Coronavirus live: Covid vaccine passports to be trialled in England | World news

The heads of leading UK airlines have urged the Prime Minister to give them the green light for international travel within weeks.

The Press Association reports:

The chief executives of British Airways, easyJet, Jet2.com, Loganair, Ryanair, Tui and Virgin Atlantic as well as trade body Airlines UK wrote to Boris Johnson as ministers made it clear the ban on foreign travel will be in place until at least May 17.

When it is lifted it will be replaced by a risk-based “traffic light” system with red, amber and green ratings for countries around the world.

Airline chiefs said in their letter, published by The Sun and seen by the PA news agency, they recognised restriction-free universal travel may not be possible by May 17.

The letter states:

However there can be no economic recovery without aviation, and we are confident we now have the tools to enable a safe and meaningful restart to travel in May – allowing us to return to our job of reuniting friends and family, supporting trade and business and allowing Britons to enjoy a well-earned break again.

We believe vaccinated passengers should not be subject to travel restrictions and that testing can also reduce the barriers to travel including for areas that are considered to present some risk. Only very high-risk areas would be subject to more stringent measures.

The PM is expected to on Monday outline the Government’s approach for easing restrictions on foreign travel when its global travel task force reports on April 12.

The traffic light system will be based on a range of factors – including the proportion of the population that has been vaccinated, rates of infection, emerging new variants and the country’s access to reliable scientific data and genomic sequencing.

Travellers arriving from countries rated “green” will not be required to isolate – although pre-departure and post-arrival tests will still be needed.

For those classed as “amber” or “red”, the restrictions will remain as they are with arrivals required to isolate or enter quarantine.

The letter comes after the same group of airline bosses on February 18 called on the Government to outline a recovery road map for the industry so they could plan for the summer.

At the same time they called for further economic support for UK aviation to stimulate and strengthen any recovery when it comes.

Keyword

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been summoned to the High Court to justify why he is allowing non-essential shops to open before pubs and restaurants.

The Press Association reports:

The legal action has been brought by Pizza Express founder Hugh Osmond and nightclubs operator Sacha Lord, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

The paper says it has seen High Court documents which show the two businessmen are challenging “the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps) (England) Regulations 2021 to the extent that those Regulations provide for non-essential retail businesses to reopen before indoor hospitality businesses”.

Mr Justice Swift has ordered that the Health Secretary “shall by 10am on Tuesday April 6 file and serve his response to the application”.

From April 12 at the earliest, shops, hairdressers, nail salons, libraries and outdoor hospitality venues such as beer gardens will be allowed to reopen.
But indoor hospitality and entertainment venues and the rest of the accommodation sector will not be able to open their doors until at least May 17.

Mr Osmond writes in the Telegraph: “

The Government left us no choice but to take it to court. This is a truly urgent matter affecting the lives of millions that simply cannot wait.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said:

As the Prime Minister has said, we want this lockdown to be the last. Our road map sets out a phased approach to cautiously easing restrictions, informed by scientific experts, and we continue to act in response to the latest available evidence to protect the NHS and save lives.

We have continued to support the hospitality sector throughout the pandemic, including our new 5 billion Restart Grant scheme, extending the furlough scheme and the VAT cut, and providing 750,000 businesses in hospitality and other sectors with business rates relief.

Boris Johnson is expected to on Monday set out plans to develop a “Covid status certification” scheme to enable the safe return of mass gatherings and indoor events as lockdown restrictions ease in England.

Officials are planning a series of trial events over the coming months as they look to find a way for venues such as football grounds and nightclubs to reopen without the need for social distancing.

Russia reported 8,817 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including 1,901 in Moscow, pushing the number of infections registered in the country to 4,580,894 since the pandemic began last year. The previous day there were 9,021 new cases and 384 deaths)

The government coronavirus task force said 357 people had died from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking Russia’s overall death toll to 100,374.

Russia’s Rosstat statistics service, which is keeping a separate tally, has reported a much higher toll. It said on Friday it had recorded over 225,000 deaths related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

The University of Liverpool’s Professor Iain Buchan said vaccination against Covid-19 will not be necessary for those participating in trial events as part of the scheme to enable the safe return of mass gatherings and indoor events.

Prof Buchan, who will assist with running the scheme in Liverpool, said he did not “recognise the conversation earlier” with Prof Mills about vaccine passports. He told BBC Breakfast:

Vaccination will not be a criterion for admission to events: It will just be a test for particles of live virus in your nose.

He added that only those who have provided their consent would participate in the trial.

This is a research programme based on good science and good ethical conduct is to seek consent, so consent is required to attend the event.

The debate around vaccine certificates in the UK continues this morning. Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford, told BBC Breakfast there were “still a lot of open questions” about the Government’s planned Covid status certification scheme.

She said:

There’s scientific questions, there’s logistical questions – how will it work – with an app or a paper version? – and there’s real ethical questions as well, too: do I have to pay for the testing if I haven’t been vaccinated or had that opportunity?

So there are still a lot of open questions.

The sociologist said there may be concerns in the community about the storing of private information as part of the scheme, while forgeries could become an issue if paper documents are used, adding:

Once you have forgery you will lose your legitimacy, so it will be really important to understand technically how this will work. The only way to build trust in these systems is through transparency.

In Australia, people have celebrated Easter Sunday in a relatively unrestricted manner as the country reported no new locally acquired coronavirus cases. Reuters reports:

Queensland, the epicentre of a recent, small COVID-19 community outbreak, has had only one infection in the past three days. The state has the tightest restrictions on public gatherings.

Elsewhere, Australians flocked to the beaches, capitalising on the warm weather in many parts of the country, or gathered with families, in a stark contrast to last year’s Easter when a nationwide lockdown kept people confined to their homes.

While many countries have imposed fresh lockdowns or curtailed services for the major Christian holiday trying to keep the third wave of coronavirus from further spreading, Australia’s churches were open and many were attending services during the four-day weekend.

Australia has been one of the world’s most successful countries in curbing the pandemic, with snap lockdowns, border closures and swift tracking limiting coronavirus infections to just over 29,300 infections, with 909 COVID-19 deaths.

The country has had much less, however, with its inoculation drive, missing a March target by about 3.3 million doses as states and the federal government bickered over the blame.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday that the country is on track to give a first dose of the vaccine to all Australians who want it by October. he said:

As the supply has increased with the sovereign vaccine manufacturing, so has the rollout.

CSL Ltd. began production of 50 million doses of the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in March in Melbourne, with most Australians expected to receive that shot.

In his Easter message Boris Johnson has said Britain can look forward to “brighter days ahead”.

In his Easter message, the Prime Minister acknowledged it had been a “very tough” year, but said the holiday brought fresh optimism.

He said:

This has been a very tough 12 months. But, as ever, the arrival of Easter brings with it new hope.

And, this year more than ever, it brings the promise of brighter days ahead for us all.

Johnson said coronavirus restrictions meant many Christians would again be unable to celebrate their most important festival as they would like to.

But he paid tribute to the way in which they had shown the teachings of Christ and the message of his death and resurrection “permeate through every aspect of daily life”, saying:

That’s why I’ve lost count of the number of church leaders and congregations that have stepped up to support us all in these very challenging times.

Millions of Good Samaritans, each of them showing what loving thy neighbour as thyself really looks like in 21st century Britain.

And having done all that during the darkest days of the pandemic, churches across the UK are now helping us light the path out of it by opening their doors as vaccination centres. It’s really, very moving to see it.

His optimism was echoed by the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, who wrote in The Sun:

The old has gone, the new is here. Renewal begins now.

In the UK Boris Johnson is poised to launch nine “vaccine passport” pilots from mid-April, including three football showpieces at Wembley, and four night-time entertainment trials in Liverpool.

He is preparing for foreign holidays to go ahead this summer, with a “traffic light” system of rules in which travel to “green light” destinations will not require quarantine.

The full story by my colleague Michael Savage here:

The pilot venues will be unveiled on Monday by the prime minister with the NHS drawing up a system that will allow people to use an app or a paper certificate to gain access to major events and reduce social distancing measures.

However, with details of the certificate system still being finalised, Johnson continues to face a mounting political backlash over the use of vaccine passports in the UK. Some MPs are examining whether they could force a vote on the issue. On Monday, Johnson will reassure people that the passports should not be used on public transport or essential shops.

The system being piloted will take account of whether someone has had a vaccination, a recent negative test, or natural immunity after a positive test in the last six months. The pilot events begin in less than two weeks. They will first be deployed at the Hot Water Comedy Club, Liverpool, on 15 April. Others include an FA Cup semi-final and the final; the Carabao Cup final; the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield; the Luna Cinema, Circus Nightclub and a business event in Liverpool, and a running event in Hatfield.