Live: Boris Johnson holds Covid-19 briefing after another day of record cases

In This Story: Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson has been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party since 2019.

7 Recent Items: Boris Johnson

In This Story: Chris Whitty

Christopher John MacRae Whitty CB FRCP FFPH FMedSci is an English physician and epidemiologist who is Chief Medical Officer for England, Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care and Head of the National Institute for Health Research in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

9 Recent Items: Chris Whitty

In This Story: COVID-19

Covid-19 is the official WHO name given to the novel coronavirus which broke out in late 2019 and began to spread in the early months of 2020.

Symptoms of coronavirus

The main symptoms of coronavirus are:

• a persistent new cough (non productive, dry)
• a high temperature (e.g. head feels warm to the touch)
• shortness of breath (if this is abnormal for the individual, or increased)

Latest News about Covid-19

Below are stories from around the globe related to the 2020 outbreak of novel Coronavirus – since the WHO gave the Covid-19 naming. Most recent items are posted nearest the top.

5 Recent Items: COVID-19

In This Story: Lockdown

During the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic, lockdown has come to mean the practice of attempting to control transmission of the virus by means of restricting people’s movement and activities on a broad scale, usually on a national or state-wide basis.

3 Recent Items: Lockdown

In This Story: NHS

The National Health Service is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde.

The NHS was founded on 5th July 1948. Current annual budget: £134 billion (2019).

3 Recent Items: NHS

In This Story: Omicron

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 (also known as B.1.1.529) has been declared a Variant of Concern.

The Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) is an independent group of experts that periodically monitors and evaluates the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and assesses if specific mutations and combinations of mutations alter the behaviour of the virus. The TAG-VE was convened on 26 November 2021 to assess the SARS-CoV-2 variant: B.1.1.529 – which is known as Omicron – the group declared the variant a Variant of Concern.

5 Recent Items: Omicron

In This Story: Patrick Vallance

Sir Patrick John Thompson Vallance FRS FMedSci FRCP is a British physician, scientist, and clinical pharmacologist who has worked in both academia and industry and, since March 2018, has been the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of the United Kingdom.

9 Recent Items: Patrick Vallance