Coronavirus: UK announces 4,712 cases and 65 deaths

Boris Johnson today shot down more calls to end lockdown sooner as Britain recorded fewer coronavirus cases than at any time since late September with 4,712 more positive tests.

And the 65 more deaths caused by Covid-19 is the lowest number since October 12 and marks a drop of 38 per cent on last Monday. Cases fell by 14 per cent in a week.

The promising numbers come as Boris Johnson today announced the ‘first step on the roadmap’, hailing it as a ‘big day’, with schools reopening and indoor care home visits now permitted in England, but faced more pressure from anti-lockdown MPs.

Dr Jenny Harries, Public Health England’s deputy chief medical officer, said in a Downing Street press conference today that the data show a ‘pleasing picture’ and the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs said it would look ‘odd’ if the country were still in lockdown even as cases and deaths head close to zero.  

Batting away zealous calls to for No 10 to speed up the route back to normality, however,  Dr Harries said infection rates across the UK were now back to where they were in September but warned: ‘This is the level at which a new wave could easily take off again from.’

And she said there is ‘still a substantial strain on the NHS, and not one we can afford to rise from again’.

Mr Johnson said he was embracing a ‘big budget of risk’ taking today’s step of the wholesale reopening of schools, admitting it was inevitable that letting children back into classrooms would cause cases to rise, and refused to budge on his ‘cautious but irreversible’ plans.

Almost 22.4million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose of a Covid jab, with 164,143 more immunised yesterday, along with 20,241 second doses.

Dr Harries said the vaccination programme was making ‘extremely fast progress’ but said officials were still waiting to see concrete evidence of national hospital admission rates staying down as a result of the jabs.  

Today marks the first loosening of lockdown rules in three months, with children returning to school classrooms across England.

Ministers have insisted this marks the end of the home-schooling era, with the PM insisting this route out of lockdown will be ‘cautious but irreversible’. 

But he is resisting calls for rules to be relaxed sooner.  

Sounding worried that outbreaks are surging again in Europe – a development that was a precursor to the UK’s second wave – Mr Johnson said that infections are still higher than they were before restrictions came in last year.

The Covid Recovery Group, a band of anti-lockdown Tory MPs, is still demanding that the Government release measures sooner, said it would be ‘odd’ if England is still in lockdown when coronavirus cases and deaths get close to zero. 

‘With the speed that we’re seeing deaths, hospitalisations and infections drop, I think when we get to the end of April it’s going to look a bit odd that the Government’s roadmap still has another two months nearly to run,’ the group’s chief Mark Harper told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

‘And I think if it believes in data not dates, as the data improves the Government should bring forward the roadmap rather than be tied to the dates it’s already set out.’

Tory ex-minister David Jones told MailOnline: ‘At the moment it is pretty clear we are getting on top of the virus.

‘The vaccination programme is remarkably good… I am not a scientist but I would have thought that the government must star to think about an accelerated timetable of the restrictions that we have got at the moment.’

Hitting back at pressure from these MPs, Mr Johnson said today: ‘On the acceleration of the roadmap… people have asked us to do this many times and, of course, I understand the urgency people feel, but we have to be driven by the data – we have to look at the rates of infection.

‘Don’t forget they’re still very high by the standards of last year, we still have thousands of people in hospital with Covid. And we’ve seen, alas, in other European countries the curve is going up again.

‘And we remember quite frankly – every time we’ve seen those upwards curves in our friends and neighbours – that it’s not too long after that that we see an increase in this country as well.

‘And so we’ve just got to remain prudent and the whole point of this roadmap is that it’s intended to be cautious but irreversible. And we think we can do that because of the success of the vaccine rollout.

‘But I think people would really trade some urgency and some haste in favour of security and certainty about these dates we’ve set out – April the 12th, May the 17th and so on.’

He added: ‘I agree that there has been some encouraging signs [in the data] but the whole point is last summer, we had the disease down to levels down to much below where it is today, and we saw what happened with the spike.

‘I think it’s fantastic that the vaccine rollout is proving so successful, but don’t forget there is a big budget of risk in opening schools in the way we are today, that’s just inevitable.

‘We think it’s manageable, we think it’s right, we think we’re prudent to be doing what we are.

‘As I say I think the biggest risk is not opening schools… but we’ll continue to take a cautious and prudent approach because I think that is really what British business would really rather see – a cautious and irreversible approach rather than a hasty approach that we have to reverse.’ 

While the ‘stay at home’ message will remain in place, today’s rule changes mean people can leave home to meet one other person for a coffee or picnic.

Mr Johnson told the Telegraph that even though it was ‘only a small relaxation of the rules’, this week’s changes would bring ‘joy and relief’ to families after months of ‘tough restrictions’. 

Today he hailed them a ‘big and emotional’ moment after millions of pupils returned to classrooms after two months of home-learning.

At a press conference to mark the first phase of his ‘one way’ lockdown easing, the PM welcomed the full reopening of schools in England saying fixing the damage to children’s prospects was the ‘biggest challenge’ the country faces.

But he warned that it is ‘inevitable’ that infections will rise with young people and parents coming into closer contact, and dismissed Tory pressure to speed up the easing of restrictions.

Playing down the latest falls in deaths and cases, Mr Johnson told the No10 briefing: ‘Of course, there will be a risk of increased transmission, that’s inevitable if you open up schools for millions of kids across the country. That is going to happen.

‘But we think that we can do it now in the way that we are because we have the proportion of the population vaccinated that I described, the groups one to four, having had the immunity bedded in after least three weeks.

‘As I said earlier on, we will continue to be driven by data and not dates as we approach the next steps – April 12, May 17, June 21, we will continue to assess where we have got to.

‘The data on the vaccinations and the impact that they are having is very encouraging, but we have to remain very, very cautious.’

Many secondary schools have implemented a phased return as students from different year groups begin Covid testing as well as following a number of other conditions brought in to allow their safe return.

Teachers have described their ‘immense relief tied to a little apprehension’ at students head back – amid chaos over non-compulsory testing schemes and fears over lax mask wearing.

Among the most immediate concerns for secondary schools will be testing every pupil twice in the first two weeks of term, before encouraging a shift to testing themselves at home.

Meanwhile, students who appear positive for coronavirus in rapid home tests will receive a subsequent test that could allow them to return to class, No 10 has confirmed this afternoon after a minister sparked confusion.

The clarification came after children’s minister Vicky Ford suggested there would be no PCR tests at all.

The first three tests for secondary and college students will take place under supervision at their places of education, before being taken twice weekly at home.

All secondary pupils are to be regularly tested – which involves swabbing the nose and throat – to try to avoid schools becoming ‘vectors of transmission’. But problems with getting consent may threaten the plans.

One head teacher in Halifax has said only a quarter of parents had agreed for their children to be tested, while in Tower Hamlets, east London, a school has reported that the ‘vast majority’ have opted out.

And mask critics, including parents and MPs, say the rules will impact students’ learning. Ministers have vowed to revisit the face covering policy at the end of this month.

Playing down the latest falls in deaths and cases, Mr Johnson told the No10 briefing: ‘Of course, there will be a risk of increased transmission, that’s inevitable if you open up schools for millions of kids across the country. That is going to happen.

‘But we think that we can do it now in the way that we are because we have the proportion of the population vaccinated that I described, the groups one to four, having had the immunity bedded in after least three weeks.

‘As I said earlier on, we will continue to be driven by data and not dates as we approach the next steps – April 12, May 17, June 21, we will continue to assess where we have got to.

‘The data on the vaccinations and the impact that they are having is very encouraging, but we have to remain very, very cautious.’

Many secondary schools have implemented a phased return as students from different year groups begin Covid testing as well as following a number of other conditions brought in to allow their safe return.

Teachers have described their ‘immense relief tied to a little apprehension’ at students head back – amid chaos over non-compulsory testing schemes and fears over lax mask wearing.

Among the most immediate concerns for secondary schools will be testing every pupil twice in the first two weeks of term, before encouraging a shift to testing themselves at home.

Meanwhile, students who appear positive for coronavirus in rapid home tests will receive a subsequent test that could allow them to return to class, No 10 has confirmed this afternoon after a minister sparked confusion.

The clarification came after children’s minister Vicky Ford suggested there would be no PCR tests at all.

The first three tests for secondary and college students will take place under supervision at their places of education, before being taken twice weekly at home.

All secondary pupils are to be regularly tested – which involves swabbing the nose and throat – to try to avoid schools becoming ‘vectors of transmission’. But problems with getting consent may threaten the plans.

One head teacher in Halifax has said only a quarter of parents had agreed for their children to be tested, while in Tower Hamlets, east London, a school has reported that the ‘vast majority’ have opted out.

And mask critics, including parents and MPs, say the rules will impact students’ learning. Ministers have vowed to revisit the face covering policy at the end of this month.