Covid in Leeds: Live updates as Boris Johnson holds press conference on June 21 lockdown easing

Welcome to the Yorkshire Evening Post's live news blog on Monday June 14.
Scroll down for live updates from the press conference and the reaction in LeedsScroll down for live updates from the press conference and the reaction in Leeds
Scroll down for live updates from the press conference and the reaction in Leeds

Boris Johnson is holding a televised Downing Street press conference at 6pm, where he is expected to announce a delay to the final lifting of coronavirus lockdown restrictions in England.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce that the road map easing earmarked for June 21 will be delayed for four weeks to July 19.

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He will be accompanied at the briefing by England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

Scroll down for live updates from the press conference and the reaction in Leeds

Leeds news LIVE: Treatment offers new lifeline for people who get most ill from Covid-19

No new Covid deaths have been recorded at Leeds hospitals according to the latest daily update.

Figures released by NHS England show three deaths were recorded in the country’s hospitals in the 24 hours to 4pm on Tuesday, June 15.

The deaths were recorded between June 13 and June 15.

According to the latest Government figures, 246 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Leeds on Wednesday, June 16.

There were 1,179 cases confirmed in the seven days to June 11, meaning Leeds has an infection rate of 148.6 per 100,000 people.

This is an increase of 93.3 per cent on the previous seven-day period.

Lunchtime headlines

If you’re catching up on today’s news, here are some of our latest stories this lunchtime:

Police hunting wanted man issue appeal for public’s help

Police searching for a burglar wanted on recall from prison believe is in Leeds or Bradford.

They say numerous enquiries have been made to locate 24-year-old Michael Craggs, who is described as being about six feet tall and of stocky, athletic build.

Lane closed on M62 at Tingley due to crash

These are the latest stories on the Yorkshire Evening Post this morning:

Family of Jo Cox pays tribute five years after her murder

The family of MP Jo Cox is marking the fifth anniversary of her murder by saying they remain optimistic about a future where people recognise the things “we have in common”.

The country was rocked when the 41-year-old Labour MP was shot and stabbed in her constituency by a far-right supporter on June 16 2016.

Her sister Kim Leadbeater is standing as a Labour candidate in the Batley and Spen by-election, the constituency Ms Cox represented, but will suspend campaigning on the anniversary of her murder.

A statement on behalf of the whole family said: “We all miss Jo every day.

“Her energy, warmth, passion, humour and love.

“She looked for and believed in the best of people and the best of our country, for what unites us, rather than where we disagree.

“We remain optimistic that her vision of a country where we are better at recognising what we have in common is gradually getting closer.

“Though our family has been devastated by our loss, we still feel Jo’s love as a mum, wife, daughter, sister and auntie every single day of our lives.“

The Jo Cox Foundation was set up after her murder and campaigns under the banner “More in Common” with the aim of bringing people together, and also campaigns abuse and intimidation of people in public life.

Treatment offers new lifeline for people who get most ill from Covid-19

People who get the most ill from Covid-19 could be offered a new lifeline with the first antiviral drug shown to save lives in patients admitted to hospital, researchers have said.

The Recovery trial demonstrated that the antibody combination developed by Regeneron reduced the risk of death when given to patients with severe Covid-19, who had not mounted a natural antibody response of their own.

The chances of these patients needing to be put on a ventilator were also reduced, as was the duration of their hospital stay.

Between September 18 2020 and May 22 this year, 9,785 UK patients admitted to hospital with the disease were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus the antibody combination treatment, or usual care alone.

Of these, about one third were seronegative, meaning they had no natural antibody response of their own, and half were seropositive, meaning they had already developed natural antibodies against the virus.

For one sixth of those involved in the study, their serostatus was unknown.

Researchers found that among patients who received usual care alone, 28-day mortality was twice as high in those without an antibody response (30%) compared with those who were seropositive (15%) at the start of the study.

According to the study, for patients who had no antibody response the treatment reduced the chance of them dying within 28 days by a fifth, compared with usual care alone.

For every 100 such patients treated with the antibody combination, there would be six fewer deaths, researchers say.

Sir Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, and joint chief investigator, said: “What we found was amongst these patients who were seronegative – they hadn’t raised antibodies of their own, if you then gave them this combination of two antibodies in an intravenous infusion, then mortality was reduced by one fifth.

“So instead of 30% dying, 24% died. So if you think of it differently, for every 100 patients who were given the intravenous infusion, we would save six lives.”

He added: “Take a group of people, they’re sick, they go into hospital, they’ve got Covid, they haven’t got antibodies of their own, (this) will reduce their chance of dying, shorten their hospital stay, and reduce the chances of needing a ventilator.

“So this is in some ways a first. This is an antiviral treatment that is used later on – because these patients are severe, they’ve gone into hospital – and has a demonstrated clear impact on survival, and on those other outcomes.

“So in its own right, it’s an important result because these patients are among the sickest patients, and here we now have a treatment we did not have before.”

For the seronegative patients given the treatment, the duration of hospital stay was four days shorter than the usual care group, and the proportion of patients discharged alive by day 28 was greater (64% vs 58%).

The treatment made no difference in patients who had mounted their own antibody response by the time the study started, researchers found.

Sir Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and joint chief investigator for the Recovery trial, said: “These results are very exciting.

“The hope was that by giving a combination of antibodies targeting the Sars-CoV-2 virus we would be able to reduce the worst manifestations of Covid-19.

“There was, however, great uncertainty about the value of antiviral therapies in late-stage Covid-19 disease.

“It is wonderful to learn that even in advanced Covid-19 disease, targeting the virus can reduce mortality in patients who have failed to mount an antibody response of their own.”

Researchers say they are not sure when the treatment will be approved for use in the UK, and highlight it will not be a quick rollout as the drug is not particularly easy to get hold of, and patients would need antibody testing on their admission to hospital – which is not currently in place.

The study will be published as a pre-print on medRxiv and submitted to a journal for peer-review.

The treatment uses a combination of two monoclonal antibodies (casirivimab and imdevimab, known as REGEN-COV in the US) that bind specifically to two different sites on the coronavirus spike protein, neutralising the ability of the virus to infect cells.

Previous studies in patients in the community showed that the treatment reduced viral load, shortened the time to resolution of symptoms, and significantly reduced the risk of being admitted to hospital or death.

Today’s YEP front page:

This is the Yorkshire Evening Post front page today (Weds 16): "Legal red light zone scrapped"

It also remembers Jo Cox, five years on from her death, and looks at the changes from the Leeds United redevelopment plans.

Good morning and welcome to the Yorkshire Evening Post live blog on Wednesday, June 16.

We’ll bring you the latest news throughout the day.

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What does four-week restriction easing delay from June 21 to July 19 mean for Leeds?

Here are the rules in full: