Coronavirus news: Pubs could have to close to keep schools open in local lockdowns, as Sturgeon admits failings on exam grades
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Your support makes all the difference.Pubs may be forced to close in areas under local coronavirus lockdowns so that schools can remain open, Downing Street has said.
Boris Johnson has said the UK has a moral responsibility to get children back into the classroom.
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon has apologised to Scottish exam students who were marked down "because of an algorithm".
She said: "In a very difficult and unprecedented situation, we took decisions that we thought on balance were the right ones."
The number of NHS contact tracers are to be slashed by a third, while the rest are set to be redeployed locally.
Announcing the changes to the NHS Test and Trace programme, the Department for Health and Social Care said it would cut the number of national contact tracers by 6,000 by 24 August.
Holyrood to introduce remote voting
Scottish Parliament members will be able to vote remotely as the assembly gets back to business this week.
In an email to MSPS, presiding officer Ken Macintosh announced the measure which outgoing members had called for.
They believe it could be a way of reducing the strain on those who have a young family or represent more remote areas of Scotland.
Mr Macintosh said measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus "are here for the longer term" and would have to be taken into account by parliamentary officials.
Government's priority is getting pupils back into school, PM says
It is not right that children be forced to spend yet more time out of the classroom because it is bad for their health, Boris Johnson has said.
Speaking to reporters at a school in east London, the PM said: "It's much much better for their health and mental wellbeing, obviously their educational prospects, if everybody comes back to school full-time in September.
"It's our moral duty as a country to make sure that happens."
Mr Johnson praised the work of education unions in making classrooms safe.
He added: "It's very important that everybody works together to ensure that our schools are safe and they are - they are Covid secure - I have been very impressed by the work that the teachers have done, working with the unions, to make sure that all schools are safe to go back to in September.
"A lot of work being done over making sure that there's social distancing, bubbling, staggered start times, all that kind of thing.
"But, basically, the plan is there - get everybody back in September, that's the right thing for everybody.
"We think that education is the priority for the country and that is simple social justice."
PM warns on foreign holidays
Boris Johnson has said ministers will "not hesitate" to impose quarantine on travellers from other countries to the UK if they deem it necessary.
The PM said: "I don't want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions, they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly.
"But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we've got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
"Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so.
"It's been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want reinfection and that's why we've got to keep a very, very close eye on the data in destinations around the world."
Ministers' decision to impose quarantine on tourists returning from Spain, after initially declaring the country safe, caused huge disruption - including to the transport secretary's own holiday.
'Green shoots of hope' in battle against virus
The world is witnessing “green shoots of hope” in its battle against Covid-19, the head of the World Health Organisation has said.
One in three UK firms expect job losses by autumn
One in three companies expect to make redundancies by the end of September in a blow to Britain’s hopes of economic recovery, a new survey has found, writes Adam Forrest.
Workers in manufacturing, construction and IT will be hardest hit by the next wave of cutbacks, according the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and recruiter the Adecco Group.
Their latest survey suggests the jobs market will continue to shrink through the summer, with the number of employers expecting to hire workers falling further below the number planning for redundancies.
Bosnian tourism collapses
Bosnia's tourism sector shrank by 70.6 per cent year-on-year in the first six months of 2020 because of Covid-109, official data has revealed.
Before the pandemic, the Balkan country had recorded several years of double-digit tourism growth, with 1.5 million visitors in 2019.
But thousands of workers in tourism, which last year accounted for 10.2 per cent of Bosnia's economic output or an equivalent £1.8bn and employed 50,000 people, have been laid off as a result of the crisis.
20 cases per 100,000 could land a country on UK's quarantine list
Countries that consistently have a Covid-19 infection rate of more than 20 people per 100,000 citizens are at risk of losing their spot on the UK’s quarantine-exempt list, according to an industry insider, writes Helen Coffey.
All inbound arrivals to the UK have been subject to 14 days’ self-isolation since 8 June, with the only exceptions being those coming from destinations deemed “low-risk” by the government’s Joint Biosecurity Centre.
However, even countries previously exempt from quarantine can be removed from the list without warning, as was the case with Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Andorra and the Bahamas.
WHO says it trusts G7 nations to reach consensus on how to approach coronavirus health crisis
The World Health Organisation trusts powerful nations such as the Group of Seven to reach a consensus on how to approach health crises such as the coronavirus, Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said.
France and Germany have left talks on reforming the WHO in frustration at attempts by the United States to lead the negotiations, despite its decision to leave the WHO, three officials told Reuters.
The move is a setback for Donald Trump as Washington, which holds the rotating chair of the G7, had hoped to issue a joint roadmap for a sweeping overhaul of the WHO in September, two months before the US presidential election.
"We are all vulnerable to risks, we need to find global solutions," Mr Ryan said. "...We trust the G7 will play a major part in that in the months and years to come."
Scotland records 29 new coronavirus cases
Scotland has recorded 29 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The figure is down 19 from the 48 confirmed on Sunday and takes the total people in Scotland who have tested positive for the virus to 19,027.
Speaking at the Scottish government's regular coronavirus briefing, the first minister said no deaths have been recorded of patients who tested positive for coronavirus in the previous 28 days.
There have been no deaths under this measure for 25 consecutive days, with this total remaining at 2,491.
Of the people who tested positive, 267 are in hospital - up six from the previous day.
Of these, three were in intensive care, no change.
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