UK ‘not out of the woods yet’ and pandemic ‘has got a long way to run’, Whitty warns
The UK is “not out of the woods yet” when it comes to coronavirus and people should approach the end of most restrictions on Monday with caution, England’s chief medical officer has warned.
Professor Chris Whitty said the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 is doubling around every three weeks and could hit “quite scary numbers” if that trend is sustained.
“I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast,” he told a webinar hosted by the Science Museum.
He added: “We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things.
“But this has got a long way to run in the UK, and it’s got even further to run globally.”
Professor Whitty said that the key thing after 19 July was “to take things incredibly slowly”, adding that he expects most people will still take precautions.
“If you look over what people have done, and in fact if you look at what people intend to do now, people have been incredibly good at saying, ‘I may be a relatively low-risk, but people around me are at high-risk, and I’m going to modify my behaviours’,” he said.
Looking ahead, Professor Whitty said that in the medium-term COVID-19 could mutate into a “vaccine escape variant” that could take the UK “some of the way backwards” to the worst days of the pandemic.
“The further out in time we go, the more tools we have at our disposal from science, the less likely that is but you can never take that possibility completely off the table,” he said.
“But you know, science has done a phenomenal job so far and it will continue to do so.”
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‘Highly probable’ worst of pandemic behind us
Professor Whitty’s comments come after Boris Johnson claimed it is “highly probable” the worst of the pandemic is over – on the day the UK recorded its highest number of daily cases for six months.
The prime minister urged people not to “throw caution to the winds” when most legal restrictions in England end on Monday, as he acknowledged there would be more hospital admissions and deaths in the “difficult days and weeks ahead”.
Latest figures show there had been a further 48,553 cases of COVID-19 as of 9am on Thursday.
A further 63 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
A total of 49 deaths were recorded on Wednesday, making this increase the highest day-on-day rise since 26 March.
Mr Johnson has said recently that daily cases could reach 50,000 by Monday, while Health Secretary Sajid Javid has spoken of case numbers topping 100,000 this summer.
But speaking on Thursday, he said the success of the UK’s vaccination programme, which has seen more than two-thirds of adults receive two doses, meant the government could go ahead with step four of its roadmap out of restrictions.
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‘Don’t have a great jubilee’ on 19 July – PM
“If we are careful and if we continue to respect this disease and its continuing menace then it is highly probable – almost all the scientists are agreed on this – the worst of the pandemic is behind us,” the PM said.
“There are difficult days and weeks ahead as we deal with the current wave of the Delta variant and there will be sadly more hospitalisation and more deaths but with every day that goes by we build higher the wall of vaccine-acquired immunity.”
Monday’s lifting of most coronavirus rules will see ministers seek to shift the emphasis from government diktat to people weighing up risks and taking their own decisions.
A range of guidance has been published ahead of 19 July, but ministers have been accused of sending “mixed messages” to people and businesses about what they should do beyond that date, in particular concerning face masks.
Despite the legal requirement to wear face masks on public transport and in shops being lifted, guidance for businesses issued on Wednesday states the government still “expects and recommends that people continue to wear a face covering in crowded, enclosed spaces”.
Critics have said the guidelines are a “recipe for chaos”, but the PM said businesses were “perfectly capable” of understanding new guidance on face coverings and guidelines.
“We are moving away from legal compulsion but we are saying that of course the pandemic is not over and sadly people have to remain cautious,” he said.
UK
Post Office scandal: At least 8 convictions may be linked to second IT system used by Post Office
At least eight convictions predating the Horizon Post Office scandal are being looked at by the body investigating potential miscarriages of justice, Sky News has learned.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has confirmed it is examining multiple cases of former sub-postmasters affected by Capture software.
The computer accounting system was used in the early 1990s, prior to Horizon being introduced to Post Office branches from 1999 onwards.
Horizon was at the centre of the Post Office scandal and saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of stealing from their branches.
The Kroll report, commissioned by the government earlier this year, found that Capture had bugs and glitches and there was a reasonable likelihood it had caused cash shortfalls too.
Lord Beamish, the former Labour MP Kevan Jones, has been supporting victims and is calling for the government to extend current legislation to automatically quash convictions.
The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act was passed in May but does not include Capture victims.
Lord Beamish told Sky News he has raised the issue with the Justice Secretary and called for a House of Lords debate.
“The government are going to have to take this seriously,” he said. “We can’t have a situation where we have a two-tier system where people get exonerated from Horizon and the Capture cases are either forgotten or have to go through a very lengthy legal process to get their names cleared.”
Chris claims his mother was wrongly jailed because of accounting problems with the Post Office software Capture
He added he had “little faith” in the CCRC’s “ability to deal with cases”, after multiple Horizon cases were referred to the body years ago.
“The problem with these cases is the lack of evidence… that has been destroyed or lost so actually proving some of these cases through that process will be very difficult.
“Therefore I think a blanket exoneration like we had with Horizon I think has got to be discussed and considered for these cases.”
The CCRC told Sky News it has five cases under review “in which the Capture IT system could be a factor”.
It also said it is “seeking further information” on eight cases referenced in the Kroll report.
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The CCRC added that the time taken for a case review to be completed was dependent on the “complexity” of each case “and how readily available information about it is”. In a statement, it admitted: “The availability of information can be a particular hurdle in older cases.”
Chris’s mother died earlier this year following a battle with Alzheimer’s and never got to clear her name
Chris Roberts’ mother, Liz Roberts, was convicted in 1999 of stealing £46,000 from the Post Office and spent 13 months behind bars.
Liz, who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, passed away earlier this year.
Chris said she was jailed four days before he turned 17, and he used to have “nightmares” that she was “going to die in there”.
“There was no evidence of any financial gain because they went through everything. And obviously the money wasn’t in our accounts because it didn’t exist,” he added.
Despite being offered “three deals” by the Post Office to plead guilty, Liz refused and was sent to prison.
Liz Roberts during happier times before she was jailed for theft – her son insists she was innocent
Chris believes that the 2019 High Court win by Horizon victims was a missed opportunity for the Post Office to look back at Capture cases.
“It would have been worth something then because my mum would have died knowing that everybody else knew she was innocent,” he said.
“My dad would have died knowing that the love of his life wasn’t vilified as a criminal.”
Chris wants his mother exonerated and “those actively responsible” to “stand up in court… and justify themselves”.
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Sky’s Adele Robinson examines Britain’s biggest miscarriages of justice
A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “We were horrified to learn about the issues with the Capture system and are working closely across government to thoroughly examine Kroll’s independent report and consider what action should be taken.
“We continue to listen to postmasters and others who have been sharing their views on the report’s findings since its publication last month.”
Official accounts have revealed for the first time how much the King’s 2023 coronation cost UK taxpayers.
According to the accounts, the government spent £72m on the coronation – the first in Britain since Queen Elizabeth II’s in 1953.
The figure includes £50.3m of costs attributed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which coordinated the coronation, and £21.7m in costs for the Home Office for the policing of the event.
By comparison, Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and events during the period of national mourning cost the government an estimated £162m – £74m for the Home Office and £57m for the DCMS as well as costs to the devolved governments.
The figures come from the culture department’s recently released annual report and accounts.
The department said it had “successfully delivered on the central weekend of His Majesty King Charles III’s Coronation, enjoyed by many millions both in the UK and across the globe”.
People walk past a souvenir shop during the coronation. Pic: Reuters
It described the event as a “once-in-a-generation moment” which provided an occasion for the “entire country to come together in celebration”.
Both the King and Queen were crowned at Westminster Abbey in May last year, in a ceremony attended by dignitaries from around the world.
A star-studded concert at Windsor Castle, featuring Take That and stars such as Olly Murs, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie, took place the following night.
It had been described ahead of the event as being a “slimmed-down affair” – with the country still in the grips of the cost-of-living crisis – and accounts show an “underspend” related to the coronation of around £2.8m.
Olly Murs performing at the Coronation Concert. Pic: Reuters
Did coronation boost the economy?
Despite talk of a coronation boost, the UK’s economy actually contracted in the month of May 2023.
However, experts said that was mostly due to the cost of the additional public holiday for the event, which weighed on output.
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Each bank holiday costs the UK economy around £2.3bn, with the extra bank holiday for the late Queen’s funeral estimated to have cost around £2.4bn, according to government figures.
With the extra coronation bank holiday, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed negative growth of 0.1% during May 2023.
However, that was slightly better than economists had predicted ahead of the event.
Prior to the event, economic forecasters, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), had predicted a boost of £337m for the UK’s economy due to the coronation – including £104m in extra pub spending and an estimated £223m spend from tourism to the UK during the period.
Hotel revenue was also said to be up by 54% compared to the same point in the previous year, while bookings for UK-bound flights for the coronation weekend jumped by 149% within 24 hours of the day being announced, according to TravelPort.
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