UK coronavirus live: anger grows over Boris Johnson’s care home comments | World news

Former chancellor Philip Hammond has said his successor must be prepared to let some businesses fail.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is due to announce fiscal measures designed to aid the UK’s economic recovery after Covid-19 on Wednesday.

Hammond, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said: “I think it is important to recognise that the Chancellor faces an extraordinarily complex challenge.

“He’ll want to continue to support businesses and people who are affected by regulatory shutdown in what are otherwise viable businesses.

“But he will also sadly need to facilitate a transition for those businesses and people who are, what they are doing is no longer viable.

“Some businesses will close, some viable businesses will close units – we have already heard the announcement of retailers closing stores – and that’s where a focus on re-training and re-skilling, getting people turned around and ready to go back into the workforce as quickly as possible, will come into it.”

Ministers have defended the prime minister over his comments seeming to put the responsibility for coronavirus outbreaks in care homes.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, business secretary Alok Sharma said the Prime Minister was “certainly not blaming care homes” for social care coronavirus deaths in comments made on Monday.

Sharma said: “Specifically on the point the Prime Minister was making yesterday, I think what he was actually pointing out is that nobody knew what the correct procedures were at the time because, quite frankly, we didn’t know what the extent of asymptomatic transmission was.

“That wasn’t known at the time.

“We then put in place very detailed action plans for care homes, we made sure there was a rigorous testing regime put in place, and we also ensured there was extra money – there was 600 million that went in as part of an infection control fund.

“So we have supported the sector throughout.”

Put to him that Boris Johnson had criticised care homes for not following the set procedures, Mr Sharma said: “The Prime Minister is certainly not blaming care homes.”

He praised the “really brilliant job” done by carers during the pandemic and recognised that they had carried out their work in “difficult circumstances”.

Speaking on Radio Four’s Today programme, Mark Adams, chief executive of charity Community Integrated Care, said he was “unbelievably disappointed” to hear the prime minister’s comments about the actions of care homes during the coronavirus crisis. He said:

I think this at best was clumsy and cowardly but to be honest with you, if this is genuinely his view, I think we’re almost entering an… alternative reality where the government set the rules, we follow them and they don’t like the results and they then deny setting the rules and blame the people that were trying to do their best. It is hugely frustrating.”

When asked to explain why he called Boris Johnson’s words “cowardly”, Adams added:

Because you’ve got 1.6 million social care workers who when most of us are locked away in our bunkers waiting out Covid, really trying to protect our family, we’ve got these brave people on minimum wage, often with no sickness cover at all, going into work to protect our parents, our grandparents, our children, putting their own health and potentially their own lives at risk.

And then to get the most senior man in the country turning round and blaming them on what has been an absolute travesty of leadership from the government, I just think it is appalling.”

He said the care sector had been “crying out” for weekly testing for months.

I think what we’re getting is history re-written in front of us, when you could list pages and pages of government failure which the system has had to cope with.

And to get a throwaway comment, almost glibly blaming the social care system and not holding your hand up for starting too late, doing the wrong things, making mistake after mistake, is just frankly unacceptable.”

New research emerges suggesting the UK’s uptake of protective masks is way behind that of other countries – and that face coverings can protect the wearer as well as people around them.

Kevin Rawlinson reports that refusing to wear a mask in public during the Covid-19 epidemic should become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or not wearing a seatbelt, the president of the Royal Society has said.

He spoke as new research emerges suggesting the UK’s uptake of the practice is way behind that of other countries and that face coverings can protect the wearer as well as people around them.

Venki Ramakrishnan called for everyone to be required to wear a mask in all indoor public settings, rather than only on public transport, and criticised confused messaging from the government.

Alex Hern is reporting that nearly one in six Britons will refuse a coronavirus vaccine if and when one becomes available, and a similar number are unsure whether they will get one, according to a survey.

The findings come amid a significant rise in anti-vaccination sentiment on social media, and represent a threat to efforts to contain the disease.

Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit organisation that commissioned the research said:

Our hope for a return to normal life rests with scientists developing a successful vaccine for coronavirus. But social media companies’ irresponsible decision to continue to publish anti-vaccine propaganda means a vaccine may not be effective in containing the virus. The price for their greed is a cost paid in lives.

According to the polling carried out by YouGov for CCDH, 16% of British adults “probably” or “definitely” will avoid a Covid-19 vaccine. The poll of 1,663 people found differences between those who get the majority of their news from social media and those who rely more on traditional media: the latter were nine percentage points more likely to say they would definitely or probably get the vaccine.

The Arts world continues to celebrate after the Chancellor’s £1.57 billion bailout to save Britain’s arts and cultural institutions from collapse. the chancellor last night went further than expected with a massive package of financial support, including £880 million in direct grant funding. The Treasury will also offer a further £270 million in loans for arts organizations, £100 million for national museums and English Heritage; £120 million for stalled heritage projects; plus an extra £188 million for the devolved administrations.

The BBC has more

But as Politico reports, some divergent voices are beginning to make themselves heard: Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Jo Stevens told The Westminster Hour last night she feared the promise of grant funding will have come too late for many arts organisations which have been teetering on the brink since mid-March. “We welcome obviously this injection of much-needed cash,” she said, “but I do wonder what took the government so long. They have known the problems in the sector for weeks and weeks and weeks, and for some areas and some organisations and theatres across the country from north to south, it’s already too late — jobs have gone.”

For example: The award-winning Nuffield Southampton Theatres shut down last week after collapsing into administration in May, ending more than 50 years of productions on the south coast. All 86 staff were made redundant last Thursday. The Indy’s Kate Devlin reports the organisations expected to be prioritised for grants are “the so-called ‘crown jewels’ of the British arts, culture and heritage industries, and those with special local or regional significance.”

Good morning. This is Amelia Hill bringing you today’s UK coronavirus news.

Boris Johnson last night caused anger from care leaders, unions and MPs after he accused care homes of failing to follow proper procedures amid the coronavirus crisis.

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is preparing a £3bn green package with grants for homeowners and public buildings to improve energy efficiency. Environmental groups have reacted with disappointment to details saying it does not go far enough. Sunak has Treasury questions in the Commons at 11.30am today.

Meanwhile two grandees of the Thatcher era have urged the government to learn lessons from the mass unemployment of the 1980s in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.