UK coronavirus live: intensive care in Greater Manchester month away from being overwhelmed, No 10 claims

Public Health Wales has recorded 626 more positive cases and one further death. The details are here.

The daily death toll is the lowest figure for 11 days. And the number of new cases is down considerably from yesterday’s total (950), but still a rise on this time last week (487).

Police in Scotland will be able to get personal data of people with Covid-19 who are identified as part of the government’s test and trace programme, to issue fines and help other investigations.

Despite public assurances of confidentiality, a privacy notice on a leaflet sent out to patients says that their names and mobile numbers could be shared with the police and other unspecified public bodies which “have a legitimate reason to ask for it”.

The privacy notice, disclosed by the Times (paywall), goes on to say: “For example, it would not be shared with Police Scotland to implement fines unless Police Scotland had demonstrated their legal basis to have the data.”

Similar police powers are in force now in England where police and prosecutors can fine Covid-positive people who breach self-isolation rules up to £10,000. The Scottish government has so far not introduced fines for self-isolation non-compliance.

However, fines for breaching large gathering and physical distancing rules have been widely used by police in Scotland, and holiday makers can also be fined for breaching travel quarantine rules.

Prof Stephen Reicher, a behavioural scientist at St Andrews university who advised the UK and Scottish governments, said these rules risked alienating the public and reducing compliance. He told the Times sharing such data was “deeply worrying in terms of civil liberties”.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said at her briefing earlier her government believed fines for non-isolation were “counterproductive” because they could make people feel testing had a criminal justice element to it. They were focusing on building voluntary compliance, she said.

NHS England has recorded 76 further coronavirus hospital deaths. These are people who died after testing positive. There were 25 deaths in the north-east and Yorkshire, 24 in the north-west, 16 in the Midlands, five in the east of England, three in London, two in the south-west and one in the south-east.

There were a further two deaths were the patients did not test positive, but Covid was mentioned on the death certificate.

Seventy six is more than double the equivalent figure for last Monday (36) and a seven-fold increase on the figure for two weeks ago (10).

The details are here.

Downing Street has claimed that intensive care capacity in Greater Manchester is less than four weeks away from being completely overwhelmed.

The prime minister’s spokesman released figures supporting the claim at the daily lobby briefing to back up government claims that tighter restrictions in the region are urgently needed. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said this morning that he would not easily be “pressurised” into agreeing them. (See 9.43am.)

The spokesman told journalists:

Cases in Greater Manchester continue to rise. In the over-60 age group, cases have tripled in the most recent 15 days of full data – there were 89 cases per 100,000 on September 27 compared to 282 per 100,000 on October 12.

Hospital admissions in Greater Manchester are doubling every nine days.

Currently the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care is around 40% of that seen at the peak of the first wave. But, assuming a 14-day doubling time – the “best case” according to the SPI-M modelling group – all free intensive care capacity would be used by 28 October (the middle of next week), according to No 10, and would pass the peak of the first wave by 2 November (a fortnight today).

The projections suggest Covid patients would take up the entire current intensive care capacity by 8 November (within three weeks) and the entire surge capacity by 12 November.

Asked if that meant hospitals being overwhelmed, the spokesman said: “Yes, that’s the entire surge ICU capacity.”

The spokesman confirmed that talks with Burnham and other local leaders were continuing. “If at all possible, we do want to engage constructively with Greater Manchester and agree on a way forward,” the spokesman said.

But if agreement cannot be reached, the government will need to intervene “in order to protect hospitals and save the lives of residents”, he added.

From my colleague Josh Halliday

Commenting on the ONS figures showing that there have been 25,000 excess deaths registered in private homes in England this year (see 12.14pm), Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that most of these deaths were deaths that in normal circumstances would have occurred in hospital. He said:

Non-Covid deaths in hospital have correspondingly declined, suggesting most of these deaths would normally have occurred in hospital, and people have either been reluctant to go, discouraged from attending, or the services have been disrupted.

He added that it is “unclear how many of these lives could have been extended had they gone to hospital”.

Covid-19 case rates have started to fall in some of England’s biggest cities, with the sharpest increases now happening in towns and more suburban areas, latest figures suggest.

As PA Media reports, Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle are among the cities where the weekly rate of new Covid-19 cases rose rapidly at the end of September, coinciding with the start of the new university term, but where levels are now coming down.

The rates have been decreasing for several days, suggesting they are on a downward trend rather than a temporary dip.

In Nottingham the rolling weekly rate of cases peaked at 1,001.2 per 100,000 people for the seven days to 8 October – the highest for any local authority area in England – but since then the number has been falling, and it currently stands at 787.6.

Manchester’s current rate is 432.5, after peaking at 583.5 (in the seven days to 3 October); Sheffield’s rate is 396.7, down from 500.3 (the seven days to 7 October) while Newcastle stands at 371.5, down from 553.8 (the seven days to 7 October).

All current rates are for the seven days to 14 October.

And here is the Welsh government’s news release with its summary of its firebreak lockdown plans, including the support being made available to business.

The Welsh government has published a report (pdf) from its “technical advisory cell” (its version of Sage) that has helped to inform the decision announced by Mark Drakeford today.

Here’s an excerpt.

The main recommendation of this report is to try to protect our most deprived population from the direct effects of Covid-19 in a potential second wave, and from the indirect effects of Covid-19 on the economy which will increase health inequalities in the longer term. We will know we have succeeded in this if the gradient in Covid-19 mortality is less steep in future than in the first peak and if we see a reduction in the gradient in all-cause mortality in 2022, given that it is unlikely that inequalities will reduce in the next two years.

Drakeford says professional sport will be allowed to continue during the firebreak lockdown. That counts as work, he says.

Asked what regional restrictions will still be in place once the nationwide firebreak has ended, Drakeford says discussions on that are still continuing.