Liverpool's mass-testing scheme is branded a 'shambles' as Covid-stricken patients are allowed to mix with the uninfected in hour-long queues: Top scientists warn ambitious project could be a costly failure
The 500,000 people living in Liverpool today become the first in England to be offered coronavirus tests even if they don't have symptoms of Covid-19 as part of Operation Moonshot.
Downing Street REJECTS calls to end lockdown despite four more sets of real-world data showing second wave of Covid was dropping and R rate was stable BEFORE crippling restrictions based on flawed projections
Office for National Statistics report estimates 45,700 people caught Covid-19 each day in England last week The estimate is down 12 per cent in a week, from a high of 51,900 last week, in the first drop in five weeks ONS admitted that the outbreak has 'stabilised' after it surged rapidly in September and October
Downing Street today refused calls for England's second lockdown to be cut short and insisted it will run until December 2, despite an overwhelming catalogue of evidence that has showed the three-tier system was working to halt Covid-19 before ministers pushed the panic button on another draconian shutdown. Promising figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the country's coronavirus outbreak has shrunk. It estimated the number of people catching the virus each day dropped 12 per cent in a week from 51,900 to 45,700 in the seven-day spell ending October 31 - the same day Boris Johnson announced the country would enter another economically-crippling lockdown. MailOnline's analysis of Public Health England (PHE) statistics showed more than half of local authorities scattered across England saw their infection rates fall at the end of October. And in other encouraging developments, SAGE revealed the UK's R rate has remained at between 1.1 and 1.3 for the second week in a row. It has fallen in five out of seven regions in England. Meanwhile on Friday, Boris Johnson was pictured taking a potentially revolutionary new rapid coronavirus test in Leicester at De Montfort University. The university is piloting Lateral Flow antigen tests which can test high proportions of asymptomatic people.
Oh and the mega rich hedge fund and bankers ( aka Tory donors) also don't have to quarantine now
Times article today
People who are told to stay indoors because a household member has coronavirus will soon have to self-isolate for as little as seven days after widespread refusal to comply with the current 14-day period.
Separately, City dealmakers, hedge fund managers and company bosses flying into the UK will be exempt from the 14-day quarantine period under plans to “promote global Britain”.
Head of Boris Johnson's vaccine taskforce bills taxpayers £670,000 for a team of boutique PR consultants to oversee her media strategy
Vaccine tsar Kate Bingham, 55, has already spent £500,000 on eight full-time consultants from Admiral Associates - with the team contracted until the end of the year.
Most Nightingale hospitals may never fully open due to a shortage of NHS staff - while each patient admitted so far has cost £1MILLION to treat
Seven huge venues including London's Excel Centre were converted into critical care hospitals early in the pandemic at a cost of £220million, but just two of them have treated Covid patients.
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: If lockdown goes on one day beyond December 2, it's curtains for Boris, the Tories - and for Britain
There is certainly a strange air of manufactured panic and rush to judgment in Downing Street (left, the PM and Chancellor). The process leading to the national shutdown (bottom right, London, and top right, Wales) was dubious and furtive. That is partly why the British people entered the new lockdown in a spirit of resignation and doubt. Most will observe it, but many will do so unwillingly and with a feeling that they have reached the end of their endurance.
Downing Street in complete disarray after Boris Johnson's key aide QUITS in civil war between the 'Carrie Symonds Crew' and Cummings' Brexit Boys. So who will be next to go? Longstanding Johnson aide Lee Cain was being touted for major promotion to No10 chief of staff this week The move appeared to have been blocked by opposition from the PM's fiancée Carrie Symonds and others Mr Cain announced he is leaving last night revealing he had been offered the powerful post but turned it down Speculation Dominic Cummings could follow Vote Leave ally Mr Cain out of the door amid meltdown
A Downing Street civil war is raging in public today after Boris Johnson's director of communications dramatically quit after a brutal standoff with Carrie Symonds.
Longstanding Johnson aide Lee Cain, a Vote Leave veteran and Dominic Cummings loyalist, announced he was resigning despite being touted for promotion to No10 chief of staff just hours earlier.
The departure was the culmination of a bitter power struggle inside Mr Johnson's top team, with rival factions battling for supremacy even as the government struggles to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
Mr Cummings had pushed for his ally to be appointed despite warnings from the PM's fiancée Ms Symonds - herself a former Conservative Party head of media - that it would be 'a mistake' given how the campaign against the pandemic had gone so far.
There are also claims that Allegra Stratton, Downing Street's new on-screen press secretary, and senior aide Munira Mirza were against the move. It would have meant the PM's core circle being exclusively male.
Ms Stratton was said to have only agreed to take the job if she reported directly to the PM, not Mr Cain - leaving him feeling 'wholly undermined'. Mr Cain was said to have opposed her appointment and the pair had not spoken since she arrived in the role a fortnight ago.
Tory MPs and advisers hailed the news as an opportunity for a 'reset' after a 'tribal and aggressive' first phase to the Johnson government.
In his resignation statement, Mr Cain confirmed he had been offered the powerful post but after 'careful consideration' would be leaving at the end of the year.
Government's Test and Trace hotline misses 25,000 calls every DAY with nearly half of people wanting a Covid test going unanswered
In response to a parliamentary question, Health Minister Helen Whately said 1.68million calls were made to the UK's 119 service in September but only 56 per cent were picked up.
Calls to overhaul the No 10 operation have come from "a string" of Conservative MPs, according to the Guardian, with one suggesting it was time "to get a grip". A backbencher tells the Independent it's not about policy, but getting Downing Street to be more professional.
England's former chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, has told the Telegraph that the UK was not as ready as it should have been for Covid-19.
In an interview with the paper, she blames Public Health England for assuring her that a coronavirus epidemic could "never travel this far in big numbers from Asia".
PIERS MORGAN: Good-riddance to Boris's hapless chicken aide but now this useless, lame-duck twerp of a Prime Minister, who takes his orders from his fiancée, should follow his lead and quack off too
In many ways, Lee Cain typifies the appallingly mediocre, two-faced, incompetent and shambolic malaise at the heart of Johnson's government, writes PIERS MORGAN (inset). In his former incarnation as a very average journalist for the Daily Mirror, he used to dress up as a giant yellow chicken (right) and go out onto the streets to ambush senior Tory ministers because they refused to take part in TV debates. Cut forward to this year, and the same Cain is the man who led the ongoing 197-day boycott of my show, Good Morning Britain, because we had the audacity to hold Government ministers accountable to the electorate on TV. Now Cain has been seen off by the Prime Minister's fiancée Carrie Symonds, (left) backed up by two other formidable females, the PM's new official spokesperson Allegra Stratton and his director of policy Munira Murza.
SIMON WALTERS: In all my years at Westminster I've never seen a No 10 inner circle descend into civil war so rapidly - now Boris's private office is as chaotic as his private life
SIMON WALTERS: Inside No 10, this trio - Lee Cain, centre, Dominic Cummings, left, and Simon Case, right, had formed themselves into a powerful axis, styling themselves 'the three Cs'. So powerful, indeed, that no one could get to see Johnson without their say so. Even the Home Secretary Priti Patel had the No 10 door slammed metaphorically in her face by Cain, a former tabloid journalist who's most notable role on the Mirror newspaper was to dress up as a chicken and taunt David Cameron during the 2010 election campaign. The truth is the notion of Cain becoming chief of staff in Downing Street was always far-fetched. Few believed Cain was genuinely qualified to do the job. After all, he is a high-powered bruiser rather than a power broker.
Christmas: on or off? The Daily Mail asks "is the family Christmas at risk?" with government scientists warning that there is little-to-no scope to loosen social distancing rules when the lockdown ends in England.
The Times takes a different view, concluding that the experts are backing a lifting of the lockdown, and ending Tier one - medium - restrictions, judging them to be pointless.
Campaigners tell the Daily Mail the pledge by Health Secretary Matt Hancock to ring-fence a supply of coronavirus swabs for family visitors to care homes is insufficient. Care home bosses are demanding an immediate rollout of rapid tests to all sites.
The Guardian reports that 11,000 containers of government procured PPE are clogging up the port at Felixstowe. Freight volume is already up because of Brexit. Retailers warn it could lead to product shortages this Christmas.
Operation Shambles: Will the £42BILLION 'Operation Moonshot' test and trace plan actually work? This devastating exposé reveals how ministers have scorned some of Britain's top virus experts, hired novices instead - and blown billions, writes DAVID ROSE
DAVID ROSE: Deenan Pillay's patience finally snapped as he watched television in his north London home. And it was Matt Hancock who did it. As Britain struggled to cope with the Covid pandemic, the Professor of Virology at University College London, pictured inset, became increasingly frustrated that the country's medical expertise was being sidelined. People are seen waiting for coronavirus tests in Liverpool. When he heard the Health Secretary trumpet the purchase of 10million antibody tests in May as a game-changer, he lost it.
Comments
The 500,000 people living in Liverpool today become the first in England to be offered coronavirus tests even if they don't have symptoms of Covid-19 as part of Operation Moonshot.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Office for National Statistics report estimates 45,700 people caught Covid-19 each day in England last week
The estimate is down 12 per cent in a week, from a high of 51,900 last week, in the first drop in five weeks
ONS admitted that the outbreak has 'stabilised' after it surged rapidly in September and October
Downing Street today refused calls for England's second lockdown to be cut short and insisted it will run until December 2, despite an overwhelming catalogue of evidence that has showed the three-tier system was working to halt Covid-19 before ministers pushed the panic button on another draconian shutdown. Promising figures published today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the country's coronavirus outbreak has shrunk. It estimated the number of people catching the virus each day dropped 12 per cent in a week from 51,900 to 45,700 in the seven-day spell ending October 31 - the same day Boris Johnson announced the country would enter another economically-crippling lockdown. MailOnline's analysis of Public Health England (PHE) statistics showed more than half of local authorities scattered across England saw their infection rates fall at the end of October. And in other encouraging developments, SAGE revealed the UK's R rate has remained at between 1.1 and 1.3 for the second week in a row. It has fallen in five out of seven regions in England. Meanwhile on Friday, Boris Johnson was pictured taking a potentially revolutionary new rapid coronavirus test in Leicester at De Montfort University. The university is piloting Lateral Flow antigen tests which can test high proportions of asymptomatic people.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8917845/Weekly-Covid-19-infection-rates-dropped-82-countrys-149-local-authorities.html
Vaccine tsar Kate Bingham, 55, has already spent £500,000 on eight full-time consultants from Admiral Associates - with the team contracted until the end of the year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Seven huge venues including London's Excel Centre were converted into critical care hospitals early in the pandemic at a cost of £220million, but just two of them have treated Covid patients.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
There is certainly a strange air of manufactured panic and rush to judgment in Downing Street (left, the PM and Chancellor). The process leading to the national shutdown (bottom right, London, and top right, Wales) was dubious and furtive. That is partly why the British people entered the new lockdown in a spirit of resignation and doubt. Most will observe it, but many will do so unwillingly and with a feeling that they have reached the end of their endurance.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8925285/MAIL-SUNDAY-COMMENT-lockdown-goes-one-day-December-2-curtains-Boris.html
Longstanding Johnson aide Lee Cain was being touted for major promotion to No10 chief of staff this week
The move appeared to have been blocked by opposition from the PM's fiancée Carrie Symonds and others
Mr Cain announced he is leaving last night revealing he had been offered the powerful post but turned it down
Speculation Dominic Cummings could follow Vote Leave ally Mr Cain out of the door amid meltdown
A Downing Street civil war is raging in public today after Boris Johnson's director of communications dramatically quit after a brutal standoff with Carrie Symonds.
Longstanding Johnson aide Lee Cain, a Vote Leave veteran and Dominic Cummings loyalist, announced he was resigning despite being touted for promotion to No10 chief of staff just hours earlier.
The departure was the culmination of a bitter power struggle inside Mr Johnson's top team, with rival factions battling for supremacy even as the government struggles to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
Mr Cummings had pushed for his ally to be appointed despite warnings from the PM's fiancée Ms Symonds - herself a former Conservative Party head of media - that it would be 'a mistake' given how the campaign against the pandemic had gone so far.
There are also claims that Allegra Stratton, Downing Street's new on-screen press secretary, and senior aide Munira Mirza were against the move. It would have meant the PM's core circle being exclusively male.
Ms Stratton was said to have only agreed to take the job if she reported directly to the PM, not Mr Cain - leaving him feeling 'wholly undermined'. Mr Cain was said to have opposed her appointment and the pair had not spoken since she arrived in the role a fortnight ago.
Tory MPs and advisers hailed the news as an opportunity for a 'reset' after a 'tribal and aggressive' first phase to the Johnson government.
In his resignation statement, Mr Cain confirmed he had been offered the powerful post but after 'careful consideration' would be leaving at the end of the year.
After losing the latest tug-of-war for Mr Johnson's ear, speculation is rampant that the PM's maverick chief adviser Mr Cummings could be next out of the door.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8939651/Boris-Johnson-key-aide-Lee-Cain-announces-QUTTING.html
The backbench Tory MPs have formed The Covid Recovery Group to oppose a third national lockdown in England after the current one ends in December.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
In response to a parliamentary question, Health Minister Helen Whately said 1.68million calls were made to the UK's 119 service in September but only 56 per cent were picked up.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
Calls to overhaul the No 10 operation have come from "a string" of Conservative MPs, according to the Guardian, with one suggesting it was time "to get a grip". A backbencher tells the Independent it's not about policy, but getting Downing Street to be more professional.
England's former chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, has told the Telegraph that the UK was not as ready as it should have been for Covid-19.
In an interview with the paper, she blames Public Health England for assuring her that a coronavirus epidemic could "never travel this far in big numbers from Asia".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-54926319
In many ways, Lee Cain typifies the appallingly mediocre, two-faced, incompetent and shambolic malaise at the heart of Johnson's government, writes PIERS MORGAN (inset). In his former incarnation as a very average journalist for the Daily Mirror, he used to dress up as a giant yellow chicken (right) and go out onto the streets to ambush senior Tory ministers because they refused to take part in TV debates. Cut forward to this year, and the same Cain is the man who led the ongoing 197-day boycott of my show, Good Morning Britain, because we had the audacity to hold Government ministers accountable to the electorate on TV. Now Cain has been seen off by the Prime Minister's fiancée Carrie Symonds, (left) backed up by two other formidable females, the PM's new official spokesperson Allegra Stratton and his director of policy Munira Murza.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
SIMON WALTERS: Inside No 10, this trio - Lee Cain, centre, Dominic Cummings, left, and Simon Case, right, had formed themselves into a powerful axis, styling themselves 'the three Cs'. So powerful, indeed, that no one could get to see Johnson without their say so. Even the Home Secretary Priti Patel had the No 10 door slammed metaphorically in her face by Cain, a former tabloid journalist who's most notable role on the Mirror newspaper was to dress up as a chicken and taunt David Cameron during the 2010 election campaign. The truth is the notion of Cain becoming chief of staff in Downing Street was always far-fetched. Few believed Cain was genuinely qualified to do the job. After all, he is a high-powered bruiser rather than a power broker.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
The Daily Mail asks "is the family Christmas at risk?" with government scientists warning that there is little-to-no scope to loosen social distancing rules when the lockdown ends in England.
The Times takes a different view, concluding that the experts are backing a lifting of the lockdown, and ending Tier one - medium - restrictions, judging them to be pointless.
Campaigners tell the Daily Mail the pledge by Health Secretary Matt Hancock to ring-fence a supply of coronavirus swabs for family visitors to care homes is insufficient. Care home bosses are demanding an immediate rollout of rapid tests to all sites.
The Guardian reports that 11,000 containers of government procured PPE are clogging up the port at Felixstowe. Freight volume is already up because of Brexit. Retailers warn it could lead to product shortages this Christmas.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-54939907
DAVID ROSE: Deenan Pillay's patience finally snapped as he watched television in his north London home. And it was Matt Hancock who did it. As Britain struggled to cope with the Covid pandemic, the Professor of Virology at University College London, pictured inset, became increasingly frustrated that the country's medical expertise was being sidelined. People are seen waiting for coronavirus tests in Liverpool. When he heard the Health Secretary trumpet the purchase of 10million antibody tests in May as a game-changer, he lost it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8947595/DAVID-ROSE-42BILLION-Operation-Moonshot-test-trace-plan-actually-work.html