Boris says advice for parents with coronavirus has not changed

Boris Johnson has said advice to parents suffering from coronavirus remains unchanged.

He was challenged by Labour’s Yvette Cooper MP, who asked him: ‘Let me ask you about your instructions now to parents who either have Covid or have the symptoms of Covid, who won’t know how seriously they’re going to get it and who have no local childcare available.

‘Is the message to those parents now the one from Jenny Harries to stay at home unless there’s a risk to life, but if you do get ill contact the community hubs, or is it the message from the Transport Secretary and the Communities Secretary to be able to travel to wherever you have a support network – in the words of Robert Jenrick this morning, if you don’t have ready access to childcare then you can do as Dominic Cummings did.

‘Which is it?’

The prime minister replied: ‘I’m not certain, Yvette, that there’s as much of a discrepancy between those two bits of advice as you suggest. I think what Jenny was trying to say was that if you’ve got exceptional difficulties with childcare then you should take account of them.’

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It comes after the prime minister’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings made a trip from London to Durham when his wife became unwell, fearing they would need childcare from his parents.

He has faced calls to resign for breaking the lockdown rules telling people to ‘stay at home’ – but insists he did nothing wrong because there were exceptional circumstances.

Yvette Cooper MP said: ‘We’re not talking about exceptional difficulties with childcare, we’re talking about the very normal difficulties with childcare.

‘A survey from Mumsnet today found that a quarter of parents said that they didn’t have access to local childcare when they had Covid and were in exactly the same circumstances as Dominic Cummings – a third of them said they’d be more likely to break the rules now.

‘So if you are trying to tackle local outbreaks and prevent them spreading, you need to be giving clear advice to parents. And what is it? Because it is not clear to me from listening to Jenny Harries and Robert Jenrick what that advice to parents who are in Dominic Cummings’ situation.’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘The clear advice is to stay at home unless you absolutely have to go to work to do your job.

‘If you have exceptional problems with childcare then that may cause you to vary your arrangements, and that’s clear.

‘We’re also saying from tomorrow, and this is an important development, there is a new test and trace operation which will change people’s lives and which will require a great deal of thought and compliance which I think will be worth it for the whole nation.

‘The fundamental advice remains absolutely unchanged, which is wash your hands observe social distancing, self-isolate if you have symptoms and get a test.’

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