liverpool from early november. calum semple is a professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the university of liverpool and thank you forjoining us so quickly. in essence, what is the report saying thus far about the pilot scheme? we set it up quickly and in two weeks we've got preliminary results. we are happy to share the interim results for the first phase. the top line is, we don't support mass community testing on a citywide basis. it is not feasible. but what we basis. it is not feasible. but what we have discovered is incredibly useful, is a systematic testing for testing to released from quarantine, testing to released from quarantine, testing to released from quarantine, testing to protect vulnerable people in care homes and testing to enable visitors to care homes. also very successful in schools, school teachers liked it. school pupils we re teachers liked it. school pupils were able to cope with it. so, although it is not a perfect test, we've got good take—up and the community likes it. importantly, we haven't seen harm. we haven't seen people treating it as a freedom pass. there is nothing to

callum is a professor of medicine at the university of liverpool. statistics, 70% more transmissible, six in ten people within the affected area who have this new variant, how concerned are you by those figures? the concern here is that this virus is moving to the community very quickly. much faster than the previous strain. and this means that it will cause more disease in more people in the same amount of time, services and our hospitals. we keep hearing people saying it's not unusualfor viruses to do this, when you look at when you say, this is a virulent virus? at the moment, we are saying it's very contagious, its transmissibility is high, but we are worried about the relents. this is already nastier than influencer, so we are already at that point that this is recognised to be a dangerous virus, so that does not change. we have no reason to believe it is becoming any more dangerous than existing strains but we will look for this very carefully over the coming weeks. there is a delay between anything that happens in the community, whether that

we can speak now to professor calum semple, a specialist in outbreak medicine at the university of liverpoolory group sage, but is speaking in a personal capacity today. two bits of good news, talking about the oxford vaccine because if they can the oxford vaccine because if they ca n p reve nt the oxford vaccine because if they can prevent asymptomatic contamination, they'll be a great thing. is there are concerns about the dosage still? it was more effective in the half dose. it is not strange but not unprecedented getting a dosagejust not strange but not unprecedented getting a dosage just right is keen to getting an immune response. bubbles what's really important about what was published today, and we can access it, it is freely available. is it safe, it is safe and highly effective vaccine. of those wonderful scenes, and looking remarkably youthful, having those vaccines, but the prime minister and what matt hancock had to say. matt hancock said don't blow it now, telling them to be clear eyed about the challenges that were made and is there a danger now, do you think the people think

government is also known as nerve tack he's also the chair of infection and global health at the university of liverpool good to have you with us and stethoscopes on the program can i just ask you a lot of debate about when this virus was identified when were nerve tag aware of this strain and when we're officially informed so as i said to your produce before i came on the show on commenting here in a personal capacity not in my role is someone will know. are however i'm also part of the organization called cult u.k. we lead the sequencing of the variants of an old allstars corona virus 2 in the united kingdom. and so we started tracking the emergence of this very back in september. and it started coming to our attention probably about to know. that it looked to have property that enhanced its transmission what are the properties that a different in the in the mutant form of virus to what we're sort of used to hearing about what's so different about it. so the virus is made up of a number of different proteins one of the proteins that sticks out was that the virus when it infects people it's called desp

can i introduce the colleagues with me this morning. 0n my left is the professor of medicine at liverpool universitynd chair of the chm's, the government's advisory body. 0n the chm's, the government's advisory body. on my right, a professor of respiratory university at the university of nottinghamshire. chair ofa group university of nottinghamshire. chair of a group that has been preparing advice on covid—i9 vaccines. this briefing has been called to announce that the medicines and health care products regulatory agency recommended to the uk government on the basis of the advice on the commission of human medicine is that it should have agreed to the approvalfor use of it should have agreed to the approval for use of the covid—i9 vaccine developed by pfizer biontech, together with the conditions for its supply and use. the mhra's recommendation has been reached following an extremely thorough and scientifically rigorous review of all the evidence, of safety, of effectiveness and of the quality of the pfizer biontech vaccine. the uk government has now accepted this advice and has made the decision t

follow football, it felt like the universe was finding another way to stop liverpool winning the league. we waited 30 years and we just had another three months on top ofk was wonderful news. that was the light at the end of the tunnel, if you like, we knew they are going to do it. on thursday, june the 25th, their chance came. manchester city had to beat chelsea just to stay in the race. one of my friends set up a big projector in his garden and managed to get a screen from somewhere. and liverpool surely headed to the title! liverpool was already starting to celebrate as soon as the penalty went in, and that's when you started hearing the fireworks, you started hearing the cheers. stuart attwell blows his whistle. and for the first time since 1990, the champions of england are liverpool. that feeling... that absolute rush, i've never felt quite anything like that when i've not been in a football ground. we started hearing liverpool breaking into this spontaneous party and suddenly all around you, people beeing the horn and shouting out the car windows. i'm just so happy that i was with my dad, and i know for a fact that it meant so much to him. peopl

the secretary of state must be aware of the paper from liverpool university, based on his own departmenth the virus would be falsely reassured they were negative. the test even missed 30% of those with a high viral load. those most likely to be infectious. i understand the wish to use quick tests for case finding, but surely he should now delay rolling them out to 67 other local authorities, and not proceed with plans to spend £43 billion for a test which is so inaccurate? would it not be better to focus funding on easier and quicker access to pcr tests? with more than half of all positive cases being missed, does he accept that despite the proposal by baroness harding these tests cannot be used to release people who are contacts who are isolating? 0n the basis of this study, the liverpool health protection board has abandoned plans to use lateral flow tests to protect visitors to care homes, so will he be recommending local authorities and providers return to pcr testing for care home staff and family visitors to reduce the risk to most vulnerable residents?” visitors to reduce the risk

actually a very good safety measure and vast amounts of money have been spent on lateral flow tests for asymptomatic people in universities and here in liverpooltance. currently the government is saying that it will not change. do you think there will be an inevitable change here? do you think there will be an inevitable change here ?|j do you think there will be an inevitable change here? i think the government will find this very hard. they have gone strong on this, they have talked about it in positive terms as a gift to the public which i understand. i think it will take a really important leadership position if they did do this. i think the public we thank them in the long run. thank you very much indeed for joining us. and thank you for your company to date. if you're watching on bbc two, goodbye. see you soon. schools in greenwich say they will comply with the department for education requests for schools to open. it follows a warning from the government that they would face legal action if they moved their teaching online. andy moore has the latest. the latest development, as you say is that the london borough of greenwich and its labo

government have done were done by the university of oxford, in test and trace centres with symptomatic people, released at the beginning of november. the evaluation in liverpoolta of using that test and we are writing from new data from them soon which will give their final results data from them soon which will give theirfinal results on data from them soon which will give their final results on that, but it is just their final results on that, but it isjust gradually coming their final results on that, but it is just gradually coming out, the universities, there was no testing of the test before we were all asked to use it in that setting. the key thing to realise is that this is an imperfect test, everybody knows that, and its imperfections will map out in different ways in different settings. it is critical that it is tested before it is put into use.“ not lateral flow test, what tests, the pcr? the pcr is the best test but it is difficult to use because of the requirements of time but there are inventive ways of using it, for example cambridge university have used a pooled pcr testing technique that has worked well for them through the term, whereby stu

liverpool. lets get a bit more detail on this now from linda bauld, who's professor of public health at the university where they tested the majority of the adult population over a weekend, was an idea heralded by government, but now the reality is that this is extremely expensive. what they are having to do is target communities with a higher prevalence rates. when we have nothing published results of the liverpool pilot i think the targeted approach is more appropriate currently. dr mike tildesley, we heard from michael gove about one hour ago and he said there was not much difference between mass testing and community testing, but there is clearly a change and it is more targeted and cheaper, no doubt? if you have the capacity, and linda has said that, then mass testing is clearly appropriate because we still know the viruses circulating throughout the viruses circulating throughout the country and the more people be tested, the more we can detect and isolate mbes here we can get on top of the virus. we are not in that position, we do not have the capacity, so targeting these higher risk areas is v

of global public health at the university of edinburgh, and also professor tom solomon, director of the uk's emerging infections research unit at the university of liverpool size and effectively boil it down to being really simple. stay home, stay local and see people outside. just briefly, while you are touching on the new strain of the virus, how worried should people be that this new virus could override the vaccine for example? we don't know yet. the first concern is does it transmit easier and is it more infectious. does it have worse health outcomes and higher hospital eight hospitalisation rates? and the third is because it evade our vaccines? it does seem to be faster moving and faster doubling time. i don't think people need to panic but i think it does mean we need to rethink the holidays because we are already in quite a serious situation. with fast—moving and new strain with all travel restrictions restricted this could be a very hard situation to control, even with tier 3. giles has beenin control, even with tier 3. giles has been in touch and says that... the rules say they are allowed to go and pick herup rules say they are allowed to go an