UK reveals emergency job support plan

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak ruled out an autumn budget and instead launched an emergency job support program on Thursday that includes wage subsidies, business tax cuts and more cheap loans for struggling businesses.

Announcing the move in Parliament, Sunak said his "winter economy plan" would replace the existing furlough program when it ends on Oct 31, and would help the economy cope with new social restrictions announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week.

The multi-billion-pound support package is believed to be similar to the one being used in Germany, with taxpayers subsidizing the wages of workers returning to work part-time after being furloughed.

Sunak said the subsidy means workers will get up to 77 percent of their wages for the next six months, covered jointly by companies and the government, but that employees will have to work for at least a third of their normal hours to qualify.

Trade unions had warned of mass job cuts as new restrictions were introduced this week in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus amid rising COVID-19 cases. The new measures include a 10 pm curfew for bars and restaurants and an order for office staff to work from home.

Scientists advising the British government have warned the country may only have two weeks to prevent the number of novel coronavirus cases soaring out of control.

The United Kingdom reported 6,634 new cases on Thursday, the highest daily total since May 1. Members of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, believe more restrictions will be needed to stop further spread.

According to a report in the Financial Times, advisers are recommending the closure of all bars and restaurants and a return to the two-meter social distancing rule.

More than 400,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus have been recorded so far in the UK, and more than 40,000 people have died.

Insufficient restrictions

The newspaper quoted Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, as saying the latest restrictions were not sufficient.

"We needed to use the summer months to drive down transmission, we knew that otherwise it wouldn't be safe to open schools. That wasn't done, and predictably we are where we are now. We've got two weeks in which to turn this around," she said."If we leave it much later, we'll lose control, it's absolutely urgent."

On Monday, the government's chief scientific adviser warned that the UK could see 50,000 new cases a day by the middle of next month without further action.

Patrick Vallance said this could lead to about "200-plus deaths per day" by mid-November. However, many news outlets, including BBC, noted that Spain and France, which have already seen new surges, have not suffered the sort of rapid trajectory that was presented by the advisers.

The UK government launched an app on Thursday to help control the spread of the virus and to help people "protect themselves and their loved ones as case numbers rise".

Department of Health and Social Care said that after positive trials and rigorous testing, "it is an important new tool to work alongside traditional contact tracing to help reduce the spread of the virus".

The app uses Apple and Google technology that will alert people if they have been close to someone infected with the novel coronavirus. A previous version of the app was scrapped after months of testing.

Britain is planning to host "human challenge" clinical trials where volunteers are deliberately infected with the coronavirus to test the effectiveness of experimental vaccines, the Financial Times reported. The government-funded project is expected to begin in January at a quarantine facility in London, the report said.

Agencies contributed to this story.