Health News at Your Fingertips

Dr Nikki Kanani says the NHS has made good progress in tackling vaccine hesitancy.

She urges people to book an appointment if they have not done so already.

Ramsay says today’s figure is very high. (See 4.25pm.) That is largely explained by surge testing in Scotland, she says.

She presents the next slide, showing hospitalisations. That suggests the link between cases and hospitalisations is being broken, she says.

And she says death figures are so low you can barely see the increase on the graph.

Dr Mary Ramsay is playing the Chris Whitty role today, and introducing the slides.

She says vaccines protect against the Delta variant, particularly against hospitalisations.

And she says if people have missed appointments for other vaccines, they should get those too.

She starts with the slide for cases.

Zahawi says the latest ONS figures show that vaccine hesitancy has halved among black and Asian people since February.

In London first doses are behind the rest of the country. But the government will help address this with a London summit later this week which will explore what more can be done.

He says the country is getting “a little bit safer” every day.

Zahawi says the UK has one of the highest rates of vaccine take-ups in the world.

The government has gone out to address people’s concerns, and explain why vaccines are safe, he says.

Zahawi says the time until 19 July will be used to give the NHS more time to get people vaccinated.

Two weeks ago there were two million people in England who had had one dose but not two.

Now that number is down to 900,000.

So the pause until the final easing of restrictions will save lives, he says.

Zahawi says almost half of all 25 to 29-year-olds in England have had a first dose.

The vaccination programme has already saved more than 14,000 lives.

And it has presented more than 44,000 hospitalisations, he says.

He shows a slide showing the impact the vaccine programme has had on the profile of people going to hospital.

Nadhim Zahawi starts by saying the government has come a long way. But it wants to get even more people vaccinated.

He says 82% of adults have had a first dose, and 60% have had a second dose.

Any adult in the UK can now book a first dose.

At one point six appointments were being booked every second.

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, is about to hold a press conference.

He will be at Downing Street with Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation for Public Health England, and Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director for primary care for NHS England.

The UK has recorded 16,135 new coronavirus cases, according to the latest update to the government’s dashboard. That is the highest daily total for recorded cases since 6 February (18,262), four and a half months ago. The total number of cases over the past week is up 43.9% on the total for the previous week.

And there have been 19 further deaths. The total number of deaths over the past week is up 53% on the total for the previous week.

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has told MPs that he will consider a proposal to ensure the £200m ship being built as a replacement for the royal yacht could double up as a naval frigate.

He has been giving evidence to the Commons defence committee, and Tobias Ellwood, the committee chair, expressed scepticism about the government’s plan for the MoD to fund the yacht so it can be used to help the UK drum up trade. Echoing a comment he has already made on Twitter, Ellwood suggested the government should use a repurposed Type 23 frigate for this task.

In response, Wallace said he would be happy to look at the idea. He went on:

And you’re on the right track in so far as all of these ships are platforms that should be flexible. We should be designing in flexibility, where you can plug and play in a different fit, whether it’s an amphibious support guard ship or whether it was an anti-air ship or whether it was an escort ship or whatever it is. The smartness of our modern weapon systems makes the platforms potentially more generic.

Ellwood also argued that another problem was that the new ship would require a second naval vessel to protect it. Wallace said the royal yacht only had a naval vessel guarding in when a member of the royal family was on board.

Wallace confirmed that his department would pay for the new ship.

And he insisted that it was not a new royal yacht. He said it was being called the national flagship for now, but that this did not make it the flagship of the British fleet, which is a different ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth. When the national flagship has a name, it will be called that, he said.

Describing the role it would play, Wallace said it would be a bridge between hard power and soft power. Responding to a question from Martin Docherty-Hughes (SNP), Wallace said:

It is going to be that bridge that shows Britain can do hard, but it also can do defence diplomacy, it can do national security, it can do securing economic security and it can showcase the United Kingdom around the world. The Scottish government has Scotland House in Brussels.

Wallace said the MoD was in charge of the project because, unlike other government departments, it was experienced at building ships.

Asked to defend the cost, he said it would cost less than 0.1% of the defence budget. He also said it would be a good training vessel for the Royal Navy.

More than 60% of UK adults have now had two doses of a vaccine, the Department of Health and Social Care has said. In a press notice it said:

More than three in five adults in the UK have received a second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, securing the fullest possible protection, as the vaccination programme continues at unprecedented pace and scale.

With 75,188,795 doses administered in total, 43,448,680 people across the UK have now been vaccinated with a first dose (82.5%), while 31,740,115 people have had both doses (60.3%).

Here is a full summary of the Downing Street lobby briefing.

• Downing Street condemned an anti-vaccine campaigner who filmed himself abusing Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, in the street. Asked about the incident, the prime minister’s spokesman said:

People working to fight the pandemic and save lives, which is what Prof Van-Tam is doing every single day, should never face that kind of appalling behaviour for doing their job. The right to free speech is fundamental to our democracy, but violence, threats or intimidation are absolutely never acceptable.

• The spokesman said the government is monitoring the spread of the Delta Plus variant. He said 41 cases of the variant have been identified in the UK.

It’s incorrect to say either that it was fired upon or that the ship was in Russian waters. HMS Defender was taking the most direct and internationally recognised route between Ukraine and Georgia.

As you know, the UK does not recognise Russia’s claim to Crimea and we continue to uphold the international consensus that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is illegal.

But the spokesman said the UK and other countries had been warned that Russia was undertaking a “gunnery exercise” near to where HMS Defender was sailing.

• The spokesman said the UK and the EU are still discussing the UK’s request to extend the grace period for chilled meats in place under the Northern Ireland protocol. It is due to lapse at the end of this month, which would stop the export of sausages and other chilled meats from Britain to Northern Ireland. The UK has asked to extend the grace period until September.

• The spokesman said it was wrong to claim that the Department for Education (DfE) had asked anyone to sing songs for One Britain One Nation day (OBON). Asked whether it was sensible for the department to encourage schoolchildren to sing the OBON patriotic song on Friday, the spokesman said:

The prime minister supports schools promoting fundamental British values, including tolerance and respect, and we endorse One Britain One Nation’s aims to help children learn about equality, kindness, pride, but I will point out the department has not asked people to sing songs or promoting any specific materials for One Britain One Nation day.

The question was prompted by the DfE’s decision to post this on Twitter on Monday.

The tweet was widely mocked.

• No 10 defended Boris Johnson uses of the word “jabber” to dismiss the questions Sir Keir Starmer asked him at PMQs today. (See 2.37pm.)

Downing Street has defended Boris Johnson uses of the word “jabber” to dismiss the questions Sir Keir Starmer asked him at PMQs today. (See 12.49pm.) At the lobby briefing, asked about the remark, the prime minister’s press secretary said:

I think that exact phrase was used at the end of the exchange and I think it was a broader point about the fact that Labour often do not follow up their words with actions – similar to wanting to talk about tougher sentences but not actually voting for the bill that would deliver that.

The press secretary rejected the suggestion that the word showed Johnson did not take sexual violence seriously. “As you can see from what he set out, that is certainly not his view and he spent the whole exchange talking about the action we are taking,” she said.

She also said Johnson would not be withdrawing the comment.