UK Covid live: half of children have had coronavirus and rest likely to get it without vaccine, Whitty tells MPs

The UK has updated its Covid dashboard. There have been 34,460 new cases, but the total number of cases over the past seven days is marginally down – by 0.4% – compared to the previous week.

Hospital admissions are down by 13.8% week on week – although these figures only go up to last Saturday, because UK hospital admission figures are always a few days late. There were 747 admissions on Saturday.

And today’s figures show there have been 166 more Covid deaths. Week on week, deaths are up, but just by 0.1%.

This is from Rym Momtaz, Politico’s France correspondent, on Boris Johnson’s “donnez moi un break” comment about President Macron earlier. (See 1.51pm.) Bloomberg has written it up under the headline: Boris Johnson mocks French outrage over loss of submarine deal.

Here is the PA Media story from the opening of the education committee hearing with Prof Chris Whitty.

About half of children have already had Covid-19 and the rest are more likely to get it without a vaccine, England’s chief medical officer has suggested.

Prof Chris Whitty warned that “quite a lot of damage” could still occur over the winter months.

He told MPs: “Let’s make an assumption that the great majority of children who’ve not currently had Covid-19 are going to get it at some point over the next period.

“It won’t be necessarily in the next two or three months but they will get it sooner or later.”

But addressing the Commons education committee, Whitty added: “Vaccination will reduce that risk.”

England’s chief medical officer was facing questions from MPs about the inclusion of children in the government’s Covid-19 vaccination programme.

When asked what proportion of children had already had Covid-19, he replied: “It varies by age and it does also vary by setting, but I think if we go for roughly half I think that is a reasonable stab at this.

“That’s half over the period of the entire epidemic to date, and we’ve got quite a way to run.

“We’re running into winter so there’s still quite a lot of damage that could be done in terms of disruption.”

England’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam added that because the Delta variant is so infectious “we are not looking at a theoretical risk” of children aged 12 to 17 becoming infected.

He said: “I think it is really quite inevitable that they will be so at some point.”

Prof Van-Tam warned that these pupils could become infected during their GCSEs and A-levels when it is “extremely inconvenient to be laid low” with a cough, fever, and respiratory symptoms.

Back in the education committee, Prof Chris Whitty explains how the “Gillick competence” test is applied when clinicians have to decide whether or not to offer treatment, like the Covid vaccine, to a child under the age of 16. He reads from Lord Scarman’s ruling in the original 1980s law lords case that decided this.

Scarman said:

As a matter of law the parental right to determine whether or not their minor child below the age of 16 will have medical treatment terminates if and when the child achieves a sufficient understanding and intelligence to enable him or her to understand fully what is proposed.

Whitty says above the age of 16 there is a general assumption that teenagers are competent to decide for themselves, and above the age of 18 there is an absolute assumption, he says.

And he says under the age of 12 there is an absolute assumption against the child being competent to decide.

Robin Swan, health minister in the Northern Ireland executive, has issued a statement with the chair and deputy chair of the Northern Ireland assembly’s health committee saying the health service in the region faces “an extremely challenging winter”. They urge people to get vaccinated if they have not already, and suggest that former health workers might want to return to the NHS.

Here is an excerpt:

Our health and social care staff and services are currently facing pressures like never before.

The devastating impact of the past 20 months is compounded by the likelihood of an extremely challenging winter …

We also recognise the great potential of enabling those with relevant experience, skills and knowledge to rejoin the workforce through workforce appeals and by providing additional support to our HSC workforce at this difficult time.

Asked about anti-vax campaigners, Whitty says they represents a “tiny fraction” of the population. He says when people are seeking health advice, they should take advice from people who are “knowledgable, logical and kind”. He says from what he has seen of the anti-vaxxers’ material, they don’t have any of these three qualities.

Back in the education committee, Prof Chris Whitty says at this stage 12- to 15-year-olds are only getting one dose of vaccine. He says the scientists are looking at the data from other countries, where vaccinating children is ahead of the UK, before a decision is taken on whether they should have a second dose.

Avro Energy and Green Supplier Limited have become the fourth and fifth energy suppliers to go out of business in September as a rise in gas prices puts pressure on the sector, PA Media reports. PA says:

Ofgem said that it would ensure that Avro’s 580,000 domestic gas and electricity customers, and Green’s 255,000 households would be protected.

The regulator will choose a new supplier for the households, and said customers should wait to be contacted by their new supplier.

“I want to reassure customers of Avro Energy and Green Supplier Limited that they do not need to worry. Under our safety net we’ll make sure your energy supplies continue,” Ofgem director of retail Neil Lawrence said.

“If you have credit on your Avro Energy or Green Supplier Limited account this is protected and you will not lose the money that is owed to you.”

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam tells the education committee that data from healthcare workers puts the chance of re-infection among people who have had Covid before at between 5% and 15%.

Back at the education committee, Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, says vaccination has a smaller benefit for children who have already had Covid than it does for children who haven’t. But he says it is not true to say it offers them no benefit.

Gordon Brown has called the government’s decision to cut £20 a week from universal credit the most “socially divisive and morally indefensible” policy he has witnessed in UK politics, saying it is being pursued with open disregard for its impact. He has set out his argument in an article for the Guardian available here:

The education committee has now suspended its proceedings for 15 minutes because there is a vote in the Commons.

Back in the education committee, Prof Wei Shen Lim, chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s Covid committee, says adults are well protected for six to nine months by the vaccine. With children, the protection is likely to be as good or better.

Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says children launch an “exceptionally good immune response”, and so their protection is likely to last nine months.