‘Crucial’ people isolate when pinged, Number 10 says
It is “crucial” that people isolate when identified as a close contact of someone who has tested positive for coronavirus, Downing Street has said.
A Number 10 spokeswoman said quarantining at home “remains the most important action people can take to stop the spread of the virus”.
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Why are so many asked to self isolate?
It comes after a minister suggested that isolating when pinged by the NHS COVID-19 app should be a matter for individuals and employers to decide.
Paul Scully, a business minister, told Times Radio: “It’s important to understand the rules. You have to legally isolate if you are on the… contacted by Test and Trace, or if you’re trying to claim isolation payments.
“The app is there to give… to allow you to make informed decisions. And I think by backing out of mandating a lot of things, we’re encouraging people to really get the data in their own hands to be able to make decisions on what’s best for them, whether they’re employer or an employee.”
But a Number 10 spokeswoman said: “Given the risk of having and spreading the virus when people have been in contact with someone with COVID it is crucial people isolate when they are told to do so, either by NHS Test and Trace or by the NHS COVID app.
“Businesses should be supporting employees to isolate, they should not be encouraging them to break isolation.”
This was reiterated by the prime minister’s spokesman, who told a regular Westminster briefing with journalists: “We want people, when contacted, either through NHS test and trace or through the app to isolate.
“It is an important tool that all of us can use, all of us can follow during this ongoing global pandemic.
“The minister did talk about the value that we’ve seen through the app in saving lives and breaking chains of transmission.”
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New self-isolation rules announced
Meanwhile, The Times has reported that another business minister, Lord Grimstone of Boscobel, stressed in a letter to one large employer that the app was only an “advisory tool” and that people were not under any “legal duty”.
It is not a legal requirement to isolate if pinged by the NHS COVID-19 app, but official health service guidance has been that people should “self-isolate immediately” when told to.
There is a legal compulsion to isolate if contacted directly by Test and Trace, however, with the potential for fines for those who do not comply.
Latest figures show that a total of 520,194 alerts were sent to users of the NHS COVID-19 app in the week to 7 July, advising them to isolate, a record number.
There have been calls for the app’s sensitivity to be tweaked, amid warnings that isolation is wreaking havoc on certain industries by creating staff shortages.
But the government has ruled this out in recent days.
From 16 August, under 18s and people who are fully vaccinated will no longer be told to isolate if they come into close contact with someone who has tested positive.
Instead, they will be encouraged to take a test. Anyone who tests positive will still be legally required to isolate, regardless of their vaccine status.
The government has announced it will not be drawing up a list of fully vaccinated “critical workers” that will be exempt from isolating for work purposes.
Instead, employers will have to apply to government departments to exempt workers who are ‘pinged’.
Boris Johnson, who is himself isolating after being identified as a close contact of the COVID-positive Health Secretary Sajid Javid, told a news conference on Monday that isolation is “one of the only shots we have got left in our locker to stop the chain reaction of the spread of C”.
“I’m afraid that at this stage it’s simply a consequence of living with COVID and opening up when cases are high in the way that we are,” the prime minister said.
German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
Related: Hacken CEO sees ‘no shift’ in crypto security as April hacks hit $357M
“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
eXch announced termination of services by May 1
After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
Magazine: Finally blast into space with Justin Sun, Vietnam’s new national blockchain: Asia Express
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
Read more:
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
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