good afternoon thank you for joining us
for today's daily briefing on
coronavirus I'd like to update you all
on the government's plan to defeat the
virus and on the latest developments I'm
joined once again by our chief medical
officer professor Chris Witte and the
chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick
valence from the very beginning of this
crisis I follow the advice of our world
leading scientists to defeat coronavirus
by taking the right measures at the
right time what everybody needs to
recognize is that our NHS like any
world-class health service has only
limited numbers of doctors nurses and
specialist equipment so the more people
who become sick at any one time the
harder it is for the NHS to cope and so
it's vital to delay the spread of the
disease and reduce the number of people
needing Hospital treatment at any one
time
that's why we've given the clear
instruction that people must stay at
home unless they have one of the reasons
we've set out and with your help we will
slow the spread of the disease I want to
thank everyone who's been following the
clear rules that we set out on Monday
and I want to thank everyone in the NHS
the front line of the fight against
Crona virus and of course all our public
services our teachers and our school
staff the transport workers police
officers everyone who's keeping this
country going but I also want to offer a
special thank you to everyone who is now
volunteered to help the NHS when we
launched the appeal last night we hoped
to get 250,000 volunteers over a few
days but I can tell you that in just 24
hours
four hundred and five thousand people
have responded to the call they will be
driving medicines from pharmacies to
patients they'll be bringing patients
home from hospital very importantly
they'll be making regular phone calls to
check on and support people who are
staying on their own at home and they
will be absolutely crucial in the fight
against this virus that is already in
one day as many volunteers as the
population of Coventry and so to all of
you and all were former NHS staff who
are coming back now into the service I
say thank you on behalf of the entire
country now I want to take some
questions
but finally I want to remind everyone of
our core policy stay at home protect the
NHS and save lives thank you I think
we'll go straight to two questions now
and we are going to hear first of all I
think from Laura Coons Berg of the BBC
Laura are you there yes and Prime
Minister can you honestly say that the
government is coping there aren't enough
tests people are struggling to make ends
meet and some people are being forced to
go to work when they don't feel that
they are safe is that coping and can I
ask the medics as well if we already had
the kinds of numbers of tests that you
would like to see how much of a
difference would it have made to your
ability to fight the disease well first
of all Laura on the on the tests a huge
national program of testing is being
rolled out but I'll hand over to to
Patrick and to Chris to say a little bit
more about testing and how we're going
to do it but on the the national effort
to protect those who whose jobs whose
livelihoods are threatened I think
everybody understands the challenge that
the whole country now faces but we have
to get through this together and we are
getting through it together with an
unprecedented program
of support for not just for businesses
but for workers of all kinds across the
country never in our history has the
government put its arms around people in
the way that we are doing now to help
them get through this difficult time and
yes it's absolutely true that the
measures to support people in employment
are exceptional and extraordinary 80
percent of of your salary up to two
thousand five hundred pounds per month
were standing behind we're also in the
course of the next couple of days you'll
be hearing more from reishi soon at the
chancellor tomorrow about what we're
doing to help the self-employed and I
think people do understand that the
complexity of their working arrangements
as men has been harder to come up with
the right tailored program for the
self-employed as well but that is coming
forward tomorrow and yes I do think that
when you look at the sheer scale of what
the government is doing to get this
country through we will to answer your
question directly we will cope and we
are coping very well indeed under the
most challenging possible circumstances
but the most important thing to enable
us to get through it well together and
to come out well together as I think we
can as I know we can is that we all
follow the instructions that the
government has given stay at home
protect the NHS and that's the way to
save lives but on testing that's Chris
would you like to say some more in terms
of testing there are a variety of
different things you use testing for
some of which we have tests available
for and have done throughout some of
which we do not so I'm going to run
through them because they're different
answers to depending on which you are
talking about starting off with the
antigen testing which is testing the
people who've currently got a disease we
initially were using that to help screen
people who came from high-risk countries
when that ceased to be a sensible policy
we've moved on to testing people in
intensive care and in hospitals and we
have sufficient tests for that at the
moment the system for that is working
fine and is being scaled up so that side
of testing is in place and is working
well so if the patient gets as far as a
hospital we're confident on the testing
and on the scaler the thing we would
like to do next which would certainly
make a difference less to the disease
but definite to the HS is being able to
test NHS and other critical workers who
are self isolating who currently are not
being tested because we do not have
sufficient testing this is a global
problem because basically every country
is wanting this new test which for a
disease that wasn't actually being
tested for anywhere three three months
ago so everybody wants this so there is
a global shortage and that's a
bottleneck for us but the next priority
is to get critical workers back to work
or to say to them you have got this so
we definitely would like that not to
fight the disease but to support the NHS
once we have more testing than we need
for that capacity then we want to go out
to test a much wider range of people
with mild symptoms some people already
having it as part of our surveillance
system but we obviously like to go wider
but that's the prioritization list and
then separately there are the tests
which we will want to have which are not
yet
absolutely evaluated but are going to be
critical once you've got them that can
tell someone whether they have had the
virus so this is the antibody test you
can't do that in the first few days
after someone's had a fever but after a
few a few weeks possibly as short as one
week and that will allow us to be able
to say to NHS workers to other workers
look you've had this infection at least
for the short time and possibly for
quite a long time we think it's like
you're protected against this and you
can go back to work and be confident you
get another coffin fever that is not
going to be coronavirus but that's
that's a sort of technology that's quite
close pert and is being evaluated this
week but it's not there on the first one
our bottleneck is largely global
shortages which we are obviously doing
our level best to free up because it
would make it a lot lot better for us to
be able to test healthcare workers and
now for sure it's absolutely crucial and
yes we need more of it as Chris has said
and the other thing that's going to be
important with the ante
test is to be able to work out how many
people have had the disease a
symptomatically and that's going to be
important to understand what to do next
so these tests are crucially important
we need more of them and people are
working very hard to get them in place
finally out I think is the one thing is
worse than no test is a bad test yes so
telling someone inaccurately either they
have had it or have not had it could
lead to dangerous mistakes being made so
we do not want to go ahead with testing
until we're confident or of the
technology and that is so important that
if it means a delay to get there that
delay is worth having because that is as
chris said if you tell someone it's okay
you haven't got it they have got it that
is not a good position to be in if you
tell somebody they're immune from it and
they're not that is not a good position
to be in so we must make sure that we
get the quality of this absolutely right
on the just Patrick all the numbers of
people who have the disease ate a
symptomatically there was a study I saw
quoted from some Oxford academic saying
that as many as 50% may have had it
asymptomatic you or I think a lot of
people have seen that that story how do
you how do you evaluate that we simply
don't know at the moment and there
that's why the antibody test is so
important so there are estimates that up
to 80% or more people in wuhan weren't
detected there are estimates that of
those who are positive so that's a small
percentage of the population who were
tested positive quite a number of them
were asymptomatic in a town in Italy but
we haven't we don't know at a general
population level and that's why it's so
important to get this test in place
Thank You Beth 3b Sky News Thank You
prime minister just a couple of
questions you said earlier you're not
closing down the whole of the UK economy
but other countries such as in Italy a
country you said we were two or three
weeks behind have now introduced a very
strict lockdown lockdown wouldn't you
save more lives if you did keep all
workers at home and if I may a question
on testing CMOS Phe England has said
today 3.5 million testing kits could be
available showing whether you've had
coronavirus or not as early as next week
in practical terms
who will get those tests and how and in
broader terms how transformational do
you think this will be in terms of
fighting coronavirus thank you well
thanks very much Beth in in terms of the
epidemiological value of what we're
doing in in asking people to stay at
home I think possibly the most important
I can say just repeat the basic message
which is that if you can stay at home
then you overwhelmingly should stay at
her and that's our our most important
advice if it's absolutely necessary for
you to to go to work place of work
then it's vital that your employer
follows the rules as set out by public
health England and ensures that you have
the protections that you need and the
proper rules on on social distancing do
apply but I wonder whether I could could
ask either expose just a comment on on
the on the the value of what we're doing
in terms of the you know Beth asks
reasonably enough about not closing down
the whole UK economy which were not
doing but we're simply asking people to
just stay at home like I can certainly
give her given answer that Patrick might
want to add to this I mean the first
thing is that the modelling that every
country does this slightly differently
and every country has got a slightly
different epidemic epidemic pattern at
this point in time so that's entirely
reasonable and all of us of course are
dealing with a new infection and
therefore are having to take the science
from quite a low base very fast in terms
of the advice we give but the modelling
we have done here which Patrick can talk
about in more detail was was based on
the idea that piece sum that quite a lot
of people would have to go to work as
part of this and that then what that is
the basis on which the modelling is done
but we absolutely need be
to avoid anything that is in any way
discretionary where people can choose
whether they do it or not so that's why
all other social activity all other
mixing between households has to stop is
to allow these absolutely essential
things to continue so that's that's the
basis of doing this there is an
additional reason which is we have to
remember that this is these many of the
things we have to do are going to be
have to be sustained for a reasonably
long period of time and broadly the more
difficult you make it for people that
less easy it is to sustain so there is
some degree of trade-off between those
two things in terms of testing I want I
want to be really clear about what we
can and can't do We certainly have a
required for the UK a lot of tests but I
would go back to my previous answer and
Patrick's previous answer the key thing
for us to do is now to evaluate are
these tests accurate enough to be used
by the general public and if the answer
is they're all incredibly accurate then
we will work out the right the most
quick and effective way to release these
if it turned out none of the more
accurate we would not wish to release
any of them because inaccurate testing
isn't is something which we really
should be avoiding so the thing we are
going to do really fast is the
evaluation and then based on that
evaluation we'll be able to decide what
to next I'd anywhere perhaps you want to
add anything on the modeling side well I
REM size is what we're trying to do is
to break the transmission of virus from
one household to another we're trying to
break the transmission of virus in
society to do that we need to keep
separate and the clearest way to keep
separate is to stay in your house and
that's why that's the core message there
are people who have to go to work in
some jobs who cannot stay in their house
all day the most obvious one is in the
NHS but there are others as well and
then it's important to break the
transmission where possible to stay two
metres apart and that's what we need to
keep focusing on we're trying to stop
the transmission of this virus between
people between households and break that
chain in terms of whether it's
transformational
in the long run the answer is it will
completely transform what we can do in
the short run this antibody test which
is the one that they were talking about
these big numbers I think is less
important than the other one the antigen
test me which I was talking about
earlier in a previous to the previous
answer thanks and I should just I should
have said more clearly perhaps at the
beginning that you should stay at home
except for those very few exceptions I
just spell them out again that people
have forgotten its unless you need to
get essential supplies Beth unless
you're on a specific medical mission or
or helping the vulnerable or unless
you're taking daily exercise and
remember that daily exercise is a very
important provided you stay away from
from other people Gary Gibbon channel 4
prime minister the frontline staff in
the National Health Service and in
working in social care couldn't be
clearer they want that test on covert 19
that tells them whether they got it they
want it now and in the House of Commons
again and again today you said they're
gonna get it as soon as possible people
might have a little bit more confidence
about where we're going as a country if
you could answer this question mainly
how did we come to be so woefully behind
other countries that have checked
evaluated and deployed tests in much
much bigger numbers already well thanks
thanks Gary I repeat the answer that I
gave earlier in the House of Commons we
will do it as soon as possible we are
massively ramping up our our testing
programs buying in huge numbers of tests
to see whether you've you've had it
already but also pushing forward very
fast on testing people to see whether
they currently have it the the the
antigen or the antibody tests that have
been described and as as Matt Hancock
the health secretary has said we're
going up from from five thousand to ten
thousand tests per day to twenty five
thousand and so on hopefully very soon
up to two hundred and fifty thousand a
day but to answer your question about
you know that the types of tests that we
have the differences that that you see
in between the UK's provision for
testing and other countries I think it
probably would be most helpful if I
again passed to to Chris and to Patrick
to explain Chris I mean I think that in
terms of the testing so first of all why
the delays in the UK system there are
multiple components of these tests
including the chemicals and make them up
the swabs that you use and the restorer
teaches along many of these supply
chains essentially because every country
in the world is simultaneously wanting
this new thing some components of it are
old but the scale of this is something
which is obviously occurred at
extraordinary speed and that's just a
practical reality and I think anyone who
understands how supply chains work and
the huge demand for this there is
globally would understand that I think
comparing different countries is
actually quite different it's quite
difficult different countries have got
different testing strategies but you're
certainly right that what we need to do
is look at those countries that have
actually got more testing than us and
work out how to do it the way they're
doing it as best we can in our own
system using our own testing systems
that's something we're doing very
actively at the moment clearly we're
doing a lot of testing here though for
example I mean looking at the numbers
we've done so far
97 thousand tests already conducted it's
not that there is no testing going on
what we need clearly is to be able to
scale it up and I would just add to that
that we've done many more tests not with
this as a competition we have many more
tests than than most other European
countries and you're totally right Gary
that the priority should be and we'll be
getting those tests to our frontline
staff in the NHS and as I said we are
working we're going to do that as fast
as we possibly can
Francis Elliot overtimes yes hello
public health England this morning
suggested that these tests these
antibody tests if they work could be
available from online stores and from
boots can we just explain I understand
that they may not work but if they do
work how are you gonna prioritize who
gets those tests or is it just going to
be a scramble and how do you verify the
test results presumably these will be
critically important about whether you
can work with vulnerable people you know
even sort of begin to go back to normal
work perhaps and lastly how do you
collect the kind of results so that you
can model what's happening elsewhere it
seems it seems odd that you know you do
self testing and this is obviously a
very important result so what we'll do
is once we're confident of which tests
work and how many therefore we've got
available to use there's a hierarchy of
things that we need to do we need to
start off by finding us answering that
critical question that Patrick was
talking about how what proportion of
people get this without any symptoms
because that has big implications for
the way we then manage this that's a
very early priority then we need to help
make sure we can get NHS workers tested
to make sure we can work out who is
immune or most certainly immune to this
test so to this to this infection and
who isn't and we will basically go out
in kind of a graded way from there I do
not think and I want to be clear that
this is something will suddenly be
ordering on the internet next week we
need to go through the evaluation then
the first critical uses and then spread
it out from that point of view and we
need to do that in a systematic way and
your point which is right the first
thing we need to do is to collect the
information to understand this epidemic
so it's not 3.5 million free for all
with no data being collected we need to
answer the critical questions and need
to make sure the right people get the
test first in order to allow workers to
go back and the other points that Chris
has made thanks very much Patrick Sam
Lister the Express Daily Press Prime
Minister your critics have suggested
that you've had to be dragged into
taking the action you announced on
Monday and that you've allowed the virus
to spread
do you regret not going further sooner
and also if I may you suggested in the
Commons earlier that you might introduce
new laws to deal with profiteering and
are you angry
arts retailers and individuals who are
trying to exploit this crisis and how
far you prepared to go could it include
jail terms
thanks very much Sam well on the on the
first very important question as I said
right in the beginning and indeed right
at the beating of this crisis we were
going to do the right measures at the
right time not according to a political
dictate but according to the best
scientific and medical advice in the
world and there are good reasons for
wanting to tackle an epidemic strictly
in accordance with the scientific
adviser that is what we have done and I
continue to believe that that is the
right the right approach for this
country as a right approach for the UK
we have the best scientific advice in
the world and we will continue to follow
it on your other important question
about profiteering I dislike it very
much and I do not want to see people
profiteering people exploiting people's
need at a critical time a national
emergency so we were we are indeed
looking very carefully at what is going
on the competition markets authority
already has various powers that it may
use but we are looking at the
legislative framework to see what it may
be necessary to do to prevent
profiteering justices has happened you
know in in wartime many many years ago
there anything you want to add on I mean
the most important measures got put in
place first and that's the right thing
to do washing hands was critical
isolating household isolation get these
things and now we've got a very strong
package in and the one thing I would say
it's incredibly important that we stick
to it it's incredibly important that
people understand that this is about
breaking the transmission of the virus
and we can only do that if we all do it
that is absolutely right thank you
David hughes PA last question David he's
PA Prime Minister by tomorrow it will
already be too late for many
self-employed people who have already
found themselves in hardship or being
forced to risk their health and
to others by continuing to work what's
your message to them and will you
apologize for the delay in providing
them with the kind of support of
employed workers have already been given
and to the CMO and what's the current
occupation rate of critical care beds in
England and can you be confident that
the measures announced over the past
week will prevent that capacity being
overwhelmed well thanks very much David
and I just really repeat what I've said
before I think the government has moved
with the extraordinary speed to support
and prop up the the whole of the economy
of this country putting our arms around
workers of all kinds to the best extent
that we possibly can and yes of course
it was easier to move farthest and
fastest with employees because their PA
ye details are of course available it's
been more complex as you can understand
to support the self-employed because
that they have there are many different
arrangements that they have and it's
been it's been tricky to work out a
package that will address the needs of
as many people as possible but that is
being done it's being done at incredible
speed Ricci soon out will be announcing
a package tomorrow and I genuinely don't
think there's been a time in our in our
history in the last in the last century
and certainly when the government of
this country has has put its arms around
so many people to get us through a very
very tough time we will get through it
and and we will get through it together
so at this point in time critical cares
as of today there is not enormous
pressure on critical cares compared to a
bad or even normal winter day for
example in their chests today but we
expect the demand for critical care beds
to continue to rise over the next two
weeks that is entirely what we expect to
happen and that is what will happen over
that time so clearly the demand is going
to go up from the coronavirus now
because of the actions that people are
taking and provided everybody continues
to keep the social distancing measures
which are very difficult in terms of
staying within households only doing
absolutely essential things apart
exercise that will help to pull down the
demand a very long way that is how
people in the general general public all
of us are helping to protect the NHS at
the same time the NHS is increasing
supply by either a combination of
pushing out in time things which are can
be postponed and increasing the critical
back care and particularly the
ventilated bed capacity over the next
weeks and we are you know this is going
to be a close-run thing we all know that
and anybody who looks around the world
can see this is going to be difficult
for every health system but the the
measures that have been announced for
the general public which all of us have
to do if if the NHS is to get through
this without exceeding its capacity and
the work by the fantastic work by the
NHS and call my colleagues in the NHS to
increase supply that is the way that we
will narrow this gap to the smallest
possible gap over the next three weeks
and you know we do think that if
everybody everybody sticks to the
staying in your household unless
absolutely essential this gap will be
probably manageable by the NHS but we
cannot guarantee that and nobody who is
sensible would wish to guarantee that
but we think that is what we are
planning for and that is what we intend
to happen right well thanks everybody
very much a thanks to the Friends of the
media for their questions thank you to
you all for tuning in and and watching
this hope that it has been useful and
we'll be back tomorrow or there'll be
another update tomorrow here from
Downing Street on the fight against
coronavirus but remember the essentials
we will beat this we will beat it
together and we will do it by protecting
our NHS staying at home and that is how
we will save lives
you