We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.
During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held.
In Liz Truss, Britain has found the radical solutions and radical Prime Minister needed for the crisis engulfing us at the moment.
More areas of England are being placed under the toughest coronavirus restrictions, from 00:01 GMT on 31 December. The government estimates that over three quarters of the country will be under tier four measures from then.
Other parts of England are also joining higher tiers, to curb the spread of a new variant of Covid-19.
Mainland Scotland and Northern Ireland started new lockdowns on Boxing Day. The whole of Wales has already entered lockdown.
All areas of England can be placed in one of four tiers, depending on factors such as how fast Covid is spreading and pressure on hospitals.
People in tiers one to three should not to travel into tier four areas. Across all tiers, people should now “stay local”.
There are exceptions in all tiers for childcare and support bubbles.
From 00:01 GMT on Thursday 31 December the following places are in tier four:
London and much of the South East of England were already in tier four and will remain there. The tiers are reviewed every two weeks.
The restrictions are similar to the last national lockdown and include:
“Clinically extremely vulnerable” people in tier four areas are advised to stay at home “as much as possible”. The government says if they can’t work from home, they shouldn’t go to work.
Activities still allowed include:
From 00:01 GMT on Thursday 31 December the following places are in tier three:
From 00:01 GMT on Thursday 31 December nowhere in England will be under tier two restrictions.
What are the rules in tier two?
You can’t mix indoors with anyone apart from members of your household or bubble
The only place currently under tier one restrictions is the Isles of Scilly.
Joining the lowest tier means some restrictions being relaxed:
From Boxing Day, level four lockdown measures are in place across mainland Scotland for three weeks. Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and other island communities are in level three.
Scotland has five levels of restrictions – from zero to four.
Level four (lockdown) rules
Indoors:
Outdoors:
Pubs, cafes & holiday accommodation:
Supermarkets, clothes shops & markets:
Sport, leisure & entertainment:
Places of worship:
Education:
Level three (very high) rules
Level two (high) rules
Level one (medium) rules
Level zero (nearly normal) rules
A six-week lockdown began in Northern Ireland on Boxing Day.
The first week, until 2 January, has stricter restrictions, including essential shops closing at 20:00 GMT and no sport.
The new rules include:
Read Northern Ireland’s official guidance.
Wales has a national lockdown. The new level four measures mean that:
You should also:
The following must close:
Harsher Covid restrictions now apply to millions more people, as rule changes come into force across the UK.
Around six million people in east and south-east England have gone into tier four, England’s highest Covid level – which includes a “stay at home” order.
Lockdowns have also started in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and measures have been reimposed in Wales after being eased for Christmas.
It comes after official UK coronavirus deaths passed 70,000 on Christmas Day.
The toughest measures – which mean the closure of all non-essential shops, as well as hairdressers, swimming pools and gyms – now apply to around 24 million people in England, more than 40% of the population.
The whole of Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, as well Essex, Waverley in Surrey, and all of Hampshire with the exception of the New Forest, are now in tier four.
Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, the New Forest and Northamptonshire, as well as Cheshire and Warrington, have all moved up to tier three. Meanwhile, Cornwall and Herefordshire have moved from tier one to tier two.
In Scotland – which operates under a different tier system – level four lockdown measures have come into force across the mainland for three weeks. Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and other island communities are in level three.
And in Northern Ireland, a six-week lockdown has begun. The first week, until 2 January, has stricter restrictions, including essential shops closing at 20:00 GMT and no sport.
For the first week, people are also banned from meeting indoors or outdoors between 20:00 and 06:00.
NI police have legally-enforceable powers to tell anyone out during those hours to return home, unless they have a “reasonable excuse”, such as being a key worker or having caring responsibilities.
The rapid spread of a new variant of coronavirus has been blamed for the introduction of strict tier four mixing rules for millions of people, harsher restrictions on mixing at Christmas in England, Scotland and Wales, and other countries placing the UK on a travel ban.
So how has it gone from being non-existent to the most common form of the virus in parts of England in a matter of months?
The government’s advisers on new infections now say they have “high” confidence that it is more able to transmit than other variants.
All the work is at an early stage, contains huge uncertainties and a long list of unanswered questions.
As I’ve written before, viruses mutate all the time and it’s vital to keep a laser focus on whether the virus’ behaviour is changing.
Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention:
All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily.
However, we do not have absolute certainty. New strains can become more common simply by being in the right place at the right time – such as London, which had only tier two restrictions until recently.
But already the justification for tier four restrictions is in part to reduce the spread of the variant.
“Laboratory experiments are required, but do you want to wait weeks or months [to see the results and take action to limit the spread]? Probably not in these circumstances,” Prof Nick Loman, from the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium, told me.
It was first detected in September. In November around a quarter of cases in London were the new variant. This reached nearly two-thirds of cases in mid-December.
You can see how the variant has come to dominate the results of testing in some centres such as the Milton Keynes Lighthouse Laboratory.
Mathematicians have been running the numbers on the spread of different variants in an attempt to calculate how much of an edge this one might have.
But teasing apart what is due to people’s behaviour and what is due to the virus is hard.
The figure mentioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was that the variant may be up to 70% more transmissible. He said this may be increasing the R number – which indicates if an epidemic is growing or shrinking – by 0.4.
During the talk he said: “It is really too early to tell… but from what we see so far it is growing very quickly, it is growing faster than [a previous variant] ever grew, but it is important to keep an eye on this.”
There is no “nailed on” figure for how much more infectious the variant may be. Scientists, whose work is not yet public, have told me figures both much higher and much lower than 70%.
But there remain questions about whether it is any more infectious at all.
“The amount of evidence in the public domain is woefully inadequate to draw strong or firm opinions on whether the virus has truly increased transmission,” said Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham.
It is thought the variant either emerged in a patient in the UK or has been imported from a country with a lower ability to monitor coronavirus mutations.
The variant can be found across the UK, except Northern Ireland, but it is heavily concentrated in London, the South East and eastern England. Cases elsewhere in the country do not seem to have taken off.
Data from Nextstrain, which has been monitoring the genetic codes of the viral samples around the world, suggest cases in Denmark and Australia have come from the UK. The Netherlands has also reported cases.
A similar variant that has emerged in South Africa shares some of the same mutations, but appears to be unrelated to this one.
Yes.
The virus that was first detected in Wuhan, China, is not the same one you will find in most corners of the world.
The D614G mutation emerged in Europe in February and became the globally dominant form of the virus.
Another, called A222V, spread across Europe and was linked to people’s summer holidays in Spain.
There have been changes to the spike protein – this is the key the virus uses to unlock the doorway to our body’s cells.
One mutation called N501Y alters the most important part of the spike, known as the “receptor-binding domain”.
This is where the spike makes first contact with the surface of our body’s cells. Any changes that make it easier for the virus to get inside are likely to give it an edge.
“It looks and smells like an important adaptation,” said Prof Loman.
The other mutation – a H69/V70 deletion, in which a small part of the spike is removed – has emerged several times before, including famously in infected mink.
Work by Prof Ravi Gupta at the University of Cambridge has suggested this mutation increases infectivity two-fold in lab experiments.
Prof Gupta told me: “It is rapidly increasing, that’s what’s worried government, we are worried, most scientists are worried.”
The variant is unusually highly mutated.
The most likely explanation is the variant has emerged in a patient with a weakened immune system that was unable to beat the virus.
Instead their body became a breeding ground for the virus to mutate.
There is no evidence to suggest that it does, although this will need to be monitored.
However, just increasing transmission would be enough to cause problems for hospitals.
If the new variant means more people are infected more quickly, that would in turn lead to more people needing hospital treatment.
Almost certainly yes, or at least for now.
All three leading vaccines develop an immune response against the existing spike, which is why the question comes up.
Vaccines train the immune system to attack several different parts of the virus, so even though part of the spike has mutated, the vaccines should still work.
“But if we let it add more mutations, then you start worrying,” said Prof Gupta.
“This virus is potentially on a pathway for vaccine escape, it has taken the first couple of steps towards that.”
Vaccine escape happens when the virus changes so it dodges the full effect of the vaccine and continues to infect people.
This may be the most concerning element of what is happening with the virus.
This variant is just the latest to show the virus is continuing to adapt as it infects more and more of us
That would put us in a position similar to flu, where the vaccines need to be regularly updated. Fortunately the vaccines we have are very easy to tweak.
Since the UK went into lockdown, there have been reduced services on trains, buses and planes, and the government has advised against all but essential travel. Now, with restrictions being eased in England, more people are being encouraged back to work. The government says they should avoid public transport and walk, cycle or drive instead. But if they can’t, what are the risks of taking the bus or train?
A lot of the potential risk of infection on trains and buses depends on how crowded they are, and so how far away you can keep from other people. This applies both on the vehicles and at stops and stations, and will vary in different parts of the country and on different routes.
Ventilation also plays an important role as fresh air can help droplets containing the virus dissipate faster, so being able to open a window can be an advantage.
Coronavirus spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes or exhales small droplets packed with the virus into the air.
These droplets can enter the body through the eyes, nose and mouth, either directly or after touching a contaminated object.
The government’s consistent message has been to stay 2m (more than 6ft) apart from people outside your household.
Allowing family gatherings is an “important public health issue”, England’s deputy chief medical officer has said – but it is “complicated” to make the rules fair.
Dr Jenny Harries said such a move could provide a “mental health boost”.
But she said if two large families wanted to meet “you end up effectively with quite a large gathering”.
Some lockdown measures have been eased in England but restrictions on how many people you can meet remain in place.
Two people from different households can meet in outdoor settings, such as parks – as long as they stay more than two metres apart.
But any larger meetings between different households at the same time are currently banned. The UK government has said this means someone cannot see both parents at the same time.
At the daily No 10 briefing earlier, Dr Harries was asked whether this could be expanded to allow different households to meet as “bubbles” or “clusters”.
She said such a move would be particularly beneficial to those “who have been on their own or who are isolated from others”.
But she added that any such step had to be “fair” and “consistent with public health advice”.
“So for example if you have families with large numbers already in their families who want to meet up, you end up effectively with quite a large gathering even if it’s just two families meeting.
“I think it’s really important that we think through the implications of that, particularly across families in different circumstances. If your family is a long way away, for example, you may be less able to do that.”
Policymakers say they are following the science on coronavirus. So what does science say about easing lockdown rules?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out a provisional plan to start easing restrictions in England using “baby steps”.
Changes will be gradual to avoid the risk of a second peak of infections that could overwhelm the NHS.
And he says the plan is conditional on infection and death rates staying low.
And if there are any signs they are starting to rise, the brakes will go back on.
This is some of the thinking behind this week’s main announcements.
One of the key questions arising from the new guidance is why it’s being suggested young children should return to school from the beginning of June.
Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 children would be the first to return.
As well as having particular educational needs, it is suggested:
Young children are considered a high risk group when it comes to flu.
But they appear to be at low risk of becoming very ill with Covid-19.
Experts do not know, however, to what extent they can carry coronavirus and spread the disease to adults and each other.
And starting the return to school with only some year groups will allow them to assess the impact on infection rates.
Younger pupils may find it more difficult to use face coverings, which are not being recommended for children, and follow social-distancing rules, however.
So the focus will be on handwashing and other hygiene measures.
In theory, meeting two or more people at a time from the same household should result in a roughly similar risk of infection as meeting just one.
But Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the one-person rule would keep gatherings of people from different households small, making it easier to stick to the overarching principle of staying 2m (more than 6ft) apart.
Somewhere between 1-2m is generally accepted around the world as the distance within which there is most risk of inhaling droplets from another person’s coughs and sneezes.
The best evidence suggests coronavirus is most commonly spread by these droplets entering through the eyes, nose and mouth, either directly or after touching a contaminated object.
But there is some evidence the virus can form aerosols, clouds of lighter particles that hang around in the air for longer, particularly in hospitals during procedures such as intubation.
Activities such as golf and tennis will be permitted but only alone or with one other person.
That person can be from another household.
But social-distancing rules will still apply.
And playgrounds and outdoor gyms, where there is a higher risk of close contact and touching surfaces, will remain shut.
Once expelled, droplets fall relatively quickly to the ground.
But indoor environments have more surfaces for them to land on that others could then touch – and less ventilation.
And independent scientific advisers say the risk of infection is significantly lower outside.
As more people go back to work, buses, Tubes and trains will become busier.
And the government is now advising people to wear a face covering when they come into contact with others they do not normally meet, in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible – for example, on public transport or in some shops.
The science behind the advice is somewhat patchy and controversial.
But there is some evidence face coverings might help stop people who are contagious but have no symptoms from unknowingly spreading the virus.
One of the five tests the government says must be met before lockdown can be substantially eased is the rate of infection decreases to “manageable levels”.
The reproduction (R) number – how many people each infected person passes their illness on to – needs to be well below one.
At the moment, the R number across the UK is estimated to be between 0.5 and one.
But it is thought to be higher in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
So there is less room for restrictions to be eased.
Here’s a recap of the key events:
Eastwood’s effort to pay tribute to these incredible heroes did not succeed in my view. The script was terrible, the three main guys (the real heroes) did their best and the film was filled with lots of empty meaningless space. The last 10 minutes were the best thing about the movie. That’s when the heroes came alive and made an impact. I don’t want to disparage this movie in any way, but this movie was just too slow for my liking and too much background story before depicting the actual event it was leading up to. 3 Stars⭐⭐⭐ from myself for this one.
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