Sunday newspaper round-up: Lockdown, Vaccines, Social distancing

(Sharecast News) - Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans for easing the lockdown as early as this week after he returned to Downing Street on Sunday night to take full-time control of the coronavirus crisis. The Prime Minister will on Monday morning chair his first meeting of the Covid-19 "war cabinet" since he was taken to hospital more than three weeks ago, and is ready to resume his role hosting televised Number 10 press conferences. - Sunday Telegraph
A coronavirus vaccine is unlikely to be ready until "well into the next year", the former deputy chief medical officer for England warned this morning. Professor Gina Radford urged people to be "realistic" about the possibility of a vaccine. She told Sky News' Sophie Ridge on Sunday show: "Firstly we haven't at the moment got a vaccine so we are having to start from scratch [...]". - Sunday Times

Lifting lockdown for all except the elderly would see more than than 100,000 die, the scientist behind the government's modelling has warned. Professor Neil Ferguson spoke out amid growing calls for an easing of social distancing restrictions in order to limit the damage to the economy. The Imperial College scientist said that sending the young and healthy back to work while keeping the vulnerable "shielded" in lockdown would still mean a significant increase in deaths. Prof Ferguson's earlier modelling - which warned of 500,000 deaths unless draconian restrictions were placed on Britain - prompted the Prime Minister to put Britain into lockdown. - Sunday Telegraph

The public's confidence in the government's ability to handle the coronavirus crisis has fallen sharply in the past fortnight, with less than half of voters now having faith in decisions made by ministers, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. A particularly low proportion of people (15%) believe the government is handling the key issue of testing well (down from 22% two weeks ago). Some 57% disapprove of the way testing has been handled, up from 48% on 7 April. - Guardian

Detailed Brexit trade negotiations planned for this week were cancelled on Monday, with Government sources indicating that the UK is preparing the ground to seek a mutually agreed extension to the talks in the coming weeks. As the coronavirus crisis deepened, senior Whitehall sources also confirmed that civil servants who had been working on Brexit "no deal" preparations were being actively redeployed into virus crisis management. - Sunday Telegraph

Bank of England officials have launched an investigation into how long banks can survive the lockdown, as Britain's biggest lenders set aside an estimated ?3.4billion to cover defaults on loans. The results of the tests are expected to inform the Government's strategy on how quickly to reboot the economy. The Bank of England has already said that it will report on the health of the financial system in early May after updating its 'stress tests' to factor in a pandemic. - Mail on Sunday

Lloyds Banking Group has been forced to redeploy hundreds of staff from branches to deal with emergency loan applications and customer support lines. Some workers have been told that part of their job is now to send "decline emails" to small businesses applying for the government's Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), according to a bank executive. Others have been moved from branches to help make lending decisions. Lloyds said that some staff had been made responsible for sending rejection letters so customers could "get a swift decision and quickly consider other options". - Sunday Times

Playtech has postponed the hunt for a permanent replacement for chairman Alan Jackson a year after kicking off the search. The FTSE 250 gambling software provider is instead poised to announce that non-executive director Claire Milne has agreed to step into the role on an interim basis. Playtech had appointed headhunters from Sam Allen to find a replacement for Jackson, who is due to step down on May 20, and said in February that the succession process was "nearing completion". However, sources close to the company said the search, which had been whittled down to two candidates, had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. - Sunday Times