Accurate as of: 20 November 2020
Current UK status:
Visit www.coronavirus.data.gov.uk for all official information.
- As of 6pm on 17 November 2020, a total of 36,513,502 people have been tested for coronavirus (COVID-19), of which 1,410,732 were confirmed positive.
- 52,745 patients in the UK who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.
- England remains under a national lockdown. The 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 here.
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:
- From 20 November, Scotland will see 11 council areas across western and central Scotland, including Glasgow, go into Tier 4 lockdown. It will mean non-essential shops, pubs, restaurants and gyms will have to close, although schools will still be open. The level four restrictions will remain in place until 11 December (BBC)
- British Airways has partnered with American Airlines and oneworld to launch a new testing scheme designed to demonstrate how testing can reopen international travel without the need for quarantine. Passengers on select BA and American flights to Heathrow will be able to opt into the testing trial, starting 25 November, which will involve three tests throughout their journey. If they test positive at any stage, they will have to reschedule or cancel their travel (TTG)
- John Hays, the founder of the UK’s largest independent travel agency, Hays, passed away on 13 November 2020. So far, over £10,000 has been donated to his charity, The Hays Foundation, in his memory (TTG)
- Hays Travel has appointed Jonathon Woodall as chief operating officer following the death of founder and managing director John Hays (Travel Weekly)
- Heathrow airport will see a series of strikes in December, the Unite union has claimed. They plan to stop work for 24 hours on 1 and 14 December, with a 48-hour pre-Christmas stoppage on 17 and 18 December (The Independent)
- Heraklion (Crete), Portugal’s Algarve region, Athens, Naples, and Larnaca have all been named as 2020’s travel hotspots by research firm ForwardKeys and European Cities Marketing – these destinations have seen the smallest dip in tourism due to COVID-19 (Travel Weekly)
- United Airlines’ first transatlantic flight to Heathrow offering free Covid-19 testing arrived on 17 November from Newark. The carrier provided rapid tests to every passenger over two years old and all crew to guarantee that everyone on board tested negative prior to departure (Travel Weekly)
- The UK government has announced a new travel corridor with Chile. The South American country will reopen its borders to international visitors from 23 November, though the second lockdown in England will prevent travel for reasons other than business until restrictions are lifted from December 2 (Travel Weekly)
- EasyJet has reported an annual loss for the first time, of £1.27 billion. The reported loss for the full-year ending 30 September compares with a £430 million profit in 2019 (TTG)
- Britons who visit Spain or its islands after 23 November must arrive with evidence of a negative PCR test result, potentially adding hundreds of pounds to the cost of a family holiday. The test must be taken no more than 72 hours before arrival, and only private tests – which cost from around £150 per person – will be accepted (The Telegraph)
- The Telegraph, alongside Which?, rates Lastminute.com as bottom of the class when it comes to COVID refunds, having received many complaints about the company and its sister company, Bravofly (The Telegraph)
Social media:
- YouTube’s dipping its toes back into controversy with a new announcement that they’re going to start putting ads onto videos by creators that have not opted into the YouTube Partner Program, which is the program that lets creators put ads on their videos to generate revenue. The controversial part is that these unpartnered videos won’t generate revenue for the creators.
- As per usual, the Facebook group of companies are pretty active. To pull their Watch Together feature to the forefront, Facebook’s launched a new video series with Post Malone exclusively on Messenger and Instagram Direct. It’s a big bet on the service but, with coronavirus continuing to threaten the entertainment industry’s physical exhibition spaces, look for more of these new distribution models to continue emerging… even if Quibi’s dead.
- Messenger and Instagram Direct are also rolling out vanishing messages that disappear once you leave the chat. All right then, keep your secrets.
- Ever found yourself looking for something on Instagram without using a hashtag and then realising you’re not actually in a search engine? Now the image/shopping/vertical video app is opening up their search function so it works basically the way you’d expect if you’ve spent any time online. The article above also touches on Instagram’s Guides feature rolling out to all creators. We’ve already got a few ideas for client Guides so stay tuned.
- Over in ad land, Facebook is opening up monetisation options for creators in the form of more open copyright claim tools. There are concerns that Facebook’s going to start having the issues Google’s had with fraudulent copyright claims on YouTube by those who were first to make claims rather than those who are the actual copyright owners. We’ll see.
- Instagram’s also allowing users to opt out of off-platform data usage for ad targeting. Basically this means that advertisers can’t target you based on any of your behaviour outside of Instagram so your Stories consumption and your Feed will have a lot more impact on the kinds of ads you see if you opt out.
- After expanding to Japan last week, Fleets are now rolling out to all Twitter users. There’s been a slight hiccup with the rollout apparently so it might take a few more days before they arrive if you haven’t gotten them, but they’ll be here soon.
- Heard of Clubhouse? The invite-only audio room app has been taking Silicon Valley by storm this year and Twitter’s looking to build their own version on top of Fleets. Given Silicon Valley VCs’ affinity for both Twitter and Clubhouse it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds but perhaps Clubhouse’s invite-only nature gives it the leg up.
- While we’re talking about Twitter, their UK Marketing team’s scored the #BBCdad to help illustrate the power of Twitter’s conversation settings. Super clever throwback so check it out.
- TikTok remains alive in the United States after it got pretty touch-and-go there for a while. According to a new filing, they now have until November 27 to finalise the Oracle/Walmart or… no one knows. With the Administration outgoing (whether or not you’d like him to not be) there’s no telling what Biden and Harris’ position on the app will be.
- And LinkedIn has shared its transparency report for the first half of 2020 just after all its competitors — very on brand — in the wake of its overchanging news.
