Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Ben Quinn.
We have already posted Boris Johnson video about the importance of taking exercise (note the subtle “10” badge in the top left hand corner of the video, matching the logo on a face mask Johnson was wearing in Scotland last week – a sign perhaps that No 10 is not going to let Rishi Sunak win the Downing Street upmarket branding contest without a fight), and our story about the obesity strategy is here, but the full details are now on the government’s website.
Here is the full tackling obesity policy paper, here is the official news release about it, here is the government’s formal response (pdf) to its consultation on mandatory calorie labelling in restaurants and here is its equality assessment (pdf) of the calorie labelling plan.
Updated
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Ryanair has no plans to reduce flights to and from Spain
Ryanair will not reduce the number of flights to and from Spain, despite the British government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on visitors returning from the country, which the airline’s chief financial officer called “regrettable,” reports Joanna Partridge.
The requirement for all travellers arriving in the UK from Spain to self-isolate for two weeks came into effect at midnight on Sunday, only hours after it was announced.
“I think it is regrettable, very disappointing,” Neil Sorahan told Reuters in an interview after the release of the Irish airline’s quarterly financial results.
Ryanair has not followed the lead of Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday company, which has cancelled all Britons’ holidays to mainland Spain up and including 9 August.
Updated
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Airline stocks plunge on fears of more UK travel restrictions
Airline and travel stocks have tumbled across Europe this morning, amid fears of further travel restrictions. British Airways owner IAG was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 index in London, down 9.5%, while easyJet lost 13% and Ryanair fell 8%.
Europe’s biggest holiday firm, Tui, lost 15% on the German stock market after its UK arm said it would cancel all holidays to mainland Spain up to 9 August, but maintained flights to the Balearic and Canary Islands. German flagship carrier Lufthansa fell more than 7%.
Tui UK’s managing director, Andrew Flintham, told the BBC:
“What we’d really like – and I think we are going to need this going forward as the world evolves – is a nuanced policy.”
You can follow updates on our business live blog here
Updated
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Quarantine re-imposed because cases rising ‘very, very quickly in Spain’, says minister
Health and social care minister Helen Whately has been responding to the question of why the UK government imposed a blanket country travel restriction in the case of Spain when the Balearic Islands have lower case numbers than large parts of Britain.
The UK took advice from scientific advisers that the best thing to protect the UK was to go for a blanket quarantine for those coming back from both Spain and the islands, where rates were rising.
On the Today programme the BBC’s Nick Robinson asked her why was it announced with a few hours of notice on a Saturday evening?
She said that the rates were going up “very, very quickly in Spain” to the extent that a fortnight ago there were eight cases per 100,000. That has gone up to 27, she says, and the trajectory is “rising steeply”.
So why not tell people in recent weeks, or allow it to be leaked after many people had boarded a plane or were packing for morning flights?
It took Robinson a second attempt to get an answer from Whately, who began by giving him an answer to a question which he didn’t ask, before she said:
What we have said throughout the time we have put in place the policy of travel corridors, the air bridges is that we would need to keep those under review, that we would need to monitor the rates in other countries. That is exactly what we have done in Spain, so we are enacting the policy that we are committed to doing.
Should people also be on notice for other countries? Keep an eye on the Foreign Office guidance and be mindful that we are in a global pandemic, she said.
Updated
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Labour criticises ‘chaotic nature’ of quarantine decision for Spain
Andrew Flintham, the managing director of Tui in the UK and Ireland, added that the travel industry has been asking the government for a more regionalised approach.
“We have called for a regionalised policy so that if there are areas of a country where the infection rates are lower and safe travel can go ahead then the quarantine would not apply,” he told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Everything in life has risk but it’s all about taking a proportionate risk-based approach,” he added.
Speaking earlier, the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, urged the government to introduce “smarter measures” at the border rather than a blanket quarantine for those returning from Spain.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, he said:
We certainly would be following the advice and introducing protective measures at the border if there are spikes in cases in other countries, absolutely.
But there are two serious questions around this. The first is why we are still employing the … blunt tool of the 14-day quarantining rather than smarter measures and secondly the chaotic nature of the decision-making which certainly hasn’t bred confidence in the government’s approach.
I think you need a smarter set of quarantine measures at the airport. I’ve suggested this test, trace and isolate regime but you can also have temperature checking and other things – you look at a range of measures.
Updated
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Face coverings don’t lead people to abandon hand hygiene – study
Wearing face coverings does not appear to lead people to abandon hand hygiene, researchers say, suggesting people may not trade off the benefits of one public health measure against another.
Face coverings are now mandatory in many parts of the world, and in England must be worn not only on public transport but also in many shops.
While there is little evidence that cloth face coverings protect the wearer from Covid-19, experts say a growing body of research suggests they help to reduce transmission, limiting its spread from wearers to others.
Some scientists have raised concerns that the use of face coverings could give wearers a false sense of security and make them less likely to engage in other behaviours that could reduce the spread of coronavirus, such as handwashing and social distancing – a phenomenon known as “risk compensation”.
However, researchers say they have looked at existing studies and found little sign that wearing masks reduces adherence to hand hygiene.
Updated
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Junk food adverts could be banned entirely online, after the government’s decision to bar any unhealthy food advertising before 9pm online or on television, as part of its strategy to tackle the “time bomb” of obesity.
The measures have been cautiously welcomed though some health experts are concerned they place too much emphasis on individual responsibility for obesity, rather than addressing health inequalities.
The government has said it will ban junk food adverts before 9pm and launch a short consultation on whether that should be extended to a blanket ban on adverts for sweets and fast food online.
Other measures include a ban on chocolates, crisps and sweets at the checkout and displaying calories on menus in restaurants and pubs, including for alcoholic drinks, which are estimated to account for nearly 10% of the calorie intake of those who drink.
Updated
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UK’s full economic recovery could take until 2024, says EY report
The UK’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis could take 18 months longer than expected with hopes of a V-shaped recovery fading fast, according to a leading economic forecaster.
Britain’s economic output is not expected to return to its 2019 level until the end of 2024, the EY Item Club said on Monday in its latest projections on the health of the UK economy. It had previously expected GDP to match fourth-quarter 2019 size in early 2023.
EY is predicting that Britain’s economy will shrink by a record 20% in the April to June quarter, rather than 15% as it forecast last month. The economy expected to return to growth in the third quarter, with a quarterly expansion of around 12%.
Updated
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UK government could impose more ‘handbrake restrictions’ on countries
Holidaymakers have been warned the government could impose “handbrake restrictions” on more countries beyond Spain in order to stop the spread of coronavirus – with travellers unlikely to be given much warning if further quarantine measures need to be enforced.
The restrictions on travellers returning from Spain after the measures were announced overnight threw summer holiday plans into disarray for British tourists, and will raise fears among those travelling to other European countries that they could face a similar turnaround at a moment’s notice.
Government sources said it was prepared to act quickly to impose the new rules, if needed, on other nations – but said there were no plans for “air bridges” to be revoked with other European countries.
The snap decision to change advice for travellers has been criticised by Labour, who said the short notice would give tourists “a sense of panic and loss of control”. The party has called for the government to aid employees who must now tell their employers that they need to isolate, warning people could face financial hardship.
Updated
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