Coronavirus latest: Michael Gove pays tribute to Muslims celebrating Ramadan during lockdown

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove paid tribute to Muslims celebrating Ramadan during lockdown.

He said: "For those experiencing the first Ramadan without a loved one, this will be a particularly painful time."

He added: "As with Christians who could not celebrate Easter together in church, and the Jewish community whose Passover rituals were affected by social distancing, our thoughts are with Muslim neighbours who cannot break their fast together and must adapt their religious and cultural practices because of the crisis."

Mr Gove said more than 200,000 key workers and their families had been tested for coronavirus.

He said criteria for testing had been extended beyond key workers to anyone over 65 displaying symptoms and anyone who has to travel to get to work.

Mr Gove said that this week the Government will be piloting new "test, track and trace procedures" on the Isle of Wight, with a view to having them in place more widely later this month.

Mr Gove said: "We've all learned to adapt, and we must carry on doing so after the Prime Minister sets out how we will get back to work later this week.

"His comprehensive plan will explain how we can get our economy moving, how we can get our children back to school, how we can travel to work more safely, and how we can make life in the workplace safer.

"But before we can ease the existing restrictions we must ensure the government's five tests are met - that the number of cases are falling, that death rates are declining, that the NHS has what it needs, and that measures are in place to stop a second peak overwhelming the NHS."

He said he is "particularly conscious" that those in the frontline of our public services will need "clear guidance on safe working".

He added: "They'll need the right personal protective equipment and appropriate access to testing if we are to make all the progress that we want in the weeks ahead.

"We're consulting with employers and unions, professionals and public health experts, to establish how we can ensure that we have the safest possible working environments, and the Prime Minister will be saying more later this week."

Talking about PPE, Mr Gove said: "On personal protective equipment for key workers, we are increasing the spread of distribution and supply.

"From February 25 to May 2 we had delivered over 1.08 billion items of PPE across the health and social care system within England.

"And tens of millions more have been distributed by our colleagues in the devolved administrations.

"This overall figure includes 149 million masks, 173 million aprons, two million gowns and 614 million gloves.

"On May 2 alone we delivered an additional 20 million items of PPE within England."

He said there is "much more to do".

Mr Gove detailed the Government's current and proposed provisions for disadvantaged children.

He said the Government has committed £100 million for remote learning for "those who need it most" and 180 video lessons per week were being supplied through the newly launched Oak National Academy.

"We're particularly keen to help vulnerable and disadvantaged children to carry on with their education during the pandemic," he said.

Mr Gove said the Government has ordered laptops for disadvantaged children sitting exams next year and for children with social workers to help them stay in touch with vital services.

He added free internet routers and free school meal vouchers are being provided for those who need them.

According to Mr Gove, more than 49,000 children were classed by schools as vulnerable on April 24, "more than double" the figure from a week earlier.

He said 15,500 schools have placed orders for free school meal vouchers, and more than £35 million worth have been redeemed.

Mr Gove said that 90% of rough sleepers known to councils have been given an offer of accommodation since the end of March,

Providing an update on work that was being done to help vulnerable people, he said the Government was nearing delivering its one millionth parcel of essential food.

In terms of NHS volunteers, he told the briefing that more than 600,000 people have been verified "and are helping with the daily errands that make such a significant difference".

He also said officials were "working with supermarkets to make sure that a greater number of delivery slots are made available to those most in need".

Chris in London asked what lessons have been learned for future waves of the virus and how the government will ensure there are enough PPE and ventilators in the future.

Mr Gove said: "We're learning lessons all the time, as indeed the world is.

"This is a new virus and scientists are working internationally to determine what the best means is of dealing with it.

"And that's why we are piloting treatments which can prevent the virus, once people have been infected, becoming more dangerous for them.

"It's also why we're working internationally to seek to secure a vaccine, though of course we expect that may be some time away.

"But one of the things that we have learned is how to improve our testing capacity.

"We also now have increased domestic ventilator production and Lord Deighton is increasing domestic PPE production as well.

"And I think the lessons that we're learning in the UK are similar to the lessons that other countries are learning as well."

NHS England's national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said: "What I learned is that the NHS and the great staff of the NHS, when given that challenge, can very, very rapidly put in place the extra capacity that is required.

"And they have done that magnificently, and at no point during the surge of cases in April was the NHS in a position where it was not able to give the treatment to patients with Covid-19 that they needed.

"That is a great testament to how well the NHS has been able to cope.

"And I think then the lesson going forward is one, that we can do that, but two, we need to keep that capacity in place.

"But we need to keep it in place at the same time as standing up all the other services that the NHS is providing.

"They're the ones we've always provided, the emergency services, but some of the services that we've had to stand down during April, so elective surgery for instance.

"So my lesson is that the NHS is incredibly flexible. It can respond to this challenge, and it will respond to the challenge going forward into the months ahead."

Michael Gove praised Matt Hancock's "amazing success in increasing testing", which he said means the public will have "greater confidence" in the Government as they move into the next phase of lockdown.

"The British public have shown amazing stoicism and understanding of the need for the lockdown measures," he said.

"Quite rightly they want to make sure that if and when they are eased, they're eased in way that makes sure the British people's sacrifice has been worthwhile, and that we continue to operate in a way that means public health comes first.

"And that's why it's so important that we consult with employers and trade unions, to make sure that people understand the guidance about working safely."

He said the Government will pursue a "phased approach" to removing lockdown restrictions rather than a sudden return to "the old normal".

Mr Gove acknowledged that lockdown measures will have an impact on people's "mental and emotional well-being" as well as economic activity.

Responding to a question from the member of the public, Rebecca from Scotland, he said the Government would be guided by its five tests before easing lockdown.

He warned that it would be "the worst thing to do" to "prematurely" relax measures and risk a second spike in the disease.

Prof Powis said he was aware that lockdown measures "can have detrimental effects in terms of health, but also emotional and social effects".

"We are very keen, as are all my clinical and scientific colleagues, to make sure that as soon as we possibly can we are able to give advice that allows those measures to be relaxed," he said.

Prof Powis added: "The harm that might be done in terms of health as a direct effect of the virus, deaths due to the virus, has to be balanced off over time against the harm that is done around lockdown.

"And it's not easy, those are two things that are not easy to reconcile."

When asked about his confidence in models predicting what may happen with any change in lockdown rules, Prof Powis said "the reality will always be different from the model, it will not exactly replicate the model", and "there are some unknowns".

He said the public had been "really excellent at complying" with the rules, and so far, trends have tended to follow the models produced.

He explained: "It's followed it pretty much in the shape of what we've seen so that does give me some confidence that going forward models are a reasonable way of predicting what we might see.

"They do predict that over the next month or so we will continue to see a decline in the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19, the number of people in critical care and indeed the number of deaths."

He added: "They will never be an absolute perfect prediction of reality but I have confidence that going forward they will give us a very good guide of what we are likely to see."

Asked about the app, Mr Gove said: "When it comes to contact tracing, the more people who download the app that's been developed by the NHS the better.

"There are some 80,000 households on the Isle of Wight, and obviously we'd like to see more than half of households, if we can, sign up to the app."

Prof Powis said: "It is likely to be one component of a number of measures that will be needed.

"I would think it's unlikely that on its own it is going to be the single measure or the single intervention that will ensure that the virus is always under control.

"There will need to be contact tracing in the way we've always done contact tracing, so people following leads as to who you've contacted.

"That's exactly why Public Health England are recruiting many thousands of people to help with contact tracing.

"And it will need to sit aside other measures that we have become used to, such as if you are symptomatic and if you have the virus and if you test positive you will need to stay at home for a period.

"So it is one component. The more people who download it and use it the likely the bigger contribution it will make, but it will not, I doubt, be the single contribution."

When asked if he agreed with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps that lives could have been saved if testing had been in place earlier, Mr Gove said the Government will "reflect" on "what we did right and what we did wrong".

"This Government like all governments will have made mistakes, but it will be impossible to determine exactly which were the areas of gravest concern until some time in the future when we have all the information that we need," he said.

He added: "I think there will be a time when we've got this virus under control when we can ask ourselves some deep and probing questions about lessons we can learn as a country from how we handled this virus in its early stages.

He said "the amazing achievement" in increasing the number of tests had been an example of what "the public sector and the private sector working together under a very strong political leadership can achieve".