Sheffield news LIVE: Matt Hancock ‘absolutely open’ to delaying June 21 reopening

Health Secretary Matt Hancock will make a Commons statement at around 3.30pm to update MPs on the latest developments in the fight against Covid-19.

That will be followed by a statement from Education Secretary Gavin Williamson on “education recovery” following the pandemic.

Sir David King,  who is also chair of the Independent Sage Group, also questioned whether the Government was pressing ahead with a “herd immunity policy” among teenagers.

He told Sky News: “The Pfizer vaccine has already been given the green light in this country to over 12-year-olds. I think we should run that programme forward quickly.

“But we’re opening schools today and the Government has said 12 to 18-year-olds no longer need to wear face masks at school – I don’t think that was a wise thing to do and I do hope the Government will rethink this in the light of the current figures.”

Sir David added: “Let me ask you, if I may, to ask the Government, are they actually believing in herd immunity amongst school children?

“Is that why they’re saying, ‘take masks off it’, so that the disease spreads rapidly and they all become immune by having had the disease?

“If that is a policy, shouldn’t we be honest with the public, and tell us that is the policy?

“I believe that herd immunity was the policy from the beginning back in February, March last year, so have we returned to that now with the high vaccination level?”

He told Sky News: “(There are) 5,300 new cases of the disease per day in the United Kingdom and we’re up about 2,000 on last week.

“Now we’ve been discussing whether or not we’re going into a serious third wave and I don’t think we can possibly wait any longer.

“This is the evidence of another wave appearing.”

Around 400 infections a day are among people who have had both vaccines, Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the government and chair of the Independent Sage Group, said.

He told Sky News “we know that anyone vaccinated twice is relatively safe against the virus.

“But let’s not forget the one in 25 new cases are people who have been vaccinated twice – that means 400 new cases a day are people who had the vaccine twice.

“While there is an extensive amount of virus out there in the country, amongst our people, it is dangerous.”

He continued: “Dying isn’t the sole issue about that we’re trying to avoid here. The number of people who are suffering from long Covid in the country is enormous and this is not a simply a flu, once you’ve had the vaccine.”

He told Sky News: “(On) the number of people in our hospitals, which the Government says is relatively stable, it’s 932 per day going into hospital, which is up 65 from last week. It’s not actually stable, it is slowly rising.

“What all of this means is that intensive care is needed for a significant proportion of our population today.

“I’m very reluctant to say that we should not go out of lockdown on June 21, but I think the figures are in now, and it will be wise for the Government to announce right away a delay in opening, just so that we can all plan for the post June 21 period.”

Asked for how long, he said: “I would give a few weeks’ delay and see how the fingers are emerging.

“So, I don’t know how long.

“As the Prime Minister has said, it’s data, not dates, that we should be governed by, and that’s response as well.”

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“We said in the road map that June 21 is the date by which we would not take Step 4 before that date and that we would look at the data.

“That is exactly what we are doing, so the road map was set up in order to be able to take these sort of changes into account.”

Asked if the wearing of face coverings and work from home measures could continue in the long-term, the Health Secretary added: “Yes, I wouldn’t rule that out.

“The way we are looking at this is Step 4 involves the removing of the remaining social restrictions like the rule of six and some of the business closures which are still there.

“And separately we have a piece of work on what the social distancing rules should be after that, whether we should have certification …”

Mr Hancock said he expected “around three-fifths” of all adults to have been fully-vaccinated by June 21, with 52% currently double-jabbed.

The next week will be “absolutely critical” in looking at data on infections in the UK, the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences said.

Dame Anne Johnson, professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London (UCL), told the Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme on Sky News: “We need more data and this next week is going to be absolutely critical in obtaining that data.”

She said there had been a “significant uptick” in the number of cases in the past week or two, adding: “What we need to understand is what the risks are of that setting off another wave of infection, and also how well we can do in controlling it so the data that come through in the next week are very important.”

She said reopening is a “very finely judged decision” and that society will need to learn to live with coronavirus.

“In the end, we’re going to have to, as you heard earlier from David Nabarro (WHO special envoy), live with this virus and try and minimise the amount of severe disease that it causes.”

She added: “We certainly don’t want to go on delaying forever. It’s going to be a very finely judged decision when we see these results.”