A round-up of comments and snippets regarding the lockdown and roadmap, ahead of a hopeful summer re-opening.
The NHS app will be converted to become a digital covid certificate to prove the holder has had a covid vaccination, The Times is reporting this morning. The paper said: “Michael Gove will lead a review into issues relating to vaccine passports, which the government is reconsidering after previously branding them discriminatory. It is understood that the government wants people to have the option of showing either vaccination status or test results to ensure that the scheme not does penalise those who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons.”
The Campaign for Real Ale, which represents 170,000 pub goers and beer drinkers, has written to chancellor Rishi Sunak calling for a cut in duty on beer sold in pubs and clubs to help them compete with supermarkets. Extending jobs support through the furlough scheme as long as restrictions on pubs apply, continuing the business rates holiday, as well extending help with VAT to include alcoholic drinks in addition to food are also on a pub-goers’ wish list being put to the chancellor by CAMRA.
The Telegraph is reporting that the road out of lockdown could be accelerated if vaccines were found to be more effective than thought. “The Telegraph has been told by others in the government that better than anticipated data about the vaccine could allow some of the roadmap timings to be reviewed. A senior government source said that if the positive results from an early Public Health Scotland study on vaccines were replicated in England ‘that would change the calculations’ on the timings.”
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is due to extend the furlough scheme until the end of June, according to The Times. “The business rates holiday for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors will also be extended at a cost of just under £1 billion a month, along with the VAT cut for hospitality and tourism, at an estimated cost of £200 million a month.”
Yesterday’s announcement on the Scottish roadmap by first minister Nicola Sturgeon has raised more questions than answers. Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, told The Guardian: “This isn’t a route map out of Covid; it’s a holding document for the next eight weeks.” Voters “were not expecting certainty but they were expecting the first minister to give them some form of hope”.
And on Beer Today, Kevin Georgel, chief executive of St Austell Brewery, in Cornwall, talks about the roadmap, his team, and looking forward to that pub pint. Read it here.
