Boris Johnson said the new rules will be enforced by "tougher penalties".
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) says - in the 2 months to 17 August - there were 46 fines for breaching face covering rules (38 on public transport) in England and Wales. 13 fines were handed out for breaching social gathering rules outside local lockdown areas in August, and a further 36 were given out where there were enhanced restrictions.
And just 3 fines were handed out for people failing to quarantine after arriving back in England.

Boris Johnson said: “The furlough scheme was far more generous than either Germany or France or virtually any country in Europe.”
Since September the government has been paying 70% of a furloughed worker’s salary, with the employer bringing it up to 80%.
bbc.co.uk/news/explainer… It will run until the end of October
It's difficult to compare generosity of schemes across Europe, because they vary between workers in some countries and because it's important to take into account normal support for workers as well as extra measures brought in for coronavirus.

The White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany yesterday said: “Europe has 28% higher excess mortality rate” than the US. That's the number of extra deaths above what would normally be expected over a particular period. Countries report these figures at different times and for different periods so comparing Europe as a whole is tricky.

Joe Biden has attacked President Trump’s record on job creation in Michigan - a key battleground state which was narrowly won by President Trump in 2016. We’ve been looking at US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Mr Biden, who was vice-president under President Obama, said: “We brought 80,000 jobs here to Michigan and the automobile industry.” Between January 2009 and January 2017, 79,100 automobile jobs were created.

On testing, PM Boris Johnson said: "To date, we’ve carried out 15.4 million antigen tests. That’s more than any other country in Europe and more per head than other European countries like Germany and Spain." The overall figure for tests to detect the presence of coronavirus in the body was 16.07 million, up to 2 September - according to government figures.
That's the number of tests, not the number of people tested, and the figure includes 1.4 million surveillance tests.

At #PMQs Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Keir Starmer clashed over the government's coronavirus test and trace system.
Starmer said some people had been offered tests a long way away.
We've reported on recent examples of this:
bbc.co.uk/news/health-53… Boris Johnson said testing capacity had increased "from 2,000 a month in March to 320,000 a day".
As of 2 September, labs had capacity to process 369,000 tests a day, according to government figures

There are false claims that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has “quietly updated” its coronavirus figures “to admit” that only 6% of deaths recorded actually died from Covid-19. The CDC publishes information on how many people have Covid-19 listed on their death certificate.

6% only mention Covid-19 and no other illnesses.

But 92% state that Covid-19 is “the underlying cause of death”.

A video posted by Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff for communications, has been labelled as “manipulated media” by Twitter [THREAD] The clip has been altered to make it appear as though Joe Biden is asleep during a TV interview. But Mr Biden was shown alongside a host conducting an old interview – with the singer Harry Belafonte in 2011

Last night, President Trump defended his government’s record on coronavirus.

We fact-checked some of his claims: Mr Trump said: "You can look at large portions of our country, it's corona-free".

Verdict: There is not a single state that doesn't have a case of coronavirus. Some rural areas have lower numbers because there are not many people living there.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in the House of Commons: “16 March is the day when I came to this house and said that all unnecessary social contact should cease - that is precisely when the lockdown was started.” But is that right? In a Commons debate on 2 June Mr Hancock said daily deaths were "lower than at any time since lockdown began on 23 March".

Boris Johnson said at #PMQs the government was "engaged in record investments in the NHS - £34bn"
This is a "cash terms" figure which doesn't take into account inflation
In fact, the government's own figures say the NHS budget will be £20.5bn larger by 2023-4, after inflation This would see the annual budget increase by 3.4% a year, which is significantly lower than the increases of 6% seen in some years under the Blair and Brown Labour governments, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

@DHSCgovuk says it will no longer publish a figure for the number of people tested daily for #coronavirus
It hasn't given this information for more than 8 weeks
The last time was on 22 May. @DHSCgovuk On 22 May, the govt said the number of daily tests for Covid-19 was 140,497
The number of people tested was much less - 80,297
A big gap between the two figures was a regular feature and led some including the Chair of @UKStatsAuth to question the data.
bbc.co.uk/news/health-51…

1/ This morning @MarcusRashford - who's successfully campaigned for free school meal vouchers to be extended over the summer in England - asked people to think about parents "who have had their water cut off during lockdown". 2/ Work and Pensions Secretary @theresecoffey replied: “water cannot be disconnected though.”
What does the law say?
Since 1999, it has been illegal for domestic customers to have their water supplies cut off.

1/ The Mayor of London @SadiqKhan says new monuments should be erected to commemorate the role minorities have had on British history
So, how many existing UK statues are there of named black people?
Reaching a figure is a challenge as there's no official breakdown, but... 2/ The Public Monuments & Sculpture Assoc. has recorded historic public statues
We looked at 968 on its database
610 were of named people (the rest were of things like nymphs)
3 were of black individuals (2 of Nelson Mandela, 1 of Desmond Tutu)
But the database isn't exhaustive

Sir Ed Davey, acting co-leader of the Lib Dems, said at #PMQs that black people were 47 times more likely to face "suspicionless" stop and searches by police, than white people
So, what do the figures (for England and Wales) show? Last year, 2,669 white people were stopped under section 60 rules (where police don't have to have "reasonable grounds" that an individual has committed a crime), compared to 4,858 black people.

On 15 May, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "we'll test every resident and every member of staff in our elderly care homes in England between now and early June."
So, how did they do?
bbc.co.uk/news/52382786 Almost 1.1m test kits were sent to almost 9,000 care homes in England and "tens of thousands" had received swab tests.
The government said this meant it reached its target by 6 June. But this doesn't mean that all those people have actually been tested bbc.co.uk/news/52382786

Martin from Brighton asked @MattHancock whether the government will review all penalty fines "imposed on families travelling for childcare purposes during lockdown"?
So, how many fines of this kind have there been? 13,445 fines have been handed out for breaching lockdown rules in England up to 11 May.

Most of these – 10,999 – were issued to those not abiding by the restrictions on movement introduced towards the end of March, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Dominic Cummings said he and his family went for a walk in woods next to the cottage where they were staying and were seen by some people.
He said it was in "the second week" of their visit - one can assume it was sometime between 4 and 11 April.
Was this within the guidelines? On 7 April, Public Health England’s website said people could go outside for daily exercise even if they had coronavirus symptoms:

“If possible, you should not go out even to buy food or other essentials, other than exercise, and in that case at a safe distance from others."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended Dominic Cummings, saying: “The advice makes it absolutely clear that if you have particular childcare issues that is a factor that has to be taken into account.” So what did the advice say? The stay at home guidelines say people who live with someone who develops symptoms "must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days". gov.uk/government/pub…

Dominic Cummings has defended making a 260-mile journey from London to north-east England with his wife who had coronavirus symptoms. But what was the official “essential travel” advice when he went at the end of March? gov.uk/government/new… The advice says essential travel does not include visits to second homes... whether for isolation purposes or holidays. "People must remain in their primary residence. Not taking these steps puts additional pressure on communities and services that are already at risk."

At #PMQs, the leaders clashed over hospital discharges to care homes during the coronavirus pandemic

But, what was the government advice that led up to this point?

[Thread]

bbc.in/CoronavirusUKC… The context: in mid-March hospitals were encouraged to free up hospital beds where they could

This was because of the expected surge in coronavirus patients