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Former CMO on Cygnus: "We could not cope with the excess bodies" Footage has emerged of the former chief medical officer, Sally Davies, discussing worrying findings from Exercise Cygnus on simulating an influenza pandemic. Speaking after the exercise in 2016 she said: “It became absolutely clear that we could not cope with the excess bodies.” It raises more questions about why the government wanted to suppress a 2017 report into the exercise. The government tried to keep the Exercise Cyngus report secret until it was published by the Guardian this week. NHS England medical director Professor Stephen Powis committed to publishing data on the deaths of those with learning disabilities and autism who had tested positive for coronavirus. Speaking at the the Downing Street press conference he said: People with learning disabilities and autism and wider mental health problems are really key to NHS England’s work and from the long-term plan we published at the start of last year, it’s clear just quite the focus we are placing on those groups of individuals and it’s really important that they get the appropriate care, the right care and have parity of care with everybody else. So we’re not losing that focus, in terms of patients with mental health who are dying with Covid-19, many of those have been transferred from mental health facilities into acute hospitals, it is a small number but they are being transferred. I can commit that we will publish that data, we’ve been looking at how we can do that as part of our deaths we publish daily. We’re looking at how we can report on those groups and I’ll commit that from next week we will be publishing data on learning disabilities, autism and mental health patients who died in acute hospitals, and we’ll do that on an ongoing basis. “Any premature loosening of the lockdown will only prolong the crisis,” the Guardian warns in an editorial. A successful exit will require a much sharper drop in infections, and better preparation, than we have so far seen. Immense issues remain with testing. Tracing is not feasible while the incidence of infections is so high, and the government could yet ditch its own contact-tracing app in favour of the “decentralised” model favoured by Apple and Google. Health and social care workers must be adequately protected. Though the right would like to see Mr Johnson offer a timeline for key measures, this should be resisted. A broad outline of plans is sensible. But any dates attached, however carefully caveated, will inevitably be seen as promises; the political pressure not to deviate from them will be intense. What is needed is sober decision-making, with an open discussion about the scientific evidence, and proper scrutiny. Here’s a roundup of the latest developments on coronavirus in the UK: Baby among 626 new victims in the UK A six-week-old baby has become the youngest victim of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK. NHS England figures show 12 deaths so far for hospital patients aged 0 to 19 who had tested positive. Some nine, including the baby, had a pre-existing health condition, while three did not. The total death toll in the UK, among patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 now stands at 31,241 - 1,072 more than Italy’s total of 30,201. Government misses 100,000 testing target for sixth day For the sixth day in a row the government missed its target of testing 100,000 people for coronavirus. Despite a rise of more than 10,000 on the previous day, the level reach was 97,029. Defending the figure, the environment secretary, George Eustice said: “The important thing is to have those ambitious targets you’re working to, to just continually build the capacity.” He claimed the prime minister’s new target of 200,000 tests per day by the end of the May, was for capacity rather than tests carried out. He said: “The prime minister’s announced in the last week that we’re going to ramp that up further to 200,000 tests capacity per day.” Plea to open fast food outlets but ‘no dramatic change in lockdown’ Eustice has urged more takeaway food outlets to reopen. He said: “We never mandated that they should close.” He also said: “McDonalds drive through was made for social distancing.” But he confirmed there would be no “dramatic overnight change” in the lockdown rules on Sunday. UK scientists’ fury over attempt to censor Covid-19 advice Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public, the Guardian can reveal. The report was one of a series of documents published by Sage this week to mollify growing criticism about the lack of transparency over the advice given to ministers responding to the coronavirus. However large blocks of text in the report, produced by SPI-B, the Sage subcommittee providing advice from behavioural scientists on how the public might respond to lockdown measures, were entirely blanked out. Wales unveils modest easing of the lockdown The first minister, Mark Drakeford, says it is too soon to ease the lockdown in Wales but announced three modest adjustments. Local exercise will be allowed more than once a day. Garden centres will be opened with physical distancing measures. Local authorities will open libraries and recycling centres. Schools will not be opened at the start of June, Drakeford confirmed. He also revealed the R number in Wales is estimated to be 0.8 and if it stays at that level 800 people will die in Wales by August. If it increases to 1.1 an estimated 7,200 will die in Wales. Sturgeon warns against easing the lockdown Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she was only considering relaxing the restrictions on exercising, saying the R number in Scotland was too close to 1 to contemplate any other easing measures. She also announced a further 49 deaths in Scotland taking its death toll to 1,811. She said: “By easing restrictions prematurely we would risk undoing all the progress that we’ve made, we would risk allowing the virus to spread out of control and that would cost lives.” Rail services set to increase Plans to ramp up rail services have been brought forward by a week and will start from next Monday, a union is claiming. Services were expected to be increased gradually from 18 May as part of an easing of the economic lockdown. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said it had discovered that the plans had been brought forward to start on Monday 11 May. Calls to ease lockdown for angling, shooting and bowls Anglers, game shooting enthusiasts and bowls clubs are increasing the pressure for the lockdown to be eased for their sports, arguing that they can resume them while remaining physically distanced. Lobbyists for fishing and game shooting claim that continuing strict lockdown restrictions for their pursuits could cost the UK economy millions of pounds and lead to thousands of job losses. Nine Chelsea pensioners have died from Covid-19 The Royal Hospital Chelsea, the retirement home for British military veterans, which has 290 residents, made the announcement before VE Day on Friday. Five of the deaths occurred in the home, and four died while receiving hospital treatment elsewhere. A total of 58 of its residents, known as Chelsea pensioners, have recovered from the disease. The official death toll in the UK is now more than 1,000 higher than in Italy, which until this week was the worst hit country in Europe. As Eustice confirmed an increase of 626 deaths to 31,241 in the UK, Italy announced a further 243 coronavirus deaths, taking its tally passed 30,000 for the first time. On Tuesday the Office of National Statistics suggested the UK’s death toll already passed 32,000 by the start of May. It counts all deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on deaths certificates as possible or probable cause. The number announced at the Downing Street briefing is deaths in all settings where patients have tested positive for Covid-19. The charts from today’s briefing show the rolling weekly average for deaths is coming down but only slowly. And today it was more than yesterday. This is Matthew Weaver taking over the blog again for the next hour or so. Takeaway fast food outlets can reopen, minister George Eustice has said, insisting that the government never ordered them to shut. Asked if fast food outlets could have stayed open during the crisis, the environment secretary explained: “While clearly restaurants and pubs had to close, we were quite keen to keep that capacity to be able to do takeaway food for people.” Reduced footfall in town centres, staff anxiety and a sense of what was “socially acceptable” given the stay-at-home message had led to places such as McDonald’s and KFC closing, he suggested. He added: I think it is quite possible for these venues to reopen and reopen safely, we never mandated that they should close. We have learned a lot from supermarkets and other food outlets about how you can do social distancing and do it well. I think some of those food-to-go businesses will probably be seeking to learn lessons from what supermarkets have done as they consider tentatively reopening.” Pressed on why the UK has failed to meet its 100,000 daily testing target for six days in a row, the environment secretary, George Eustice, sought to defend the government’s efforts. He said: If you have, as we do, 50 different sites offering drive-through tests you will get regional variances. You will get some days of surplus tests where people haven’t come forward to take them in some areas, and you will have other areas where you don’t have quite enough capacity for that local demand. The important thing is to have those ambitious targets you’re working to, to just continually build the capacity. But you will of course get daily fluctuations in availability in any given local area.” And, asked about the government’s new target to conduct 200,000 tests by the end of the month, Eustice insisted it would not distract from delivering the current testing capacity. “I think it is important and helpful to have targets you’re moving towards,” he said. That’s why we had that ambitious target to get to 100,000 and again to get to 200,000 by the end of this month. I don’t really understand at all why that would distract from those that are delivering the current test capacity and they can continue to do so, the planning for an expansion is done by an entirely different set of people. As we start to roll out things such as our track and trace approach, testing will become quite an important feature of that.” The government has been challenged on revelations that almost 80% of respirators in the national pandemic stockpile were out of date when the coronavirus hit the UK. Channel 4 News obtained detailed stock lists that reveal exactly what was held on the day coronavirus was declared an international emergency. Around 200m vital pieces of kit – including respirators, masks, syringes and needles – had all expired in the eight months before 30 January. Asked by Channel 4 News political correspondent, Liz Bates, about the findings, NHS England medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said any items of PPE which have gone past their original date of expiry are retested to ensure they still meet the right standards and would not be distributed to frontline workers unless they met the standards. There will be no "dramatic overnight change" in UK"s lockdown, says minister There is not going to be “dramatic overnight change” in the UK’s lockdown measures, George Eustice insisted, as he sought to downplay speculation of a greater lifting of restrictions. Speaking at the daily Downing Street conference ahead of Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on Sunday, where he is expected to announce some form of ease in lockdown measures, the environment secretary insisted the government would be acting cautiously. He said: “There isn’t going to be any dramatic overnight change. We will be very, very cautious as we loosen the restrictions we have. As the data that we’re outlining on a daily basis shows, we are not out of the woods, there are still major challenges with this virus for sometime to come. And it’s therefore important to avoid that second peak that could overwhelm our NHS, that we exit and evolve these restrictions very, very carefully.”