UK COVID-19 Daily: R above 1 in part of England

These are the latest UK coronavirus stories you need to know.

Official Regional R Above 1 in South West of England

The latestR number for the UKremains at 0.7-0.9 but the first official regional figures show it is 0.8-1.1 in the South West of England.

The data for England as a whole put R at 0.8-1.0

• East                 0.7-0.9
• London            0.8-1.0
• Midlands          0.8-1.0
• NEast/Yorks    0.7-1.0
• North West      0.8-1.0
• South East      0.8-1.0
• South West     0.8-1.1

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the Downing Street briefing the higher South West number was an "outlier of the central estimate".

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England added: "The important thing is that in all regions the central projection within that range is below 1."

Watchdog Reports on PPE and Care Home Discharges 

TheNational Audit Office(NAO) has reported on 'Readying the NHS and adult social care in England for COVID-19'.

On PPE it found: "At the start of the outbreak, the only central stockpile – held by PHE – was designed for aflupandemic. It lacked items such as gowns and visors, which an independent committee advising the Department [of Health and Social Care] on stockpile contents had recommended in 2019."

The NAO also found that between 17th March and 15th April, around 25,000 people were discharged from hospitals into care homes, compared to around 35,000 over this period in 2019. "It is not known how many had COVID-19 at the point of discharge," the report said.

In response to advice fromSAGE, it said, "the NHS took a range of actions with the intention of freeing up at least 30,000 beds for the expected surge in COVID-19 patients." This included "discharging patients who were medically fit to leave".

However, it said:  "Due to government policy at the time, not all patients were tested for COVID-19 before discharge."

Chair of the Commons Health and Social Care committee, Jeremy Hunt, commented: "It seems extraordinary that no one appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically."

A Public Health England (PHE) report making safeguarding proposals for BAME groups will be published next week, reports said.

Recommendations were omitted fromPHE's report on BAME riskswhen it was published on 2nd June.

Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch told the Commons last week that PHE "did not make recommendations because they were not able to do so".

However, Raj Bhopal, Edinburgh University emeritus professor of public health,told the BBChe'd been asked to peer-review a report that was marked 'official-sensitive' with the title: 'Beyond the Data: Understanding the Impact of Covid-19 on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Communities'.

Doctors' Association UK (DAUK) accused the Government of censoring expert conclusions.

In aletterto the Prime Minister, DAUK Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar, wrote: "By withholding the information in the report, it dismisses or attempts to spin the potential systemic and structural influences that may predispose higher BAME mortality. In doing this your government is inadvertently supporting a tenet of structural racism - telling BAME communities what they can and cannot handle by policing what they should and should not know."

Prof Powis was asked about the risk to BAME nurses: "We need to risk assess individuals against the work they're doing and where necessary redeploy them," he said.

Latest ONS Infection Study Data

TheOffice for National Statistics(ONS) has published its weekly results from its COVID-19 Infection Survey.

At any time between 25th May and 7th June it estimates that an average of 0.06% of the community population in England had COVID-19, an average of 33,000. There were an estimated 31,600 new COVID-19 infections per week with a weekly incidence rate of 0.06 new cases per 100 people.

OtherONS datashow the COVID-19 mortality rate was twice as high in the most deprived areas of England compared to the least deprived.

"More always needs to be done to deal with health inequalities and it's something we're very passionate about," Grant Shapps said.

Another 202 UK COVID-19 deaths were announced on Friday, taking the total to 41,481.

There were 193,253 tests counted on Thursday. This figure includes home tests that have been sent out but not yet processed.

Figures for the number of people tested were last given on 22^nd May.

Another 1541 positive cases were reported on Friday.

There are 5607 people currently in hospital with coronavirus, down from 7036 this time last week.

Another 535 people were admitted to hospital in the UK (excluding Scotland) with COVID-19 and 392 mechanical ventilator beds are in use across the UK by coronavirus patients.

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