The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: A £516 billion deficit?

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis A leaked Treasury report warns the UK could face a 1970s-style ‘sovereign debt crisis’ unless the Chancellor introduces new taxes, freezes public sector wages and ends the pensions triple lock. Details below.The UK economy contracted by 2% in Q1, the biggest drop since the financial crash.Self-employed workers can now apply for an income support grant of up to £7,500.Covid-19 hospital admissions are falling more slowly in the north of England than the rest of the country.

Sunday

The Spectator

Full Text: Prime Minister’s ‘roadmap’ to ease lockdown

From our UK edition

Here is the full transcript of the Prime Minister's address to the nation: 'It is now almost two months since the people of this country began to put up with restrictions on their freedom – your freedom – of a kind that we have never seen before in peace or war. And you have shown the good sense to support those rules overwhelmingly. You have put up with all the hardships of that programme of social distancing. Because you understand that as things stand, and as the experience of every other country has shown, it’s the only way to defeat the coronavirus – the most vicious threat this country has faced in my lifetime. And though the death toll has been tragic, and the suffering immense. And though we grieve for all those we have lost.

Friday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Is lockdown working?

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  Britain will remain in lockdown until June at the earliest, according to theTimes. Meanwhile, No. 10 has been dampening hopes of a significant easing by Boris Johnson on Sunday.Germany has seen its Covid-19 cases rise the most in a week, as it prepares to reopen hotels, restaurants and non-essential shops.A leaked Whitehall report warned three years ago of the serious impact of a pandemic on care homes. Matt Hancock has responded: ‘Everything that was recommended was done.

Thursday

The Spectator

Track and trace should not be our only exit strategy

From our UK edition

The concept of the state tracking our every movement is anathema to this magazine and, we assume, to its liberal former editor now resident in Downing Street. Nevertheless, such is the impasse over coronavirus that it is right the government should attempt to exit lockdown via the application of a voluntary ‘track and trace’ on mobile phones, trials of which began on the Isle of Wight this week. Track and trace appears to have worked for Asia so, given what’s at stake, it’s reasonable to try it here. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam — the countries which employed tracking and tracing from an early date — appear to have dealt with Covid-19 the most effectively, minimising the impact on their economics and societies.

The Spectator

Letters: The toilet paper stockpile that lasted 80 years

From our UK edition

The case for small homes Sir: Your editorial rightly highlights what must be one of the government’s priorities once the worst of this crisis abates (‘Call that care?’, 2 May). I have been the owner and manager of a small, five-bedroom care home for nearly 30 years and, having had a majority of privately funded residents, can recognise ‘the iniquity whereby residents with savings have found themselves cross subsidising those who are funded by local authorities’. The government should firstly allow the payment of care home fees to be tax refundable. It is only fair that those who are saving the state the money for their care should at least not have to pay tax on it.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Neil Ferguson quits, Rory Stewart drops out and Boris names his baby

From our UK edition

Home The government put its mind to the puzzle of how to get people back to work. Draft advice was for office workers to avoid sharing staplers and to face the wall in lifts. An Ipsos Mori poll found that 61 per cent of people would feel not very comfortable about using public transport. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, appeared at a daily coronavirus press conference and said: ‘We have come through the peak, or rather we have come under what could have been a vast peak, as though we have been going through some huge Alpine tunnel, and we can now see the sunlight and the pasture ahead of us.’ Professor Neil Ferguson resigned from the government’s Sage scientific advisory body after accepting visits to his house by a woman friend.

The Spectator

How many books are in the average home?

From our UK edition

Admitting defeat 8 May is celebrated as VE Day, but it is also a date which marks a significant English military defeat. It was the day in 1429 when the Earl of Salisbury’s forces were driven from Orleans by Joan of Arc, an event which provoked an English retreat from the Loire Valley and marked a turning point in the Hundred Years’ War. The event is marked in Orleans with an annual Fête de Jeanne d’Arc, featuring a parade through the city led by ‘Joan’. Upwardly mobile Residents on the Isle of Wight were urged to install an app on their phones which is being used in a pilot scheme for tracking contacts of people who have been diagnosed with coronavirus. How many people own a smartphone, by age group?

The Spectator

2453: All Right? Solution

From our UK edition

Unclued lights were characters in the musical Oklahoma!, 2/20, 4A, 10, 22, 24, 30, 35/15D. They are AUNT ELLER, WILL PARKER, LAUREY WILLIAMS, ALI HAKIM, CURLY MCLAIN, JUD FRY, and ADO ANNIE.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: UK moves to ‘wean people off’ furlough scheme

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis  Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer faced off for the first time at PMQs today. James Forsyth has the details on Coffee House.Chancellor Rishi Sunak is preparing to roll back the furlough scheme in July, with Matt Hancock admitting yesterday: ‘We’ve got to wean off it.’ Kate Andrews provides analysis below.Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson has stepped down from Sage after it emerged that he had broken lockdown rules to meet with his married lover.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: America prepares for 3,000 daily deaths

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis  New ONS figures take the UK’s Covid death toll to 32,375 – currently the highest number in Europe. There were 7,713 Covid-19 deaths outside of hospitals in England and Wales to 24 April.The first key workers on the Isle of Wight will trial the new contact tracing app today. However, the app has failed all its safety and cybersecurity tests.Matt Hancock has defended the app, arguing that personal data needs to be shared centrally so that the government can know where flare-ups of infection are occurring in the country.

Monday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdown

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis  Face scans are being considered by ministers to create ‘immunity passports’, where those proven to have acquired Covid-19 can be released from lockdown. Kate Andrews argues against the idea onCoffee House.The Chinese government destroyed evidence that coronavirus escaped a lab in Wuhan, according to a leaked dossier by the Western intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes.The NHS will trial a tracing app on the Isle of Wight this week. Freddy Gray wishes them luck, given the quality of the island’s internet coverage.

Friday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Can patients catch the virus twice?

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis  The 277 South Korean Covid-19 ‘reinfection cases’ that originally prompted fears over multiple infections were in fact false positives, according to researchers at Seoul University. Ross Clark has the details below.We are past the peak according to Boris Johnson in his first coronavirus briefing since falling ill. The PM says he will release a road map next week for easing lockdown.The NHS will get ‘first dibs’ on any Covid-19 drug produced by Oxford university and AstraZeneca.

Thursday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: The UK’s new hope – a Covid tracker

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis The UK is to adopt a South Korean model for exiting the lockdown, and ONS data will be vital to the strategy. James Forsyth has the details below.UK anxiety levels over Covid-19 are falling, says the ONS.Boris Johnson will lead his first coronavirus briefing today since contracting the disease.NHS England has set out its plan to restart non-Covid-19 services.Child abuse calls to the NSPCC have risen almost 20% since the start of lockdown.No child has yet transmitted Covid-19 to an adult, a review in partnership with the Royal College of Paediatricians has found.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris’s son is born, Commons sits apart and Belgians told to eat more potatoes

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, returned to work at Downing Street after recovering from his Covid-19 sickness. Speaking outside No. 10, he said that there were ‘real signs now that we are passing through the peak’. By the beginning of Sunday 26 April, there had been 20,319 deaths, mostly in hospital, of people who had the disease; a week earlier the cumulative total had been 15,464. There were additionally 2,000 coronavirus deaths in care homes in the week ending 17 April, according to the Office for National Statistics, twice the number of the week before. In the week ending 10 April, of the 7,996 excess deaths above the average, 1,783 were not attributed to coronavirus.

The Spectator

Letters: Country and town are in this together

From our UK edition

End-of-life plans Sir: Charles Moore writes about his neighbour with poor lung function being telephoned about a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order (Notes, 18 April). Even today when I discuss end-of-life plans with patients in A&E, many immediately think that medical staff are giving up on them. Nothing could be further from the truth. What are actually called DNA-CPR decisions do not stop treatment for a health condition. What it does is say that if this patient were to die, then chest compressions (which often break ribs) and intubation will in all likelihood not work, and that allowing the natural end of life to occur peacefully is better.

The Spectator

How many 100th birthday cards does the Queen send?

From our UK edition

Multiplying by hundreds The Queen penned a personal 100th birthday message to Captain Tom Moore, who has raised money for NHS charities by walking around his Bedfordshire garden. — The tradition of the monarch sending 100th birthday greetings began with George V in 1917, when he sent out a telegram with the words: ‘His Majesty’s hope that the blessings of good health and prosperity may attend you during the remainder of your days.’ That year he sent out 24 such cards. — By the time Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952 the number had grown to 273. — In 2014 the office which sends out cards on her behalf had to hire extra staff when the number reached 7,517.

The Spectator

The NHS has been protected – care homes have not

From our UK edition

As the NHS was preparing for the Covid onslaught, thousands of hospital patients were discharged to care homes in an attempt to free up beds. This worked: about 40,000 NHS beds are now unoccupied, four times the normal amount for this time of year. Attendance at A&E has halved. Almost half of all intensive care beds with mechanical ventilators lie unused. This is before the seven pop-up Nightingale hospitals, most of which are also empty, are factored in. The NHS was effectively protected in this crisis. Care homes were not. While those in hospital were being given the care one would expect from one of the world’s best-resourced health services, most care home residents who fell sick with symptoms of Covid-19 were not even being tested for the disease.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Will Boris take paternity leave?

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis  Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds have announced the arrival of a baby boy, born this morning in a London hospital. James Forsyth has the details below.Cancer operations will take place at new ‘Covid-19-free’ hubs. The collapse in cancer care since the lockdown could lead to 18,000 more cancer deaths, according to new research. Analysis below.Millions more people can now apply for a coronavirus test. The government loosened rules to include over-65s, essential workers and care home residents.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: How many coronavirus deaths will Britain end up with?

From our UK edition

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad: News and analysis Covid-19 related deaths as of 17 April in England and Wales were 35% higher than the government’s hospital death figure. Details below.The Scottish government has recommended that people cover their faces with cloth garments when in public spaces. Dr John Lee weighs up the benefits of masks on Coffee House.A minute’s silence for key workers who have died during the Covid-19 outbreak was held this morning at 11 a.m.The families of NHS staff who have died of coronavirus will be given £60,000.