Health News at Your Fingertips

Bristol is to be the first place in the UK to move into “tier 1 plus” coronavirus measures, ITV has reported.

The new restrictions, which will reportedly be imposed within a matter of days, mean tighter enforcement, more local control over test and trace, and a targeted focus on working adults aged 30 to 60.

Covid marshals will also be introduced int the city to ensure restrictions are followed.

The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, told the broadcaster that the city will move into tier 2 or 3 measures if tier 1 plus does not bring the infection rate down.

Police are investigating reports that a “red wall” Tory MP has been threatened with violence after he voted against free school meals for deprived children during the half-term holidays.

Ian Levy, who represents Blyth Valley in Northumberland, said the threats were distressing to him, his family and staff.

He said the comments were “politically motivated” and were “orchestrated” by people outside his constituency.

In a statement, he said:

“The issue of free school meal provision in holidays clearly does need further debate and there is plenty of time ahead of Christmas to do that.

“What needs to be properly understood is how people are best supported and I am fully behind looking at different options.

“Debate does though have to take place in a reasonable manner whether it is in the House of Commons or on social media.

“In recent days, I have had threats of violence which have been distressing to myself, my family and to my staff. These have been reported to the police.

“What is particularly sad is this had undoubtedly been politically motivated and orchestrated with the majority of offensive comments and threats from people living outside of Blyth Valley.”

Northumbria police confirmed they were investigating “a number of reports of malicious communication”.

The whole of Nottinghamshire is expected to enter England’s strictest coronavirus restrictions by the end of the week.

It is understood that pubs, bars and other venues will be forced to close across the east Midlands county from Friday.

It had been expected that only the city of Nottingham and three other council areas would enter tier 3 this week but rising infection rates mean this has been expanded to the whole of Nottinghamshire, a region of more than 828,000 people.

It means that more than 8.2 million people in England – or one in seven people – will be living under the country’s tightest restrictions by the end of the week.

The Welsh government’s counsel general, Jeremy Miles, has said 37 deaths from coronavirus have been recorded in Wales over the last 24 hours.

The figure, which is reported by Public Health Wales, is the highest amount of deaths in a single day since April.

Miles told a press conference in Cardiff:

Yesterday, Public Health Wales recorded seven more deaths. Today, I’m sorry to say that it will confirm a further 37 deaths. My thoughts are with the families and friends who are mourning the loss of a loved one at this time.

Keeping gyms and leisure centres open during the pandemic is critical to ensuring the health and wellbeing of communities, according to academics who found they pose an extremely low Covid-19 risk.

Analysis of more than 62 million fitness facility visits across Europe since September has found the average infection rate in gyms, leisure centres and fitness clubs is 0.78 per 100,000 visits.

The SafeACTiVE study found only 487 positive cases reported from operators based in Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Luxembourg and the UK.

The preliminary findings of the study, conducted by Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC) and King Juan Carlos University in Spain, will bolster calls from the fitness sector for facilities to remain open as coronavirus restrictions tighten in some regions.

The director of the AWRC, Prof Rob Copeland, said: “We know that being physically fit can help reduce the severity of Covid-19 infection and, moreover, being active can help us cope psychologically when faced with the challenges of a second wave of the pandemic across Europe.

“Keeping leisure centres and fitness clubs open and fully operational is critical to ensuring the health and wellbeing of our communities.”

The research has been commissioned by EuropeActive – a non-profit association for the European fitness and physical activity sector.

The NHS Covid-19 app has been updated after an issue around unsupported languages left some in England and Wales unable to access it.

Earlier, our UK technology editor, Alex Hern, reported that the app did not work for hundreds of thousands of people whose phones were set to unsupported languages, including French, Spanish and Portuguese.

After concerns were raised about accessibility for non-English speakers and foreign visitors to England and Wales who wanted to use the app for contact tracing, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said an update would be rolled out to show the text of the app in English if their device was not set to one of the supported languages.

This update now appears to have already gone live for some users, with both iPhone and Android handsets set to unsupported languages correctly opening and displaying app text in English when tested.

A date has been set for the chancellor’s spending review, in which Downing Street has suggested he could announce extra support to feed families through the school holidays.

Rishi Sunak has announced he will unveil his spending plans for next year on Wednesday 25 November.

The government had already confirmed it was scrapping a planned multi-year spending review and instead will hold only a one-year review due to the focus on dealing with the current pandemic.

Following pressure for the government to extend free school meal provisions during the holidays, Number 10 hinted this week that Sunak could announce extra support as part of the fiscal package.

The prime minister’s official spokesman pointed reporters to comments from the health secretary, Matt Hancock, that “the spending review sets out any future funding on behalf of the government”.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the scientist whose modelling prompted the UK-wide lockdown in March, has said measures in tier 2 and tier 3 areas are “unlikely to cause daily cases and deaths to fall rapidly”.

He told the PA Media news agency that modelling suggested this could leave the country with “high levels” of Covid cases, demand on healthcare and deaths “until spring 2021”.

Prof Ferguson, from Imperial College London, said:

The concern at the moment is that even if the measures adopted in tier 2 and tier 3 areas slow spread in the next few weeks, they are unlikely to cause daily cases and deaths to fall rapidly.

Modelling from all the academic groups informing Sage suggests that this could leave the country with high levels of Covid circulation, healthcare demand and mortality for several months, at least until spring 2021.

Nottingham hospital bosses have cancelled some cancer operations due to “pressure on intensive care units”.

The city and neighbouring boroughs had been preparing for tier 3 restrictions to come into force on Thursday, but a surge in cases means they are likely to be imposed on all of Nottinghamshire.

Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust’s medical director, Keith Girling, said the trust had taken the “extremely difficult decision” to postpone four cancer operations this week.

The head of the NHS trust, which runs Nottingham’s two main hospitals, previously said some non-urgent surgery and appointments would have to be cancelled because of a rise in Covid-19 admissions.

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 could more than double within weeks, the former chief scientific adviser to the government has said.

Prof Sir Mark Walport said it was “not unrealistic” to think that there could be 25,000 people in hospitals by the end of November. It comes as pressure mounts on medical staff, with more than 9,000 patients in hospitals with Covid-19.

Asked if it is not unrealistic to think of 25,000 people being in hospital by the end of November, Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: “It’s certainly not unrealistic to think about that.”

On hospital admissions, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “France, which has a very similar population to us, currently has about 16,000 people in hospital. It’s got 2,500 in intensive care beds compared with 852 here and roughly half the ICU beds in France are occupied. We’re seeing similar things in Spain.

“And these are in spite of these countries taking strong measures as well. So, the answer is that with our current measures – which are similar but with variations in different parts of Europe – there’s still evidence that there isn’t as much social distancing as there was when we clamped down on the first wave. And so we know that the risk is significant [and] that cases will continue to grow.”

He said that we are “still relatively early in the second wave” but added: “The number of cases is rising very significantly – it was 22,800 on 27 October and the seven-day average was just over 22,000. So there are an awful lot of cases.”

The environment secretary, George Eustice, who is doing the interview rounds on behalf of the government this morning, has said tiered restrictions for local areas have been introduced in a “timely way” and a national lockdown is “not appropriate”.

Speaking on Times Radio on Wednesday morning, he said: “In some ways we’ve always anticipated that there would be a second spike.

“That’s why we have been monitoring the situation closely since September, introducing, in a timely way, restrictions that are appropriate to the level of prevalence in particular parts of the country with these three different levels of intervention.

“We’re trying to intervene in things in a proportionate way across the country, but we don’t think it’s appropriate to have a national lockdown, because there’s parts of the country, like Cornwall, where the incidence of the disease is actually very low.”

Airedale hospital in West Yorkshire has become the latest hospital to say it is suspending non-urgent surgery for two weeks.

It said in a statement: “We are seeing increasing demand on the hospital which is in turn meaning that our inpatient beds are at capacity.

“As a result, and as per our escalation plans, we have taken the decision to postpone any elective surgery that needs an overnight stay. This comes into effect immediately, for the next two weeks.

The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said the government’s failure to use the school half-term for a circuit-breaker lockdown means they now need to “do something quickly to save Christmas”.

Ashworth said ministers had “lost a window of opportunity” for a national lockdown over the holidays, which its scientific advisers and Labour had been requesting for “two weeks or so”.

Speaking on Times Radio on Wednesday morning, he said government sources are planning for a tier 3 lockdown in most areas of the country “at some point in November”.

When asked if he thought families would be able to meet in groups of more than six on Christmas Day, he said:

That’s in the hands of all of us, and in the hands of the decisions it (the government) makes in the next week or so about what they’re going to do to get on top of this virus.

I think because they’ve missed this window of opportunity over the half term, I’m worried now that what we’ll see is deeper, more drastic lockdown action over November and December, which sadly probably does put Christmas at risk.

The government have got to do something quickly to save Christmas for everybody, because we want people to have a family Christmas, and I think it would be awful if people didn’t have that.

Good morning. Calls for national lockdown are growing as the UK’s coronavirus death toll passed 60,000 on Tuesday.

A further 367 Covid-19 deaths were confirmed yesterday – the largest number since May, and 265 higher than the previous day.

This brings the rolling weekly death toll to 200 a day, with 61,469 deaths now reported across the country, according to analysis of official data.

More than 9,000 people were in hospital with the virus on Tuesday, with Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust the latest to cancel some non-urgent operations.

You can read the full report from Aamna Mohdin and Pamela Duncan here:

Please feel free to get in touch your tips or stories throughout the day on Twitter @amyrwalker.

The government’s delay in announcing full details of tier 3 restrictions in Nottingham has been described as “unacceptable” by the city’s council leader.

The city, alongside areas of Nottinghamshire including Broxtowe, Rushcliffe and Gedling, were expected to have been placed under the strictest lockdown measures from midnight tomorrow.

But the government has reportedly withdrawn its agreement for a “rethink” of the areas that will be affected amid rising infection rates in other parts of the county.

Nottingham city council’s Labour leader, David Mellen, said on Twitter:

“Nottingham people and businesses deserve clarity in difficult times. This is not good enough for our city.”