London 'heading for TIER THREE before Christmas': Pubs and restaurants could shut AGAIN in new rules shake up on December 16 - as figures reveal capital's Covid infection rate is now HIGHER than 27 authorities already stuck in toughest restrictions
- London is now recording more cases per day, for its size, than 27 of 61 authorities living under Tier Three
- These areas include Nottingham, Leeds, Leicestershire, Bristol, Newcastle, Sunderland, Sheffield and Derby
- Matt Hancock has refused to rule out imposing Tier Three measures onto the capital a week before Christmas
- Department of Health data shows infections in the city continued to rise during the four-week lockdown
- But NHS hospital admissions and deaths from the virus are still flat-lining despite the surge in infections London's Covid-19 infection rate is now higher than more than two dozen areas currently stuck under Tier Three restrictions, official data revealed today after Matt Hancock warned the capital is on the verge of being plunged into the toughest measures before Christmas.
Department of Health statistics show the city recorded 169.2 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people during the seven-day spell ending December 2 — the day England's national lockdown finished and Number 10 reverted back to its whack-a-mole style approach to thwarting local outbreaks.
For comparison, the city's Covid infection rate stood at 151.6 in the last seven days before Downing St's blanket intervention was imposed on November 2.
MailOnline's analysis of Government figures show London is now recording more cases per day, for its size, than 27 of 61 authorities currently living under Tier Three curbs, including Nottingham, Leeds, Leicestershire, Bristol, Newcastle and Derby.
And 21 out of the capital's 32 boroughs saw a rise in coronavirus infections in the last week of the shutdown, with the biggest surges in Haringey, Bromley and Kingston.
Asked whether the capital is in danger of being upgraded to Tier Three next week, the Health Secretary pointed to rising cases as he pleaded with people to keep obeying the rules. He urged the capital's 9million residents to stick by the rules and 'not push the boundaries'.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson also highlighted the increase in London in an interview hailing the first vaccines being administered.
City Hall is understood to be braced for bad news when the first review of the tiers in England is carried out next Wednesday (December 16), despite the mayor Sadiq Khan insisting he does not want it to happen. Tier Three rules would inflict yet more devastation on the hospitality industry, with bars and restaurants only allowed to operate takeaway — like during the national lockdown.
Michael Gove was the most senior minister to call for London to be subject to the most severe restrictions before the three-tier lockdowns were officially announced. But the Cabinet Office minister was shot down by the Prime Minister after economists projected the move could see 550,000 Londoners lose their jobs.
Despite the troublesome figures suggesting cases are trending upwards in London, separate data shows hospital admissions and and deaths have barely risen over the past two months.
NHS data shows just 145 Covid patients are being admitted to hospital every day, on average. In contrast , they topped 800 during the peak of the first wave in April. And Department of Health statistics show the capital is just recording 25 coronavirus deaths a day — a fraction of the scale of the city's crisis in April.
MailOnline's analysis of Government figures show London is now recording more cases per day, for its size, than 27 of 61 authorities currently living under Tier Three curbs, including Nottingham, Leeds, Leicestershire, Bristol, Newcastle and Derby
And the numbers in the capital are moving in the wrong direction, with cases per person up by half in the worst affected corners of the city and chaotic photos from the weekend showing shopping streets packed with people. Red shows areas where the infection rate has risen in a week, while green shows the boroughs that have seen a fall in cases
And data from the Covid Symptom Study app, which collects unofficial reports of test results and symptoms, estimates that other Tier Two areas including Berkshire, Wiltshire and Suffolk are also seeing cases on the up ahead of crunch decisions next week
In other coronavirus developments today:- Matt Hancock cried on TV after a 90-year-old grandmother from Coventry and a Warwickshire pensioner called William Shakespeare became the first people in the world to get an approved coronavirus vaccine as the country took a gigantic step towards ending the hated pandemic on 'V-Day';
- Britons might still have to wear face masks next winter, Sir Patrick Vallance claimed as he said the precaution – new to the UK but standard practice in some Asian countries – could be a long-term fix if coronavirus keeps circulating;
- Summer holidays could be back on the cards next year and social distancing may be scrapped, Britain's vaccine tsar suggested as she said it was her 'gut feeling' that 'we will all be going on summer holidays';
- Weekly Covid deaths in England dropped for the first time since September during the country's last full week of lockdown, according to data from the Office for National Statistics;
- Sky News presenter Kay Burley did not appear on air to host her TV show this morning after admitting to breaking coronavirus rules, with the veteran journalist replaced by presenter Sarah Hewson on her normal 7am to 10am slot.
Professor Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, said there were two possible explanations for rising infection rates that don’t spill over into hospital cases or deaths.
He told MailOnline: 'One is testing, and the problems with testing. There could be a rise in PCR positive people who aren’t infectious.'
Just because someone receives a positive PCR result does not necessarily mean they are infectious. This is because the test can pick up tiny fragments of Covid-19 that linger in the body from older infection.
Most people who contract Covid only remain infectious for a week, but for a small percentage of people it lasts more than a fortnight.
Another explanation may be the ‘age structure' of people testing positive has changed, according to Professor Jefferson.
He said: 'Most younger people don’t have complications [which means they don’t end up in hospital] unless they have pre-disposed conditions, which could be the second explanation.'
Professor Paul Hunter told MailOnline it was still 'too early to be certain' that hospital rates won't rise, due to the lag in time it takes for infected people to fall critically ill and need treatment.
He added: 'The start of London's increase in cases was quite patchy [in terms of geography], which suggests to me localised outbreaks were driving infection rates —possibly in schools, workplaces and care homes – these sorts of environments.'
City Hall officials are growing increasingly nervous about London being moved into Tier Three, which would see pubs, restaurants and bars forced to shut and offer only takeaway services.
It is currently in the second bracket of restrictions, which bans socialising indoors with other households.
Tory heavyweight Sir Iain Duncan Smith has warned the move would be an 'unmitigated disaster', and the capital's mayor Sadiq Khan has called on Westminster not to impose the restriction that would be the final nail in the coffin for thousands of small businesses.
Mr Hancock today dangled the threat of tighter restrictions over the capital, amid rising cases.
'My message to everybody in London is "let’s stick by the rules" and not push the boundaries of the rules, but rather try to limit the spread of this infection because the case numbers are going up in parts of London, in parts of Essex, in parts of Kent, and we know what happens when case numbers go up, sadly more people end up in hospital and more people end up dying,' he told LBC radio.
'So, we’ve got to stick at it and we have got to keep this virus suppressed whilst we get the roll-out (of the vaccine) going.
'So, my message to everybody in London is "please respect the restrictions, respect what needs to be done, keep yourself and your family and your community and your city safe".'
Asked whether London could go into tougher restrictions on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: 'This is an incredibly important moment on the march out of this pandemic, but we've still got a march to go this winter.
'People need to keep respecting the rules and try to live in a way that if you have the virus infects as few people as possible, and we are seeing rising numbers of cases in parts of Essex, parts of Kent and parts of London in particular and we've got to keep this under control.
'The whole strategy all along has been to suppress the virus, protecting the economy, education and the NHS until a vaccine can make us safe.
'That strategy is clearly working because a vaccine is starting to be able to keep us safe, but the suppress the virus bit is still absolutely critical.'
On a visit to London's Guy's Hospital, which began to give out Pfizer/BioNTech's jab today, Boris Johnson urged Britons to stick to the rules. He said: 'We're not there yet, we haven't defeated this virus yet.
'It's very important for people to understand... that the virus is, alas, still rising in some parts of the country. It's rising, for instance, in London.
'We've got it (cases) down hugely as a result of the measures we took in November, which have just come off. People made a huge, huge effort.'
Mr Johnson described the start of the mass vaccine roll-out as being a 'shot in the arm for an entire nation' but warned: 'We can't afford to relax now.'
Professor Kevin Fenton, London Regional Director for Public Health England, said: 'The latest data shows case rates are on the increase again in most London boroughs, including in the at-risk over 60s.
'Covid-19 behaves like clockwork – the more contact we have with others, the higher the chance of us catching or spreading the virus. If we want to keep infections down, every one of us needs to remain vigilant and follow the rules as we go about shopping, eating out or meeting friends outdoors.
'We’ll need to work together to prevent a big surge in cases in London ahead of the festive period so we must all do our bit and limit the spread over the coming days and weeks.
Office for National Statistics figures show that the weekly total of coronavirus death occurrences in England and Wales declined for the first time since September at the end of England's second lockdown
Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule out moving the capital into Tier Three today, he said
'We can do this by sticking to the rules, remembering the basics of ‘Hands, Face, Space’, and getting tested and isolating at home if we have any symptoms.'
Public Health England data shows the virus has also spread to the over 60s - who are most at risk of hospitalisation from the virus - where it is at 112 per 100,000, the same rate as before lockdown.
The most cases are being recorded in young people aged between 16 and 29, at 193 per 100,000.
A health source has warned Public Health England is 'starting to get worried' about the capital today, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The insider added there was 'concern across the system' over London, and whether it should be moved up a tier.
The minister for London Paul Scully, who is also MP for a constituency in the borough of Sutton, told the Evening Standard it was 'too early' to say what is happening as the tiers would be reviewed in a few days time.'Clearly we want to at the very least to stay in Tier Two,' he said.
'The only way we are going to do that is if we all look after each other by adhering to "hands, face, space".
'That way we can save lives and protect our economy.'
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia, said it was 'very worrying' that cases were still going up in the capital, and warned Tier Three should now be considered for the city.
'There were more cases at the end of lockdown than at the start in London,' he told The Telegraph.
'It is very worrying when cases were still continuing to increase in these regons despite the national lockdown.
'It is quite likely that case numbers will start to accelerate even more in the coming days, probably including in areas not yet showing an increase, because of more movement around London. If cases in London were rising even during a national lockdown then we do need to reconsider the tier allocation in these areas.
London's outbreak is focused in the north-east of the city with Havering its Covid-19 hotspot, recording the highest rate at 319.4 per 100,000
Havering, in the north-east of the city, is the capital's Covid-19 hotspot, after recording an infection rate of 319.4 per 100,000 in the last week of lockdown. This was a rise of 11.7 per cent on the week before.
It is followed by Barking, where the infection rate rose by 17 per cent to 298 per 100,000, and Redbridge, where infections were at 194.5 per 100,000 - the same level as the previous week.
Only four of its 32 boroughs have infection rates below 100 per 100,000, according to figures from the Department of Health.
The lowest number of infections are in Richmond, where they have fallen to 79.3 per 100,000. It was followed by Camden, at 87.8 per 100,000, and Westminster, at 92.2 per 100,000.
Professor Kevin Fenton, the capital's director of public health, warned on Friday the city could face the toughest restrictions if the 'promising reductions' in Covid-19 cases are reversed.
'The promising reductions we had begun to see with the recent national restrictions across the capital have shown signs of slowing in recent days - a stark reminder of just how delicate our situation is,' he said.
'If we want to avoid being placed in Tier Three, it is vital we keep transmission down.'
Tory heavyweight and London MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith laid into suggestions that London would be forced into Tier Three today, warning it would be an 'unmitigated disaster' for the capital.
'London is the powerhouse of the UK economy, we must not be moved into Tier Three,' he told MailOnline.
'Rates are falling and such a decision cannot be taken by health officials alone, there must be balance in this decision making. Tier Three would be an unmitigated disaster.'
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said yesterday: 'I want to be as transparent about this as I can.
'London is in Tier Two - these restrictions are serious. If we don't follow the rules and London's Covid-19 cases continue to rise, we could be moved into Tier Three, which none of us want.
'We cannot risk this. Follow the rules.'
Was England's second lockdown really needed? ONS revise figure for daily cases in mid-October to show Covid was NOT spiralling as quickly as feared
More questions were raised about the data used to send England into its second lockdown in November today after it emerged that official Covid-19 estimates were dramatically revised.
In its October 30 report, the Office for National Statistics estimated that 9.52 people per 10,000 in England were catching the virus every day by October 17 – up from 4 per 10,000 at the start of that month.
This was significant because it signalled infections were more than doubling every week and approaching levels seen during the darkest days of the first wave in spring.
However, in its most recent report on December 4, the October estimate had been retrospectively changed to 4.89 per 10,000 – half its original prediction.
This suggests cases were likely already flatlining weeks before England's second lockdow
Boris Johnson announced the controversial autumn shutdown at the end of October in the face of a growing body of research claiming Covid-19 cases were spiralling.
Results from the ONS' weekly survey, considered one of the most accurate Covid-19 surveillance studies in the UK, is likely to have been one of the driving factors that swung No10 in favour of the crude intervention.
A separate controversial model, by a team at Cambridge University, forecast up to 4,000 deaths a day by the end of November. That model was also toned down dramatically weeks later.
A spokesman for the Government-run data collecting body claimed it stands by the estimates it used to advise the Government in late October. They added that as it collects more data its modelling is always subject to revision.The revision of the figures was spotted by ITV's Robert Peston on Twitter today, who said: 'It is hard to make momentous decisions like whether to go into national lockdown in a rational way if the data informing those decisions is subject to such massive after-the-event revisions.'
A spokesperson for the ONS said: 'Our official estimates of infections are the best estimates based on the data collected over the past eight weeks at date of publication.
'We publish the full back-series of modelled estimates for transparency and these should not be considered 'revised official estimates'.
'We have always advised people to use our official estimates as originally published as these are unaffected by the effects of policy changes that took place after publication.'
It is the latest Covid-19 data row to rock Number 10.
Officials have previously been criticised for using doom-mongering graphs and not giving the localised tiered system enough time to take effect.
Speaking to MPs on the House of Commons Health Select Committee a fortnight ago, eminent Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter accused Downing Street of cherry-picking 'spurious' data to justify the second lockdown.
He suggested ministers had eroded public trust by choosing only to make pubic the worst-case scenarios, which were often based on out of date data.
He told MPs today: 'I don't want to ascribe motivation to anyone of course. But if someone was really trying to manipulate the audience and frighten them and persuade them that what was being done was correct, rather than genuinely inform them, then this is the kind of thing they might do.'
Tory ministers have compared frightening data presented to the public to the controversial dossier on weapons of mass destruction that sent Britain to war with Iraq.
Charts which predicted 50,000 cases by mid-October and 4,000 deaths a day by late November were wheeled out by Downing Street to show the public why a lockdown was necessary.
But those fantastical charts were widely ridiculed because the country never recorded more than half of those daily infections in October and daily deaths currently average 427.
The MRC Biostatistics Unit COVID-19 Working Group at Cambridge came under fire for the 50,000 cases and 4,000 deaths a day figures.
The team has since revised its estimates and now says that cases started falling in October thanks to 'a combination of the social restrictions introduced in October, the temporary decrease in activity over the half-term period, and the lockdown.'
It comes as weekly Covid deaths in England dropped for the first time since September during the country's last full week of lockdown, ONS's statistics show.
Today's report showed Covid was mentioned on 2,713 death certificates in England and Wales in the seven-day spell between November 21 and 27, which was down from 2,808 a week earlier.
The three per cent drop, shown in the count by the actual date of death as opposed to registration, was the first time in 12 weeks that the number of people dying had fallen in England and Wales. Most of the fatalities were in England.
Separate Government statistics show daily deaths in Britain's second wave of Covid peaked in mid-November.
Death numbers tend to spike around three weeks after infections do because of the time it takes for victims to become seriously ill and then die.
So a peak in deaths almost three weeks into the national lockdown – in the week up to November 20 – shows that the outbreak was at its largest and most rampant at the start of November, just before the shutdown started. Scientists at the time estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were getting infected each day.
And it suggests lockdown worked, bringing infections under control around a month ago which is now translating into fewer people going into hospital and dying.
The ONS report also shows that coronavirus is now accounting for one in every four deaths in England and Wales, while fewer people than normal are dying of other causes.
Total deaths are above average in all places, however, pushed up by Covid deaths, and over 35,000 more people than usual have died in private homes this year as many have avoided or been unable to get life-saving medical care.
Excess deaths appear to be declining now too, however, and there were 2,099 more deaths than average registered in the week to November 27, compared to 2,155 the week before.
Registered deaths, which are counted by when a person's death is officially noted, not the day it happens, were the highest in six months for coronavirus in the most recent week, at 3,040, more than any week since May 15. These records, however, include some deaths that actually happened in earlier weeks.
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