Health News at Your Fingertips

A hotel manager has been fined 10,000 for breaching coronavirus regulations after hosting a funeral party with over 200 guests, PA reports.

West Midlands Police said it was the first maximum fine they had issued since the new rules were implemented.

The force said the Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel in Solihull has also been banned from holding events until January next year following the large gathering on September 25.

Police received nine calls to report the funeral party and loud music coming from the hotel. The party attendees were dispersed at 9pm.

There were an average of 8,400 new Covid-19 infections a day in private households in England between 18 and 24 September, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The latest figures, which do not include people staying in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings, is a slight drop from the estimated 9,600 new infections a day for the period from 13-19 September.

The ONS said there was some “limited evidence” that the incidence rate “may be levelling off following steep increases during August and September”, but uncertainty around the figures means it is too early to say.

The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, said Margaret Ferrier’s actions were a “serious breach” of safety in parliament and that there will be a “review” of the rules.

He said he learned Ferrier had coronavirus while in the Speaker’s chair at around 4pm on Wednesday. He said the reaction was immediate and “within 20 minutes we were in full swing on what we needed to do to ensure the safety and security of staff and members”.

He told Sky News:

We believed there had been a breach of the law.

People make mistakes but there is something completely different when they act in a reckless manner.

Boris Johnson is “reluctant to recognise the border” between England and Wales by refusing to prevent people in English local lockdown areas from holidaying in Welsh tourist hotspots, Wales’s first minister Mark Drakeford has said, according to PA Media.

Drakeford has previously asked the prime minister to impose travel restrictions in areas of England with high levels of coronavirus, following concerns people from those areas were able to travel to parts of Wales with much lower rates.

Asked why Johnson had refused to consider the travel restrictions, Drakeford told LBC:

I think he is reluctant to recognise the border. I think that’s part of his way of thinking about things.

But all I want is for people in England to be in the same position as the people in Wales. People in England living in low areas of coronavirus would still be able to come here.

It’s only places in local lockdown that we would like to see that restriction. And that’s the rule we have for ourselves.

This is from Jim McMahon, the MP for Oldham West and Royton, who has written to Matt Hancock questioning why Oldham remains under strict restrictions that have been lifted in other parts of Greater Manchester, some of which have a higher infection rate.

Here is the letter McMahon sent to the health secretary. In it he makes points including that despite the month-long local restrictions, the number of positive cases in Oldham – and other parts of the UK – has continued to rise.

He cites two examples – Bury and Manchester – which both have higher infection rates than Oldham, but people are allowed to meet family and friends in parks, while in Oldham they are not.

McMahon also raises the issue of confusion about the complexity of the rules and how they apply to different areas.

Prof Ian Young added that the executive would have little alternative but to opt for a full lockdown in the Derry City and Strabane area if soaring infection rates were not halted by new restrictions being introduced next week.

I think the executive have decided to make a strong intervention, which I believe has a realistic prospect of reversing that [infection rate]. However if evidence suggests that it’s not sufficient to be effective then the CMO [chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride] and myself won’t hesitate to recommend additional measures. And I don’t think there’s much more left to come other than something close to a complete circuit breaker.

Northern Ireland may require more than one “circuit break” lockdown during the winter, Stormont’s chief scientific adviser has said.

As reported by PA Media, Prof Ian Young said it would be sensible for people to plan for the prospect of multiple periods of lockdown over the coming months, though he stressed it was still not clear whether they would definitely be required.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show, Young said there are several options open to the Stormont executive in terms of added restrictions.

Probably one of the most effective is certainly this idea of a circuit breaker, or a relatively short-term lockdown. I don’t think that a single period of lockdown or circuit breaker would be sufficient to get us right through the winter.

He added:

I think it would be sensible to plan for the possibility of one or more periods of circuit break over the course of this winter. I don’t know, I can’t say, whether that’s something that will be required, but I think it would be sensible to plan for it.

Covid-19 cases have doubled in most places in England that are subject to long-term local lockdowns, exclusive Guardian analysis has found, amid growing concern that the patchwork of restrictions is confusing and done “on the cheap”.

My colleagues Niamh McIntyre and Josh Halliday report that in 11 out of 16 English cities and towns where restrictions were imposed nine weeks ago, the infection rate has at least doubled, with cases in five areas of Greater Manchester rising faster than the England average in that time.

In Wigan, cases have risen from seven per 100,000 residents to 102 in that period. Leicester is the only one of the 16 areas to record fewer cases than when the measures were implemented.

Read their full exclusive report here:

Mandatory in most indoor settings, face masks have become part of our daily lives. But despite being designed to completely cover the nose and mouth, it’s (frustratingly) all too common to see them dangling off an ear or resting under the chin. My colleague Linda Geddes has spoken to an expert about some of the most popular forms of face covering – and why they don’t work.

The first minister tweeted that she asked Margaret Ferrier to step down because her actions were “dangerous and indefensible”.

The number of coronavirus-linked deaths in Northern Ireland has passed 900, figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) indicate.

PA reports:

The latest analysis by the Nisra, which reports on a weekly basis with a seven-day lag, put the death toll at 901 at the end of last week.

The Department of Health has reported four further fatalities since then.

Nisra said five Covid-19 linked deaths occurred in the week of September 19 to September 25.

The comparative total number of deaths reported daily by the Department of Health stood at 578 on September 25.

The departmental toll primarily comprises deaths in hospital settings in cases where a positive Covid-19 test has been confirmed.