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.
Irish meat plant suspends operations
Co Offaly meat processing plant Carroll Cuisine is suspending operations as a way of contributing to efforts to control the spike of Covid-19 cases in the Midlands.
In a statement, Kieran Carolan, chief executive of Carroll Cuisine, said: "The health, safety and wellbeing of all our people and our wider communities is an absolute priority for us at all times.
"We have been working closely and co-operatively with the HSE and, while positive case levels among our staff are low, we believe that the best approach is to take this break in operations over the days ahead until we can evaluate the results of comprehensive tests which were undertaken for our staff on a precautionary basis yesterday in co-operation with the HSE.
"Through the independent testing that we also conducted and completed last week, a total of nine employees from our workforce of 330 to date have had positive tests for Covid-19 and are self-isolating."
Using lockdown to help hockey’s next generation
Hannah Martin has been getting up to all sorts in lockdown but reckons a blast from her Ipswich School past tops the lot, writes Will Jennings.
The Great Britain hockey ace has spent the lay-off disseminating expertise to current students at her old school via Zoom, also playing a key role in the Women’s Sport Trust’s ‘Unlocked’ campaign and helping Flyerz Hockey keep active.
Holbrook-based Martin spent the majority of lockdown in Addington with her boyfriend, Sam, staying fit through a hybrid of picturesque bike rides through the Yorkshire Dales and pounding the pavements in the White Rose county.
Greece imposes border restrictions
Visitors to Greece arriving from Sweden, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic must soon prove they have tested negative for Covid-19 to gain entry, the government said on Monday.
ightening controls after a recent spike in infections, the government said the requirement would come into force on 17 August.
Six more die after testing positive for coronavirus in hospitals in England
A further six people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,419, NHS England said on Monday.
The patients were aged between 65 and 93 and all had known underlying health conditions.
No deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.
The region with the highest number of deaths was the South East with four.
There were also two deaths in the North East and Yorkshire but all other regions of England recorded no deaths for the same time period, including the North West, where local lockdown measures are in place around Greater Manchester.
Coronavirus reproduction rate in Denmark rises to 1.4
Denmark has seen a new spread of Covid-19 infections in the past week with the reproduction rate rising to 1.4, the country's health minister said on Monday.
"The virus is moving through our society once again," Magnus Heunicke told reporters.
In the past week, infections have been confirmed in 67 out of Denmark's 98 municipalities. The country's second biggest city Aarhus had the biggest number of new infections.
Last week, the Danish Health Ministry said it would not raise a limit on public gatherings, originally planned for this month, after seeing a spike in Covid-19 infections.
Home visits could be used to trace coronavirus contacts
Local authorities may soon be able to visit the homes of people who have been in contact with confirmed coronavirus cases if tracers are unable to reach them over the phone.
Health officials have announced plans to strengthen regional test and trace powers in England, including powers for local authorities to carry out home visits under pilot schemes.
Following criticism of the national system, NHS Test and Trace will provide local authorities across England with a dedicated team of contact tracers for local areas.
If the national team cannot make contact with a person in a set amount of time, local public health officials will be allowed to use data provided by the service to follow up.
“We have always been clear that NHS Test and Trace must be local by default and that we do not operate alone - we work with and through partners across the country,” Baroness Dido Harding, executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, said in a statement.
“As we learn more about the spread of the disease, we are able to move to our planned next step and become even more effective in tackling the virus.”
She added: “After successful trials in a small number of local areas, I am very pleased to announce that we are now offering this integrated localised approach to all local authorities to ensure we can reach more people in their communities and stop the spread of Covid-19.”
Government reports 816 new UK coronavirus cases
A further 816 people in the UK have tested positive for coronavirus in the last 24-hour period, according to government figures.
The Department of Health and Social Care reported 76 positive cases from lab and NHS hospital testing (pillar 1) and 740 positive cases from testing in the wider population (pillar 2) on Monday.
Although the government has stopped publicising daily death figures, the official coronavirus dashboard showed eight additional deaths reported on Monday.
A full breakdown of the daily testing figures can be found below:
Football fans in Germany to be banned from stadiums until at least October
A ban on football fans attending stadiums for Bundesliga matches will be extended until at least the end of October due to coronavirus, according to a source for Reuters.
“We need to stay vigilant. In the current situation, spectators in the stadiums would be the wrong signal,” Jens Spahn, Germany’s health minister, said in a tweet.
Mr Spahn pointed to a rising number of new cases in recent days and warned against taking any avoidable risks which could further increase the infection rate.
The Bundesliga season was the first European league to restart in mid-May after a suspension of more than two months.
NHS Test and Trace system to reduce national contact tracers by 6,000
The number of national NHS contact tracers will be reduced by a third as part of plans to give greater powers to local authorities to manage coronavirus outbreaks.
In an overhaul of the Test and Trace programme, once described as “world-beating”, the government said it would cut the national team from 18,000 to 12,000 by 24 August.
The change follows criticism over the effectiveness of the national centralised system and its failure to take advantage of local knowledge for tackling outbreaks in England.
Our political correspondent, Ashley Cowburn, has the full story below:
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