UK coronavirus live: London at risk of being placed in tier 3; Covid cases no longer falling in Wales

As England navigates the Covid-19 tier system, spare a thought for one Yorkshire couple for whom it is anything but straightforward.

Sheila Herbert and her husband, Philip, from the picturesque market town of Otley, live in a house in tier 2, while their garden is tier 3.

“It’s all one big conundrum,” said Sheila, 74, explaining that their quiet cul-de-sac home of 18 years was built over a culvert, which runs directly under their garden, with the underground channel of water acting as the official boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.

“Our house is in Harrogate and our garden is in Leeds. The culvert cuts right through my garden. In fact, it goes right underneath the corner of the conservatory,” she told the local paper.

Under government restrictions it means that though, under tier 2, the couple should be able to meet people in their garden, under tier 3 they are prohibited.

The future of a museum that tells the astonishing story of the British “father of immunology” is hanging in the balance because it has been forced to close throughout the Covid crisis and faces uncertainty over how it will operate in the post-pandemic world.

Edward Jenner’s former family home in Gloucestershire has been shut since February, and the decision has been taken to keep it closed until spring, meaning it will lose more than a year’s vital admission fees.

Supporters of Dr Jenner’s House, which bills itself as the birthplace of vaccination, have pointed out the irony of it facing financial crisis in the year when its subject matter is so pertinent.

Owen Gower, the museum’s manager, said Jenner’s work had taken on a new relevance in 2020. “But unfortunately we’ve had to close our doors for it,” he said.

Saliva tests for Covid-19, which are being introduced for NHS workers as part of the government’s mass testing programme, pick up only 13% of people with low levels of the virus and not 91%, as the official assessment has claimed, according to experts.

Two members of the Royal Statistical Society’s working group looking at the accuracy of Covid tests have questioned the results and the way they have been evaluated.

Prof Jon Deeks from Birmingham University and Prof Sheila Bird, formerly of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge University, say the tests perform poorly where people have low levels of the virus, which is often the case in people without symptoms.

They say the discrepancy in the figures is because the evaluation used “spiked” samples – saliva to which the virus has been added in the lab. Those manufactured samples were picked up efficiently by the test, but “real world” samples from people with asymptomatic Covid were not.

The first of more than 150 cinemas will reopen in England this weekend in a final attempt to cash in on festive film-going cheer, but plans by Warner Bros to stream new films, including Dune and the next Matrix sequel, at the same time as theatre premieres next year threatens to undermine a post-Covid box office revival.

Hollywood studios have seized on theatre closures during the pandemic to experiment with digital releases, infuriating theatre owners who rely on the once sacrosanct model of big screen exclusivity for months to make their finances work.

Warner Bros’ move is unprecedented. All 17 of the films it will release next year, from The Suicide Squad and Godzilla vs Kong to Tom & Jerry, will stream on its HBO Max service for the first month when they also premiere in cinemas.

The company has described the decision as a one-year plan, limited to the US, to maximise profits as the Covid pandemic is expected to cut cinema attendance significantly for the foreseeable future.

Other Hollywood studios will almost certainly look to adopt similar plans, which, if successful, would mark the moment the global streaming phenomenon broke the traditional cinema model.

Lloyds Banking Group is redeploying 700 staff into full-time homeworking roles from 2021, in the latest sign that big banks are embracing remote working even as vaccine candidates begin to put the end of Covid restrictions in sight.

The UK’s largest domestic lender – which has 50,000 of its 65,000 employees working from home because of the pandemic – temporarily shifted about 1,000 workers from Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland branches to customer service teams in order to cope with a surge in demand in areas such as telephone banking and video chats during the outbreak.

The Guardian understands about 700 staff will be permanently moved, making it the largest tranche of Lloyds workers to ever be shifted into homeworking roles full-time.

Government ministers should stop politicising the Covid-19 vaccine by boasting about being the first to license it, the head of a leading research group has said.

Heidi Larson, the director of the London-based Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP), said the government should instead focus on building support for the jab or it will lose the confidence and trust of the British people.

“I don’t think it is in the interest of the government to be racing along without building the ground,” Larson said. “Unfortunately it feels like announcements are made more politically.

“The message – ‘We are the first ones in the world to get there’ – may be a message to other countries but that does not matter if you don’t have your public behind you.”

Larson, an anthropologist, said she did not think the British public were overtly against taking a Covid vaccine but, having announced the licensing of one, ministers needed to explain “what it will look like between now and April”.

“[We need] the longer term plan rather than bit-by-bit headline news. Telling the full story will be important.”