Pressure on NHS front line 'relentless' - Hancock

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Whenever President Donald Trump spoke about his administration's Covid response, he was often flanked by two of the nation's top doctors - Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx.

Now the duo are revealing just how difficult it was to work under him.

In a long interview with the New York Times, Dr Fauci - the chief infectious disease specialist in the country - said the then president would often tell him he was too negative.

"I always felt that if I did walk away, the skunk at the picnic would no longer be at the picnic," explained Dr Fauci.

Often contradicting the administration, he said he could not bring himself to resign because there was far too much Covid denialism - including from within the White House.

"Even if I wasn't very effective in changing everybody's minds, the idea that they knew that nonsense could not be spouted without my pushing back on it, I felt was important."

In a separate interview with CBS, Dr Birx - the White House's Covid task force coordinator - confirmed that there was a "parallel set of data and graphics" presented to the president that she wasn't privy to.

Dr Birx has since retired from public service, but Dr Fauci has joined the Biden administration as the new president's chief medical adviser.

LoradoCopyright: Lorado

Home schooling can be tough. It's difficult to concentrate, there's emotional exhaustion, boredom, a lack of motivation and it's really hard not going out to see friends. And that's just the parents.

This winter lockdown is taking its toll on families, now struggling even more on the black ice of uncertainty as no-one can say when schools in England are going to reopen for most pupils again.

"There's a sense of fatigue," says Jacqueline Smallwood, who is at home with three secondary-school children. She says her own "concentration levels have fallen dramatically".

"It's so repetitive that it just makes you feel tired," she says of the latest lockdown and the "silent struggle" facing both parents and their children to try to get motivated.

Sound familiar? Read more from other parents "at the end of their tether".

LailaCopyright: Laila

People in Lebanon are living under one of the world's strictest lockdowns. Under the round-the-clock curfew, citizens who are not "essential workers" have been barred from leaving their homes since 14 January.

Laila, 12, is in Beirut trying to study while her family works from home.

"We all have our own work to do and when we have meetings we hear each other. It can be a real distraction and stop you from finishing your work on time," she says.

"Sometimes I can't study well because I get stressed with all the work they're giving us. It is definitely not the same studying online as it is in the physical world."

Walid KanaanCopyright: Walid Kanaan

For hairdresser Walid Kanaan this year has been "extremely difficult psychologically and economically".

"I own my shop but still I cannot afford it. I pay the workers' salary so I am really broke," says the 45-year-old.

"It is hitting hard. You can't go out at all or do anything. My wife works in a bank and she is also collapsing. She doesn't know if she will still have her job or not.

"We don't trust the government that if they bring a vaccine it will be safe to take it. We can only pray for God to protect us."

Read more stories from people in lockdown in Lebanon here.

Manchester City CouncilCopyright: Manchester City Council

All of the residents in Manchester’s care homes for older people have received their first Covid-19 vaccinations, according to the city's council.

People living in the city's 56 care homes were prioritised for the vaccine rollout - with NHS teams aiming to have completed the first jabs by 24 January.

Carolyn Ball, general manager of Belong Morris Feinmann Care Village in Didsbury, said she was "delighted" all their residents had been vaccinated.

“This is the additional protection we have long been waiting for and it’s great to be starting the new year knowing that our residents are at reduced risk," she added.

The UK government has confirmed it is considering using hotels to quarantine people arriving in the UK from countries with dangerous variants of coronavirus.

But as that was revealed, shares in airlines and travel companies fell sharply. Both Easyjet and British Airways' parent company, IAG, saw their shares fall more than 7%.

Read more here on the hotel quarantine plans which are going to be discussed.

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Barely one year after its first coronavirus case was detected, the US has now surpassed 25 million total infections.

It passed the devastating milestone on Sunday morning, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The US has had well over twice as many overall cases as the next highest country, India, which has over 10 million cases.

Nearly 420,000 Americans have died from the virus, almost double that of Brazil, the second highest.

On Friday, US president Joe Biden warned the worst could be yet to come: "The virus is surging. We're 400,000 dead, expected to reach well over 600,000."

It is now a race between the virus and the vaccine, as the new administration aims for 100 million jabs in its first 100 days.

Conservative MPs, publicly and privately, are pressing for a clearer route-map out of lockdown.

And in some cases, frustration is boiling over; one Tory MP told me earlier that they were “livid” about the ongoing situation with schools.

Matt Hancock was never likely to come out and bind the government to a timeline today.

But at the Downing Street press conference, he did talk about these four “factors” that ministers will be looking at when it comes to lifting restrictions.

Namely - the death rate, hospitalisations, any new variants that affect the pandemic and the success of the vaccine rollout.

Ministers may feel they need some room for manoeuvre in these uncertain times. But a number of their own backbenchers will likely keep trying to pin down some detail.

The falling numbers of infections being reported and rising rate of vaccination are incredibly promising - even if the drop in infections reported on Monday may have been partly an artefact of fewer people coming forward for a test because of the snow.

But that does not offer any guarantees of a rapid lifting of lockdown.

What is concerning ministers though are the high numbers in hospital.

The number of new admissions seems to have plateaued - but at a very high rate.

Close to 4,000 patients a day are being admitted to hospital.

To put that in context, that is four times the total number of all types of respiratory admissions the NHS would normally see in winter.

It means the numbers in hospital are at nearly twice the level they were at the peak in the spring during the first wave.

With better treatments available, patients are spending longer in hospital.

So come mid February the pressures in hospital are likely to be very high, leaving ministers little wriggle-room to relax restrictions.

The big unknown, however, is what impact and how quickly vaccination will have an effect on admissions.

There is encouraging early news from Israel that hospitalisation really start to drop three weeks after the first dose.

If that is repeated here, the picture could quickly change.

But until that happens the government - in the words of Health Secretary Matt Hancock - is urging the country to hold its nerve.

PA MediaCopyright: PA Media

A couple have been fined for making a 130-mile (209km) round trip from Derbyshire to York for a roast dinner.

North Yorkshire Police said the couple, who were in their 20s, told officers one of their mothers was going to cook lunch on Sunday, but "let them down".

They decided to make the trip to York in search of a takeaway lunch instead.

The pair were given Covid fixed penalty notices, with police saying: "We know nobody does Yorkshire puddings better than us here in Yorkshire... but they're really not worth getting into trouble for."

Read the full story here.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

As a winter Covid surge batters California, scientists wondered if the contagious UK variant had landed in their state.

Two independent research groups - in Los Angeles and San Francisco - are now confirming the existence of a homegrown variant of the virus.

Data suggests it appears to be spreading faster than any other variant in the state.

Both sets of researchers confirmed they had been looking for the UK strain when they stumbled upon the new mutation.

A single instance of the strain was detected back in July but it lay dormant for months.

It has since exploded across the state, likely contributing to a brutal holiday season that has strained hospital capacity to its limits and doubled the state's death toll.

California has now recorded over three million total cases and more than 37,000 deaths.

PACopyright: PA

The daily press conference was given by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

He was joined by Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, and Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England.

Here's what they told us:

• 78.7% of people over 80 have now been vaccinated, with one in nine of all adults having had their first doses
• Although many people may have Covid antibodies, it's not clear how they will work against new variants or how long protection will last
• Public Health England is working with organisations across the world to predict how the vaccine might need to be adapted to new variants
• But the current vaccine works well against the new UK variant, as do existing treatments like dexamethasone
• There has been high uptake of the vaccine

Reducing wastage of vaccines when dealing with the pandemic is crucial, Matt Hancock says.

Asked if he will publish detailed wastage rates, he says he is "very happy" to look into giving more details.

That concludes today's Downing Street press conference.

Dan O'Donoghue from the Press and Journal asks why Scotland has the lowest vaccination rate in the UK.

He also wants to know, following recent polls on Scottish independence, if the case for the union is helped or hindered by the government's performance over the past year.

Echoing his earlier statement at the press conference, Matt Hancock says the case for the union is "undoubtedly strengthened" and the pandemic response has shown "we are stronger as one United Kingdom".

He says the vaccine rollout is a case in point and that, other than Israel and the UAE, the UK has the fastest vaccine rollout in the world.

"It shows what the United Kingdom can do when we pull together," he said.

Hancock adds that colleagues in Scotland are "working incredibly hard" to roll out the vaccines and "the NHS in Scotland is doing an absolutely terrific job".

"If this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that we all rely on each other," he adds.

Matt Hancock says the proportion of people declining vaccinations is "very, very low". The programme is "going well" and the uptake is "getting to really high levels", he adds.

Getting a jab is "the right thing", Hancock says, calling the media "absolutely brilliant" for "supporting the science on this one".

Jenny Harries adds that with more information, take-up increases. Communities are getting the "real level of data" needed to support people, she says.

She said the steroid Dexamethasone should also still work "perfectly" as a treatment for new variants.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Channel 5's question about possible enforced hotel quarantine for people arriving from aboard was a reference to the prime minister's confirmation earlier in the day that the government was considering such a move.

Incoming travellers already have to show evidence of a recent negative coronavirus test.

At present, all travellers must provide contact details and their UK address. They can then travel - by public transport if necessary - to their home or to the place where they plan to self-isolate.

Here's everything you need to know about the UK travel and quarantine rules.

Andy Bell at Channel 5 asks if Matt Hancock believes the time has come for enforced hotel quarantine for anyone coming into the UK.

The health secretary says it is "incredibly important" that "we are cautious at the border". He notes travel corridors have now been removed and that lockdown rules mean travel abroad is illegal without a reasonable excuse, for example medical reasons.

He says it is right to take a "precautionary" approach while analysis is continuing around the world on the virus.

Dr Harries is asked if it was wrong to say, earlier in the pandemic, that there was no point in controlling the people coming in to the UK once the virus was already here.

She says once there was a significant infection rate, the proportion coming in through borders was very small. But now new variants are being identified, other measures need to be put in place.

Matt Hancock says new virus variants from South Africa and Brazil are in "very small numbers" in the UK at present. The government is using "enhanced contact tracing" to deal with these, he adds, to ensure people affected and their contacts self-isolate.

Asked how effective vaccines are against new coronavirus variants, Hancock says there's a "high degree of confidence" it works with the one first detected in Kent.

The ban on foreign travel for most people is because the government does not want more people arriving "at risk" of having other strains.

Susan Hopkins says it's "reassuring" that the vaccines work with the Kent variant. She said work is starting on testing its effect on the South African strain.

Jenny Harries says mutations are normal for viruses and the "majority" will not be "a cause of concern". It's unlikely that vaccines will not work, to some extent, on new strains, she adds.