Here’s a summary of the day’s main news: Aberdeen was placed under renewed lockdown conditions after a cluster emerged. The Scottish first minister said pubs, cafes and other indoor and outdoor hospitality venues must close down by 5pm on Wednesday, while people have been told not to travel into the city. Its residents must not enter each other’s houses. The lockdown will be backed by a greater police presence on Aberdeen’s streets. Police Scotland said most people had complied with restrictions so far and that its officers preferred to explain the rules in the first instance. But it warned they would not hesitate to “take enforcement action” if necessary. Another 65 people in the UK died after testing positive on Tuesday, according to official figures. The UK government’s latest data release took the cumulative total of those who have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community to 46,364. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have been 56,600 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. Contact tracers in England say they are making only a handful of calls every month. Some of those who spoke to the Guardian said they were occupying their time with barbecues and quizzes. The UK government cannot “decree” that keeping schools open must be prioritised over pubs during local lockdowns, the schools minister has said. Nick Gibb insisted all children would return to school in England in September, but said decisions to enforce closures to prevent new outbreaks would be made locally. Two-thirds of clinically extremely vulnerable people are comfortable returning to work, an official analysis suggested. The Office for National Statistics found that proportion of people would be happy to go back, provided there were protective measures in place. But that still left a significant minority unwilling to say they would be happy to return. Luton’s mayor stepped down after breaking coronavirus guidelines at a large garden gathering. Tahir Malik said he regretted his actions and that resignation was the best thing he could do for the town. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for reading and commenting. If you’d like to read yet more, my colleague Severin Carrell has put together a detailed story on Aberdeen’s lockdown:
And Jessica Murray will be following worldwide developments related to the pandemic for the rest of the evening on our global coronavirus live blog: