Keith McKenzie closes up The Grill in Aberdeen at 5pm, after bars, cafes and restaurants were ordered to close as lockdown restrictions are reimposed. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
Keith McKenzie closes up The Grill in Aberdeen at 5pm, after bars, cafes and restaurants were ordered to close as lockdown restrictions are reimposed. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
Aberdeen was placed under renewed lockdown conditions after a cluster emerged. The Scottish first minister said pubs, cafes and other indoor and outdoor hospitality venues must close down by 5pm on Wednesday, while people have been told not to travel into the city. Its residents must not enter each other’s houses.
Another 65 people in the UK died after testing positive on Tuesday, according to official figures. The UK government’s latest data release took the cumulative total of those who have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community to 46,364. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 56,600 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
That’s all from me for today. Thanks for reading and commenting. If you’d like to read yet more, my colleague Severin Carrell has put together a detailed story on Aberdeen’s lockdown:
The mayor of Luton has stepped down after breaking coronavirus guidelines at a large garden gathering. Tahir Malik said he regretted his actions and that resignation was the best thing he could do for the town.
Pictures circulating on social media last month showed him at a gathering at a house in Luton, along with councillors Asif Masood and Waheed Akbar – leading them all to apologise. Malik was seen chatting with guests less than two metres apart with a mask hanging below his face.
The gathering occurred just days before Luton was named an area of intervention by Public Health England because of concern over the number of cases. Malik has said:
Once again, I regret my actions which were below the standard of my position and would like to sincerely apologise to the people of Luton for attending this gathering which was in breach of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
There is no excuse for what I did - I should have known better and I accept full responsibility for my actions.
A disciplinary process was launched by both the Labour party and Luton borough council after complaints were made about his attendance. Malik said:
I felt it was important for the disciplinary process – both at the council and within the Labour party – to determine the outcome and the punishment for my actions. But, after reflecting with my family over the last few days, we agreed that the best thing I could do for the town was resign from my position with immediate effect.
I have learnt a valuable lesson from this, but I hope the consequence of my actions serves as a reminder to the people of Luton of the importance of following the Covid-19 guidelines as it remains a real and serious threat.
In Aberdeen, businesses have been complying with the requirement to close up in a bid to contain what is thought to be a localised outbreak. The first minister Nicola Sturgeon told pubs, cafés and restaurants in the city to shut their doors by 5pm.
A waitress wears a face mask as she is closing up the outside tent of the Grill in Aberdeen Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Pubs and restaurants were told to close to try to curb the spread of the virus Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
A pedestrian walks past a closed pub in Aberdeen Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Keith McKenzie closes the door of the Grill in Aberdeen at 5pm Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
Civic leaders from across Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire are concerned about a rise in community tension following the introduction of new lockdown measures, announced on the eve of Eid al-Adha last Thursday, which many say prompted a surge in online anti-Muslim sentiment.
My colleagues Helen Pidd, Josh Halliday, Amy Walker and Nazia Parveen report:
The prime minister Boris Johnson must meet with the grieving relatives of people who have died from Covid-19, according to the chair of parliamentary group that heard their complaints on Wednesday. Layla Moran, who leads the All-Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus, has said:
It is unacceptable that bereaved families have been met with such a wall of indifference from No 10. The prime minister must agree to listen to families who have lost loved ones to coronavirus and take their concerns on board.
We also need greater support for bereaved families and those living with long-term symptoms of Covid. This cross-party inquiry will continue to hear from those impacted by this terrible disease, so we can put pressure on the government, learn lessons and save lives.
The bereaved families told MPs they have written to the prime minister asking to meet and share their experiences on three occasions, but were told that officials were unable to arrange a meeting “due to the current pandemic”.
Weekend car use has returned to pre-pandemic levels but demand for public transport remains low, official figures suggest.
The number of cars on Britain’s roads compared with equivalent days in early February was 97% on Saturday and 100% on Sunday, according to Department for Transport (DfT) data. Car use on Monday – the latest day for which data is available – was at 88%, partly due to many people continuing to work from home.
Passenger numbers on buses outside London were at 37% of pre-pandemic levels on Monday, while the latest confirmed figures for train use show it is at 28%. Cycling is the mode of transport that has seen the biggest increase, at 126% of what it was before the crisis began.
Stephen Joseph, a visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire, said the figures highlight the need for “a bigger focus” on alternatives to car use for leisure travel. He said potential solutions include establishing more park and ride schemes in rural areas and creating more hubs where people can transition from cars to walking, cycling and bus services.
Otherwise, the places that people come to – the seaside, national parks – will be destroyed by the traffic that’s bringing people there. Leisure car use was congesting a lot of places pre-Covid. It’s going to be even worse now when there’s less public transport available.
Different coronavirus vaccines could be used on different parts of the population if laboratories succeed in developing a range of successful types, the business secretary has said.
Alok Sharma visited a high-security factory in Livingston, near Edinburgh, where the French firm Valneva is developing a new vaccine using a deactivated Covid-19 virus, one of up to a dozen the UK government has said it may invest in.
The UK government has ordered at least 60m doses of the Valneva vaccine, with an option to increase that to 100m doses; 100m doses of another type made by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford; and 30m doses of a further type from BioNTech and Pfizer, if their trials succeed.
During Wednesday’s visit, Sharma said the vaccine being developed by Astra Zeneca and Oxford university was “ahead of the pack in terms of trials” but he said many of those under development could be used; some may be more beneficial for different people.
We’re, of course, investing in a range of vaccine candidates which have different underlying and technical properties. At the end of the day, what we hope in an ideal world, is that all the vaccines we’re investing in are successful.
However, it’s also the case it will depend very much on the individual properties of individual vaccines, in terms of what part of the population they could be deployed into. So it is entirely possible to imagine that you have a number of successful vaccines but they’re deployed in different parts of the population.
Sharma added that some caution was needed; it was possible these trials may fail to get approval. The Valneva vaccine is not likely to win regulatory approval before the second half of 2021. “I hope we will be successful but there are no guarantees,” Sharma said.
The latest official figures show 46,364 people have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider UK community after testing positive for coronavirus as of 5pm on Tuesday; up by 65 from the day before.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 56,600 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The government also said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 892 lab-confirmed cases. Overall, a total of 307,184 cases have been confirmed.
NHS test and trace has only managed to trace 53% of the contacts identified in Greater Manchester, amid increasing coronavirus cases in the area.
Figures published by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) on Wednesday showed the rate of positive Covid-19 tests per 100,000 people had increased to 27.6 in the week ending 1 August, from 23.5 the week before. Oldham, Manchester and Trafford currently have the highest rates of infection in the area.
The authority’s 10 boroughs have been subject to reimposed lockdown measures – meaning residents are not allowed to visit different households at home, or go to indoor venues with people outside their own household – since Friday 31 July.
However, data on tracing contacts of those infected shows that as of Tuesday, the national system had managed to make contact with only 6,350 of the 12,075 contacts it had identified.
GMCA’s local tracing team on the other hand had identified 10,547 contacts, and had managed to engage with 99%, or 10,482.
During a regional coronavirus briefing on Wednesday afternoon, the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, called for greater access to national track-and-trace information.
He argued that NHS test and trace should pass on the contact details of the people they cannot reach to the local authority within 48 hours, allowing local contact tracers to reach people on their doorsteps.
Hello, this is Kevin Rawlinson back with you for the rest of the afternoon.
Again, I’ll try to keep an eye on the comments below the line but the most reliable way to alert my attention to something is via Twitter: KevinJRawlinson. I look forward to hearing from you.
The grieving relatives of people who have died from Covid-19 have accused the government of ignoring them, with one saying she feels their concerns are being “swept under the carpet” by ministers, MPs have heard.
Grieving family members said they had written three times to the prime minister asking to meet and share their experiences. But they told the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus that officials merely told them they were unable to meet with them “due to the current pandemic”, the PA news agency reports.
Jo Goodman from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, who lost her father, Stuart, after he was diagnosed with Covid-19 aged 72, said:
We wrote to the prime minister three times beginning on 11 June, asking him to meet with bereaved families and also to Matt Hancock, calling for a public inquiry and calling for them to meet with us and hear our experiences.
At first we only received a two-line acknowledgement and eventually a letter saying they are unable to meet with us due to the current pandemic. The fact that they’re able to meet with cycling groups and other groups, it feels as though we are being swept under the carpet.
We really do want to ensure that other people don’t go through this and we think it is really important that bereaved families’ voices are heard.
Charlie Williams, another member the group, which represents 1,450 families, told MPs:
I last saw my father via video.
We have so many traumatic stories within our group and none of us are getting support from the government as bereaved families whatsoever. We are trying to help and support each other.
We reached out to the government several times by writing letters. He has pretty much ignored us. We haven’t even received a condolence from our government. We received a two-line reply acknowledging our letter with no condolences. We find this shocking.
We have got so much information to give that could save lives before the second wave and we hope the government will listen to us.
The virtual meeting of the APPG also heard from people who are still struggling with symptoms from so-called “long Covid”. Dr Jake Suett, a staff grade doctor in anaesthetics and intensive care medicine, said:
I was doing 12-hour shifts in ICU. It’s a high-pressure situation, you have to be able to be active. I was going to the gym three times a week regularly.
And now a flight of stairs or the food shop is about what I can manage before I have to stop ... if I’m on my feet then shortness of breath comes back, chest pain comes back.
Arsenal have announced they are to make 55 redundancies due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the club’s finances.
In a statement issued by the club’s head of football, Raul Sanllehi, and managing director, Vinai Venkatesham, the club pointed to severe drops in broadcast revenue as the main reason for the plan.
They also moved to assure supporters that investment in the team would continue, despite the job losses – with it understood the cuts will come across some football departments as well as commercial and administrative roles. This comes after players, senior football staff and the executive team took voluntary pay cuts.
“Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic we have been working hard to ensure that Arsenal football club emerges in a robust and strong position for the future,” the statement read.
The risk then is that big schools, comprehensives, universities, FE [further education] colleges link lots of households together, reconnect the social network, which social distancing measures have deliberately disconnected. And that poses a real risk of amplification of transmission, of case numbers going up quite sharply.
A South Korean study published in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal last month found Covid infection rates among household contacts to be highest where they resided with someone with the virus in the 10- to 19-year-old age group. By contrast they were lowest in the age group 0-10 years. Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said of the study:
It’s the best we’ve got. Children get the virus at all sorts of ages. Because people haven’t been at school, there’s no real epidemiological evidence for whether it’s a problem or not.
Health officials tracing contacts in the Covid-19 outbreak in Aberdeen have released the names of 32 pubs, restaurants and golf courses scattered around the city and Aberdeenshire visited by infected people, writes Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
The list includes the Cock and Bull, a gastropub in Balmedie close to Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course and used in the past by President Trump on his visits to Scotland, as well as a golf club in Aboyne, about 30 miles from Aberdeen.
NHS Grampian also named a restaurant at Bridge of Don on the outskirts of Aberdeen, the Buckie Farm Carvery, and the Dyce Carvery close to Aberdeen airport.
It names two of the bars at the centre of the scare, the Hawthorn bar where the first cluster of cases emerged last week, and the Soul bar on Union Street, which featured in social media complaints about significant queues at the weekend.
We are aware that a number of detected cases linked to this cluster have visited other venues across Aberdeen and as of 12 noon today, these venues are as follows:
In a series of tweets, NHS Grampian added that its contact tracing teams had identified 191 close contacts as well as 54 infected people.
Dr Emmanuel Okpo, a consultant in public health medicine for NHS Grampian, said: “I know people in the city will be concerned by this news. I want to stress that our health protection and test and protect teams are working extremely hard to speak to all the detected cases and identify their close contacts. We will be in contact with everyone.
“[If] you are identified as a close contact of a detected case you will have to self-isolate for 14 days. Please do not seek a test if you do not have symptoms; getting tested and receiving a ‘not detected’ result will not remove the requirement to self-isolate.”
This is Damien Gayle covering the next hour or so, while Kevin takes a break. If you have any comments, tips or suggestions for things to cover on the blog please drop me a line, either via email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via Twitter DM to @damiengayle.
The new leader of the Scottish Conservatives has said his party must earn the trust of people “looking for a positive and credible alternative for Scotland” in his first comments since his uncontested appointment.
Douglas Ross described becoming leader of the Scottish Tories as an “honour and privilege of a lifetime” after his appointment was confirmed at noon on Wednesday.
The Moray MP will take over from Jackson Carlaw, who resigned on Thursday just six months after his election as leader.
Becoming leader of the Scottish Conservatives today is the honour and privilege of a lifetime. Now our focus must turn to earning the trust of people looking for a positive and credible alternative for Scotland, and who want a fresh start for our country. I hope you'll join us. pic.twitter.com/Uxc27advpn
Douglas Ross is Boris Johnson’s man in Scotland. Westminster has launched a total takeover of the Scottish Tories and installed a Brexit-backing MP to act as a puppet for Downing Street.
The Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said:
Just months ago, the Scottish Tories were maintaining the pretence that they were something different from the extremist no-deal Brexiteers of the Boris Johnson camp. Today, the instalment of Douglas Ross as their part-time, absentee leader without even asking their members confirms that there isn’t a hint of difference between them.
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