MPs have been told that concern amongst NHS managers about there being a second coronavirus wave in the UK is “very high”. (See 2.42pm.) The warning was delivered as the UK recorded a further 83 coronavirus deaths, with the figures confirming that the UK death toll has stopped falling and is now rising again - although only very marginally. (See 5.43pm.) Sir Keir Starmer has urged the government to use testing to reduce the need for people arriving in the UK from certain countries to quarantine for a full 14 days. (See 4.34pm.) But Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, has said that testing passengers for Covid-19 on arrival in the UK is “not a silver bullet”. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has confirmed that further countries could be included in the UK’s quarantine measures. Speaking to reporters on his return home from Spain (he only started his holiday there at the weekend, but decided to come back early after the quarantine announcement on Saturday night), Shapps said We absolutely have to act the moment we get the information and that’s exactly what happened with Spain, as we saw and as we’ve seen over the weekend, where there were over 6,100 cases - the highest since the peak in March over there. It was the right thing to do and it’s why the whole of the UK did [it] at the same time. I can’t therefore rule out other countries having to go into the quarantine as well. At a meeting this afternoon the UK government was discussing quarantine with the devolved administrations, amid speculation that Belgium, Luxembourg and Croatia will be added to the list. Shapps also said that, although the government considered exempting the Canary and Balearic islands from the quarantine applied to Spain, the chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, was strongly against. Shapps said: We did have a look at whether certain islands could be included [on the list] and not others. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was very clear with us that he was concerned about the data, we’d seen how the data had come very fast forward in Spain in 20, 48 hours, it had gone up by 75%. It had doubled in just a few days. He was concerned to see what was happening in the islands and that’s why we make it a whole-country approach in these things.
Britain has become one of the biggest buyers of potential vaccines against Covid-19, following an agreement to purchase a fourth vaccine that takes the UK stockpile to 250m doses so far. Aldi is to hire 1,200 new employees during the rest of this year, in a rare scrap of good news for jobseekers as the coronavirus pandemic forces many UK businesses to shed staff. But the National Trust has said it will cut up to 1,200 jobs. (See 5.30pm.) People of south Asian heritage admitted to hospital with coronavirus are on average 31 years younger than white British Covid-19 patients, according to a study of inpatients in a town with one of England’s highest infection rates. That’s all from me for today. Our coronavirus coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.