Coronavirus news - live: Holidaymakers beat France quarantine deadline with minutes to spare amid cover-up fears over NHS staff deaths as reviews to be kept secret
Ferry arrives in Newhaven just minutes before 4am deadline
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Holidaymakers have returned from France with minutes to spare before the imposition of quarantine measures at 4am, after thousands paid over the odds to pack out airports, ferry ports and train stations in a pre-dawn scramble to beat the deadline.
Following the highest daily rise in new UK coronavirus infections on Friday since mid-June, lockdown restrictions were further eased in England – with indoor theatre, music and performance venues allowed to reopen with social distancing, alongside casinos, bowling alleys and “close contact” beauty services.
As fury continued to boil over the decision to hand out A-level results based on a government algorithm, top medics, politicians and union leaders told The Independent of their fears of a “cover-up”, after it emerged that findings from a review into NHS staff deaths during the pandemic would be kept secret.
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Holidaymakers return from France with minutes to spare before quarantine deadline
Matt, a teacher from Manchester who did not share his second name, took his car on a Channel Tunnel train which was due to arrive back in the UK at 3.55am having brought forward tickets for Monday at a cost of £115, following a family camping trip in the Dordogne.
The family drove for 10 hours to Calais to catch the train and spent another £66 to stay at a hotel in the early hours before driving on to Manchester.
"We literally got on the last available train ... we'd been keeping up-to-date with the chaos at Calais so we were fearing the worst," the 40-year-old told the PA news agency. "Luckily, once we got to Calais we sailed through and actually got back at just gone 3am."
Matt said he did not want his family to be in quarantine on his daughter's eighth birthday next Friday, and the new measures would also have prevented a trip to see family in Scotland next weekend.
Asked about the government's timing over imposing the deadline, Matt said: "How much swearing are you allowed to include if I give you my honest views on the government?
"They're a complete shambles, beyond incompetent... they need to be clearer and give more warning. Is there a tipping point figure [of coronavirus cases], or do they just apply it as and when they feel like it?"
Another holidaymaker, Joe White from Surrey, said he had had booked his Friday night journey back to the UK early in anticipation of a rule change, but was still waiting for over two hours at the Channel Tunnel with next to no information.
"I think the government were pretty transparent that France was likely to be added to the quarantine list and I feel that anyone going away should have been prepared to take the risk that they might have to quarantine," the 31-year-old said. "If they weren't prepared to do so then should have stayed at home."
Here were the packed out scenes at Nice Airport last night as mainly British holidaymakers scrambled to beat the quarantine deadline, echoing those seen at the Channel Tunnel and train stations in the small hours, with social distancing measures having gone "out the window", according to one traveller.
Editorial: The public won’t forgive the government’s secrecy over frontline coronavirus deaths
The government’s decision to review the deaths of more than 620 health and social care workers in England and Wales who contracted coronavirus is a welcome move. But its intention not to disclose the findings of NHS medical examiners is a mistake.
The priority will be learning the lessons locally. Of course, it is vital to maximise the chances of preventing more suffering and deaths during a pandemic which is far from over. But the government also has a duty to be straight with the public.
Some workers are bound to have caught the virus outside their workplace. Yet the public has a right to know whether the deaths of some who risked everything to work tirelessly on the front line might have been avoided if the government had ensured adequate provision of personal protective equipment.
If individual cases shed light on how the government fell woefully short at the start of the crisis, ministers should not hide behind a self-serving code of confidentiality.
A worrying pattern of behaviour is emerging.
Read the full editorial here with Independent Premium.
Protesters call for education secretary's resignation outside Downing Street
Furious students have marched on Downing Street in a second day of protests, carrying placards reading "trust teachers not Tories" and accusing Gavin Williamson of being "promoted beyond competence" - after the education secretary defended downgrading pupils lest they be "over-promoted" into jobs beyond their abilities.
REUTERS/Simon Dawson
Local lockdowns increase racial tensions and could cause 'divded nation', Sage experts warn
A sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has said ethnic minority communities were being stigmatised and added: “This situation could be exploited by far and extreme right-wing groups”, our home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden reports.
The document was published on Friday but had been considered at a high-level meeting hours before tightened restrictions were announced for swathes of northern England on 30 July.
Matt Hancock announced the “northern lockdown” on the eve of the Islamic festival of Eid, sparking a frenzy on far-right social media networks as extremists blamed Muslims for spreading coronavirus.
“Given the current epidemiological trend of transmission concentrations within BAME communities, there is the risk of racial stigmatisation and discrimination,” said the statement by Sage’s SPI-B sub-group on local interventions, warning of “racial tensions and risks to social cohesion”.
Exclusive: Boris Johnson accused of ‘cynical broken promise’ as some foreign NHS and care staff still pay surcharge
Some NHS and care workers will still pay the ‘immigration surcharge’, prompting an accusation that Boris Johnson’s pledge to exempt them is “a cynical broken promise”, our deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports.
The controversial fees will be levied if staff take a different job within six months – hitting lower-paid cleaners, porters and carers, especially on zero-hours contracts, it is feared.
The prime minister made no mention of the loophole when he was forced, in May, to grant the exemption, after The Independent exposed Priti Patel’s phoney “review” into the controversy.
Ministers have also sparked anger by claiming the six-month stipulation is needed to give health and care staff “an incentive to continue working”.
The public services union UNISON warned that “low-paid NHS and social care workers risk missing out on reimbursements”, after the detail was revealed, with its assistant general secretary telling The Independent: “This applies especially to those on zero hour contracts or who move jobs.
“Ministers say they'll get their surcharge fees back, but only after six months. This is no way to treat those who've been at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus from the off.”
And Holly Lynch, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, said: “It’s clear that it’s a million miles from the spirit of what the prime minister promised. This is a cynical broken promise. The government must honour its commitment to dedicated care workers who have put their lives on the line during this crisis.”
Pressure grows on French government to require masks in all public settings and workplaces
Masks are currently required outdoors in hundreds of French towns, but rules vary widely, with Paris police having stepped up mask patrols on Saturday as the French capital expanded the zones where face coverings are now required in public.
With cases in Paris rising particularly fast, police can now shut down cafes or any gathering of more than 10 people where distancing and other hygiene measures aren't respected.
France's High Council for Public Health published new guidance on Friday recommending "the systematic use of masks in all enclosed collective places, public and private" - including workplaces. About half of France's current virus clusters started in workplaces.
In an appeal published in Liberation, a collective of medical workers urged a nationwide return to working at home, which France largely abandoned after two months of strict lockdown.
Additional reporting by AP
Watch below to see our veteran travel correspondent Simon Calder broadcasting the answers to readers' travel questions live from Twickenham, as new quarantine rules came into effect overnight for travellers from France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos and Aruba.
Scotland goes a month without confirmed coronavirus fatality, according to official figures
No-one in Scotland who has tested positive for coronavirus has died since 15 July, according to the latest figures, as the number of hospital patients with Covid-19 dipped to its lowest since such records began in March.
A total of 51 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, but the number of deaths in Scotland remains at 2,491, while a total of 19,289 people have now tested positive for the virus.
The 51 new cases is slightly down from the 65-case increase announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Friday, which came as the UK recorded 1,441 cases overall - it's highest daily increase in two months and some four times higher than a post-peak lull of 352 on 6 July.
NHS Grampian - the health board covering the Aberdeen outbreak - recorded another 25 cases on Saturday, while eight new cases were discovered in both Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire, four in both Lothian and Tayside and one additional case in Orkney.
As of Friday night, 244 people were in hospital with confirmed Covid-19, the lowest number since figures were first published on 27 March. Three of those hospital patients were being treated in intensive care wards.
With six new countries removed from to the UK's "travel corridor" overnight, our technology reporter Anthony Cuthbertson tracks the data hinting at which countries could be next.
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