Latest updates: Unions, business leaders, devolved administrations and north of England all anticipating chancellor’s Commons statement this afternoon
- Minister blames public for second English lockdown
- Fears grow for those facing abuse as England enters lockdown
- UK chancellor expected to extend furlough beyond December
- England enters second lockdown after MPs approve regulation
- Global coronavirus updates – live
The Department of Health and Social Care has published the latest weekly performance data (pdf) for NHS Test and Trace. Its performance has been widely criticised because it has consistently failed to meet key targets, but on some metrics this week there have been notable improvements.
Between 22 October and 28 October, the median time taken to receive a test result for regional test sites decreased to 31 hours from 39 hours in the previous week. Similarly, the median time decreased for local test sites to 33 hours from 40 hours and for mobile testing units to 29 hours from 33 hours during the same period.
Between 22 October and 28 October, 67.0% of people (75,446) were reached within 24 hours. The proportion of people reached within 24 hours has been declining since mid September but has notably increased in the latest week from 43.6% in the week before. Since test and trace launched on 28 May, 58.9% of people (285,461) have been reached within 24 hours.
Between 22 October and 28 October, 75.4% of contacts who weren’t managed by local HPTs [health protection teams – they only deal with a small proportion of cases] were reached and advised to self-isolate within 24 hours of being identified. This proportion has notably decreased since mid-September. [However it] has increased over the past 3 weeks. Overall, since Test and Trace launched, 70.6% of these contacts have been reached and advised to self-isolate within 24 hours.
Tom Bower’s new biography of Boris Johnson has had some rather poor reviews but it has at least prompted Rory Stewart, the former Conservative cabinet minister and a leadership candidate in the contest that Johnson won, to write a superb and blistering essay about his former ministerial colleague. Here’s an excerpt on Johnson’s mastery of dishonest, but do read the whole thing in the Times Literary Supplement.
Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.
