British Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned the new mutant strain of the coronavirus is “out of control” and suggested parts of England will be stuck in the new highest tier of restrictions until a vaccine is rolled out.
The World Health Organization is aware of a new variant of Covid-19 that has emerged in Britain, but there is no evidence the strain behaves differently to existing types of the virus, it said on Monday.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might be persuaded to take a COVID-19 vaccination on television to show it is safe but he would not have one before those in greater need, his press secretary said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government defused a rebellion on Wednesday over its sweeping powers to introduce coronavirus restrictions, promising angry lawmakers more say over the introduction over any new national measures.
The British government said it would have large stockpiles in place to provide a continuous flow of protective items, such as masks, to health workers tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, after criticism earlier in the year that supplies were too low.
Britain is unlikely to follow France in ordering people to wear face coverings at work because its test and trace scheme shows most people catch COVID-19 in house-to-house transmission, health secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday (Aug 19).
The UK's official COVID-19 daily death count could be scrapped following an investigation into Public Health England's method of counting the toll, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
Millions of COVID-19 tests able to detect the virus within 90 minutes will be rolled out to British hospitals, care homes and laboratories to boost capacity in the coming months, the country's health minister said on Monday.
Britain's government plans to test a sample of 20,000 English households for COVID-19 in the coming weeks to try to establish how far the disease has spread across the country.
Britain's constitution offers no clear answer to the question now on many Britons' minds: What happens if Prime Minister Boris Johnson, undergoing tests in hospital after persistent symptoms of coronavirus, cannot continue to lead.