Pub visits still a while off, says Deputy Chief Medical Officer

Acknowledging lots of people are keen to get back to the pub, Dr Jenny Harries said that not going is the best way to reduce the risk of catching and spreading Covid-19.

England's deputy chief medical officer also said that while being outside - where the virus does not survive as long - is generally safer, people's actions and how they get to their destination will be important.

She and Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick were asked at the daily Downing Street briefing whether mass gatherings would likely be allowed to resume before pubs are permitted to reopen.

Mr Jenrick said the fact that the virus's rate of transmission is "significantly less" outdoors will be a factor to be considered in any easing of the lockdown.

But he said adding in public transport makes it "a more complex picture".

Dr Harries said mixing with friends and others outside your household in a small environment like a pub would not be a good idea.

She explained: "If you go as a family unit and sit in one place and you've got the same exposure there that you would in your house at home, that's probably quite a safe environment.

"If you go with a whole load of friends that you haven't seen from before the coronavirus lockdown, sit in a pub in a very small environment, lean well over each other on the table and stay there for some hours face-to-face, that's really not a good thing to do."

She said another potentially high-risk activity is people travelling in cars with others outside their family unit.

Dr Harries added: "'Don't go to the pub on the way' is probably the one to reduce your risk, although I recognise that everybody is wanting to do that."

Earlier this week her colleague, fellow deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam also played down the prospect of an imminent return to outdoor activities, saying the virus would come back unless a "painstaking" approach was taken in easing the lockdown.

The comments came as the number of people who have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Friday rose to 28,131, up by 621.

The death toll has edged closer to that of Italy, which at 28,236 is the highest in Europe, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In Scotland, 1,559 patients who tested positive for coronavirus in Scotland have now died, an increase of 44 from Friday.

Figures from the Scottish Government released on Saturday evening show the number of people who have tested positive for the virus is at 11,927, a rise of 273 from the previous day.

One of the Government's top medical advisers has said officials "don't have enough information yet" to know whether people can catch coronavirus more than once.

Deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries, was asked about immunity to Covid-19 by a member of the public at the Downing Street daily briefing on Saturday.

Replying to Ashley from Yorkshire, Dr Harries said: "The WHO (World Health Organisation) position is very similar to the one we would have, which basically says we actually don't have enough information yet to be very clear on the immune status."

She said signs of immunity could vary from patient to patient, but doctors would expect people to have some immunity about a week and a half after being ill.

Dr Harries explained: "We know that some people will have different status.

"We would normally expect to see some sign of immunity about 10-12 days after an infection, and then a very consistent pattern about 28 days."

She added: "There's sometimes a delay in different individuals and we need to study this really carefully as we go forward.

"Our testing policy and the development of new antibody tests will help us do that."

Her comments come a day after the UK's testing coordinator said it was "encouraging" that evidence from South Korea suggested people were developing immunity to the disease.

Almost 300 cases in South Korea emerged of people who had seemingly contracted Covid-19 a second time.

But the country's Central Clinical Committee for Emerging Disease Control announced that the cases of allegedly reinfected people was due to a testing fault, and not a short-lived immunity.

Professor John Newton told Friday's daily briefing: "It is obviously promising.

"I think people have said before in these briefings that it would be very surprising if there was no immunity after infection, but at the moment the science is still not precise about how much immunity you get and how long it lasts."

And the number of daily tests both concluded and sent out in the last 24 hours dropped to 105,937.

It comes as questions were raised over how tests are being counted after Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Friday he had met his target for 100,000 Covid-19 tests per day.