Boris Johnson
(@BorisJohnson)Hello everyone, our NHS Test & Trace program has asked me to self-isolate for two weeks, after coming into contact with someone with Covid-19.
I am healthy and symptom-free, and will continue to lead our response to the virus and our plans to #BuildBackBetter pic.twitter.com/yNgIme8lOz
November 16, 2020
And here is our story.
Last week we were told Johnson plans to hold a press conference every Monday. But he won’t appear this afternoon, and instead Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary will be at the Downing Street desk.
This morning, Hancock made the rounds of media interviews, mainly to promote the news that two megalabs will open early next year, which will eventually add another 600,000 people a day to the government’s testing capacity. This would more than double the UK’s testing capacity.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast, Hancock also said he wanted to extend the use of the tests to parents of people living in retirement homes in England so that by Christmas every resident could be visited by loved one. He said:
Our goal is to make sure we have the tests available in every care home by Christmas – to make sure people can get tested and therefore see their loved ones safely, that’s the goal.We are working closely with the social service sector to try to achieve that.
We have deployed it to a small number of parts of the country, Devon and Cornwall at first, then our goal is to have it by Christmas so people can see and be close to their loved ones.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10h30: The UK Major Ports Group and the British Ports Association testify before a committee of lords on preparations for the end of the post-Brexit transition.
11am: Supreme Court begins hearing appeal over commercial insurance claims related to coronavirus
12h15: Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
12h15: The Welsh government is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
12h30: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.
17h: Matt Hancock, the Secretary of Health, holds a press conference at No.10.
And in Brussels, trade negotiations between the UK and the EU are resuming.
Politics Live is now turning into a live blog on the UK coronavirus and, given how the Covid crisis overshadows everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we’ll also cover non-Covid political stories, and when they seem bigger or more interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our live blog on the global coronavirus.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a straightforward question, include “Andrew” somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I try to answer the questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and answer above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do it for everyone.
If you want to get my attention quickly, it’s probably best to use Twitter. I’m on it @AndrewSparrow.
