South Korea, Germany inspire UK virus fight

The government is keen to learn from the example set by Germany and South Korea in their handling of the novel coronavirus, the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said at the daily Downing Street media update on Tuesday.

On the day when it was announced that the United Kingdom's death toll had passed the 35,000 mark to reach 35,341, Angela McLean picked out South Korea and Germany as something to aspire to.

The testing system in development, she said, was modelled on Germany's approach, and she called South Korea's contact tracing system, which uses data GPS phone tracking, surveillance camera footage and credit card transactions to trace infections, "inspiring".

Speaking alongside her, Environment Secretary George Eustice suggested Britons furloughed from their jobs might like to "lend a hand" with this year's fruit harvest, because only one-third of the usual number of migrant workers are expected this year.

"We believe that those furloughed who may want to lend a hand or play their part, or supplement their income with an additional job, if they do feel that way I would urge them to visit that website (Pick for Britain) and look at the opportunities there," Eustice said.

The chief executive of the organization representing care homes in England has accused the government of treating the sector's residents as a lower priority than National Health Service patients during the novel coronavirus outbreak.

So far, around one-quarter of UK deaths announced have occurred in care homes.

Martin Green told the Parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee that the government's guidelines for a pandemic, drawn up in 2016, made no provision for the sector.

"Our focus at the start of this pandemic was clearly the NHS, and there was not a recommendation in either the planning process that happened in 2016, or indeed in this current pandemic at the very start, that the most vulnerable people were in care homes," he said.

Jeremy Hunt, the committee's chair and the UK's former health secretary, said this was not deliberate but he and previous governments must accept responsibility.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics have shown the number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose by 856,500 in the first full month of lockdown.

In April the total, which does not include everyone who is out of work, just those entitled to benefits, went up to 2.1 million, while overall unemployment for the three months up to March rose by 50,000 to 1.35 million.

There have already been widespread fears that jobless numbers could rise further when the government's furlough program comes to an end, with BBC economics editor Faisal Islam saying "unemployment would have shot through the roof without this support".

People aged 18 to 24 have been especially hard hit, as many of them work in service industries such as hospitality and leisure, which have been particularly affected. Around one quarter of this age group have been furloughed, and 9 percent have lost their jobs altogether, more than any other group.

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey told the BBC the system is up to handling the surge in demand for unemployment benefit.

Meanwhile, at least 1,800 private aircraft have landed in the UK so far during lockdown, with no requirement for passengers to provide contact details to help with tracking the spread of the virus.

The Home Office did not give a detailed breakdown, but between March 17 and April 14, 1,812 private flights were allowed to land.

Previously, the government revealed that, out of 18.1 million people who entered the country in the three months before lockdown, just 273 were formally quarantined. The head of the UK's tourism industry body VisitBritain has suggested the idea of an extra Bank Holiday being called in October in an effort to give the sector a much-needed financial boost.

Plans to get children back to school sooner rather than later have suffered another setback after two more councils in the Northest of England announced they would not be opening their schools any time soon, because of safety fears.