UK coronavirus live: Nightingale hospitals in Manchester, Sunderland and Harrogate on standby to take patients | Politics

Gavin Williamson, the training secretary for England, goes to delay GCSEs and A ranges for 3 weeks subsequent summer season to permit extra time for catch-up instructing, Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall studies.

In Scotland Nationwide 5 exams, the equal of GCSEs, have already been cancelled for next summer. Highers and superior highers are going forward, however barely later than normal.

At the beginning of her briefing Nicola Sturgeon additionally introduced the most recent coronavirus figures for Scotland.

She stated 961 folks had examined optimistic. That was 17.1% of individuals getting a check.

Yesterday the equal figures had been 956 and 14.9%. For a lot of final week the day by day variety of folks testing optimistic was over 1,000.

Sturgeon stated that 487 sufferers had been in hospital with coronavirus in Scotland, up 38 on yesterday, and 36 folks had been in intensive care, up one from yesterday.

These hospital figures are the best to this point in Scotland this autumn.

And Sturgeon additionally stated six additional deaths had been registered since Friday, taking the overall to 2,550.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is giving her day by day briefing now.

She says she has been taking part in a UK authorities Cobra assembly this morning. She says she was given particulars of the three-tier system being launched for England.

The Scottish authorities will take the plans away and take a look at them, she says.

She says Scotland will introduce its personal tiering system for when the present 16-day restrictions on pubs and eating places finish.

She says at a strategic stage it’ll make sense to align the Scottish system “as carefully as doable” with what is going on in the remainder of the UK.

However she says Scotland will be capable to determine for itself what guidelines apply the place.

Listed below are the details from Prof Jonathan Van-Tam’s briefing.

• Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, insisted that the coronavirus surge was a “nationwide phenomenon”. It was not simply restricted to the north of England, he stated. Charges had been rising throughout the UK. (See 11.10am and 11.44am.)

• He stated additional deaths had been inevitable due to the rising circumstances already recorded. He stated:

The hospital admissions we now have now truly relate to a time when there fewer circumstances of Covid-19. Already, with the circumstances that we learn about, we now have baked in further hospital admissions and sadly we even have baked in further deaths that at the moment are consequent upon infections which have already occurred.

• Prof Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, stated three Nightingale hospitals had been being positioned on standby to take sufferers. He stated:

We’ve got requested the Nightingale hospitals in Manchester, Sunderland and Harrogate to arrange for this subsequent part. They’re being requested to mobilise over the following few weeks to be prepared to just accept sufferers if needed.

Different Nightingale hospitals may also be positioned on standby, he stated. Within the spring seven emergency Nightingale hospitals had been geared up in England to be able to take coronavirus sufferers, however largely they weren’t used. Within the early summer season they had been both mothballed, or used for different functions.

• Powis stated the NHS was introducing common testing for workers in high-risk areas even once they don’t have signs.

• Van-Tam implicitly backed plans to shut pubs in locations with very excessive charges of an infection. This has been contentious as a result of critics of the plans says there isn’t any medical proof to justify this coverage. Requested concerning the scientific proof to justify hospitality closures, Van-Tam stated he didn’t need to pre-empt what the PM would possibly say. However he quoted Japanese authorities recommendation saying folks ought to keep away from the three-Cs: closed areas, crowded locations and shut contact. Van-Tam stated he would add two different danger elements: the length you spend in a spot, and the quantity at which you discuss. All of which gave the impression of a roundabout approach of claiming pubs pose a danger.

• Van-Tam performed down the influence of opening faculties on the resurgence of the virus. He stated:

For those who salami slice the an infection information very fastidiously throughout the college age bands, what you truly see may be very low charges of enhance in an infection as much as across the age of 16 after which selecting up a bit within the 17-18-year-olds as we drift into that age bracket … of actually fairly intense transmission.

The proof that there’s vital transmission in faculties isn’t actually borne out by the elevated an infection charges and certainly we already know that youngsters will not be drivers of an infection and unfold in the neighborhood in the identical approach we all know they’re for influenza, for instance.

Q: What new proof emerged over the weekend that modified your view of the unfold. (See 11.10am.)

Van-Tam says he doesn’t need to suggest Covid is an issue within the north however not within the south.

He says it has picked up sooner within the north. However that’s as a result of it by no means dropped a lot within the north.

Now all areas of England are exhibiting charges of Covid selecting up. See 11.10am.

He says the unfold of coronavirus is a “nationwide phenomenon”.

Q: Aren’t you already testing NHS employees?

Powis says the NHS has been testing employees with signs, and employees in locations the place there have been infections.

However it’s going to begin testing asymptomatic employees extra extensively. It received’t simply be the well being employees, he says. Porters and others may be affected. And he says they need to lengthen this testing to different well being employees, like GPs, he says.

And that’s it. The briefing is over.

Q: Are we in a greater or worse place that you simply anticipated us to be at this stage? And can extra Nightingale hospitals be wanted?

Powis says we’re in a greater place than we had been in March and April. For instance, having dexamethasone makes a giant distinction. Docs have higher data about when to make use of air flow. They usually have been making ready for winter.

However R is above one. Meaning infections will proceed to rise.

The important thing factor is to maintain neighborhood transmission underneath management, he says.

On the Nightingale hospitals, he says some have been requested to go on to the next state of readiness. (See 11.22am.) That may occur in different areas if wanted, he says.

Q: Take a look at and hint was meant to keep away from the necessity for native lockdowns. Has it failed?

Van-Tam says it’s all the time arduous to construct a system and run it on the similar time.

And check and hint will all the time be more difficult because the variety of infections picks up.

We’d be in a worse place with out it, he says.

Van-Tam is now taking questions.

(Medical and well being specialists have been invited to ask questions.)

Q: [From Fergus Walsh from the BBC] Will non-Covid remedies should be suspended?

Powis says through the first wave operations had been cancelled. He says this time they’ll do as a lot as they will to keep away from that. In several areas completely different approaches can be used. Non-public hospitals, and Nightingale hospitals, can be used.

However the important thing factor is to manage an infection in the neighborhood, he says.

Q: Is there scientific proof that shutting bars will gradual transmission?

Van-Tam says it will not be proper to pre-empt what the PM will announce later.

However he says we all know the virus thrives on human contact.

He refers back to the Japanese recommendation concerning the three Cs: closed areas, crowded areas and shut contact are all elements that assist the virus.

He says he would add noise too, as a result of it makes folks shout.

Jane Eddleston, an intensive care marketing consultant from the Manchester Royal Infirmary, is talking now.

The north-west has about 40% of all Covid circumstances in the meanwhile and that is proving very difficult for us.

Inside Better Manchester, we now have seen a threefold enhance within the variety of sufferers admitted to intensive care within the final 5 weeks and an eightfold enhance within the variety of sufferers admitted to our hospitals.

The state of affairs in the meanwhile is that 30% of our crucial care beds are taken up with sufferers with Covid and that is beginning to influence on the providers we offer for different sufferers.

Some sufferers must go on air flow quickly after being admitted. It’s a very severe virus, she says.

Powis says we now have to sort out the rise in Covid infections in order that the NHS remains to be in a position to deal with different sufferers.

The ultimate slide present how lengthy it takes on common to maneuver from one stage of Covid to a different.

Powis says hospitals are higher positioned to deal with Covid sufferers than within the spring.

However new measures are being launched.

First, there can be common testing for NHS employees in high-risk areas – even when they don’t have signs.

Second, the NHS is placing the Nightingale hospitals in Manchester, Sunderland and Harrogate on standby to open for sufferers.

This exhibits hospital admissions by age.

And listed below are the figures for the