I was over the moon with the news that DCH is to receive a further £2 million to increase capacity and improve its emergency department. The money is to help DCH through the winter months. More restrictions imposed today as coronavirus cases rise. Almost two million people in north-east England will be banned from meeting other households. Matt Hancock announced that the temporary restrictions would be in place from midnight due to "concerning rates of infection". The rules affect Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Northumberland, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and the County Durham council area. "The data says that we must act now," Mr Hancock told the House of Commons. It came as people in Rhondda expressed frustration at becoming the second area in Wales to return to lock-down after Caerphilly. I am not sure for how much longer people are going to put up with all this. We must learn to live with this disease. The question to ask is, if we did lock the country down again, would that see the end of the virus? The answer is, no. Regarding testing, which is a vital component in the battle against the virus, the head of NHS Test and Trace, Baroness Harding, told MPs that testing is "significantly outstripping the capacity we have". She told the science and technology committee that the return to school meant test demand in England from under-17s had doubled. She also acknowledged that results were taking "slightly longer". But she said she was "very confident" of raising capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October. In better news, the government has said that people arriving from Singapore and Thailand in England and Scotland will not need to quarantine from Saturday morning. They have been added to the list of "travel corridor" countries. However, travellers coming from Slovenia and Guadeloupe would have to self-isolate for two weeks. Finally, Downing Street has dismissed comments by the US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who warned in a tweet that the Good Friday Agreement shouldn't be allowed to "become a casualty of Brexit". Mr Biden's intervention came after four senior US Congressmen expressed their grave concern about Boris Johnson's plans to override parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.