The prime minister says he is hoping for the best but planning for the worst. We look at key areas of concern
Boris Johnson’s approach to a winter wave of Covid-19 is to hope for the best but plan for the worst, he said on Friday. The worst-case scenario was spelled out earlier in the week by the Academy of Medical Sciences: as many as 120,000 hospital patients dead. Avoiding that will depend on the state of preparations in many areas.
Continue reading...Wakaliwood’s Isaac Nabwana swapped directing shootouts to parody music videos to support rural projects hit by Covid-19
The helicopter and the bling are made of cardboard and the dollar bills carefully drawn on paper by local children. But the people are very real and the music is totally authentic.
A new video from Ugandan film director Isaac Nabwana is a move away from his previous output – movies heavy on blood and gore and ultra-low on budgets – which is gaining him an international cult following. And he says the pandemic’s impact in pushing film online, with the trend towards all-digital film festivals, has helped.
Continue reading...Model and activist signs six-figure contract to publish Transitional, ‘a manifesto for how I see society changing for the better, bringing us all closer’
The first book by Munroe Bergdorf, a manifesto on gender by the black transgender activist and model, has been bought for a six-figure sum after a bidding war between 11 publishers.
Bergdorf’s Transitional will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Exploring six different facets of human experience – adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race – the book will draw on Bergdorf’s own experiences, including growing up in a mixed-race family, going to an all-boys school and starting her transition at the age of 24. In it, she will argue that transition is an experience every person faces in every phase in life, “and that only by recognising this can we understand times of change”.
Continue reading...Commons committee chair warns of ‘damage beyond repair’ over abolition of overseas aid department
A cross-party committee of MPs has said Boris Johnson’s “rushed and impulsive” merger of the Foreign Office and Department for International Development will “severely impact the UK’s superpower status”.
Attacking the prime minister’s decision as “coming out of the blue”, a report published on Thursday from the Commons international development committee (IDC) said it was likely it would be disruptive and “incredibly costly”.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer presses PM over scientists’ call for preparations for possible second wave
Boris Johnson has indicated he has not read a government-commissioned report setting out urgent measures needed to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus, telling the Commons only that he was “aware” of it.
Johnson was questioned at length by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions about the study by 37 senior doctors and scientists, published this week, and the need for an effective test-and-trace system to mitigate any new outbreak.
Continue reading...Exclusive: training session at Hillingdon hospital resulted in 70 staff being quarantined
Nurses not wearing face masks or staying two metres apart led to an outbreak of Covid-19 that shut an A&E unit after 70 staff at a hospital had to go into quarantine, an inquiry has found.
An investigation by Hillingdon hospital in north-west London has found that a nurse who had coronavirus unwittingly infected 16 others during a training session they all attended on 30 June, in what was described by a doctor as a “super-spreading event”.
Continue reading...Minimum salary thresholds to also remain in place, presenting additional barrier
Care home staff have been excluded from a post-Brexit fast-track visa system for health workers, in a move that critics say could prove “an unmitigated disaster” and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Confirming there would be no special treatment for carers coming from the EU or the rest of the world, the government said it hoped Britons would fill a shortfall of around 120,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens.
Continue reading...Low priority for reproductive health during lockdown leaves millions unable to access contraception or safe terminations
Sadhna Gupta* discovered she was pregnant just after India imposed a crippling lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The 21-year-old from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar didn’t want to be pregnant. With no public transport available, clinics closed and Bhubaneswar at a standstill, she bought an abortion pill without consulting a doctor. While what she did was not unusual, Indian law requires a prescription for the pills from a licensed medical professional.
Continue reading...Campaign group One, founded by U2 frontman, is calling for a reorganisation of aid spending
A development campaign group founded by Bono has accused the UK government of wasting a large chunk of its international aid budget and called for spending on overseas assistance to be cut by £1.6bn.
In a report that echoes criticisms by some Conservative MPs, the U2 singer’s One campaign said there was too much spending on projects that failed to reduce poverty.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UCL findings shared with the Guardian underline mental health toll of pandemic
A fifth of vulnerable people in Britain thought about self-harming or killing themselves during lockdown, according to research shared with the Guardian, as a series of inquests underline the mental health toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Findings from University College London reveal that 8,000 out of 44,000 people surveyed (18%) reported thoughts of self-harm or suicide, and 42% had accessed support services. A further 5% said they had harmed themselves at least once since the start of the UK’s lockdown.
Continue reading...Job losses, homelessness, school closures and acute hunger set to rise dramatically without urgent support, Christian Aid warns
The pandemic has exposed and reinforced deep inequalities across the world, with the true extent yet to be seen, according to a major new report.
The crisis in the poorest countries threatens to escalate into a catastrophe as job losses and food insecurity mount. “The economic, social and political impacts are only starting to unfold,” says Building Back with Justice: Dismantling Inequalities after Covid-19, to be published by Christian Aid later this month.
Continue reading...The World Bank’s flawed and misunderstood poverty benchmark has led to a deceptively positive picture and dangerous complacency
Poverty is suddenly all over the front page. As coronavirus ravages the globe, its wholly disproportionate impact on poor people and marginalised communities is inescapable. Hundreds of millions of people are being pushed into poverty and unemployment, with woeful support in most places, alongside a huge expansion in hunger, homelessness, and dangerous work.
How could the poverty narrative have turned on a dime? Until just a few months ago, many were celebrating the imminent end of poverty; now it’s everywhere. The explanation is simple. Over the past decade, world leaders, philanthropists and pundits have embraced a deceptively optimistic narrative about the world’s progress against poverty. It has been lauded as one of the “greatest human achievements”, a feat seen “never before in human history” and an “unprecedented” accomplishment. But the success story was always highly misleading.
Continue reading...Exclusive: health secretary said to be frustrated by his lack of authority over NHS England boss Simon Stevens
Boris Johnson is planning a radical and politically risky reorganisation of the NHS amid government frustration at the health service’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, the Guardian has learned.
The prime minister has set up a taskforce to devise plans for how ministers can regain much of the direct control over the NHS they lost in 2012 under a controversial shake-up masterminded by Andrew Lansley, the then coalition government health secretary.
Continue reading...Open letter by former judges, leading politicians and campaigners urges home secretary to grant asylum to Sudanese girl
Barristers, former judges, politicians and campaigners are among 300 people who have signed an open letter to the home secretary, Priti Patel, urging her to grant asylum to an 11-year-old girl at high risk of female genital mutilation if taken abroad.
Helena Kennedy QC, former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal, campaigner Leyla Hussein and more than 30 MPs have added their names to the letter published by the the Good Law Project alongside a petition launched today.
Continue reading...Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work
The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.
The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.
Continue reading...Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic
Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.
According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.
Continue reading...Sturgeon confirms country is ready for phase 3 of easing plan, with rule changes from Friday
Scots will be able to meet each other indoors and stay overnight from Friday for the first time in more than three months, as Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that the country was ready to enter phase 3 of her government’s route map to reopening.
Announcing a raft of new guidance in a statement to Holyrood on Thursday, she added that non-cohabiting couples would be allowed to meet outdoors, indoors and overnight without physical distancing, while children under 12 would no longer have to physically distance outdoors or indoors.
Continue reading...Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals
Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.
The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.
Continue reading...How often should you wash a cloth mask? And how effective are the disposable ones? The expert guide to choosing, wearing and caring for your face covering
The British have been slow to embrace face masks, despite calls from public health experts. Uptake has been just 25% in the UK, compared with 83.4% in Italy and 65.8% in the US. The president of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan, said this week that wearing one “is the right thing to do” and that a refusal to do so should be seen as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or not wearing a seatbelt.
Perhaps one of the problems has been the changing advice as new evidence emerges. The World Health Organization (WHO) now recommends people wear cloth masks. Ramakrishnan said that in the UK, “the message has not been clear enough, so perhaps people do not really understand the benefits or are not convinced”. It also doesn’t help that the guidance across the UK is different.
Continue reading...Announcement follows Guardian reports that cleaners felt pressure to work though they had symptoms of coronavirus
The Ministry of Justice has announced that cleaners in its central London offices will now receive full pay if they are self-isolating or off sick. The arrangement, which will be administered through cleaning agency OCS, also provides back pay for cleaners who were sick or self-isolating after 1 April.
The announcement follows Guardian reports in June that the MoJ failed to investigate a potential Covid-19 cluster among its cleaners. The cleaners’ union, United Voices of the World (UWV), warned in April that workers felt forced to continue working despite feeling unwell because they could not afford to losewould have lost money.
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