Greater Manchester faces tougher Covid rules from Friday

The Duchess of Cambridge has officially launched her Hold Still photo exhibition, comprised of 100 images taken in lockdown.

She and the Duke of Cambridge met specialist oncology pharmacist Joyce Duah, whose photo of her colleagues writing their names and smiley faces on their PPE aprons was one of those selected.

Catherine told Joyce: "It had such an impact - it captured the moment, it was a look behind the scenes."

The royal pair also travelled to Waterloo, south London, to view one of the 80 public exhibition sites across the country being used for the project over the next four weeks.

All 100 portraits will feature in a special exhibition hosted by the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire from Friday.

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Apart from the drama surrounding the tier-three restrictions for Greater Manchester, here's what you might have missed if you're just catching up.

• The latest school attendance figures for England show that almost half of secondary schools sent home one or more pupils because of Covid incidents last week
• In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she will have the final say on local restrictions in different areas, saying "the buck stops here"
• Welsh ministers say they cannot rule out imposing another "firebreak" lockdown early next year if the virus starts spreading quickly again over Christmas
• Passengers flying from Heathrow to Hong Kong today became the first to have the option of paying for a rapid Covid test before checking in.
• And the sale of Durex jumped when social-distancing rules were relaxed in the summer, according to maker Reckitt Benckiser.

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Labour says it will force a Commons vote tomorrow on a "one nation" approach to support for regions facing additional restrictions.

They have put down a motion calling on ministers to publish "clear and fair" national criteria for economic support.

The motion adds that financial help should also be voted on by MPs.

The vote is non-binding but is an attempt to put pressure on the government over the issue of how support is determined.

Here's a reminder of the main developments surrounding Greater Manchester's Covid-19 restrictions:

• From Friday morning, Greater Manchester will move to England's highest tier - tier three - of coronavirus restrictions
• This means pubs and bars not serving substantial meals have to close, household mixing is banned both indoors and outdoors, and there is guidance against travelling in or out of the area
• Boris Johnson said a "generous" offer of financial support had been made to the region, but Mayor Andy Burnham refused it
• Health Secretary Matt Hancock later told the House of Commons that the £60m offer previously made to local leaders remained "on the table"
• However, Burnham said that without a "bare minimum" of £65m in support there would still be increased levels of hardship and homelessness
• The region will receive £22m for expenses such as local enforcement and test and trace - which is separate to the £60m mentioned by Hancock

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As a bitter row erupts in England over strict restrictions being imposed in Manchester, here is a round-up of some of the other key headlines from around the world:

• An Alpine area of southern Germany has gone into a new lockdown, the first part of the country to do so since the initial Covid peak earlier this year. The 105,000 people of Berchtesgadener Land, bordering Austria, will only be allowed to leave home for essential reasons for the next two weeks
• But the situation in Germany remains less severe than in other major Western European countries. In Spain, the government is considering imposing a night-time curfew in hard-hit regions like Madrid, as has been implemented in neighbouring France
• Italy's southern Campania region also plans to introduce a night-time curfew from the weekend. Other parts of the country are drawing up their own restrictions
• At the national level, the Czech Republic continues to have the highest infection rate in Europe, but Belgium is not far behind
• Russia has reported a record high in new daily cases, including 4,999 in the capital, Moscow
• In the US, President Donald Trump's wife Melania has cancelled a rare joint appearance with him at a campaign rally due to a "lingering cough" following her recent Covid infection
• Singapore plans to roll out rapid Covid-19 tests for events such as weddings, as it looks to further reopen its economy
• In India, authorities recorded the lowest daily rise in cases in nearly three months. The country's top scientists believe the pandemic has already peaked there

• The top story out of Africa is from Nigeria, where the country's Covid-19 task force has warned there could be a huge spike in cases due to the ongoing anti-police brutality protests there

Boris Johnson says he can't give Greater Manchester disproportionately more money than other tier three areas.

Andy Burnham says that he won't accept a deal that will lead to increased levels of hardship and homelessness.

But there are political risks on all sides here.

Could Boris Johnson look like a Whitehall bean-counter who can't bring himself to stump up an extra £5m?

Does Andy Burnham look like he's overplayed his part as "King of the North"? (As some now call him).

All the while, those living in Greater Manchester might wonder what on earth is actually going to happen on Friday, in terms of financial support, as new measures kick in.

That surely is now the next deadline. And I suspect political leaders on all sides won't want to have to explain to people, on Friday morning, why they couldn't reach an agreement in time.

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Council leaders in West Yorkshire have issued a statement saying the region will remain in tier two for the moment.

In a statement, they said national and local public health experts agreed there was "not a case" to move the region to tier three this week.

The leaders however repeated their call for additional support for the area to help it through the tier two restrictions.

Andy Preston, independent mayor of Middlesbrough, speaking on BBC Radio 4 earlier today said that the city risked being put into tier three on the basis of flawed data.

He said: “They don’t have the local knowledge that we have so I’m terrified to know that conversations are going [on] in No 10 about putting Middlesbrough into tier three with bad data and based inferences and still no conversations, so I’m wholly dispirited.”

He added: “We need a lot of money. We are facing monstrous problems here and the government seems oblivious," he said. "I need to be talking to ministers and explaining the number of free school meals kids here is ballooning and the job losses are just starting.

"We’re hitting a catastrophe of poverty and deprivation and we need serious money and serious commitment from the government to deal with it.”

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Labour's shadow chancellor Jonathan Ashworth said people across Greater Manchester "will be watching the news in disbelief".

He says they will be asking: "Why was it right to cover 80% of wages in March and then now, in the run-up to Christmas, cover just two-thirds of their wages in October?"

"How does he expect families to the pay the bills, to pay the rent, to put food on the table and pay for school lunches when a third of their income has been snatched away literally over night?"

He adds: "Now, I grew up in Greater Manchester, my dad worked in casinos in Salford, my mum worked in bars in Manchester. I know that across Manchester people will want to do the right thing but they won't be able to if a third of their income is stripped away.

"Now the leaders of Greater Manchester were prepared to compromise. They offered to settle for £65m to support jobs and livelihoods.

"The government insisted on £60m. But rather than finding £5m extra, this prime minister pulled the plug on negotiations and then this afternoon took £38m off the table. What a petty, vindictive, callous response in a national crisis."

Politicians in Greater Manchester are concerned about the economic effect tighter restrictions will have on the region. Earlier, the BBC's deputy political editor Vicki Young asked the prime minister how much money would be made available.

Matt Hancock tells MPs placing Greater Manchester into tier three was a "difficult decision" but needed because of the spread of the virus.

The health secretary says a "comprehensive package of support" will help the region weather the "tough" restrictions.

He says Greater Manchester will get £22m for contact tracing and testing but a deal for business support has not been done.

He says the government's "door is open" to "further discussions" on this in the coming days, calling the government offer "generous".

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A quarter of people admit they are not following the government coronavirus rules, according to an opinion poll released this afternoon.

But the survey suggests Britain’s overwhelming adherence to the rules has become stronger in the past month.

Ipsos MORI found 73% of people questioned over the weekend had followed the rules “completely” or “nearly all the time”.

Of the 27% who admitted breaking the rules four in 10 said they had broken social distancing guidelines.

One in five said they had gone on prohibited visits to friends and family.

Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page said: “In the same way that the majority of the public has consistently supported overall lockdown measures, claimed compliance with virus control measures has actually risen with the second wave of the virus.

“Most people remain far more concerned about the virus than the economy.”

The firm interviewed 1,067 adults in Great Britain online between 16 and 19 October 16.

Read more here.

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The Mayor of Doncaster says she has been fighting against tier three coronavirus restrictions being imposed on the town, but they could still be on the horizon.

Doncaster is currently subject to tier two restrictions in line with the rest of South Yorkshire, but the infection rate in the town in the week ending 16 October was the lowest of the area's four metropolitan boroughs, at 277 cases per 100,000 people.

The highest is in Sheffield, where latest figures show an infection rate of 377.7 cases per 100,000 people.

Responding to a question on Twitter about what action she was taking to stop Doncaster being moved up a tier, Mayor Ros Jones said: "I've been fighting off Doncaster going into tier three, but it may only be a matter of time.

"If we go to tier three then our residents and businesses will need urgent support. I will continue to push for Doncaster to be treated separately from other areas."

And in a video posted on YouTube on Monday, the director of public health for Sheffield, Greg Fell, said it was likely South Yorkshire would face more restrictions.

"It's difficult to call when that might be. We're currently in the high risk category, we may move to the very high-risk category," Mr Fell said.

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Earlier the government released today's figures showing the number of new cases and deaths, which you can read more about here.

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Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to update the House of Commons on England's latest Covid restrictions shortly.

MPs are sure to ask him about support for Greater Manchester, after the PM announced the region is set to enter tier 3.

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Sales of Durex condoms jumped when social-distancing rules were relaxed in the summer, says maker Reckitt Benckiser.

The consumer goods giant said growth in its health arm of the business, which includes condoms and "sexual wellbeing products", rose 12.6% in the last three months.

Sales of Dettol, Cillit Bang, and air fresheners also jumped, helped by workers improving their new home-office environment, Reckitt said.

During the spring lockdown Reckitt saw a sharp drop in demand for condoms as people had less sex.

During the first UK lockdown, people who did not live in same household were not allowed to meet.

The full story is here.

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Strained relations between President Trump and the White House's coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci show no signs of easing. The two have been at loggerheads over the administration's handling of the pandemic.

On Sunday, Fauci said it was no surprise Trump had caught coronavirus, and he has complained about being misquoted in election campaign material.

Monday saw Trump hit back in a call with campaign staff, labelling Fauci a "disaster".

Now Fauci has referenced Mafia hit The Godfather to play down the row.

Interviewed by a California radio station, he said: "That other stuff, it's like in 'The Godfather': Nothing personal, strictly business. As far as I'm concerned, I just want to do my job and take care of the people of this country."

There are more than 8.2 million confirmed cases in the US, and more than 220,000 people have died with coronavirus.

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Greater Manchester MPs have been reacting to the latest developments.

Wigan MP and shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said: "In 10 years in Parliament I've never seen anything like this. We were told £22m is for test and trace, not a single extra penny promised to help businesses and minimum-wage workers. The government appears to be waging war on the people of Greater Manchester. I grew up under Thatcher but I've honestly never seen anything like this."

Hazel Grove's Conservative MP William Wragg said: "The sense of failure is overwhelming. I shall avoid political comment until I have heard Matt Hancock's statement in the House of Commons this evening. Leadership is required from everybody. Trust is placed in us all and that is the privilege of public office."

Another Conservative, Chris Green, who represents Bolton West, wrote on Facebook: "The government believes that three weeks of closing pubs and soft-play centres will make a dramatic difference. It hasn't and it won't. I think the health and economic impact will be damaging to our community but we have to do all we can to respect these rules since they have been imposed."

The PM’s confirmation that the Greater Manchester area is to go into a tier-three shutdown of much of the hospitality sector at the end of Thursday will be damaging to the local economy but the virus is still spreading rapidly.

The surprising thing here was that £60m of support to businesses placed on the table in negotiations with Manchester at midday appears to have been completely withdrawn.

The region was trying to establish how much would be needed to fund support for businesses affected.

At the press conference, just £22m was mentioned, which works out at £7.85 per Greater Manchester citizen - about half what Liverpool received. Local MPs and politicians said Manchester was being “punished”.

The problem for the government here is that it is trying to do two things at once. It is trying to accommodate the fact that some jobs are gone forever and those people, it believes, should get new ones.

That was the rationale behind closing the furlough scheme. But since then the health crisis has returned with a vengeance, and businesses are being obliged to be shut, as more were in March.

Mr Burnham says when London was driving national infection levels high, the whole nation was shut down, and a £5bn a month furlough scheme was launched. Now the north is leading infections, only its city regions are being compulsorily shut, and the jobs support is significantly less generous.

During the negotiations, it is said that Greater Manchester was told there was no longer the money. The government is trying to balance lives, livelihoods and the limits of public spending on a regional basis for economic reasons. But it is far from certain that a national lockdown will be avoided.