‘Eat out to help out’ can go ‘hand-in-hand’ with healthy eating, insists minister
Eating out to help out can go hand-in-hand with healthy eating, the care minister has insisted amid questions of mixed messaging as Boris Johnson launches an anti-obesity drive.
While the Government is urging people to eat out to boost the economy and offering discounts to those who do so, Cabinet minister Helen Whately conceded that the science shows people consume more calories if they are in a restaurant compared to at home.
She said: “One thing that we know is that people tend to eat more and consume more calories if they are eating out.
“A large proportion of the British public are eating out and we don’t want to stop that, but we want to enable people to make informed choices and the information the science tells us is that many people don’t know the calories in the things they are eating, particularly when they’re eating out.”
Asked on BBC Breakfast if she was concerned about mixed messaging as the Government embarked on its goal for the nation to lose weight, she said: “On the one hand we know it’s important for the economy and the hospitality sector for people to be out and eating in restaurants and pubs. But that can be hand-in-hand with making healthy choices.
“On a menu there will be a range of options, the important thing is that you have the information to enable you to decide and to know the amount of calories you’ve consumed.”
09:43 AM
‘We will live with this for years’: virus expert on debilitating after-effects of Covid-19
One of the world’s foremost virus experts has said survivors will be living with the effects of Covid-19 for “years to come” after he was struck down by a severe infection, and called for added support for those who have recovered from the disease.
Professor Peter Piot, who as director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been at the forefront of the academic response to the pandemic, has spent his entire career studying viruses such as Ebola and HIV.
Prof Piot spent a week at the Royal Free Hospital in London in early April after contracting the disease.
“I spent a week in isolation on a ward with three other men. I couldn’t leave the room. When I came out the thing I remember most is seeing the sky. London was deserted – it was in acute lockdown,” he said.
In case you missed it yesterday, Anne Gulland has more here.
09:38 AM
Bonfire society pulls out of Lewes November 5 celebrations
A bonfire society has announced that it will not be taking part in the famous Lewes November 5 festivities this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Cliffe Bonfire Society said on Sunday that it was a “difficult but, in the end, inevitable decision”.
It is one of only a handful of times in its 167-year history that it has been “druv” (driven) to the move in order to save lives, the others being the First and Second World Wars, the 1960 Lewes Flood and the typhoid outbreak in the town in 1874.
The East Sussex town is famous for burning effigies of controversial politicians and celebrities every year on Bonfire Night.
Effigies created by the seven bonfire societies that make up Lewes Bonfire Council are paraded along the narrow streets before being burned in front of thousands of onlookers.
The other six societies have not made any announcements about cancelling 2020 festivities.
09:33 AM
Ryanair will not cancel flights to Spain despite return of quarantine
Ryanair is still planning to run a full schedule of flights to Spain despite the British Government’s decision to impose shock restrictions on all non-essential travel to the country.
The low-cost airline’s chief financial officer, Neil Sorahan, said today that the carrier had “no plans to cut capacity in the medium term” between the UK and Spain.
Follow all the latest on our travel live blog here.
09:31 AM
Australia reports record number of cases
Australia has today posted its highest number of new Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, even as officials expressed hope outbreaks in locked-down Melbourne may have peaked.
A day after Australia reported its highest daily death toll, authorities confirmed at least 549 new coronavirus infections – almost entirely driven by an outbreak in the southeastern state of Victoria.
Authorities admitted a second wave of clusters in Melbourne was taking longer to suppress than hoped.
But the state’s top health official voiced optimism that a partial lockdown of 5 million people, now in its third week, was working.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said modelling showed “today should be the peak” even if the number of new cases continues to fluctuate and new daily records could yet be set.
09:20 AM
Hong Kong orders mandatory mask wearing to combat surge
Everyone in Hong Kong will have to wear masks in public from this week, authorities said today, as they unveiled the city’s toughest social distancing measures yet to combat a new wave of coronavirus infections.
The ramped-up rules came as authorities revealed China would help officials build an emergency field hospital to help deal with a surge in patients.
“The epidemic situation in Hong Kong is remarkably severe,” Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung told reporters, as he announced new measures including a ban on more than two people gathering in public and restaurants only being allowed to serve takeaway meals.
The densely packed financial hub was one of the first places hit by the coronavirus when it emerged from China, but initially had success in controlling the outbreak.
Local infections have soared over the last month, however, with piecemeal social distancing measures appearing to do little to stem a rising caseload.
More than 1,000 infections have been confirmed since early July – more than 40 per cent of the total since the virus first hit the city in late January. New daily infections have also been above 100 for the last five days.
09:15 AM
Airlines face crackdown over coronavirus refunds
Airline regulators are expected to this week launch a crackdown on carriers which have failed to refund families for flights cancelled due to coronavirus, as the industry reels from new restrictions over Spain.
The Civil Aviation Authority is understood to have drawn up a list of the worst culprits, with millions of customers still owed billions of pounds after being told they could not fly.
Enforcement action could end up with airlines being banned from operating in the UK.
Oliver Gill and Hasan Chowdhury have more here.
09:12 AM
Boris Johnson says he was ‘too fat’ as he launches anti-obesity drive
Boris Johnson – who has previously been a prominent critic of state-backed measures to get people’s weight down – has claimed that the new “Better Health Strategy” would help people “not in an excessively bossy or nannying way”.
A video of the Prime Minister walking his dog has been posted to his Twitter account, where he opens up about his own struggles with weight as the Government launches a drive to get the nation’s weight down.
“I’ve always wanted to lose weight for ages and ages, and like, I think many people I struggle with my weight – I go up and down,” he said.
“But since I recovered from coronavirus I’ve been steadily building up my fitness. I don’t want to make any excessive claims because I’ve only really just started concentrating on it, but I’ve got – I’m at least a stone down. I’m more than a stone down.
“But when I went into ICU, when was really ill, I was very, I was way overweight. I’m only about five foot ten, you know, at the outside, and, you know, I was too fat.”
09:01 AM
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08:52 AM
Ryanair slumps to £168m loss after ‘most challenging’ quarter
Ryanair said it suffered its “most challenging” quarter as it slumped to a €185m (£168m) loss for the three months to June.
The low-cost carrier also warned that a second wave of coronavirus cases in Europe could prolong any recovery from the pandemic into next year.
Europe’s biggest airline swung into the red after it was forced to ground 99 per cent of its fleet due to Covid-19.
Restrictions saw the firm carry 500,000 passengers in its first quarter compared with 41.9 million in the same period last year, while revenue plummeted from £2.1bn to £113m.
Simon Foy has more here.
08:48 AM
Watch: Tourists ‘left in the lurch’ over sudden Spain quarantine rule
08:44 AM
Catalonia may take stricter measures to limit outbreak if situation does not improve
Spain’s Catalonia may take stricter measures to limit the coronavirus outbreak if the situation does not improve in the next ten days, regional leader Quim Torra said today.
Torra warned that in many parts of Catalonia the data was similar to the situation before Spain declared a national lockdown in March, PA news agency reports.
He added his administration’s goal was to avoid taking as strict measures as the ones that were taken back then.
Catalan authorities on July 17 advised some four million people to remain home and leave only for essential trips, banned gatherings of more than ten people and limited the occupancy of bars and restaurants as the number of cases in the region is rising faster than in the rest of the country.
08:34 AM
Batwoman: ‘Trump owes us an apology’
The Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, widely nicknamed ‘batwoman’, has been thrown into the limelight during the pandemic. She is a world leading expert on bat coronaviruses and works at the Wuhan Insitute of Virology (WIV), in the city where the pandemic first began.
Both Shi and the lab have been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories throughout the outbreak, with people including President Donald Trump pushing the idea that the virus accidentally escaped from the WIV – or was perhaps even engineered there.
But in an interview with Science Magazine Shi has finally broken her silence on the attacks against her and the details of her work. Here are a few of the key elements of the interview:
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Shi said that Trump “owes us an apology” as his claims that the virus escaped from the lab contract the facts and jeopardises both the academic work and personal lives of researchers at the WIV.
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She said the lab has isolated and grown only three bat coronavirus in the last 15 years, all of which related to Sars. Some 2,000 other bat coronaviruses held at the lab are simply genetic sequences that have been extracted from animal samples – they are not live viruses.
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Shi said it is “absurd” that the US has suspended funding for EcoHealth Alliance to work in China (the Telegraph spoke to the organisation’s head, Peter Daszak, about this here).
08:28 AM
Confusion reigns over quarantine decision for Spanish islands
Craig Cowgill, from Bury, said he may lose out on pay in his role as manager of a small business due to the Government’s decision to reimpose a blanket quarantine requirement for arrivals from Spain.
Mr Cowgill, who is due to fly to Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands on Thursday, said he will “have to still come in or not get paid” upon his return to the UK.
“I don’t know what to do at this moment. I’m hoping Jet2 will offer a refund or the Government change the quarantine from the islands,” he told the PA news agency.
“I can understand about Spain, but they say it’s safe where we are going, so why quarantine us then? It’s either one or the other – (you) can’t send people, then ask them to quarantine and not offer refunds.”
Read more: Spain tourists describe quarantine announcement chaos
08:23 AM
Death haunts abandoned shops of Nembro, Italy’s worst hit town
Europe became the epicentre of the global pandemic before the continent locked down. This week, for the first time, Telegraph reporters return to “ground zero” of some of the worst-hit countries to assess the damage.
As Italy and much of Europe reopens for business, towns like Nembro are struggling to find a new normal. For those businesses fortunate enough to be able to start again, the scars of what happened here are all too real.
“At least 10 of my regular customers who used to come in once a month are now dead because of the virus,” says Manuel, a barber in the centre cutting people’s hair wearing a face covering and a visor.
“It seems totally absurd to me that I won’t ever see those people again.”
Nembro is emblematic of the huge social and economic costs that Italy has paid as a result of the virus.
This is a place where at the height of the pandemic, people were “dropping like flies,” where the death rate shot up by 10 times, where three brothers died within just a few days of each other. Not since the Second World War have small Italian communities like these experienced such grief, shock and sadness.
Biagio Simonetta in Nembro and Nick Squires in Rome have the full report here.
08:16 AM
Jamie Oliver welcomes Government’s obesity measures
TV chef Jamie Oliver, a longtime campaigner against child obesity, has celebrated the Government’s measures via Twitter.
.@BorisJohnson has #AdEnough & has committed to reducing how many junk food ads kids see on tv & online by introducing a 9pm watershed!
Big love to all of you who have supported our campaign. Let’s keep up the momentum so we can offer all kids a healthier and better future! pic.twitter.com/mdq9ESa9Q3
— Jamie Oliver (@jamieoliver) July 27, 2020
08:05 AM
Donald Trump disembarks Marine One without a face mask
Having been pictured publicly wearing a mask despite previously saying he wouldn’t be wearing one, Donald Trump was seen disembarking Marine One.
He wasn’t wearing a mask.
His daughter – Ivanka Trump – decided to wear one, and her husband Jared Kushner followed his father-in-law’s lead.
07:45 AM
Air bridges ‘under review’, says minister
Health minister Helen Whately said so-called air bridges to other countries are constantly “under review” following the Government’s decision to reimpose a blanket quarantine for arrivals from Spain.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “What we said throughout the time when we’ve put in place the policy on the travel corridors, the air bridges, is that we would need to keep those under review, that we would need to monitor the rates in other countries.
“That is exactly what we’ve done in Spain, so we are enacting the policy that we committed to doing.
“The rate was going up very rapidly in Spain and we had to take very rapid, decisive action.
“If we hadn’t taken that decisive action, I imagine you would be asking me ‘Why are there delays, why haven’t we taken robust action?’
“We have taken decisive action.”
07:44 AM
Istanbul’s Grand Mosque reopens for first time in 86 years
The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul was sprayed with disinfectant ahead of its reopening for prayer for the first time in almost a century.
And they flocked to the place of worship, as seen in the photograph below.
07:37 AM
Outbreak at Shropshire caravan park confirmed after 21 test positive
Twenty-one new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed at a Shropshire caravan park.
The council fears the number of cases at the site, which is in the town of Craven Arms, will continue to rise before infection control measures start to take effect.
All residents who have come into contact with one of the positive cases have been asked to self-isolate with their households for 14 days.
The 21 people who tested positive for coronavirus were asked to self-isolate for at least seven days from the time they started showing symptoms or from when they received their positive test result.
A testing centre has now been set up on a nearby business park, and everyone living on the site has been offered a test.
The centre will be open for the next two weeks between 10.30am and 3.30pm and those living nearby can book a test online via NHS Test and Trace or by ringing 119.
A playground close to the caravan park has also been closed to help reduce social contact and the risk of transmission.
07:13 AM
‘Smarter measures’ at border rather than blanket quarantine, Labour urge
Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has urged the Government to introduce “smarter measures” at the border rather than a blanket quarantine for those returning from Spain.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “We certainly would be following the advice and introducing protective measures at the border if there are spikes in cases in other countries, absolutely.
“But there are two serious questions around this. The first is why we are still employing the… blunt tool of the 14-day quarantining rather than smarter measures and secondly the chaotic nature of the decision-making which certainly hasn’t bred confidence in the Government’s approach.”
He added: “I think you need a smarter set of quarantine measures at the airport. I’ve suggested this test, trace and isolate regime but you can also have temperature checking and other things – you look at a range of measures.”
07:06 AM
Fears more European holidays could be thrown into disarray
There are fears more European holidays could be thrown into disarray during “uncertainty” this summer after holidaymakers in Spain were left fuming at being told they must quarantine when they return home.
The Government has stood by its decision to strike Spain off the UK’s list of safe destinations after it saw a spike in the number of coronavirus cases.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Government “can’t make apologies” for the decision made on Saturday – announced less than five hours before coming into force – that arrivals from Spain and its islands would have to self-isolate for 14 days.
Mr Raab, speaking to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, also refused to rule out rescinding further so-called travel corridors.
“As we’ve found with Spain, we can’t give a guarantee,” he said, before adding that there was “an element of uncertainty this summer if people go abroad”.
The Telegraph reported that officials in both France and Germany have warned of possible new lockdowns as parts of Europe braced for a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
06:59 AM
‘Don’t be blase’, says Scottish pilot who was Vietnam’s most critically-ill Covid patient
A Scottish pilot who was Vietnam’s most critically ill Covid-19 patient has warned others not to be “blase” about the risks of the virus.
Stephen Cameron was working for national carrier Vietnam Airlines when he tested positive for the coronavirus in March and went on to become seriously ill, spending 65 days on life support.
The 42-year-old, who became something of a media sensation in Vietnam as one of the country’s earliest and most critically ill patients, said the response of the country had been “mind-blowing”.
Speaking to BBC News, Mr Cameron, from Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, said the effects of Covid-19 should not be under-estimated.
He added: “I’m a living example of what this virus can do and it is serious.
“People might grumble about having to put on gloves or social distancing two metres apart … but I contracted it and I was under for 10 weeks on life support.
“People can’t be blase about this until we have eradicated it.”
06:57 AM
Today’s front page
Here is your Daily Telegraph on Monday, July 27.
05:42 AM
Transparent cubicles get pupils back to kindergarten in Indonesia
As schools struggle to keep pupils engaged during the pandemic, a kindergarten on Indonesia’s Java island is getting pupils back in the classroom using makeshift transparent cubicles and also sending teachers on home visits with social distancing barriers.
Permata Hati Kindergarten, a private kindergarten with 135 pupils in the city of Semarang in Central Java province, is allowing six pupils per day to spend time in the classroom, giving children a chance to attend school once every two weeks.
Central Java has recorded Indonesia’s fourth highest number of infections and at least 287 people have died in Semarang alone, according to government data.
Accompanied by parents, the children sit within protective boxes made using plastic sheets that are disinfected after each classroom session to get guidance to direct their learning.
Read more: Teachers’ unions call for compulsory face masks for schoolchildren
05:13 AM
Vietnam evacuating 80,000 tourists
Vietnam is evacuating 80,000 people, mostly local tourists, from the central city of Danang after three residents tested positive at the weekend, the government said on Monday.
The evacuation will take at least four days with domestic airlines operating approximately 100 flights daily from Danang to 11 Vietnamese cities, the government said in a statement.
The Southeast Asian country was back on high alert after the government on Saturday confirmed its first community infections since April, and another three cases on Sunday, all in the tourism hot spot of Danang.
04:45 AM
Hong Kong to announce new restrictions
Hong Kong on Monday will announce further restrictions to curb the surge in cases, including a total ban on restaurant dining and mandated face masks outdoors, media reported.
The new rules will take effect from Wednesday, local television channels Cable TV and Now TV said, as authorities warned it was a critical period to contain the virus.
This will be the first time the city has completely banned dining in restaurants. Since late January, more than 2,600 people have been infected in Hong Kong, 19 of whom have died.
04:13 AM
Comment: We are taking action to get nation’s health back on track
Obesity is one of the greatest long term health challenges that we face as a country.
It not only puts a strain on our NHS and care system, but it also piles pressure on our bodies, making us more vulnerable to many diseases, including of course coronavirus.
The latest research shows that if you have a BMI of between 30 and 35 your risk of death from coronavirus goes up by at least a quarter.
And that nearly 8 per cent of critically ill patients with coronavirus in intensive care are morbidly obese compared at around 3 per cent of the country as a whole.
This deadly virus has given us a wake-up call about the need to tackle the stark inequalities in our nation’s health, and obesity is an urgent example of this.
We’ve already done lots of work on this front, like cutting sugar in soft drinks and giving extra support for the NHS work on diabetes.
But we know that we need to go further.
On Monday, we have publish a new strategy setting out clearly how we will tackle obesity in England.
Read Matt Hancock’s full comment piece
Read more: Lose 5lb and save the NHS £100m

02:49 AM
South Korea confirms 25 new cases
South Korea has reported 25 newly confirmed cases , bringing its national caseload to 14,175 infections and 299 deaths.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday said 16 of the new cases were tied to people arriving from abroad. The country in past days have reported dozens of cases among crew members of a Russia-flagged cargo ship docked in the southern port of Busan and hundreds of South Korean construction workers airlifted from virus-ravaged Iraq.
Among the nine local transmissions, eight were from the Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the center of a virus resurgence since late May.
02:19 AM
Fears of new wave after infections rise in China
China recorded 61 new cases on Monday – the highest daily figure since April – propelled by clusters in three separate regions that have sparked fears of a fresh wave.
The bulk of 57 new domestic cases were found in the far northwestern Xinjiang region, according to the National Health Commission, where a sudden outbreak in the regional capital of Urumqi occurred in mid-July.
Fourteen domestic cases were also recorded in the northeastern province of Liaoning where a fresh cluster broke out in the city of Dalian last week.
Two more local cases were found in the neighbouring province of Jilin near the North Korean border – the first since late May.
The last four infections confirmed on Monday were imported from overseas.
It is the highest daily tally of new virus cases since April 14, when 89 cases, mostly imported, were recorded.
Read the full story
01:51 AM
Summary of news from around the world
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Vietnam has postponed its hosting of Asia’s largest security forum, which includes North Korea, and an annual meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers by a month to September due to the pandemic.
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Pope Francis led pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the weekly Sunday blessing in a round of applause for elderly people suffering from loneliness during the pandemic.
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Health authorities in North Macedonia reported that confirmed cases surged above 10,000, meaning that almost 0.5 percent of the population of 2.1 million have been infected.
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Serbia has reported a record number of daily cases after 467 people tested positive.
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A popular resort town in Austria has ordered restaurants and clubs to close early and urged people to avoid going out as it grapples with a new outbreak.
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A Pakistani health official is warning that the curve that flattened last month could spike again if people violate social distancing regulations during the upcoming Eid al-Adha festival.
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South Africa has announced more than 12,000 new cases as the total in one of the world’s worst affected countries reaches 434,200 with 6,655 deaths.
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Vietnam on Sunday reimposed restrictions in one of its most popular beach destinations after a second person tested positive.
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China reported 46 new cases on Sunday, the highest daily tally in more than a month.
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Mexico‘s Health Ministry on Sunday reported 5,480 new confirmed cases and 306 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 390,516 cases and 43,680 deaths.
01:36 AM
Australian state reports record number of daily cases
Australia’s second-most populous state of Victoria reported on Monday six new deaths and logged a record daily increase of 532 new cases compared with 459 a day earlier.
“Five of those six deaths are connected to outbreaks in aged care,” state Premier Daniel Andrews said in a media briefing in Melbourne.
Victoria on Sunday suffered its deadliest day since the pandemic began after reporting 10 deaths, mostly at aged-care facilities.
The state recorded its previous one-day high of 484 cases last week.
12:58 AM
US records more than 55,000 cases in 24 hours
The United States on Sunday recorded 55,187 new cases in 24 hours, Johns Hopkins University reported in its real-time tally.
The world’s hardest-hit country now has a total caseload of 4,229,624, the Baltimore-based university showed at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Monday).
An additional 518 deaths brought the overall death toll to 146,909.
The last time the daily number of new cases clocked in below 60,000 was almost two weeks ago, on July 13.
Scientists agree that an increase in death rates follows the spike in infections by three to four weeks.
The daily death toll for the past four days exceeded 1,000.
12:39 AM
UK’s quarantine threatens to wipe out Benidorm tourist industry
In Benidorm, where Spanish tourism was born when tourists were first allowed to wear bikinis in the 1950s, Britain’s quarantine decision was seen as a “hammer blow” by hoteliers.
The Costa Blanca town, which transformed itself from a fishing village to a byword for mass tourism, depends on the UK for 40 per cent of its holidaymakers.
Its mayor, Toni Perez, reacted to the surprise quarantine announcement by saying: “We very much regret it. In Benidorm, we’ve worked a lot to minimise the risks and we haven’t got any problems here at the moment.
“It’s a very safe destination, with beaches which are very well organised and businesses which have established protocols and are applying them. The problem in Spain is in certain areas, but in the end this decision affects us all and especially resorts like ours whose main market is British.”
Read the full story