HERE'S everything you need to know about the Covid pandemic from the past 24 hours: 

  • The huge sums that the Government has borrowed during the Covid-19 crisis have pushed the deficit to its highest point since the end of the Second World War, according to new figures. The Office for National Statistics said that public sector net borrowing – the Government’s deficit – reached £303.1 billion in the financial year to the end of March. This was 14.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest level since 1946, when the deficit hit 15.2 per cent of GDP. It is a rise from a deficit of £57 billion in the tax year ending March 2020.
  • Passengers on flights into the UK from India must now enter hotel quarantine as the country is officially added to the UK’s coronavirus travel red list. As of 4am on Friday, people returning from India must quarantine in a Government-approved hotel for 10 days, while anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen will be banned from entering the country if they have been in India in the previous 10 days. Four airlines asked for a total of eight extra flights to arrive at Heathrow before the 4am cut-off; however, it is understood that Heathrow declined the airlines’ requests to ensure existing pressures at the border were not exacerbated.
  • The public should be able to ditch face masks over the summer as vaccines do the heavy lifting in controlling Covid-19, Government scientific advisers believe. Step four of the Government’s road map for England currently states that all legal limits on social contact will be removed by June 21 at the earliest, when restrictions on large events such as festivals are also expected to ease. Scientists advising the Government say there is nothing currently in the data to suggest that people will not be able to enjoy a relatively normal summer, though coronavirus cases may well rise as the autumn approaches.
  • A tanning salon owner has said she was happy to pay £635 for breaching coronavirus regulations by organising a balloon release in memory of her father-in-law who died after contracting Covid-19. Vicki Hutchinson, 34, had faced a £10,000 fixed penalty for holding an illegal gathering of more than 30 people in November. But that was reduced after she attended Peterlee Magistrates’ Court on Friday to admit the offence, based on her ability to pay. On November 11, the mother-of-three had posted an invitation on her Facebook page for friends and family of Ian Stephenson to attend a balloon release on a field opposite the church where his funeral was due to take place in the following days.
  • Domestic cruises will be restricted to as little as a fifth of normal capacity for initial sailings, under rules announced by the Department for Transport (DfT). A dozen cruise lines will operate voyages around the coast of Britain this summer, with many reporting exceptional demand amid uncertainty over restrictions on foreign travel. Cruises are currently banned in the UK due to the pandemic but will be permitted in England under the next step of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s road map for easing rules, which is planned for May 17. But the DfT said ships operating in England will only be allowed to carry up to 1,000 passengers – or 50 per cent of their capacity if that is lower – until all limits on social contact are removed.
  • Severe coronavirus restrictions may have to be in place for “many more months” in prisons unless there is faster “universal vaccination” of staff and inmates, according to the Government’s scientific advisers. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said measures behind bars to keep the infections under control and outbreaks to a minimum – such as keeping prisoners locked in cells for up to 23 hours a day, a ban on visits and cuts in training and exercise – have a “highly negative effect” on rehabilitation and mental health. In the March paper on Covid-19 transmission in prison, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to help inform long-term policy, scientists from Sage’s Environmental and Modelling group (EMG) transmission group said: “Prisons will remain at high risk of outbreaks even when disease levels in the community are low because importation of a single case can lead to a large outbreak.