Afternoon summary

  • Boris Johnson has suggested the government will simplify the testing regime for travellers returning from safer countries because he wants holidays to be “as flexible and as affordable as possible”. (See 12.46pm.) He made the comment after his latest lockdown announcements at a news conference last night received an unenthusiastic write-up from some of the Tory-supporting papers.

MAIL: Call this freedom? #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/NUI1LWWTiY

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 5, 2021

TELEGRAPH: No end in sight as ⁦@BorisJohnson⁩ says normal is some way off #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/0brd26IIuO

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 5, 2021

This is not the first time Johnson has sought to mollify his critics after a lockdown pronouncement landed badly; two weeks ago he did something similar after his comment to the Commons liaison committee about pubs being allowed to exclude people without a vaccine passport triggered a backlash. But Johnson may find that he has little scope for opening up “affordable” foreign travel to any great extent this summer. A Sage report (pdf) published last night showed that the government’s scientific advisers are extremely worried about the risk posed by variants from abroad. It said:

SPI-M-O [the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational] considers slowing importation of new variants, such as B1351 [the South African variant], into the UK a very important priority to allow for the next generation of vaccines to be developed. Whilst new vaccines can be developed, this will likely take many months. Measures to prevent and manage importation risks such as testing individuals, sequencing samples, and maintaining strict quarantine measures for those entering the country will remain important and may delay the spread of variants of concern.

  • The Stormont assembly is set to be recalled for an emergency debate following days of violence and disorder in parts of Northern Ireland, PA Media reports. Alliance party leader Naomi Long had called for MLAs to debate a motion condemning the recent attacks on police in loyalist areas. The party secured the required support of 30 assembly members for the assembly to be recalled from Easter recess, with a sitting likely to take place on Thursday.

That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

Updated

Europe’s drug regulator has denied it has established a causal connection between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, after a senior official from the agency said there was a link, my colleague Jon Henley reports.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister, has said that voting for his new party, Alba, is in the national interest for independence supporters.

At the Alba campaign launch, he said he would be using his constituency vote to support an SNP candidate because Alba is not putting up candidates in the constituency section of the ballot. But he urged SNP supporters to vote Alba in the list section, where the SNP may do badly because the proportional voting system penalises parties already over-represented in the constituency section. Salmond said:

I’ll be voting SNP in my first constituency vote for that reason and I know that tens of thousands of SNP supporters are going to vote for Alba on the list for exactly the same reason. Because it is in the Scottish national interest to do so ...

If there were 70 MSPs [out of 129 in the Scottish parliament] supporting independence that would be a majority and I would expect to see that majority moving forward with an independence platform.

If there were 80 MSPs supporting independence, as the polls at the weekend indicated, then we’d be well on our way to a supermajority.

If there were 90 MSPs, which I think is well within our reach for the independence supporting parties, then that would be a bigger supermajority.

The point we’re making in the campaign is the stronger the supermajority of MSPs are supporting independence in the Scottish parliament, the more the balance of power will be tilted in Scotland’s favour.

Vaccine hesitancy among minority ethnic Britons has fallen from 22% to 6% in the last two months, new polling from Ipsos Mori suggests.

Updated

Updated

Covid deaths and new cases continue to fall sharply – but daily jab totals down too, latest figures show

The UK has recorded 20 further deaths and 2,379 new cases, according to the latest update on the government’s coronavirus dashboard. Comparing total figures for the past seven days to figures for the previous week, deaths are down by 45% and cases are down by 36%.

What are less positive are the figures for vaccinations. As this chart shows, the rolling average of daily figures for people getting their first dose has been falling since the middle of last month.

Partly because there is now an increasing focus on giving second doses, but in recent days the rolling average of daily figures for people getting their second dose has been falling too.

Updated

Secondary school pupils must continue wearing mask in class after Easter holidays, says DfE

Secondary school and college pupils in England will need to continue wearing face masks in class when they return after the Easter holidays, the Department for Education has said.

But by 17 May it is expected that masks will no longer be needed in classrooms and other communal areas, the DfE said.

Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, said:

On top of the protective measures previously in place such as regular handwashing and ventilation, we introduced face coverings in the classroom for secondary schools and colleges to help reduce transmission in parallel with the introduction of twice weekly testing.

Schools and students have done a great job adapting to Covid secure guidance and working hard to make sure it doesn’t impact learning. We obviously all want to get back to facemask-free classrooms and we will do this in line with the latest scientific data while balancing the interests of students, teachers and the wider community.

NHS England has recorded 12 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.

A week ago today the equivalent figure was 40 deaths.

Britain would become 'unrecognisable' with Covid-status certificates in use, says Tory MP Steve Baker

Steve Baker, who is a Tory libertarian and who is deputy chair of the anti-lockdown Covid Recovery Group, has said that Britain would become “unrecognisable” if Covid-status certificates were allowed. In a statement he said:

Covid-status certification - the requirement to have a domestic vaccine passport or instead to take two tests a week in order to take part in society - would be discriminatory, lead to a two-tier Britain and be entirely incompatible with freedom.

Whether the government imposes this, recommends it or simply stands back and allows it to happen, Covid-status certification would be entirely un-British and our country and values would become unrecognisable.

Spending vast sums of taxpayers’ money and people’s time testing for a disease we have vaccinated against, and encouraging businesses to discriminate against pregnant women, those with health conditions and allergies, people from ethnic minorities, the disabled and the poor, is not the sort of Britain we should allow the pandemic to turn us into.

After the toll families and friends have paid all over the country in the face of Covid, and after enduring the devastating cycle of lockdowns and restrictions, the last thing we should do is allow Covid to have the victory of changing our country forever into the miserable dystopia of Checkpoint Britain.

Updated

Last night Nick Timothy, who was co-chair of staff for Theresa May in No 10 until the 2017 general election, criticised Sadiq Khan for launching a commission into cannabis decriminalisation when that’s not his responsibility as London mayor.

I’ve always marvelled at Khan’s ability to evade scrutiny for what he’s actually responsibility for while talking about everything he isn’t. He might as well look at the viability of life on Mars as the legalisation of drugs. https://t.co/vO4oLwPwOQ

— Nick Timothy (@NJ_Timothy) April 5, 2021

But Timothy did not mention the fact that some Conservatives support the decriminalisation of cannabis (although not Boris Johnson - see 1.44pm). One of them is Timothy himself, who wrote about the topic in his book Remaking One Nation, published last year. Timothy said:

There is a case, too, for the legalisation of cannabis, a drug that has been effectively decriminalised while its supply and distribution remain in the hands of criminal gangs. There are undoubted physical and social harms caused by smoking cannabis, but legalisation would allow regulation, with stronger forms of the drug still prohibited. It would free the police to pursue other crimes and take a tougher approach to harder drugs. Tax revenues raised by the legitimate trade in cannabis could be used in part to fund police resources and treatments for drug addicts.

Most Tories in favour of decriminalising cannabis are either libertarians or liberals. Timothy is neither, and much of his book is taken up with an attack on what he calls “ultra-liberalism”. If someone likes him thinks this cause is a good one, then Khan might be on to something ...

Updated

A total of 31,164,176 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 5 April, according to NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 73,886 on the previous day.

As PA Media reports, NHS England said 26,765,865 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 19,826 on the previous day, while 4,398,311 were a second dose, an increase of 54,060.

Updated

Anthony Wells from YouGov has a good analysis of the Hartlepool poll (see 12.17pm) on his UK Polling Report blog. Here’s an extract.

The reason the Tories are doing better in Hartlepool than nationwide appears fairly straightforward, and doesn’t offer any obviously transferrable lessons. In Britain as a whole the Brexit party got 2% at the 2019 election. In Hartlepool they got a very healthy 26%. That vote has almost completely vanished, presumably to the benefit of the Conservatives.

As ever, byelections are extremely unusual beasts that do not necessarily tell much about national politics. Maybe if the actual byelection turns out like this it will be a steer on how other seats with a high level of Brexit party support in 2019 may go … but then, come the actual byelection we’ll have a glut of other data from the local, Scottish, Welsh, mayoral and London elections due to be held on the same day, so hopefully we won’t be trying to desperately read too much into one single byelection.

In a New Statesman blog Stephen Bush says the Survation findings may be less significant than they look. Here’s an extract.

Equally importantly, when constituency polls get it wrong, they have tended to do so in fairly predictable ways. They tend to over-count the most politically engaged voters ...

That makes it hard to draw any valuable lessons from Survation’s latest poll, because the trends it captures (the Conservative party gaining votes due to the end of the Brexit party as a meaningful electoral force, Labour gaining votes on 2019) are ones we already know exist. What we don’t know is which one of those trends is going to be more important in May 2021 in Hartlepool, let alone July 2023 or May 2024, the two most likely dates for the next general election.

And here is some more comment on the poll from experts and commentators.

From Jonathan Hopkin, a politics professor at the LSE

The Conservatives are almost certainly going to win the #Hartlepool by election, for the simple reason that Labour only won in 2019 because the Brexit Party took 25% and split the ‘Tory’ vote

— Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) April 6, 2021

None of this tells you all that much about Starmer, or indeed Corbyn. Under Corbyn, Labour won 52% and then 37% there. Brexit dynamics probably explain nearly all of the variation

— Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) April 6, 2021

Finally, the choice for Labour isn’t between a leftist or a centrist leader. That is a huge distraction. The Democrats in the US, under a popular centrist President, are rewriting centre-left politics, though nobody here seems to be paying attention

— Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) April 6, 2021

From Paula Surridge, a political sociologist at Bristol University

Thanks to @survation for tables from Hartlepool poll.

If you dig beyond headlines, there are 28% of voters undecided, 26% after likey to vote weights applied. Highest undecided are the 2019 LibDems and 2019 BXP (though very small numbers of BXP in sample so treat with caution!)

— Paula Surridge (@p_surridge) April 6, 2021

Tables also suggest there is a non-trivial amount of Labour 2019 - Conservative 2021 switching. It doesn't seem likely that this is driven by Labour not being 'left-wing' enough.

— Paula Surridge (@p_surridge) April 6, 2021

From the FT’s Stephen Smith

Please someone convince me these aren’t THE most incompetent people in British politics. And this is someone who sold their entire political persona on listening and understanding the views of people in northern towns pic.twitter.com/fGLHGUpEsg

— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) April 6, 2021

From James Johnson, a former No 10 pollster

One of these is about brand (‘Labour wants free broadband so I worry they would borrow too much again’). The other a policy (‘Free broadband sounds nice, I wouldn’t oppose that’).

Lisa Nandy is right. The former is much more dangerous for Labour than the latter is beneficial. https://t.co/1EENY5lDVx

— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) April 6, 2021

From Luke Cooper, an academic at the LSE

IMO Labour will hold Hartlepool in much the same way they saved other at risk Brexit-y seats in by-elections since 2016 (e.g. Stoke 2017, Peterborough 2019). Low turn out favours the party with the best GOTV operation, which is usually Labour.

— Luke Cooper (@lukecooper100) April 6, 2021

And here is a thread on the poll from Carl Shoben from Survation.

Thread on our Hartlepool by-election phone poll.

Labour won the seat in 2019 with a 37% vote share, yet our poll has Labour 7 points behind the Cons but still on a higher vote share than 2019.

Labour can still hold the seat. Below analysis on how. https://t.co/Wq9CZRujpS

— Carl Shoben (@CarlSurvation) April 6, 2021

Updated

Earlier, in the post about the Survation polling from Hartlepool (see 12.17pm), I said the poll did not seem to be subject to the normal weighting. In a thread on Twitter starting here Damian Lyons Lowe said the results were weighted – but not by previous vote recall, because people seem to have forgotten voting for the Brexit party.

Some notes on our Hartlepool polling and a new phenomenon, *Brexit Party* Amnesia - a feature, not a bug.

— Damian Lyons Lowe (@DamianSurvation) April 6, 2021

Updated

At a briefing this morning Shai Weiss, the Virgin Atlantic chief executive, said people should be able to return to the UK from “green list” countries without having to get testing. Echoing the affordability concerns raised by the head of easyJet – concerns Boris Johnson later said he shared (see 12.46pm) – Weiss said:

We can’t have a prohibitively expensive testing system that puts businesses, people and families off travelling.

Passengers travelling to and from ‘green’ countries should be able to do so freely, without testing or quarantine at all, and vaccinated passengers travelling to and from ‘amber’ countries should not face testing or quarantine.

Other than for ‘red’ countries, we do not believe quarantine is the answer for controlling the spread of the virus.

Weiss also said destinations that should be on the “green list” for international travel from 17 May should include the US, Israel and the Caribbean.

Updated

No 10 tells London mayor there's no point reviewing cannabis laws because PM won't change them

The Downing Street lobby briefing is over. Here are the main points.

The prime minister has spoken about this on many occasions. Illicit drugs destroy lives and he has absolutely no intention of legalising cannabis, which is a harmful substance ... His approach will not be changing.

When it was put to Stratton that Khan was wasting his time by holding his review in the light of the PM’s views, she replied:

That is correct. Sadiq Khan will know that the policy on controlled drugs is a matter for the UK government. It is not a matter for his office.

  • Stratton also defended Johnson’s decision to use his press conference yesterday to make a party political point attacking Khan. His comments were contentious because the press conferences are carried live by the BBC and Sky News on the basis that they are about coronavirus, and not being used for party advantage during an election period. But Stratton said Johnson was just responding to a direct question.
  • No 10 was unable to define what would count as an “essential shops” - after its policy document (pdf) published last night said these shops would not be allowed to require customers to show Covid-status certificates. These are from my colleague Aubrey Allegretti.

So after the government announced yesterday that Covid status certificates “should never be required” in essential shops, you might be wondering what those include.

Boris Johnson’s spokesman today couldn’t provide a definition.

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) April 6, 2021

Asked about Jon Ashworth’s question of whether clothes shops like H&M and Next may use Covid status certificates, Johnson’s spokesman said “I obviously don’t have that detail for you now”.

He repeated the documents won’t be needed before 17 May and added the review is ongoing.

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) April 6, 2021

PM's press secretary on whether Boris Johnson would win a vote on Covid status certificates, given 41 Tory MPs have pledged to oppose them.

“We have to work out exactly what the proposal might be before we start talking about what will or won’t be brought to parliament.”

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) April 6, 2021

Allegra Stratton on Tory MPs' unhappiness with Covid status certificates: "We are quite a way away from knowing specifics of the proposal.

"There isn't yet a conversation to be had with backbenchers because we haven't yet got the proposal."

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) April 6, 2021

There is no excuse for violence. Not now. Not ever.
Those who engage in violence and criminality have nothing to offer. Their actions are not wanted and will never be tolerated.
My thanks to all those police officers continuing to work hard to keep people safe from harm. https://t.co/fTrufFk18N

— Brandon Lewis (@BrandonLewis) April 5, 2021

Asked what was driving the violence, the spokesman said it was completely unacceptable and that it was not for him to speculate on the causes. Asked if it was connected to concerns about the Northern Ireland protocol, the spokesman said the government was working with the EU to address some of the concerns about it.

  • Stratton refused to discuss why Sir Alan Duncan, who was Johnson’s deputy when Johnson was foreign secretary, has described Johnson in diaries serialised at the weekend as a “selfish, ill-disciplined, shambolic, shameless clot”. She said she would not comment because the diaries were written before Johnson became PM.

Updated

Boris Johnson has also welcomed the news that the Valneva vaccine is producing a strong immune response in trials. (See 11am.)

Very promising news that the @ValnevaSE vaccine shows a strong immune response and will progress to Phase 3 trials.

If it is successful and meets our robust safety standards this vaccine will be manufactured in Scotland, providing a crucial weapon in our battle against COVID. https://t.co/Xr79bIGsmS

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 6, 2021

At her briefing Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, also announced that for the fourth day in a row the country has recorded no further coronavirus deaths.

She said there were 196 coronavirus patients in hospital in Scotland - 19 fewer than on Thursday last week, which is when a figure for hospital cases was last published.

And she said 259 people had tested positive in the last 24 hours. Those results accounted for 2% of all tests carried out. A week ago today the equivalent figure was 411 new cases, and a positivity rate of 2.8%.

All Scottish pupils to return to school after Easter holidays, Sturgeon confirms

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that all Scottish pupils will return to school after the Easter holidays.

At a media briefing, she also announced an expansion of routine testing across the country, with lateral flow tests to be universally available twice a week - as Boris Johnson proposed for England yesterday.

Sturgeon noted “encouraging news“ in relation to case numbers. She said:

After a recent levelling off, we have seen a decline in new cases in the last seven days. In total, cases have now fallen by more than 80% since early January.

She also confirmed that the first batch of the Moderna vaccine has arrived safely in Scotland, with the country receiving over 1m of the 17m doses the UK has ordered.

On vaccine passports or certifications, Sturgeon said that it was important “not to close our minds to it – we all want to get back to normal”. But she added: “Nor should we gloss over the practical and ethical issues”.

She said that the proposals – which she was continuing to discuss on a four-nations basis – raised issues of fairness for people who right now can’t get vaccinated, for example younger people. She added there was a difference between issues in using them domestically and for international travel.

Updated

Johnson suggests simplifying testing regime for holidaymakers returning from safer countries

This is what Boris Johnson said when asked if he agreed with easyJet boss Johan Lundgren (see 10.10am) that people returning to England from “green list” countries could be required to take lateral flow tests, instead of the more expensive PRC tests. Johnson replied:

Do you know, I raised that very issue myself yesterday. I do think we want to make things as easy as we possibly can. The boss of easyJet is right to focus on this issue. We’re going to see what we can do to make things as flexible and as affordable as possible.

I do want to see international travel start up again.

We have to be realistic. A lot of the destinations that we want to go to at the moment are suffering a new wave of the illness, Covid, as we know. We can’t do it immediately. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve given up on 17 May [the earliest possible date for international travel to resume, according to the plans set out in the roadmap]. We’ll be saying as much as we can as soon as we can about international travel. I know how impatient people are to book their holidays if they possibly can. But we just have to be prudent at this stage.

Updated

Sky News has just broadcast an interview that Boris Johnson has given this morning. In it Johnson said the easyJet boss Johan Lundgren was right to ask whether it would be possible to use lateral flow tests for people returning to the UK from “green list” countries, instead of the more expensive and time-consuming PCR tests. (See 10.10am.)

I’ll post the full quote shortly.

Updated

Labour does not challenge poll suggesting it's on course to lose Hartlepool byelection

Turning away from Covid for a moment, the Times has worrying news for Labour this morning. It is reporting the results of a Survation poll (paywall) in Hartlepool suggesting that the Conservatives are on course to beat Labour by seven points in the byelection. If this were to happen, it would be a dire result for Sir Keir Starmer and a triumph for Boris Johnson because it is very rare for the governing party to gain a seat from the opposition in a byelection. It happened in Copeland in February 2017, when the Tories won, but before that it had not happened since they also won Mitcham and Morden in 1982.

NEW Survation phone poll – Hartlepool by-election voting Intention:

CON 49%
LAB 42%
NIP 2%
LD 1%
GRN 1 %
Reform 1% https://t.co/vAPVdwlSNT

502 sample, by phone for @CWUnews. 29 March-3 April. pic.twitter.com/HpmkeiVIEz

— Survation. (@Survation) April 5, 2021

What is particularly difficult for Starmer is that the poll also suggests Johnson is twice as popular as he is in the seat.

The poll was commissioned by the leftwing CWU union, and its general secretary, Dave Ward, has written an article for the Times (paywall) suggesting it shows that Starmer has been too moderate. Ward says:

Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour party have shown themselves to be far too timid when it comes to answering this call. Having spent the last year obsessed with telling people that he isn’t Jeremy Corbyn, the country has been left shrugging its shoulders and asking, “Who are you, then?” Failing to take a position on the biggest issues of the day is not clever politics.

Worse than this, failing to set out a vision for transformative change that will shift the political and economic balance of forces back in favour of working-class people will make the Labour party an irrelevance.

As evidence to support his argument, Ward cites other results of the poll suggesting that 57% of voters in the constituency support renationalising the Royal Mail and 69% of them support the idea of providing free internet access for all. These were both proposals in the 2019 Labour election manifesto that Starmer now seems keen to forget. (Ward’s article does not really explain why, if these are the sort of policies most likely to win over voters in Hartlepool, the Conservatives seem to be on course for victory.)

Polling a byelection is always difficult, and only 502 people were sampled by Survation, making it subject to a wide margin of error. And the results (pdf) do not seem to have been subject to the normal weighting used to make polls more reliable.

But what is interesting is that, rather than dismiss the poll with the usual line about the only one that counts being “the one on the night” etc, Labour sources are encouraging people to take it at face value. The party has not issued any statements challenging or rubbishing its findings. Instead a party source said:

Labour would have lost Hartlepool in 2019 had it not been for the Brexit party. In the context of the vaccine bounce, the Conservatives should take this seat.

This sounds very much like expectation management. Another polling exercise last month, using a multilevel regression and post-stratification model (which is generally deemed more reliable than the sort of poll conducted by Survation), suggested that Labour were ahead by three points in Hartlepool (paywall). But the Labour analysis is supported by what Survation says in its own write-up of its poll. It says:

In the 2019 general election, the Brexit party obtained 25% of the vote, much of this which came from former Labour voters. Labour won the seat in 2019 with 37% of the vote share, and yet our poll has Labour 7 points behind the Conservatives but still on a higher vote share than 2019.

At this stage in the contest, it would appear a significant proportion of 2019 Brexit party voters have moved to the Conservatives, have yet to make up their minds or will choose not to vote. How this develops will have a significant effect on the final outcome.

The Brexit party’s most direct successor party, Reform UK, is currently polling only 1%.

UPDATE: See 2.44pm for more on the weighting that was used by Survation.

Updated

Valneva vaccine producing 'strong immune response' in trials

The Valneva vaccine, which is set to be manufactured in the UK, produces a “strong immune response” in trials, PA Media reports. PA says:

Data from an early-stage phase one/two study involving 153 people showed promising results for the jab, paving the way for phase three clinical trial.

The vaccine was safe and generally well tolerated, with no safety concerns identified by an independent data safety monitoring board.

The company said the results showed the vaccine was “highly immunogenic with more than 90% of all study participants developing significant levels of antibodies” to the Covid virus spike protein.

The vaccine also induced T-cell responses, which help the body fend off a virus and play a role in long-lasting immunity.

Commenting on the results, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, posted this on Twitter.

Really encouraging results for the @valnevaSE vaccine from the U.K. funded clinical trials.

The jab will be made in Livingston, Scotland - providing another massive boost to British life science.

I’m looking forward to the next set of trial data.

— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) April 6, 2021

And Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, said:

These results are very promising and provide renewed hope that a vaccine using a whole inactivated virus might provide strong protection against variants.

If the results from the phase three clinical trials are positive and the vaccine meets the robust standards of safety, quality and effectiveness of our medicines regulator, the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], this will be another powerful weapon in our arsenal to beat this pandemic.

Last night Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Emergencies, published a report (pdf) setting out what the modelling suggests will happen when the UK opens up in line with the timetable set out in the PM’s roadmap. It says it is “highly likely” that there will be a third wave. It explains (bold type from the original):

It is highly likely that there will be a further resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths after the later steps of the roadmap. The scale, shape, and timing of any resurgence remain highly uncertain; in most scenarios modelled, any peak is smaller than the wave seen in January 2021, however, scenarios with little transmission reduction after step 4 or with pessimistic but plausible vaccine efficacy assumptions can result in resurgences in hospitalisations of a similar scale to January 2021.

The report is from SPI-M, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which is effectively a Sage sub-committee. On the Today programme this morning Prof Graham Medley, chair of SPI-M, explained why a third wave was predicted when so many people are being vaccinated. He said:

It really just depends upon the impact of vaccination, particularly on transmission, so whether or not people can get infected and pass the virus on. And we just don’t know that. The vaccine hasn’t been around in people in the real world ... only in December it started ... so we don’t know what effect it’s going to have in three, four months’ time and that’s the real unknown. It’s a question of genuine uncertainty.

The only thing we can be sure of is that we don’t know exactly what is going to happen but we do know that, because the vaccine isn’t 100% effective, there will be some transmission, and there will be some breakthrough of immunity.

You can read the three academic modelling exercises (from Imperial College, Warwick University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) that provided the material for the SPI-M paper, and the Sage minutes discussing it, here, under the entry for the 85 Sage meeting on 31 March 2021.

Updated

In its interim report from the global travel taskforce (pdf) published last night, the government confirmed it would create a “green” category of countries, and that people arriving from these places would not be subject to hotel quarantine (which applies to arrivals from “red” countries) or quarantine at home (the rule for what are now dubbed “amber” countries). But arrivals from “green” countries will still be subject to pre-departure and post-arrival tests.

Johan Lundgren, chief executive of easyJet, told BBC Breakfast this morning that this meant international travel would only reopen “for people who can afford it”.

He said PCR tests, which can cost £120, were “way over and above what the cost is of an average easyJet fare”. He went on:

I don’t think that is fair, I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it is necessarily established from a medical and scientific point of view that is the right thing to do.

If they choose, however, to go down that route to have the tests in place, it should be the same type of testing, the lateral flow testing, which is much cheaper, more accessible, that is being used to open up the domestic sector as an example.

Moderna vaccine arriving in UK in third week of April, minister says

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, was doing the government spokesman shift on the news programmes this morning. Here are the main points he made.

  • Zahawi said the Moderna vaccine would be deployed in the UK from “around the third week of April”. He said:

It will be in deployment around the third week of April in the NHS and we will get more volume in May as well,

And of course more volume of Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca and we have got other vaccines. We have got the Janssen - Johnson and Johnson - vaccine coming through as well.

So I am confident that we will be able to meet our target of mid-April offering the vaccine to all over-50s and then end of July offering the vaccine to all adults.

  • He did not deny a Channel 4 News report saying the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates vaccines, is considering saying the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be given to young people because of the concerns about its links to a very rare blood clotting condition. Asked about the story, he referred to a statement the MHRA issued last night confirming that its review of this matter was ongoing but stressing that people should continue to get the vaccine when offered it. Zahawi went on:

Both vaccines [AstraZeneca’s and Pfizer’s] have saved something like 6,300 lives between December and the end of February, so it’s important to continue to follow what the clinicians, the scientists, the regulators tell us. And we will absolutely do exactly as they say.

  • He insisted that MPs would get a vote on any plan to introduce a Covid-status certification scheme. Asked if there would be a vote, Zahawi said:

The prime minister made it very clear, if we do get to that place, then of course we will go to parliament for a vote.

In fact, the PM did not make it “very clear” at his press conference last night. He sounded a little evasive. Asked about this, he said:

We are taking too many fences at once, first we need to work out what exactly the proposal might be, but certainly if there is something to put to parliament I am certain we will do that.

Updated

Labour firms up its opposition to what it calls 'digital ID card' plan for Covid-status checks

Good morning. Last night, as my colleague Aubrey Allegretti reports, Labour hardened up its opposition to the government’s plans for Covid-status certificates. It went from calling them un-British (Sir Keir Starmer’s position last week) to saying the party was minded to vote against. And in interviews this morning Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has fleshed out the new position - using a script that sounded as if it were written by the Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson.

In a blog last night Nelson, who is probably one of the columnists most influential with Tory MPs, argued that Boris Johnson’s plans were incoherent. He said:

His ministers use ‘vaccine passport’ as a euphemism but even this sounded awful to him. He referred to his plans as ‘Covid status certification’. But a certificate doesn’t have someone’s photo on it. What he is planning is a digital identity card - but loaded with personal health data, so a bioidentity card.

On the Today programme this morning Ashworth, echoing Nelson’s argument, also said that Johnson “couldn’t defend his position”. He said that Johnson was now proposing to let people into pubs on the basis of having been vaccinated when only last week he recorded a video saying it was not safe for two vaccinated people to meet indoors because the vaccines do not provide 100% protection. Then Ashworth went on:

When you read the documentary he produced, what he’s essentially proposing is a digital ID card for biomedical details which you would have to present to get into shops or pubs or restaurants.

Asked if Labour would definitely vote against such a plan, he said:

Well, we’ll need to be convinced, but I cannot support a system where you have to present your vaccination ID card in order to get into H&M or Next.

According to the document published last night (pdf), the government has ruled out letting “essential shops” require people to show Covid-status certificates. And it is not saying that non-essential shops, or pubs, would have to impose these checks; but it is proposing that they should be allowed to if they want.

We’re expecting to hear more from Johnson on this later today.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: John Holland-Kaye of Heathrow airport, Shai Weiss of Virgin Atlantic and Sean Doyle of British Airways hold a briefing to give their response to what the PM announced yesterday about opening up foreign travel.

9.30am: The ONS publishes data on the social impacts of coronavirus.

11.45am: Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, holds a press conference in Watford to mark the launch of his party’s local elections campaign.

12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold a lobby briefing.

Also, Boris Johnson is on a visit this morning, where he is expected to speak to the media.

Politics Live has been mostly about Covid for the last year and I will be covering UK coronavirus developments today, as well as non-coronavirus Westminster politics. For global coronavirus news, do read our global live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

Contributors

Andrew Sparrow

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
UK Covid: Johnson admits some hospitals already feel overwhelmed at times – as it happened
Latest updates: PM also announces daily testing for 100,000 key workers; more NHS hospital trusts declaring critical incidents

Andrew Sparrow

04, Jan, 2022 @6:56 PM

Article image
UK Covid news: India added to England’s travel red list – as it happened
India added to travel red list, Hancock tells MPs, as number of Indian variant cases in UK rises to 103

Andrew Sparrow

19, Apr, 2021 @4:33 PM

Article image
UK Covid: one dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine reduces hospitalisation in over-80s by 80%, data shows – as it happened
Health secretary says data shows that, for over-80s, a single vaccine shot leads to a more than 80% reduction in hospitalisation

Andrew Sparrow

01, Mar, 2021 @6:36 PM

Article image
UK Covid: Williamson hopes children will get 'time in schools' this summer - as it happened
Education secretary also promises ‘no algorithms’ for exam results; MPs told 99% of arrivals in UK don’t quarantine in hotels

Andrew Sparrow

24, Feb, 2021 @6:23 PM

Article image
UK removes quarantine requirement for arrivals from Balearics, Malta and some Caribbean islands – as it happened
Latest updates: Northern Ireland makes announcement before update on England travel green list

Nadeem Badshah, Matthew Weaver and Andrew Sparrow

24, Jun, 2021 @8:22 PM

Article image
UK Covid: 60m vaccine booster shots secured for use later this year – as it happened
Latest updates: Matt Hancock says UK has now secured 60m doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be used for booster shots later this year

Andrew Sparrow

28, Apr, 2021 @5:23 PM

Article image
UK Covid: arrivals from South America and Portugal banned from Friday over Brazilian variant concerns – as it happened
Latest updates: arrivals from Brazil, Argentina and the rest of South America, alongside Portugal, banned from Friday

Andrew Sparrow

14, Jan, 2021 @6:05 PM

Article image
UK coronavirus: Johnson confirms it will take months until most of vulnerable group are vaccinated - as it happened
Latest updates: PM says rollout will take time after earlier warning people not to ‘get hopes up too soon’ about early vaccination

Andrew Sparrow

02, Dec, 2020 @6:38 PM

Article image
Boris Johnson says he will not rule out ‘plan B’ of vaccine passports, masks and homeworking – as it happened
Prime minister sets out more details of government winter plans after announcement of ‘plan A’ booster jabs

Andrew Sparrow

14, Sep, 2021 @5:14 PM

Article image
UK Covid: Johnson confirms France may go on 'red list' for border controls - as it happened
Latest updates: PM tells liaison committee that France is being considered for hotel quarantine measure and says decision could come ‘very soon’

Andrew Sparrow

24, Mar, 2021 @6:31 PM