gray is the civil servant leaving the investigation leading. let me know what you were doing on the 20th of may during that first lockdown and whether you want to hear the prime minister state immediately whether or not he was at drinks party in the downing street garden. anyone who records a positive lateral flow test in england, but doesn t have symptoms, no longer needs to take a pcr from today. it s hoped the relaxation of testing rules will improve the speed of pcr tests for key workers, amid concerns about staff shortages. northern ireland, scotland and wales have already implemented the change. sor) well obviously, if you don t do a pcr test then you won t have the confirmatory test because we know the pcr test is more accurate. and that also, if there aren t pcr test from the people who are isolating, then there is less genomic sequencing will go on and so that may mean that it s more difficult to trace the variant in the population.
testing. there have been changes in testing rules, reinfection is apart from in wales aren t counted. but with hospital admissions we can also see last week they looked like they were plateauing nationally, but some regions of england have still seen them rising. but this week, all regions are seeing the corner turned. it is very much the best case scenario territory when the morning warnings were made before christmas, the current levels of about 2000 hospitalisations per day, so that is giving ministers confidence, but there is no guarantee that infections and hospitalisations will keep falling, because one of the key factors in keeping the lid on this omicron wave as long as the boosters has been the fact that over christmas people were not doing that much mixing. if we look at the average daily contacts, they were below three, which is very similar to the levels seen in the first lockdown, so if people mix
later on the programme. let s take a look at some of today s papers. the daily telegraph reports that testing rules could be relaxed as part of efforts to ease staffing shortages. the paper suggests that millions who test positive on lateral flow devices will no longer need to take follow up pcr tests. we will talk to the government at half past seven to try and get some clarity on that. the times leads with the prime minister s insistence that no further covid restrictions are necessary despite more than 200,000 new cases being reported in a day. it quotes england s chief medical officer, sir chris whitty, saying cases among young adults in london appeared to be levelling off or falling , but he stressed the effect of new year s eve parties had yet to be seen. the mirror has an image of prince andrew, who is waiting for a judge in new york to make a decision on whether to dismiss a civil case accusing him of sexual assault. the prince has consistently denied the allegations. and this
atjet2, that 2022 will be a more normal year. the government decision to relax testing rules for passengers returning from their holiday opened the bookings floodgates. so, the airline views that finally, foreign travel is taking off again. we have had a very up and down two years, and i m hoping now that we are in a situation where we are very much getting back to normal, and if that s the case, we will all be planning to get away and have a bit of sunshine. what happens if there is another variant, in a few months time? we can t operate on a start stop basis. no one benefits, really. so, we do need a structured process for when there are future variants, and maybe we don t lock down in the future. from foreign flights to flying shepherd s huts. if international travel is about to surge, where does that leave home grown holidays?