Coronavirus news – live: Teachers and parents criticise threat of fines for children who miss school as scientists claim to have found first patient reinfected with Covid-19
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Your support makes all the difference.Teaching unions and parents have hit back over the threat of fines if children do not return to the classroom next week, warning it could undermine trust between families and schools at a crucial point in the UK’s recovery from coronavirus.
It comes after Boris Johnson urged parents to send their children back to school when they reopen in England, saying that yet more time outside the classroom is a greater health risk than returning – a view echoed by Jennie Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, who said car crashes and flu were greater health dangers than Covid-19.
Scientists, meanwhile, claim to have found the first person to be reinfected with coronavirus – a man in Hong Kong who is believed to have caught one strain four months after battling a different incarnation of Covid-19.
The UK has recorded 853 new Covid-19 cases today, compared with 1,041 on Sunday, according to the latest government data.
Staff and pupils at a school in Scotland have been told to self-isolate after 22 people tested positive for Covid-19, Samuel Osborne reports.
Kingpark School in Dundee was closed last Wednesday for deep cleaning.
Some 17 staff, two pupils and three community contacts have tested positive, NHS Tayside said.
Tesco will create 16,000 new permanent roles, in addition to 4,000 jobs already created since the pandemic began, to support “exceptional growth” in its online business, Kate Ng reports.
The supermarket chain said the new roles include 10,000 pickers who will assemble customer orders and 3,000 delivery drivers. Other roles will be created in stores and distribution centres.
Spain reports 2,000 more cases
Spain has recorded 2,060 coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, below the levels seen last week, bringing the country's total number of cases to 405,436, the health ministry has reported.
Three people died from the virus over the same period, while the seven-day death toll was 96, the country's health ministry said, with the cumulative death toll reaching 28,872.
Infections have risen sharply since Spain lifted a three-month lockdown in late June, but deaths have been much lower than during the epidemic's late-March peak.
The latest figures could be modified in future as the official statistics are updated retroactively.
Greater Manchester's most senior police officer has revealed the difficult situations his officers are finding themselves in amid hundreds of reports of coronavirus social distancing violations, Tom Embury-Dennis reports.
Speaking to BBC's 5 Live Breakfast, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins revealed it was costing his force £100,000 each week to deal with reports of rule breaking amid a reimposition of local lockdown rules across Great Manchester, where different households are barred from mixing together indoors or in gardens.
In one incident, officers found themselves called out to a terminally ill child's birthday party.
41,433 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Monday, an increase of four on the day before, the government has revealed.
Separate figures published by the UK's statistics agencies show there have now been 57,000 deaths registered in the UK with Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate.
The government also said there had been a further 853 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus as of 9am on Monday.
Overall, 326,614 cases have been confirmed.
Usain Bolt has confirmed he is self-isolating after taking a coronavirus test on Saturday, Tom Kershaw reports.
Reports emerged today that the eight-time Olympic gold medallist had contracted Covid-19 after hosting a party in Jamaica for his 34th birthday.
He has since posted a video on Twitter, confirming that he is self-isolating as a precaution, but is yet to receive the result of his test.
We are asking if it is safe for schools to reopen, and if the adults the children come home to, the teachers they interact with and the wider community they may carry the disease to, are safe too, writes Kimi Chaddah in this piece for Indy Voices.
Teaching unions and parents have hit back over the threat of fines if children do not return to the classroom next week, warning it could undermine trust between families and schools at a crucial point in the UK’s recovery from coronavirus, Andrew Woodcock reports.
The head of the body representing parent teacher associations (PTAs) told The Independent Boris Johnson’s assertion of a “moral duty” to get youngsters into school after the enforced break was “very unhelpful” for many mothers and fathers who have legitimate concerns over the health of their children.
Dublin sees rise in cases
Irish health chiefs are closely monitoring an increase in Covid-19 cases in Dublin in recent days.
Ireland today reported more than 100 cases for the fifth time in 10 days, with almost half of the 147 new infections in the capital.
Chief medical officer Ronan Glynn said there was no suggestion currently that further measures would be needed in the city and hoped nationwide restrictions announced last week would bring cases down.
"It's not that there is a major problem, I'm not sounding an alarm but we have seen an increase in cases particularly in Dublin over the last number of days. It's just something we're watching closely," Dr Glynn told a news conference.
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