging you as well, dad, but we’ll probably do it outside and keep the ventilation going: hands, face and space.’
It comes as art venues will be able to indoor areas for the first time this year.
Measures are being lifted on Monday to allow all art venues, museums and theatres to open as part of a raft of new lockdown easing measures.
But, with Britons now having had their freedoms curtailed for the last five months, many are now rushing to get back to visit their favourite cultural sites.
According to the Sunday Times, Shakespeare’s Globe in London tickets are sold out until the middle of next month.
And the paper reports that Grayson Perry’s upcoming exhibition at Manchester’s has also booked out until the end of next month.
The vast majority of free tickets up until June were reportedly booked within eight hours of going online.
A waiting list has been set up, with opening times to be extended, with 500 people already signed up.
Similarly, tickets for exhibitions at the Tate Modern and David Hockney’s exhibition at the Royal Academy have also sold out until later this year.
In the cinemas, families are busy booking up Peter Rabbit 2, while Oscar-winning Nomadland is expected to be a firm favourite with movie-fans.
It comes as, despite his cautious tone, Mr Hancock backed England’s vaccine roll-out to beat the new Indian Covid variant.
He said there was evidence existing jabs could deal with the highly contagious new strain and keep the move out of lockdown on track.
The Health Secretary also said that a new Oxford University investigation showed that the innoculations available were effective against the variant which is now dominant in some Northern towns.
Four people are known to have died from the Indian variant but appearing on TV this morning Mr Hancock said those who had been hospitalised were ‘largely people who are eligible for the vaccine but have not taken it’.
It came as Boris Johnson today pledged to increase the speed of Britain’s vaccine roll-out to a million jabs a day in an attempt to beat the increasing prevalence of the variant amid fears it could derail the country’s exit from lockdown.
Appearing on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday he said: ‘There’s new very early data out from Oxford University, and I would stress that this is from the labs, it’s not clinical data, and it’s very early.
‘But it does give us a degree of confidence that the vaccines work against this Indian variant, but it is clearly more transmissible and has been spreading fast in the groups where there’s a cluster.
Boris Johnson (pictured) will proceed as planned with tomorrow’s reopening of pubs and restaurants for indoor dining, but has warned that the Indian variant poses ‘a real risk of disruption’ to the end of social distancing on June 21
‘That means that we can stay on course with our strategy of using the vaccine to deal with the pandemic and opening up carefully and cautiously but we do need to be really very vigilant to the spread of the disease.
‘We have a high degree of confidence that the vaccine will overcome.’
But Mr Hancock did strike a note of more caution over the final release from lockdown on June 21, saying the final decision would not be taken until June 14.
Sage’s Professor John Edmunds urged the country not to panic over the new variant, telling the BBC’s Marr that those who have been vaccinated are unlikely to experience more than mild Covid symptoms from it.
Meanwhile a growing number of questions are also being asked about the failure to make people arriving into the country from India quarantine earlier, after it emerged the government failed to put India on the ‘red list’ even though infection rates were nearly 50 times higher among arrivals from the country than the rest of the UK.
Of the 3,345 people touching down in Britain from India between March 25 and April 7, some 4.8 per cent tested positive for Covid, compared to just 0.1 per cent of people in England, Public Health England data shows.
It is the latest statistic to be brandished at the Prime Minister, with pressure growing over his decision to delay banning travel from the Asian nation until late April, even though flights to and from neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh were restricted two weeks earlier.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper today called for tomorrow’s lifting of the ban on international travel to be halted.
Mr Hancock defended the timing of when the Government put India on the travel ‘red list’ although he sidestepped questions on whether the decision was linked to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s planned – and then postponed – trip to the country.
The Health Secretary told Sky News: ‘This variant was notified as a variant under investigation after we’d already put India on the red list. The decision to put India on the red list was taken because of the high positivity rate of people coming from India and looking at the epi-curve in India.
‘When we put Pakistan on the red list at the start of April that’s because the proportion of people testing positive coming in from Pakistan was three times higher the proportion coming from India, and it was only after we put India on the red list that this variant went under investigation, and then earlier this month it became a variant of concern.’
Asked about the impact of Mr Johnson’s planned trip to India in late April in a bid to assist trade talks, Mr Hancock replied: ‘We take these decisions based on the evidence.’
He then went on to repeat comments made about the Government’s approach to India.
Prof Edmunds also defended the Government, saying that closing the border earlier would have delayed the variant’s arrival but not prevented it.
He added that people should be ‘concerned but not panicking’ when it comes to the spread of the Covid-19 variant first identified in India.
He said while the variant is a ‘new threat’ the UK is in a much better position compared to before Christmas when the Kent variant was detected.
Speaking on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, he said: ‘I think we should be concerned but not panicking. We’re in a much, much better place now than we were when the Kent variant first hit us back in November, December.’
He added: ‘Now the hospitals are empty, thankfully, or virtually empty of Covid patients and two-thirds of the adult population have been vaccinated.
‘So we are in a much better position now to cope with this new threat – and it is a new threat – but we’re not in the same position as we were back in December.’