Accurate as of: 28 October 2020
Current UK status:
Visit www.coronavirus.data.gov.uk for all official information.
- As of 4pm on 28 October 2020, a total of 30,282,244 people have been tested for coronavirus (COVID-19), of which 917,575 were confirmed positive.
- 45,675 patients in the UK who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.
- Local COVID alert levels have been established and are medium / high / very high. These alert levels set out information for local authorities, residents and workers about what to do and how to manage an outbreak in their area. London is in the ‘high’ risk category.
- A full Q&A regarding the UK lockdown rules can be found
UK travel restrictions:
Visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office for all official information.
- As countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, including travel and border restrictions, the FCO advises British nationals against all but essential international travel.
- A 14-day mandatory quarantine for all UK arrivals except for those announced as exempt. See here for the full list of exempt countries. Countries can be added or removed from this list at any time.
- FCO travel advice includes information on any health measures in place for visitors to a country or territory. These can include a requirement to self-isolate, quarantine or undergo testing for coronavirus, or even restrictions on entry.
- All travellers entering the UK or returning to the UK must complete a comprehensive passenger locator form or risk a fine.
Latest updates:
- Holiday bookings for the Canary Islands, Mykonos and the Maldives have skyrocketed after they were all added to the UK’s travel corridor list last week (Telegraph)
- Dubai and Egypt could soon get UK travel corridors, as the Government looks at dropping quarantine from more destinations (The Sun)
- The Government’s travel corridor regime is driving “a very late booking market” according to the Advantage Travel Partnership, with nearly three quarters of new bookings for trips due to depart between October and December (TTG)
- Travelling overseas no longer appears to present a significantly greater risk of contracting Covid-19, new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed (TTG)
- UK tourism venues are embracing the great outdoors to help survive the pandemic, including galleries, museums and cafes (The Guardian)
- The Government is believed to be preparing to ease its strict criteria for imposing self-isolation on arrivals to the UK, to reflect the soaring rates of coronavirus domestically. The threshold for 14 days of quarantine is currently 20 new cases per 100,000 people over the past week. But the UK’s rate is currently over 11 times higher, at 227 – which is significantly higher than several major European nations on the “no-go” list (Independent)
- Nearly 200 airports across the UK and Europe are at risk of going bust within months due to the dramatic collapse in air travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the European airports trade body warned on Tuesday (The Guardian)
- Heathrow says it has been overtaken as Europe’s busiest airport for the first time by Paris Charles de Gaulle because of a slump in demand for air travel. Some 19 million passengers used Heathrow in the first nine months of the year, versus 19.3 million who used the airport in the French capital (BBC)
- The British public became less optimistic about the economy in October as new restrictions were put in place, with consumer confidence falling for the first time in six months. Pessimism about household finances and home values dragged down the overall confidence index produced by polling firm Yougov and economics consultancy the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) (City AM)
- Data from research company GfK showed that the UK consumer confidence index tumbled 6 percentage points to minus 31 in the first half of October. This is the lowest reading since May, with consumers becoming more pessimistic about both the general economic situation and their personal financial conditions (FT)
Social media:
- Instagram’s just extended length limits for Live broadcasts so now you can go Live for 4 hours at a time. DJs took to IG Lives to replace their club nights so expect these to continue — and expand — courtesy of the new time limits. Instagram also highlights yoga teachers, fitness instructors, and schoolteachers as key audiences for longer Lives.
- Part of that same update, they’re also archiving Lives for up to 30 days so you can share your long broadcasts even after the fact.
- WhatsApp is also looking to start charging for some business services, no doubt the first of many steps to start repaying the $19 billon investment in 2014.
- Doubling down on the more local relationships that drove the platform’s original explosive growth, Facebook’s testing its new Nextdoor-style ‘Neighbourhoods’ feature. Think a Facebook Group for your neighbourhood.
- The Social Network is also bowing to constant, low-level pressure for a return to chronological feeds (our take is that algorithmic feeds are way better) by allowing more straightforward access to Home, Favourites, and Recent options for the News Feed.
- If you’ve been keeping an eye on cloud gaming since Google Stadia launched last year (and xCloud earlier this year), you might like to know that Facebook Gaming has just launched some cloud-stream games in the Facebook app for Android and on web browsers. They’re only available in the US at the moment but stay tuned.
- The last of new Facebook features for this week, Facebook Dating has just launched in Europe. Tinder not sparking for you anymore? Hinge getting rusty? Can’t think of a metaphor for Bumble? Neither can we. But if you’re slogging out the pandemic single, give Facebook Dating a try and let us know how you go.
- Outside of Facebook features and onto corporate governance, Facebook’s Oversight Board has started hearing cases. If you’re out of the loop, the Oversight Board is Facebook’s new third-party ‘court of appeals’ for content moderation that’s exhausted its options on-platform.
- Pinterest is adding new presentation, discovery, and advertising options to help retailers maximise 2020’s digital Christmas. Turn your shop tab into a storefront, tag your pins with exact products, and explore new shopping ad formats. If you’re selling lifestyle brands this Christmas, don’t forget Pinterest as an ad placement.
- Snapchat’s added new barcode scanning for certain products so you can get extra information through third-party apps like Yuka and Vivino. Snapchat’s doing the most experimentation with the potential for VR so definitely keep an eye out there if you’re looking to do interesting VR work.
- Two TikTok updates this week:
- They’ve updated their moderation guidelines to crack down on QAnon conspiracies — US election driven, no doubt — and the targeting of minorities. TikTok’s pushing through those young/maturing social media platform teething pains and content moderation is definitely the most pressing in 2020.
- Doubling down on e-commerce opportunities like every other platform — with surprising speed, to TikTok’s credit — TikTok’s partnered with Shopify to help merchants advertise on TikTok. It’s not the most straightforward implementation but it is an interesting step forward.
