Plan B defended as parties remain in spotlight

We are going to be bringing our live page to a close soon so here's a round up of what's been happening today:

• Health secretary Sajid Javid defended the government's move to Plan B as a way to "buy time" to understand the threat of Omicron better.
• But more than 20 MPs have said they will vote against the rules, which include the extension of mandatory face masks, Covid passes to enter some venues and advice to work from home.
• Meanwhile, an investigation into Christmas parties at Downing Street last year will look at three reported events, the Paymaster General told the House of Commons.
• The UK recorded 249 new cases of the Omicron variant, taking the total number of cases recorded to 817.
• There were 50,867 new coronavirus infections and 148 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, daily data for the UK shows.
• People in Scotland have been urged to defer any Christmas parties because of the number of Omicron cases linked to gatherings in the country so far.
• And Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie announced the arrival of a baby girl, with a spokesman saying the PM will take some time to be with his family.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

People in Scotland are being urged to postpone their Christmas parties.

Public Health Scotland is concerned about the number of Covid-19 outbreaks, particularly those concerning Omicron.

Director of Public Health Science and Medical Director, Dr Nick Phin, says though there’s still a lot to learn about the new variant, there have been a number of Omicron outbreaks linked to parties.

“To help minimise the further spread of Covid-19, and Omicron in particular, I would strongly urge people to defer their Christmas parties to another time.

“I appreciate that everyone is keen to celebrate this festive season, particularly after the pressures of the last 20 months, but by postponing some plans we can all do our bit to protect ourselves and our loved ones.”

PA MediaCopyright: PA Media

Ex-mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey is facing calls to resign from a key London Assembly committee amid reports his team held a party during lockdown last year.

The Conservatives admitted an event organised by his mayoral campaign took place in its Westminster headquarters on 14 December 2020 when London was in Tier 2 and household mixing was banned.

Bailey, who is chairman of the police and crime committee, has not commented.

It comes amid the launch of an official probe into three government parties.

A Conservative Party spokesperson revealed on Wednesday that four members of Mr Bailey's campaign team were disciplined following the "unauthorised social gathering" in the basement last December, which was described as "raucous".

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

While Austria intends to fine people for not getting a vaccine, Slovakia is to give cash payments to people aged over 60 who agree to do so.

People in that age group receiving booster jabs by mid-January will get €300 (£257, $339), while all over-60s who sign up for the vaccine will be entitled to €200 (£171, $226).

The move is aimed at combating significant vaccine hesitancy in the country. Just 68% of people over-60 are fully vaccinated - well below the bloc's average of 88%.

Slovakia, with a population of 5.5 million, has been severely hit by the latest wave of the epidemic, forcing it to reintroduce lockdown measures as hospitalisations rise.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Austria's conservative-led government has announced plans to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory.

The order, which must be approved by parliament, is due to take effect from February and will apply to everyone aged 14 and over. Those who continue to refuse to take the vaccine will be fined €3,600 (£3,077, $4,071) every three months.

Setting out the measures, the Minister for Constitutional Affairs Karoline Edtstadler and Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said they were not intended to be punitive.

"We do not want to punish people who are not vaccinated. We want to win them over and convince them to get vaccinated," Edtstadler said.

Just 68% of Austria's population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and the country recently entered a lockdown to tackle a fourth wave of the virus.

There have been a further 50,867 new coronavirus infections recorded in the UK, according to the government's latest figures.

The UK recorded 148 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test, the data shows.

BBCCopyright: BBC

BBCCopyright: BBC

This graph shows how the number of suspected Omicron cases has been growing in England in recent weeks.

This is gathered from a fingerprint the new variant leaves when someone tests positive. Not all labs can pick this up, but around 40% can.

As you can see, it suggests more than 6% of cases on Monday were likely to be Omicron. That would equate to more than 2,500 cases in the UK that day.

And remember these are just the people who come forward for testing. We know only around half of people infected actually get officially tested so you could probably say the true figure is twice that.

And with the numbers doubling every three days it is clear Omicron is spreading very quickly.

This trajectory may not continue. But until it starts slowing there will continue to be alarm.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The UK's travel red list was reintroduced last week to help slow the spread of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus.

But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he doesn’t want the system - and hotel quarantine, in place “for a moment longer than necessary”.

He says a time will come, “probably no more than days or a short number of weeks away”, where the government would want to review and potentially remove countries from the red list. Possibly all of them.

Shapps says red-listing was brought to combat Omicron, but that as the variant spread out, the government accepted “the inevitability that it the end it gets everywhere, exactly as Delta did”.

Some 11 African countries are currently on the Red List. All travellers age 12 and must take a Covid test within 48 hours of setting off for the UK from any destination. People are also required to take a PCR test within two days of arrival.

Darren Henry has become the latest Tory MP to say he will vote against the government's Plan B measures in Parliament next week.

In a video posted in Twitter, the MP for Broxtowe says that while he supports working from home where possible, wearing masks and rolling out booster vaccines, his constituents have made it very clear they will not support the use of Covid passports.

Our political editor Laura Kuennsberg says she now makes it 22 Tory MPs who have publicly said they will vote against the measures, with at least a dozen more expressing serious concerns.

A couple in hotel quarantine at Gatwick have described the "total chaos" of a fire alarm evacuation earlier today when people who were isolating due to the Omicron variant were "crowded into lifts".

Chris Styles and his partner Suzanne, from Hampshire, are staying at the Sofitel London Gatwick hotel after returning from South Africa, where his father passed away on 5 December.

When the alarm sounded at 07:45 he says no one knew what to do and there were no staff or security guards to direct them.

"We did find the stairs, got down and there was chaos outside hotel. People half dressed, huddled together, it was a super spreader event. There was zero leadership," he says.

Guests were outside for an hour and staff brought silver thermal blankets but no register was taken, he says.

"The emergency services arrived and began checking the hotel, then we were just pushed back inside. Someone collapsed in the foyer, and we were all crowded into lifts to get back to our rooms."

We have asked Sofitel's owners Accor for a comment.

At least three people who held or went to unlawful gatherings on the same day as a Christmas party at No 10 last December have been fined by courts this month, according to records.

The cases, first reported by the London Evening Standard, reveal fines for breaching the coronavirus regulations that restricted gatherings in London - which was under Tier 3 rules - on 18 December 2020.

Ami Goto, a 23-year-old from west London, was last week fined £1,100 plus court costs after Westminster Magistrates Court found that she had, without reasonable excuse, participated in a gathering in a flat in Holborn, central London, on 18 December.

Ebru Sen, 26, of Sittingbourne, Kent, was also fined for being at the same gathering.

In a third case, Emilia Petruta-Cristea, 24, of Wanstead, east London, was also fined £1,100 for being part of an illegal gathering at her own home.

Last night, the Metropolitan Police said it was not investigating the 18 December gathering at Downing Street because of an "absence of evidence". The prime minister has repeatedly said no rules were broken.

Luke Johnson, part owner of bakery chain Gail's, has questioned whether the move to Plan B Covid-19 measures might be a "cover" as the prime minister comes under pressure over alleged rule-breaking parties at Downing Street.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World At One, he said: "It feels like it is a cosmetic device really, possibly instituted for political reasons as a cover for other stuff going on."

Asked whether he was linking it to recent allegations about a Number 10 Christmas party held last year, he said: "Well, they haven't provided any evidence that very recent hospitalisations or indeed deaths have risen such that this is necessary or proportionate."

"So, yet again, it feels as if our lives are put on hold and businesses are being made to suffer - by the way, without the compensation that was previously available - because the scientists and the politicians feel better safe than sorry, even if it causes us vast collateral damage."

Earlier the Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the move to Plan B was an attempt to "buy time" to avoid the threat of a million Omicron infections by the end of the year.

He said the government had seen data earlier this week that persuaded them that action needed to be taken.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Face coverings will be compulsory in more indoor venues in England from Friday, here are the places you'll need them:

• Cinemas and theatres
• Places of worship
• Shops, public transport and stations
• Hairdressers, tattoo studios and nail bars
• Post offices and banks
• Estate agents
• Vet surgeries
• Takeaways
• Pharmacies
• Auction houses
• Taxis
• Driving lessons and tests

Similar rules have already been introduced in other parts of the UK.

The UK has recorded 249 new cases of the Omicron variant, taking the total number of cases recorded to 817.

Of these, 248 cases were in England and one in Scotland.

However, official figures are almost certainly an underestimate as not all UK labs can detect whether a case is Omicron and not everyone will have come forward for testing.

Yesterday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the Commons the true number of Omicron cases in the UK was likely to be around 10,000.

And this morning, he said if cases of the variant continued to double at the same rate, the total number of cases was likely to to hit one million by the end of the month.

PA MediaCopyright: PA Media

Airlines are calling for restrictions on international travel to be rolled back now Omicron is spreading in the UK.

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, says it is now known there are many cases of Omicron that are independent of international travel.

"The health secretary understands well that travel restrictions are utterly futile when we have community transmission and that’s why we’re pushing hard for these latest, emergency restrictions to be rolled back at the 20 December review," he says.

Yesterday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that “very soon, in the days and weeks that lie ahead, if - as I think is likely... this variant [Omicron] becomes the dominant variant, I think there’s less need to have any kind of travel restrictions at all.”

Under new rules in response to the emergence of Omicron, arrivals to the UK must show proof of a negative test taken in the two days before departure.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he was upset and infuriated when he saw a leaked video of Downing Street aides joking about a Christmas party at No 10 last December.

"This time last year my dad was lying in hospital and I couldn't go and visit him," he says.

"We didn't know if he was going to make it. In fact he was in hospital for four months and he did make it, I'm pleased to report."

He says it is right for the incident to be fully investigated.

"It should be said that the prime minister was not present at any of these alleged events and indeed we do not know what actually happened, and that is why he has asked the cabinet secretary to look into it and report back," he adds.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The measures announced for England are much less stringent than those announced last winter.

Economies around the world have got used to operating under Covid restrictions. Businesses have adapted and workers learned how to operate from home. Many never went back to the office.

But for individual companies in particular sectors, the impact could be more severe.

The Night Time Industries Association, which represents nightclubs, has already warned of a "devastating impact" from mandatory Covid passes.

And if office workers stay home, it will hurt the businesses which cater to their needs - from the shops that sell lunches to the dry cleaners who press their suits.

Read more on the impact of Plan B on businesses here.

The rise of the Omicron variant has prompted warnings that pressure on hospitals may be about to increase.

But the latest data on NHS performance shows the health service is already under huge strain.

During November more than a quarter of people arriving at A&E waited over four hours. In some areas nearly half of patients were waiting longer than they should.

Those that need to be admitted on to a ward are increasingly facing delays, or sleeping on chairs or trolleys, because there are no beds available.

More than a fifth of ambulance crews faced delays handing over patients to hospital staff during the first week of December.

NHS England said the health service had experienced one of its busiest ever months. They pointed to data showing more than one in 10 beds are occupied by patients who no longer need care, but cannot leave because there is no support available in the community.

You can find out more about how hospitals in your area are doing, with our NHS Tracker.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

A major West End theatre operator has welcomed the introduction of mandatory masks in theatres - but warned new restrictions could encourage some customers to stay away over the crucial Christmas period.

Rosemary Squire, joint chief executive of Trafalgar Entertainment, says she is "encouraged that the government has acknowledged that theatres are a safe environment" by not extending compulsory Covid passes to indoor seated venues with less than 10,000 people.

She says the industry was "ahead of the game" in already recommending face coverings and while there will be challenges enforcing the new rules, the government is providing "a clear and consistent line".

However, she adds that there is a danger the measures may "amplify concerns" for some customers.