Sajid Javid cuts cost of NHS Covid test for travel to £68 August 14, 2021 In a bid to help holidaymakers and drive down the market rate for Covid tests for travel, the health secretary has cut the cost of the travel tests that the NHS provides from £88 to £68 each. Travellers returning from green and amber list countries to England will now pay £20 less per PCR test, [...]
UK’s ‘R’ rate tightens as Covid cases plateau August 13, 2021 The UK’s Covid-19 ‘R’ rate may now be below 1.0, the UK’s health security agency said today, suggesting coronavirus cases may no longer be growing exponentially. The health authority said that the estimated range for the ‘R’ rate, which measures how many people a person with Covid is likely to infect, is now between 0.8 [...]
Divorce enquiries jump 136 per cent as lockdown restrictions ease August 13, 2021 The number of people seeking divorce related advice has soared by 136 per cent in June, compared to January, as lockdown restrictions ease, according to a law firm. Law practice Stewarts said the figures follow the busiest 18 months it has seen in the history of its divorce and family practice as the number [...]
UK competition watchdog investigating ‘immediate’ government action on PCR test prices August 13, 2021 The UK competition regulator has said it is exploring what immediate action the government can take to quash the hugely variable prices charged by private providers of Covid PCR tests for travel, after the health secretary, MPs and the travel industry called for an intervention. In a statement published yesterday, the Competition and Markets Authority [...]
Exclusive: 1.8m UK adults have become day traders during the pandemic August 11, 2021 Nearly 1.8m adults in the UK have become day traders during the pandemic, pouring into stocks and digital currencies from the comfort of their own homes with varying success, according to new research. Of those that have dipped their toes in the risky business of day trading during the pandemic, 50 per cent said they’d [...]
Three quarters of UK adults receive both vaccine doses August 10, 2021 Three quarters of UK adults have now been double jabbed, with an estimated 60,000 deaths prevented due to the success of the rollout. New data from Public Health England (PHE) shows COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant, the dominant strain of coronavirus in the UK. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is [...]
Strategic asset allocation or how I learned to stop worrying and love dispersion August 10, 2021 | City Talk For decades, strategic asset allocation has been considered the driving force behind investment portfolio returns. But the old adage that allocation determines 90 per cent of performance is rapidly becoming outdated. During 2020 and 2021, we have seen how the world of investing is shifting from one in which declining interest rates drive beta performance [...]
Lockdowns will cost Australia’s economy £530m per week, say UBS economists August 10, 2021 Australia’s “zero Covid” approach will cost AU$1bn (£530m) per week to the country’s economy, as its three most populous states are currently in lockdown due to a surge in the delta variant. Economists at the UBS bank have said the cumulative economic cost of the current lockdown in New South Wales will be of AU$25bn [...]
PCR test problems: Complaints soar as drop boxes overflow August 10, 2021 Covid PCR supplier Randox is to resolve issues with its test sample drop-off boxes as photos emerge of them overflowing and long result wait times are reported. The move comes as people posted photos online of full drop boxes in Sutton and Hampstead on the weekend. The swarms of samples are expected to increase as [...]
UK to relax Covid travel rules for Cop26 climate delegates August 9, 2021 The UK will relax Covid-19 travel rules for thousands of delegates attending the UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November. Cop26 officials have set out conditions for the event, which is expected to welcome up to 25,000 government delegates, journalists and campaigners from around the world for talks on curbing global warming. The summit, [...]