Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands. Award-winning PR & communications for ambitious brands.

UK Media & Consumer Market Update — 6 November, 2020

UK Media & Consumer Market Update — 6 November, 2020
6 November 2020 Zac van Manen

Accurate as of: 5 November 2020

Current UK status:

Visit www.coronavirus.data.gov.uk for all official information.

  • As of 4pm on 4 November 2020, a total of 32,309,316 people have been tested for coronavirus (COVID-19), of which 1,099,059 were confirmed positive.
  • 47,742 patients in the UK who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.
  • From today, England is under a national lockdown for four weeks. The new guidance is to stay at home, and all non-essential shops have closed. On 2 December, at the end of the period, the Government guidance will return to a regional lockdown approach, based on the latest data.
  • Guidance for the current national lockdown can be found

UK travel restrictions:

Visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office for all official information.

  • The new lockdown guidance states that travel is not permitted, this includes both domestic and international travel, unless for business purposes.

Latest updates:

  • England’s four-week national lockdown begins today, meaning that both domestic and international holidays are banned for at least the next month. Anyone leaving home without a reasonable excuse between now and 2 December will be liable to a possible fine that starts at £200 and doubles for subsequent offences (Telegraph)
  • The Government’s Global Travel Taskforce is due to submit recommendations to the prime minister on a Covid test regime for travellers this week, with industry leaders targeting the end of lockdown as the start date (Travel Weekly)
  • Multiple airlines have cancelled international flights departing from the UK, but some are still yet to do so. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has said that passengers won’t be given refunds unless their flights are cancelled, but they can change their flights to a later date with no fee (The Sun)
  • Global tourism will take “at least 3-5 years” to recover from Covid-19, according to a report by Euromonitor International (TTG)
  • Qantas has pushed back the resumption of UK services until October 2021 at the earliest (TTG)
  • Half of all UK travel jobs, as many as 2.4 million roles, could be lost if barriers to global travel remain in place next year, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has warned (TTG)
  • Which? estimates more than £8 billion worth of package holidays have been cancelled since the start of the pandemic, at least £1 billion it believes is still with travel firms. The watchdog has called on Government to outline how it will support travel through the rest of the pandemic, and to introduce a “travel guarantee fund” to help package providers that are struggling to fulfil their refund obligations to customers (TTG)
  • Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed he will extend the furlough scheme until March (paying up to 80% of wages) (BBC)
  • The Bank of England has launched a fresh £150bn stimulus package for the UK economy amid the second Covid wave and the reintroduction of lockdown across England (Guardian)

Social media:

Want PR, social, or ecommerce support from an agency with proven lockdown experience? Get in touch.