thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--The UK Was Never Four Weeks Behind Italy. How Did 'Following The Science’ Go So Wrong?

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“On the curve, we are maybe four weeks or so behind [Italy] in terms of the scale of the outbreak.” This is what Patrick Vallance told the nation at the daily press briefing on March 12. At that point, the UK had a total of 596 reported cases and just 10 deaths, whereas Italy had over 15,000 cases and upwards of 1,000 deaths. There were just two new deaths reported on March 12 in the UK. Even if that daily figure increased to 30 deaths per day for the next four weeks we still wouldn’t have reached Italy’s death toll. With such a huge disparity in the numbers and a low number of daily deaths many people just swallowed this four-week figure without too much thought.
Unfortunately, this is not how either cases or deaths increase at the start of an epidemic. Instead of growing linearly – by the same amount each day – both cases and deaths increase exponentially – in proportion to their current size. The more infected people there are, the more people they will infect and the faster the cases will rise. There is a common misconception that exponential growth means fast growth. It doesn’t. At the early stages of an epidemic exponential growth can be misleadingly slow. When case numbers are low, so is their growth. But things can get out of hand incredibly quickly. This is especially dangerous if, for example, you think you are further behind the curve than you are.
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Patients in the Circolo hospital, in Varese, Italy Flavio Lo Scalzo / Reuters
Vallance’s four-week figure is reflected in the Sage minutes from the March 10: “The UK is considered to be 4-5 weeks behind Italy but on a similar curve.” In reality, the UK reached the figure of 1,000 deaths just 16 days later on March 28. The potential policy ramifications of thinking we had more time than we did and that the epidemic was slower growing than it was are huge. This false sense of security might have contributed to the UK’s disastrous, and quickly rescinded, ‘herd immunity’ policy and to the delay in taking measures to supress the epidemic, which resulted in the avoidable loss of tens of thousands of lives. So why the government’s chief scientific adviser get it so wrong?
Perhaps the most crucial figure in understanding how fast an epidemic is growing is the doubling time – the time for cases, hospitalisations or deaths to increase by a factor of two. The consistent doubling of these statistics in a fixed period of time is the hallmark of exponential growth in the early stages of an epidemic. On March 16, Boris Johnson told the press that “… without drastic action, cases could double every five or six days”. This figure is reflected in the SAGE minutes from March 18 where a doubling time of “5-7 days” is quoted. This figure likely comes directly from SAGE’s modelling subgroup – SPI-M.
This doubling time explains where the 4-5 weeks figure comes from. With a doubling rate of six days (in the middle of the SPI-M estimate) the time to get from the UK’s 10 daily deaths reported March 14 to Italy’s 285 daily deaths (reported the same day) would have been 29 days – just over four weeks. But this 5-7 day doubling time was wrong. Drastically wrong.
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A more realistic doubling time has been calculated to be around three days. Although SPI-M’s estimate of the doubling time is only out by a factor of two, which doesn’t sound too bad, the undeniably dramatic exponential spread of the disease means that this error is compounded – itself doubling every few days. The three-day doubling time predicts that the UK would have reached Italy’s March 14 total of 285 daily deaths around two weeks later. This estimate was borne out in reality, with the UK hitting 260 daily deaths on March 28 – after just 14 days. Of course, it is easy to make these assertions in hindsight. The crucial question is whether a three-day doubling period could and should have been estimated at the time.
Calibrated modelling using the SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Removed) model suggests that using only data available at the time, by March 14, it should have been clear that the doubling time was much shorter than five days. A ball-park estimate can be derived without even resorting to sophisticated mathematical modelling. Here’s a simple argument, which just considers case numbers available in the public domain at the time. On March 14, the UK reported 342 new cases. On March 8, six days earlier, there were 64 new cases. Cases increased by more than a factor of five, which implies at least two doubling periods squeezed into this six-day window. This suggests a doubling time of less than three days. Although estimates of this informal nature will vary depending on the day-to-day figures, even the publicly available data at the time suggested we were much nearer two weeks behind than four.
The miscalculation leading to the four-week claim can be laid squarely at the door of the mathematical modelling sub-group of Sage. So why weren’t SPI-M’s world-leading modellers better able to calibrate their models to the early UK data. It turns out that some of groups who contribute to SPI-M did calculate significantly shorter and more realistic doubling times at an earlier stage in the UK’s epidemic, but that their estimates never found consensus within the group. Members of SPI-M have communicated their concerns to me, that some modelling groups had more influence over the consensus than others.
On March 16, Neil Fergusson’s Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team published their infamous report, which used effective estimates of the doubling time of over five days – way, way too slow. This figure seems to have dominated proceedings in SPI-M. It was a long time before more accurate doubling time figures eventually made their way up through SAGE and on to policy-makers.
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SPI-M appear to have learned lessons from this error and now have better methods of model-averaging, which they are using to come up with consensus views on estimates of R - the reproduction number of the disease. Having an accurate consensus on R will be crucial in the weeks to come as we seek to understand the impact of easing the lockdown restrictions and attempt to avoid the mistakes of March that allowed the epidemic in the UK to get so drastically out of hand.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--A Covid Inquiry Won't Save Black Lives – Not With Kemi Badenoch At The Helm

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I think Matt Hancock meant it when he said: “Black lives matter” in parliament last week. I think he meant it, but I am not sure he understood what it means.
Evidence of this was shown when he named two Asian ministers after being asked by Sky’s Sophy Ridge about the number of Black cabinet members. Needless to say, this is not an answer that builds confidence in Black communities.
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To make matters worse, junior equalities minister Kemi Badenoch swiftly rubbished the suggestion that systemic discrimination is a factor in the racial disparities in outcomes of Covid-19. Speaking in the House of Commons last week, Badenoch chose not to engage principled criticism from opposition MPs meaningfully. While protesters across the UK demanded racial justice, the equalities minister spent her time penning a defensive attack on the BBC.
As long as government ministers remain in denial about racial injustice, choosing partisan politicking rather than moral and practical leadership, more ethnic minorities’ lives may be lost.
Kemi Badenoch addresses MPs in the House of Commons Screenshot
As much as I respect calls for a more independent inquiry into racial disparities in Covid-19 outcomes, we have to be careful what we wish for. The past decade has seen a throng of inquiries that touched on racism and yielded little substantive change. The report by David Lammy MP on BAME outcomes in the criminal justice system, the watered-down Windrush report and the missing inquiry into Tory islamophobia have set a troubling precedent of inertia and inaction.
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The pattern of these flopped government reports is nigh on identical. The prime minister of the day is pressured by the Opposition to begin an inquiry. Scandal abounds as they struggle to appoint a diverse panel to head the inquiry. The report is then delayed or suppressed. Eventually, in the middle of the night, in the background of a significant political event or in any way to avoid the report- making headlines, the report is released. Once we can read it, we find its recommendations are whitewashed. What is then left to action by the Government is summarily ignored in favour of other political priorities. Though rest assured, they will defensively bring up any inquiry, whose recommendations they did not enact, to deflect from any criticism of failing minority groups.
This is the same pattern that has already befallen the Public health England report before its full release. The criticism of the report was almost universal from trade Unions, opposition MPs, equality organisations and former Tory ministers. As ex-minister Caroline Noakes put it: “Where are the recommendations?”. If even former cabinet ministers can point out the obvious, why can’t those in the current administration?
Did anyone think what it must be like for Black and Asian people who woke up on Wednesday morning and heard yet again that they were at higher risk? These are not dry statistics; ethnic minority key workers were going out to work more fearful, while ministers denied evidence of structural injustice. How can it be that the government had spent a month cobbling together data with no solutions for why people like me, my parents and elders are dying at disproportionate rates.
Equalities minister Ms Badenoch MP said on race: : “I think this government has a record to be proud of.” However, according to the BMA, 40% of ethnic minority doctors have not been risk assessed, and while more than half of BAME nurses have inadequate PPE.” I am unsure what exactly the minister is proud of.
The government’s inability to even consider that the reasons behind these Covid-19 disparities have roots in how racism pervades our society illogical. What is the final report going to be about if not about how the lives of POC make them more vulnerable to this disease? Nurse union chief Prof. Dame Donna Kinnair is right when it comes to health: “Structural racism is inherent.” The allegation that the government stripped out the words of thousands of people of colour and organisations about their experiences of institutional racism is perhaps telling. Badenoch said: “This is one of the best countries in the world to be a Black person.” This shows the shallowness of the undertaking we are likely to have: a minister engaging in racial “Top Trumps” to patronise Black people, rather than face up to the challenges of inequality.
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“I hope the intellectual ambivalence and political stymieing that we have seen in previous government inquiries is not repeated when assessing the reasons behind these deaths.”
It is no surprise that Badenoch at the outset has decided that racial injustice is not to blame before looking at the evidence. Talking about historic police brutality, she says: “People pick on one bad experience, blow it up and say: ‘This is institutional racism’”. This is profoundly uncomfortable reading from a minister who has barely expressed any solidarity to African Americans killed by US police departments, and Britons fighting racism here at home.
Anyone who has taken a public health course knows that racism can even affect the tiniest of microbes. Its transmission is enabled by gutless or bigoted politicians distracted from understanding the social determinants of health: housing, employment, poverty. I hope the intellectual ambivalence and political stymieing that we have seen in previous government inquiries is not repeated when assessing Covid-19 disparities. Saying ”Black lives matter” and doing it are two different things.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Ruth Langsford Says She Almost Quit TV Career After Sister Julia's Death

Ruth Langsford has said she almost quit her TV career following the death of her sister.
Ruth Langsford Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
Ruth has now told of how she felt it would be “disrespectful” to her sister to appear “cheery on screen” again.
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Speaking to Best magazine, she said: “Following my sister Julia’s death last June, I didn’t feel I could ever go back to work again. It seemed wrong to be cheery on screen, when, inside, my heart was breaking.
“I just thought being ‘happy’ would be a lie - and disrespectful to my only sibling.
“I had no motivation or desire to be in the public eye.“
Ruth revealed that her husband and co-presenter Eamonn Holmes begged her not to give up on her career, giving her – what she called – one of his “talks” a month after Julia’s death.
Ruth with husband Eamonn Holmes Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
She said: “Eamonn pointed out that he was, in effect, losing not one, but two of the most precious people in his life - Julia and me.
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“He showed me how I had so much to live for in Julia’s memory - and beyond.
“Julia had a terrible illness - depression. He pleaded with me not to let it win, by ruining everything I had achieved - and still had to celebrate.”
Ruth announced news of her sister’s death last June, writing on Twitter at the time: “My lovely Sis Julia has sadly died after a very long illness. My heart is completely broken. She was the kindest and most gentle soul and I will miss her forever.
My lovely Sis Julia has sadly died after a very long illness. My heart is completely broken. She was the kindest and most gentle soul and I will miss her forever. As I am sure you will appreciate I need to take time to grieve with my family. Thank you for your understanding. pic.twitter.com/o6jMtIqMg4 — Ruth Langsford (@RuthieeL) June 20, 2019
“As I am sure you will appreciate I need to take time to grieve with my family. Thank you for your understanding.”
She later took some time away from her TV commitments, as Eamonn continued to front This Morning on Fridays with guest presenters including Rylan Clark-Neal.
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Ruth and Eamonn are currently appearing on Celebrity Gogglebox together, although their time on the show got off to a bumpy start last week when Eamonn blasted bosses for an “idiotic and cruel” edit.
The presenter was unhappy that a story about his father’s death was left out of the show and a light-hearted anecdote used in its place, following scenes showing the couple watching the BBC’s Ambulance programme.
Gogglebox later issued a public apology to Eamonn and re-edited the show for its catch-up service and future broadcasts.
Useful websites and helplines
Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI - this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
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The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Top US Doctor Warns 'Worst Nightmare' Coronavirus Pandemic Is Far From Over

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Describing Covid-19 as his “worst nightmare” come to life, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on Tuesday that a lot is still unknown about the coronavirus and warned the ongoing pandemic is far from over.
“Oh my goodness. Where is it going to end? We’re still at the beginning of really understanding,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the pandemic during a virtual conference held by BIO, the Biotechnology Innovation Organisation, The New York Times reported.
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In a span of just four months, the virus “has devastated the whole world,” he said. “And it isn’t over yet.”
Though Fauci said he’d known a major viral outbreak of this kind could happen, he said he was surprised by “how rapidly” the coronavirus “just took over the planet” ― fuelled by the virus’s transmissibility and global travel by people infected with the disease.
“It’s a testimony to not only the extraordinary capability of transmission but of the extraordinary travel capability we have,” he said, per CNBC.
More than 7.2 million people in 188 countries and territories have contracted Covid-19 to date, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. More than 400,000 people have died. The virus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, late last year.
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Medical experts including Fauci have said the pandemic will likely only be stymied once effective vaccines are developed and widely distributed.
Fauci said he was hopeful “multiple” successful vaccines would be created and praised the pharmaceutical industry for stepping “up to the plate” and reacting rapidly to the crisis.
Multiple Covid-19 vaccines are already being tested on people and at least one, developed by biotech company Moderna with the support of the National Institutes of Health, is expected to be tested on about 30,000 participants when it launches its next phase of testing in July.
The pharmaceutical industry “has been stellar in this and that they’ve done it so rapidly, in fact, even outpaced the public health response, in some respect,” Fauci said of the vaccine development race.
Fauci said in May that he thought it was “in the realm of possibility” that a Covid-19 vaccine could be ready by January 2021.
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In contrast, the mumps vaccine, which is considered the fastest vaccine ever to be approved, took four years to develop.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--545 Jobs Lost As Monsoon And Accessorize Go Into Administration

A branch of Accessorize Monsoon on Oxford Street SIPA USA/PA Images
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More than 500 jobs are set to be lost after Monsoon Accessorize entered administration, as the hit from coronavirus threw its turnaround plan off course.
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The business expects to make 545 staff redundant as it closes 35 stores, despite Monsoon’s founder Peter Simon buying the business out of administration almost immediately.
However, the deal will transfer around 450 jobs to Adena Brands, owned by Simon, which has promised to inject £15m into the business to allow the remaining stores to stay open.
Simon will try to renegotiate with landlords to get a better deal on the remaining 162 store leases.
He will hope to save as many as 100 stores and 2,300 jobs.
Formerly a majority owner of the business, Simon agreed with administrators he would buy the business almost as soon as it slid into the process on Monday.
He said: “Ever since I opened the first Monsoon store in Beauchamp Place in 1973, this business has been my passion and my life, and I did not want to see it fall victim to this unprecedented crisis.”
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The firm had insisted a turnaround plan was going well after it negotiated a company voluntary arrangement with landlords.
However, while the business was trying to heal, all of its stores were forced to close as Covid-19 hit the country.
“Both Monsoon and Accessorize were trading well before the coronavirus pandemic but the business simply could not withstand the financial impact of having to close all its UK, franchise and joint venture stores for almost three months,” Simon said.
“This deal secures the future of both Monsoon and Accessorize and means we can continue to serve our customers online without a pause. In addition, we will now try to save as many of our stores as possible, depending on the outcome of various discussions with landlords. I would like to thank landlords for the helpfulness and enormous forbearance they have shown so far, which has enabled us to get to this point.”
Tony Wright, joint administrator and partner at FRP, said: “We had to move quickly and decisively to secure the future of Monsoon and Accessorize, as many jobs as possible and the presence of these two iconic brands on the UK high street.
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“After assessing a range of options this deal achieves those goals with least disruption to the business in an already challenging retail environment.
“We are now committed to working with Adena Brands as they enter talks with landlords to agree future terms across their store portfolio and look to transfer more jobs to the buyer.
“We’ll also be working with the Redundancy Payments Service to support all affected employees through this difficult time.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Controversial US Reality TV Show 'Cops' Cancelled After Death Of George Floyd

Last week, the network said it was temporarily pulling ‘Cops’ from its lineup, delaying this week’s start of the show’s 33rd season ‘out of respect for the families of George Floyd and others who have lost their lives,’ a spokesperson said.
On Tuesday Paramount Network made the move permanent, saying: ”‘Cops’ is not on the Paramount Network and we don’t have any current or future plans for it to return.”
Running From the Cops also found the show’s producers let police departments have the final say in what was aired on the show, effectively allowing them to control how they were portrayed.
In other cases, police used aggressive tactics condemned by the Justice Department, but argued they were protected under the premise of a show that shines a positive light on cops.
Additional reporting by Lydia O’Connor


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--The 'Me Too'-Style Reckoning For Racism Has Begun

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/HuffPost; Photos: HuffPost, CNN, Instagram
As anger over racism builds in the US, a familiar pattern is unfolding: the culling of the bad apples.
Black people and other people of colour are calling out not just police brutality, but also racism, discrimination, harassment and racial bias in the workplace. They’re sharing stories publicly about bosses and colleagues who have mistreated them and others. They’re pointing out that the companies that now publicly state that Black lives matter don’t bother to actually follow through by treating employees of colour fairly and equally.
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It’s hard not to see parallels to how the Me Too moment took off in 2017 when women (and some men) shared stories of sexism, discrimination, harassment and assault.
Back then, powerful people were fired. And they’re starting to drop now too.
That’s particularly true in the media and entertainment businesses. In just the past week: The global editor-in-chief of Refinery29, a style website, stepped down after criticism of how the site treats its employees of colour. That same day, the longtime editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit, Adam Rapoport, stepped down after staffers condemned the magazine’s treatment of people of colour. (A photo of Rapoport in brownface also surfaced, sealing his fate.)
The editor heading up The New York Times’ editorial page, James Bennet, was ousted in the wake of staffers’ outcry over an incendiary column about the anti-racism protests. There was a shake-up at the Philadelphia Inquirer after staff complained about a headline that established an equivalence between the lives of Black human beings and buildings. Meanwhile, last Thursday, Variety editor-in-chief Claudia Eller started a leave of absence after lashing out at a former employee on Twitter who was criticising her treatment of people of colour.
Supporting my colleagues, and particularly the black ones. if electeds want to make provocative arguments let them withstand the questions and context of a news story, not unvarnished and unchecked https://t.co/MwiD8BenzO — Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) June 4, 2020
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That’s not even a full list. An actor on the TV show “The Flash” was fired after his racist and sexist tweets resurfaced. Four cast members from the series “Vanderpump Rules” were kicked off the show over racist actions and tweets. A player on the LA Galaxy was released from the football team after backlash to disturbing and racist posts by his wife about protests. The founder of lifestyle retailer Ban.Do, Jen Gotch, announced she would take a leave of absence after a former employee shared a detailed post describing both covert and overt racism at the company. The CEO of clothing company Reformation is also under fire after former employees spoke up about racism.
A reckoning could be at hand. Companies have long paid lip service to Black people and diversity, with little to show for it, even when their employees urge them to improve. Executive suites are blindingly white. But some observers note this time around could be different. As brands try their usual mix of social media sloganeering, their current and former employees are pushing them further and holding them to account.
“Black folks are having a moment where they say, I have my stories, too,” said Evelyn Carter, director at Paradigm, a consulting company that works with businesses on their diversity and inclusion strategies. “Those who have experienced racism, whether subtle, overt, individual or structural, for a long time, are finally being listened to.”
Carter said the combination of stories surfacing on social media and companies and celebrities taking swift action “feels Me Too-like.”
“In the same way we heard from women who said, ‘I’ve been sitting on this story for 15 years. Let me tell you now,’” she added.
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She attributes the shift to the power of the worldwide protests around George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis last month, as well as outrage over the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man shot to death when he was out for a jog in Georgia, and the momentum around the Black Lives Matter movement that’s been building for years.
“I am devastated that members of my community, as a Black person, literally had to die in order for people to listen,” said Carter, “but I’m going to take every opportunity I have to use this moment to make sure that people do not forget.”
The Racism Is In The Numbers
Racism is baked into corporate America, just as it is baked into the criminal justice system. That’s clear from the numbers: There are only four Black CEOs on the Fortune 500. Just 3.3% of executive-level roles are held by Black professionals in the US, according to federal data. Only about 1% of the entrepreneurs who get venture capital funding are Black. (VC-backed companies often go on to become billion-dollar behemoths, typically with diversity issues, like Google, Facebook and Uber.)
“Corporate America has failed black America,” Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a member of the board of Pepsi, and a Black man, told The New York Times this past weekend. “Even after a generation of Ivy League educations and extraordinary talented African-Americans going into corporate America, we seem to have hit a wall.”
Carter said that after the protests in 2014 over the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, she started noticing that more people in the corporate sector were paying attention to diversity issues. More consulting firms started popping up.
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“The Ferguson uprising led to a lot of conversations and people putting out diversity statistics and people saying we need to do something,” she said.
There was another shift in the way companies paid attention to Black workers in 2016, said Stefanie K Johnson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s business school, who works with businesses on diversity and inclusion efforts.
That summer, Philando Castile was shot and killed by a police officer in a suburb of St Paul, Minnesota, an incident broadcast live on Facebook. Soon after Alton Sterling was also shot to death by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There was nationwide outrage, and some companies had conversations about race.
But the voices of Black employees weren’t really the ones being heard, Johnson pointed out. Instead, it was CEOs. They formed groups, issued press releases. Nothing much else happened.
“If you’ve sucked for the last 100 years and you still suck and you’re issuing a statement and planning to do nothing about it, people can see through it.” - Stefanie K. Johnson, University of Colorado at Boulder
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This time around, companies tried the same schtick. They’ve been out in full force over the past week or so, tweeting about Black Lives Matter or participating in Black Out Tuesday on Instagram. Or making relatively small donations to causes but failing to address the lack of diversity in their executive offices ― or, in the case of some of the nation’s banks, their history of racist lending practices. Many are putting a renewed effort into diversity. Carter said she’s seen a huge uptick in calls from businesses seeking help. Some of this could be earnest or could just be image maintenance.
“They call it woke-washing,” said Johnson, of the practice where companies try to appear socially aware while not making any real changes to their businesses. “If you’ve sucked for the last 100 years and you still suck and you’re issuing a statement and planning to do nothing about it, people can see through it.”
The difference now is, employees are taking to social media to hold companies to account. Many of the bosses who resigned this week did so because their employees spoke out publicly about their treatment. As workers feel more emboldened to speak, more companies are likely to be called out if their actions don’t match their stated mission.
Is your employer tweeting about Black Lives Matter while doing little to actually change how workers of color are treated? We would like to speak with you for a story. Email: emily.peck@huffpost.com
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“Black employees are saying, ‘Thank you for saying that statement, but now I’m going to make sure you live up to the words you said,’” Carter said. “There’s this massive accountability that’s happening that I do think reminds me of Me Too.”
It was similar during the Me Too movement. Women in business had long pushed for change, and corporations talked a lot about how they valued women. But the numbers hardly moved. And sexual harassment was covered up ― papered over with nondisclosure agreements or intimidation. It took the work of dedicated, mostly female journalists and some brave women on Twitter to move the needle, and there’s still a lot left to be done.
That’s also true of racism. Even in the wake of the protests, not every company is willing to do the absolute minimum. One financial institution Johnson worked with in recent years refused to even say internally to its employees that Black lives matter, she said. “Our investors might have different political beliefs,” she said she was told.
This was before the current protests, but Johnson said this company ― which has Black employees ― hadn’t tweeted or made any recent statements about racism.
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Plenty of companies are putting out statements while at the same time continuing to back policies that actively hurt workers of colour ― such as forcing race discrimination cases into secretive arbitration or battling those cases in court. Firing workers or retaliating against them for speaking up about discrimination is not uncommon.
Companies also continue to fight against paid sick and family leave ― policies that would help workers of colour in particular ― and continue to stamp out efforts around unionization and more.
What Should Happen Now
Carter said there are many other things businesses can do to reform themselves internally ― like looking at hiring practices and seeing where biases crop up: Are the networks where you’re hiring overwhelmingly white?
Companies can audit their performance review systems and see if people of colour or women are consistently underrated. Reviews are notoriously biased. Who is getting promoted? Who is leaving? Often a business will do well at the entry-level with diversity ― but workers of colour will leave at a higher rate. Why?
Companies can also, at a minimum, keep track of their diversity numbers and set goals for hiring and promotion. There are numerous other tactics.
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Still, over the coming weeks, if the cullings continue, you can expect to see some backlash. As with the Me Too movement, there could be hand-wringing over the ruined careers of the few men and women to lose their jobs.
That’s just part of progress.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--'He's Gonna Change The World': George Floyd's Family Remembers The Man They Lost

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The world knows the 46-year-old Black man who was killed last month by a Minneapolis police officer as George Floyd. His family and friends, however, knew him as a gentle giant, referred to in closer circles as Perry Jr. or Big Floyd. He loved sports and, according to the funeral program, “was known for giving the best bear hugs.” He was a father of five, grandfather of two and brother of six.
“He was a pesky little rascal. But we all loved him,” Floyd’s aunt Kathleen McGee said with a low chuckle Tuesday during the funeral service.
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Nearly a dozen lawmakers, artists and activists spoke at Floyd’s service at the Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, where Floyd grew up. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the Reverend Al Sharpton and R&B singer Ne-Yo were among the high-profile mourners who were there to support the Floyd family. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who met privately with the Floyd family on Monday, spoke via a pre-recorded video played during the service.
They spoke about the injustice of his death on May 25, after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. They talked about what needs to be done to address police brutality and racism against Black people, a fight Floyd became a symbol for when his death launched worldwide protests. But Floyd wasn’t just a symbol. He was a man. And at the funeral, his aunt, siblings and niece gave a glimpse into who Big Floyd was before his death reignited a movement.
“I thank God for giving me my own personal Superman,” George’s sister LaTonya Floyd said through tears during the service.
Floyd’s niece Brooke Williams spoke about how close he was with his mother, who died a few years ago. Floyd could be heard calling out “Mama!” in the video of the officer fatally restraining him. He was buried next to his mother at a cemetery in Pearland, Texas.
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“I believe my grandmother was right there with open arms saying, ‘Come home, baby. You shouldn’t feel this pain,’” Brooke Williams said.
Brothers Rodney, left, and Philonise Floyd listen to the Rev. Al Sharpton as he gives the eulogy during the funeral service Tuesday for George Floyd in Houston. GODOFREDO A. VASQUEZ via Getty Images
Floyd, who was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, grew up in the 3rd Ward in Houston in a public housing complex called the Cuney Homes. By the time he was in middle school, he was over 6 feet tall, later earning his nickname Big Floyd, The New York Times reported. He loved sports, playing football and basketball at Jack Yates High School in Houston, playing basketball at South Florida Community College for two years, then at Texas A&M University – Kingsville. Although he didn’t finish his degree, he was the first of his siblings to attend college.
For the next 10 years or so, Floyd was arrested multiple times, largely for drug-related offences, and served four years in prison on a robbery charge. He had moved to Minneapolis just a few years ago to start over.
He worked two jobs, one as a bouncer at a restaurant and another as a truck driver, both of which he recently lost due to the coronavirus outbreak.
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Less than two months before Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck ― killing him over an alleged counterfeit bill ― Floyd had survived coronavirus.
Floyd leaves behind five children. Gianna Floyd, 6, recently sat on the shoulders of former NBA player Stephen Jackson (a close friend of Floyd’s) and declared: “Daddy changed the world!”
“My little brother was a friend, he was a mentor, he was a father, he was a basketball player, he was a football player, but most of all he was a human being,” Terrence Floyd, George’s brother, said.
Pallbearers carry George Floyd's casket out after services Tuesday at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston. Getty Images
It’s important to tell the full story of a person’s humanity, especially when mourning a death as public as Floyd’s, said Arisha Hatch, vice president and chief of campaigns at Color of Change.
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“Seeing Black people as fully human is at the core of all of the fights that we’re in,” she told HuffPost. “It’s our duty, our obligation to fully realize that for Gigi. And I think we have tons of work to do to get there,” she added.
After declaring June 9 to be George Floyd Day in Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) added: “We honour him not because he was perfect but... because when he took his last breath, the rest of us will now be able to breathe.”
As they celebrated Floyd’s life, his family also called for justice. Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, faces charges of second-degree murder without intent, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other three officers on the scene are charged with aiding and abetting Floyd’s death. Chauvin’s bail was set at $1.25 million on Monday.
Floyd’s family said they were confident he wouldn’t be forgotten.
“Everybody knows who Big Floyd is now. Third Ward. Cuney homes. That’s where we was born, but we’re gonna be remembered,” Philonise Floyd, George’s brother, said during the service. “Everybody gonna remember him around the world. He’s gonna change the world.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Fox News Host Makes Bizarre Comparison Between How Police Treated Trump And George Floyd

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A Fox News host compared Donald Trump’s treatment by “crooked cops” to that of George Floyd during a bizarre segment in which he repeatedly said he wasn’t saying exactly what he was very clearly saying.
Sean Hannity, an avid supporter of the president who has appeared alongside him on stage during campaign events, delivered the monologue during his show on Tuesday evening.
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Dredging up an unsupported “deep state” conspiracy theory that members of the FBI conspired to stop Trump being elected, he said: “We exposed how corrupt high-ranking law enforcement officials tried to rig an election and destroy Donald Trump at all costs.
“Overturn an election. Even the President himself, it is not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd, but it is horrific.”
After comparing Trump’s treatment to that of Floyd, who was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes last month, Hannity again insisted he wasn’t making comparisons.
He said: “He was a victim of crooked cops. Now, again, not the same circumstances, I’m not making any comparison.”
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He then once again made the comparison, adding: “A bad cop is a bad cop and by all means, by the way, the damage was real to the country.”
Hannity: "Even the president himself -- it's not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd, but it's horrific. He was a victim of crooked cops. Now, again, not the same circumstances, I'm not making any comparison," pic.twitter.com/QQw0MvrBKM — Brendan Karet 🚮 (@bad_takes) June 10, 2020
Just to hammer home that he wasn’t comparing Trump and Floyd, he once again compared Trump and Floyd later in his show, saying: “There’s no comparison in the case. Very different circumstances, I’m not comparing them.”
He then compared the two, outlining Floyd’s death at the hands of police before adding: “But for three years I’ve seen one bad cop. Look at what happened, look at what happened as a result.
“There was an attempted coup to undo an election.
did it again at the end of the show. can't help himself pic.twitter.com/U6c0d6aOvD — Brendan Karet 🚮 (@bad_takes) June 10, 2020


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--The Restaurant Group To Close 125 Sites Putting Thousands Of Jobs At Risk

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Up to 3,000 jobs are on the line as the owner of Frankie and Benny’s announced it was going to close 125 of its sites across the country.
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The Restaurant Group said it was seeking approval from its landlords for a deal that would let it reduce the number of restaurants it runs, and negotiate lower rents for many of those left over.
Bosses said the hospitality industry was facing “well documented” problems, after the coronavirus pandemic forced many in the sector to close their doors.
If landlords approve the deal, known as a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), it will leave the firm’s leisure arm with about 160 sites.
It will also allow it to exit about 25 restaurants which have already been closed.
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The Restaurant Group also owns pan-Asian chain Wagamama, and runs several pubs and concessions in airports. These will not be affected by the news, it said.
The stores that will close are “principally” Frankie and Benny’s restaurants, it added.
“The issues facing our sector are well documented and we have already taken decisive action to improve our liquidity, reduce our cost base and downsize our operations,” said chief executive Andy Hornby.
“The proposed CVA will deliver an appropriately-sized estate for our Leisure business to ensure we are well positioned despite the very challenging market conditions facing the casual dining sector.
“I would like to wholeheartedly thank all of my TRG colleagues for their continued understanding and extraordinary commitment during this unprecedented period.”
The British Property Federation said it had been talking to The Restaurant Group before it proposed the CVA, but it would be up to individual landlords to decide how to vote on the deal.
The federation’s chief executive Melanie Leech said: “These situations are never easy, particularly now for the retail and hospitality businesses on our high streets at the sharp end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“Property owners, however, need to take into consideration the impact on their investors, including the millions of people whose savings and pensions are invested in commercial property, as they vote on any CVA proposal.”
The Restaurant Group told investors last week it was struggling even before the coronavirus hit.
In March, before lockdown, the firm closed 60 of its Chiquito Mexican-style outlets, as well as its chain of pubs Food & Fuel.
After press reports that the group was planning sweeping closures, analysts at Citi said the move would be good for the business.
It would benefit from getting rid of the whole leisure business, they said, which is expected to account for only 20% of its profits this financial year despite encompassing nearly half of its restaurants.
Citi said: “A clean exit would leave the group focused on its growth businesses, which we think have stronger prospects.”
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--My Pride Anthems: Dr Ranj Singh Takes Us Back To His 'Crazy' First Time At Pride

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and that includes how we’re all celebrating Pride in 2020.
With huge public gatherings out of the question, we’re asking a range of LGBTQ celebrities and allies for their personal Pride anthems, to help us all get into the Pride spirit from lockdown.
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The latest star to take us on a musical trip down memory lane is Dr Ranj Singh.
Tim P. Whitby via Getty Images
Best known as the expert on all things medical on This Morning, Dr Ranj showed off a different skillset altogether in 2018, when he competed on Strictly Come Dancing.
In the latest instalment in our My Pride Anthems series, he reveals the song that takes him back to his very first Pride, and shares a poignant memory from his time on Strictly...
Calvin Harris and Rihanna – This Is What You Came For
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“The reason I picked this song is because I remember it being played at my very first Pride, and it was amazing. I was in the parade on the ITV Pride bus, and I remember the exact moment, I was standing next to the comedian David Morgan, and we were all waving at the Tesco float that was just over from us, and their float played this song, and we just went absolutely crazy, just having such a great time.
“And that song reminds me of Pride every single time I hear it. And the lyrics kind of fit in, don’t they? ‘This is what you came for’, and it absolutely was.”
Kylie Minogue – All The Lovers
“You can’t do Pride without Kylie. I’m a massive Kylie fan, and I remember not long after I came out, I was dating a guy and he was working with Kylie – he was a hair and makeup artist – and I got to go know Kylie a little bit through him. And I got to hear this song before it had even been released!
“What a tune, what a Pride anthem. This song reminds me of Pride, reminds me of Kylie and it reminds me of that first love. It’s got a very special place in my heart.”
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Pussycat Dolls – React
“There are certain pieces of music from around the time I came out that I think are important and influential on me, and I remember listening to a lot of Pussycat Dolls at that time. So I’m a massive Pussycat Dolls fan. And Ashley [Roberts] has actually become a mate, because of Strictly Come Dancing, and I adore her, and I adore the girls.
“I actually went to see them at G-A-Y recently, and they played React and everyone went absolutely mental. It was bonkers, and they look incredible – they look exactly like they used to, they dance and sing exactly as they used to, and their songs just get better and better.
“And React is one of their best songs ever. I’m actually going for a walk with Ashley next week, because we live not too far from each other. I’ll tell her ‘you’re on my Pride playlist!’.”
Whitney Houston – How Will I Know
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“I’m a massive fan of divas, and one of the greatest divas of all time has got to be Whitney Houston. This is just one of the most perfect songs ever. And everyone has felt that feeling of ‘how will I know that person fancies me as much as I fancy him or her?’. So it’s got to be that.
“And that song actually reminds me of Janette Manrara, who was my partner on Strictly, who is one of the biggest LGBTQ+ allies I know. We danced to this song on my very first week on the show. It reminds me of that feeling and that crazy new best friend/sister from another mister, who is honestly just as gay as I am.
“How Will I Know just makes me gush, it’s one of Whitney’s best songs, and it’s one that’s guaranteed to get everyone singing and dancing.”
Todrick Hall – Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels
“I’m a massive Todrick Hall fan, and Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels is already a classic, even though it’s relatively recent. And he did a remix for coronavirus [Mask, Gloves, Soap, Scrub] recently, didn’t he? I love this song, it’s just such a tune.
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“It’s the one that gets everyone stomping up and down the dance floor, everybody in a bar or a club goes crazy when that song comes on. You can guarantee that.”
Billy Porter, Mj Rodriguez and Our Lady J – Home
"I only wanted five songs, because I like nice, round numbers, but I thought ‘hang on’. This is a slow song, actually. It’s not a party anthem, but it reminds me of why Pride is important, and it reminds me of why the community and the LGBTQ+ family is important.
"There’s a moment in Pose where they sing Home, from a musical called The Wiz. And it’s so powerful, and so pertinent to what a lot of people in the community feel – like the community is their new home – because they may not have their own families or be in touch with their own family or their own home.
"Right now, we’re at a time when we’re all feeling a little bit lost because our lives have been turned upside down. And some of us are stuck in places where we can’t be ourselves, even though we may be 'at home', we don’t really feel at home. And I think this song is really powerful. It's kind of like the song you listen to, and sing badly to and cry to, at the end of the night out after you’ve been partying to the other five songs."
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Recipes To Bake After Banana Bread: A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Guide

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We had a good thing going there, banana bread. All through the early days of sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic, you were our go-to baking project for so many reasons: You’re delicious, inexpensive, easy to make — and you helped us save food that would otherwise be going bad. Even with all your virtues, though, it might be time to move on and expand our culinary horizons.
Don’t worry, we’ll be back. But in the meantime, here are some new banana-bread-adjacent recipes that might be fun to flirt with now and then.
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1. Try another yeastless bread
Shelagh Mullen
Banana bread baking has boomed, in part, because it’s so easy to make. But for something just as easy, and even more versatile, try Irish soda bread.
“It’s really very easy to make, and there are no special ingredients needed — no yeast, no starter, and even if you don’t have buttermilk, you can make some with just milk and a little vinegar or lemon juice,” blogger Shelagh Mullen told HuffPost. “When this bread is baking, the house smells glorious.” Best of all, you don’t have to worry about long cooling times, because you can dig into this loaf straight out of the oven.
2. Another loaf that reduces food waste
Crazy For Crust
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Banana bread starts with fruit that’s clearly past its prime, so why not extend that zero-waste philosophy to other ingredients? Take a peek in the produce crisper to see if you have the less-than-fresh makings of an equally delicious baked treat.
“This carrot cake loaf is easy to make, and it’s a great way to use up leftover baby carrots,” blogger Dorothy Kern said. “Plus, loaves are just better, because they’re easier to frost, slice, eat and store.” This recipe makes two loaves, so you can share one with a friend who needs a day-brightener.
3. Use the same loaf pan to make a muffin-like breakfast
Sally McKenney
If it has bananas in it, it’s a breakfast food, right? If you agree with that philosophy, then add this muffin-in-a-loaf to your morning meal lineup.
“It’s everything we love about blueberry muffins conveniently baked in a loaf pan,” said Sally McKenney of Sally’s Baking Addiction. “Since there are no individual muffin tins to fill, the batter goes from the mixing bowl to the oven in minutes. The crumbles add a delicious crust on top.”
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4. Try another bread with a healthy base ingredient
Sara Haas
With a fruit right there in its title, banana bread was virtue-signalling long before the superfood gang got famous. If you’d like to bake something with another healthy base ingredient, try this Applesauce Kitchen Sink Cake from culinary dietitian Sara Haas.
“Because it’s made with whole grains, each piece leaves you feeling like you had a substantial snack,” Haas said. “Plus, making this bread is a good way to use up that dried fruit or last teensy bit of nuts tucked away in your pantry.” Her pro tip: Be sure to finely chop the dried fruit and nuts to ensure there’s a little of everything in every bite.
5. Try another cake with a common (but surprising) household ingredient
Sarah Peterson
There’s nothing better than having a freshly baked treat on the kitchen counter, allowing you to take a sliver each time you pass. While banana bread has been front and centre on many counters for weeks now, you might want to try this made-for-snacking cake that uses a secret ingredient ― mayonnaise! — in place of eggs or butter.
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“This is such a fun recipe that’s great for the times we’re in now,” blogger Sarah Peterson said. “Like a lot of old-fashioned recipes, it uses ingredients we probably all have on hand. The recipe has been in my friend’s family for years, and it’s tried and true recipes like this one that I turn to whenever I want to bake something special.”
6. If you want another cake that doesn’t require frosting ...
Rosemary Molloy
As cake-like as it is, one of banana bread’s best qualities is that it doesn’t require any fancy frosting. This lemon bread stands on its own, too, although you can top with a simple glaze if you’d like. “It’s very easy to make,” blogger Rosemary Molloy said. “You don’t need a mixer to pull it together, and it turns out moist and lemony.”
7. A quick bread that has vegetables, but doesn’t taste like it
Jennifer Segal
If you’d like to make something that’s chocolate-level scrumptious but still starts with another favourite from the produce aisle, consider this Chocolate Zucchini Bread from blogger Jennifer Segal. It’s a delicious way to sneak in veggies and use up extra zucchini from your home garden. “It also makes the perfect afternoon snack when you’re in need of a chocolate fix,” Segal said.
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8. If you just LOVE bananas and can’t get enough
The Rebel Chick


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--This Is What I Want To Tell My White Colleagues When They Ask, 'How Are You Today?'

The author at her white coat ceremony at Harvard Medical School. Courtesy of LaShyra “Lash” Nolen
“How are you today?”
“How was your weekend?”
“How’s it going?”
As a Black woman and medical student in the often lonely world of higher education, I’ve learned to respond to these questions with a smile painted on my face and a “Fine, how about you?”
Even when I am feeling devastated, I sit and listen to my white professors as they tell me stories about upcoming trips and detail their latest scientific research. I try my best to focus on their words, but no matter what I do, the suffering of my community is often heavy on my mind.
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In the past three months, Covid-19, the great exacerbator, has taken the Black community by storm. Black people are more than twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as white people. Elderly Black individuals are more likely to live in nursing homes, deemed hotspots for Covid-19, compared to their white counterparts, which puts them at greater risk of disease transmission.
I’ve personally witnessed the devastating effect of this inequity. Just one month ago, my great-grandmother, unable to afford at-home-living assistance, contracted Covid-19 at her nursing facility. Thankfully, she recovered, but the more than 21,000 other Black lives disproportionately taken by this deadly virus weren’t so fortunate.
While I was in my classes learning how to heal my future patients, I was also learning that even the power of medicine isn’t enough to quell the deadly effects of systemic racism. As I learned about research for a cure for Covid-19 at one of the best medical schools in the world, deep down I knew if and when a cure was discovered, my family probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.
I often thought about my grandfather, a 67-year-old truck driver with diabetes and hypertension, both risk factors for Covid-19. He should have retired years ago, but because he grew up in the Jim Crow South, his options for professional opportunities were limited, and he was forced to accept low-wage work. Today, he is finally making good money and is able to provide for our family, but it still isn’t sufficient for him to afford to retire. So he is still working, even during the deadliest pandemic the U.S. has seen in decades. I am terrified for his health and safety because beyond his being an elderly essential worker with various chronic diseases, I know that racism has also placed a special target on the backs of Black people in the path of Covid-19.
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“How’s it going?” my professors asked me.
“Terribly, because Covid-19 and her sister, systemic racism, are ravaging my community and threatening the lives of the people I love.”
That’s what I wanted to respond, but I didn’t. Instead, once again, I conjured up my fake smile and nodded to whatever they were saying, words that seemed so unimportant compared to the images of my family’s demise that constantly flashed through my mind.
In those moments I once again left my Black experience at the door for the sake of my “professionalism” as a medical student. After years of doing this in high school and college at predominantly white institutions, this has become second nature to me. I’ve developed a mental checklist of sorts for myself:
Smile.
Sound articulate.
Don’t intimidate.
Don’t talk about race.
Definitely don’t talk about racism.
My entire experience in higher education has involved centring my professors’ and colleagues’ white comfort, often at the expense of my own mental wellness. I know this is a harmful practice, but the hierarchical nature of academic medicine and white fragility don’t lend themselves to safe, honest conversations about racism. In these kinds of environments, it feels impossible to answer the question, “How are you?” with honesty when you’re afraid to provoke white guilt or, worse, threaten or damage your academic success.
So I’ve learned to pick and choose my battles. And that often translates into moments when I suffer in silence as I enter the classroom as a medical student, where I am forced to suppress my frustrations and pains as a Black woman. So even as I mourned the disproportionate suffering of Black people during Covid-19 and grieved the tragic killing of Ahmaud Arbery while expressing my frustrations through hip-hop and writing, I ached as I responded to my professors’ questions with, “I’m doing fine, how about you?”
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The author with her friends at a tailgate. Both friends are important components of her support system as a Black woman at Harvard Medical School. Courtesy of LaShyra “Lash” Nolen
Usually, when faced with these frustrations and sorrows, I depend on my Harvard Medical School Black family — the 17 other Black students at HMS (which may seem like a low number but is surprisingly above average compared to most of America’s medical schools). During these moments we have come together for a warm embrace after class and made plans for our Black family Sunday dinner. But Covid-19 has taken even that away from us.
I am blessed to have good wifi and my own room at my mother’s house. So homework assignments, class and heart-to-hearts with my friends over the internet haven’t been a challenge during the pandemic. But this isn’t a privilege afforded to all my classmates. Some of them have shared with me their struggles with weak internet connections, lack of private spaces to do work and the fatigue of being the “only one” in their virtual learning groups. All of these factors made keeping up with class a struggle, let alone being able to meet up for supportive Zoom gatherings with our community.
So too often we have been forced to forge on alone and answer, “I’m doing fine,” to the question we constantly dread hearing.
Then at the end of May, it became become impossible for me to maintain the separation of my two identities. My Blackness entered along with me through every door I entered ― and this time I wasn’t going to push her out.
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In the span of just two short days, I first saw a video of a white woman in New York City’s Central Park potentially putting the life of a Black man in danger by calling the police on him after he rightfully called her out for not obeying the law. Then the next day, I saw another video, this one of George Floyd being killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. When I considered the two videos together, it was as if I had witnessed the devastatingly brutal display of the cause and effect of interpersonal and systemic racism.
“I had come to my breaking point: I knew that my Blackness is my lifeline and that if I didn’t allow every part of me to enter the classroom, I wouldn’t be able to survive.”
A few days later I learned about the murder of Tony McDade, a Black trans man, who was shot to death by the police. And I was still processing the killing of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t breathe, and I felt myself further stifled and suffocated by my academic environment and my inability to be my full self when present there. I had come to my breaking point: I knew that my Blackness is my lifeline and that if I didn’t allow every part of me to enter the classroom, I wouldn’t be able to survive.
So I told the truth.
The following week, when I found myself in office hours with a white professor, they asked me, “How are you today, Lash?”
“Honestly, it’s been a rough weekend for me,” I told them. “There was the Central Park thing, and then yesterday another Black man was murdered. It’s hard to focus on school right now.”
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Then something remarkable happened.
My professor took the time to listen to me. They shared with me how they were also frustrated by the video and how ashamed they felt because they had no clue about the killing of George Floyd. We spent 10 minutes talking about the struggles of Black students during this time and how medical education must be improved to make space for these types of conversations.
That day I decided not to act. Not to pretend, not to retract the pain, the burden, so heavy on my back. This level of suffering, they could never fathom that.
I poured these words into my spoken word poetry, and I expressed the freedom and frustration I felt in those moments of conversation with my professor.
I was thankful for that space, but I shouldn’t have been the one who needed to start the conversation.
The author and her family visiting her great-grandmother (center) at her nursing home last summer. The author gave her great-grandmother a Harvard T-shirt before she started medical school. Courtesy of LaShyra “Lash” Nolen
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Non-Black professors, teachers and educators: Your Black students are not okay. We are lonely because the power structures you benefit from make it so that people that look like us rarely have the opportunity to teach us. About 2% of associate professors in academic medicine are Black, and the expectation that all Black students will interact with these professors is a flawed one.
Even then it should not be the responsibility of these professors to mentor, support and educate every Black student at your institutions. That level of responsibility only heightens their potential for professional burnout and detracts from their opportunities to succeed. So that means it’s up to you, white professors, to do the work to create spaces for Black students to excel beyond asking them how they are doing as they tackle community trauma in isolation.
The first step to doing so is letting go of the false idea we live in a post-racial society. While it may benefit you to not see color, it only harms me. I want you to see my color. Because along with my melanated skin comes the reality of my unique struggles, the resilient stories of my ancestors and the strength of my community.
The colorblind approach can lead you to believe that one of your students could never be brutalized by a police officer or unjustly taken into custody. The truth is, despite the fact I wear a white coat with a Harvard Medical School ID, my fate is inextricably tied to the death of Breonna Taylor and countless other Black lives lost to racism. My body is not so different from the lynched Black bodies that flood televisions across the nation. It is only a matter of location and circumstances that separates our fates.
“We need support, and we demand action from our institutions, but the first step is recognizing the entirety of our existence ― the merging of our dual realities as students and Black people.”
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Black students are not unicorns. We feel, and we hurt deeply as a result of the injustices we too frequently witness because they are connected to our families, experiences and communities. Educators must learn to accept our Blackness and see beyond the veil of our stature as scholars. We need support, and we demand action from our institutions, but the first step is recognising the entirety of our existence ― the merging of our dual realities as students and Black people.
We need you to see us. We need you to see our Blackness. We need you to help us fight to protect it. We need you to see us beyond diversity and inclusion committees. We need you to watch the news. We need you to care about Black news. We need you to be just as outraged by disparate Black suffering as we are. We need you to cry with us. We need you to care about us.
“How are you doing?” isn’t enough. You should know I’m not okay, and you should do the work to make sure you aren’t contributing to the reason I’m not.
Anti-racism is the only way, and it’s time for you to do the work.
LaShyra “Lash” Nolen (@LashNolen) is an activist, writer, and rising second-year student at Harvard Medical School. This article first appeared on HuffPost Personal.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--The Nation's Mental Health Needs Our Attention

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For all the talk of a “new normal”, the reality is a social and economic system torn up by the roots, and no-one really knows what things will look like in a year’s time. We are rightly discussing the immediate impact of Covid-19 on our health and social care systems, and dedicating the combined efforts of government and people towards preventing further deaths.
We are also contemplating the dire economic forecasts, and a global downturn worse than the financial crash of 2007 and 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people will find their job or business has gone. A generation of young people will discover their travel, education and work opportunities severely curtailed, just as life should be filled with promise.
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There’s a further aspect that needs addressing as a priority – the mental health implications of the pandemic and its aftermath. We know from previous recessions that there are long-term mental health challenges when people are out of work, lose their homes, find their status and incomes diminished, or fall into poverty. The psychological effects of recession are chronic and widespread.
Cute girl talking with her grandmother within video chat on laptop, digital conversation, life in quarantine time, self-isolation Maria Symchych-Navrotska via Getty Images
Added to this are the impacts of the disease itself. We know from analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that the pandemic has negatively impacted the population’s mental wellbeing, with nearly half the population recently reporting high levels of anxiety. People are suffering from terrible loneliness and separation from friends and families. People living in cramped accommodation are getting on each other’s nerves. Relationships are strained.
Parents – myself included – have learned a fast lesson in how hard it is to educate and entertain children day after day. For millions of people with complex needs, and the people who care for them, the pandemic has made a challenging situation much worse. The heroes we clap each Thursday remain under huge pressure, especially if there is a second surge in the virus. They have been through hell, and some will show signs of PTSD and other mental health conditions. The population is under a significant psychological strain, and this will inevitably have an adverse effect on the nation’s mental health for months and years to come.
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And of course, at the front of our minds, are the thousands of people who have lost their parents, spouses, partners, children, relations, neighbours and friends to this terrible disease. The nature of most Covid-19 deaths, in hospital or a care home away from family and friends, has made it worse for the people they leave behind. In the absence of the traditional rites and rituals of funeral and mourning – the opportunity to just share a hug – the process of bereavement has been made even harder to bear.
“The nation is hurting, and the process of healing must start now.”
We need a long-term action plan for mental health support, just as much as a plan for the economic recovery. For many people who face anxieties, depression, trauma or grief that dominate their lives, a vital source of support may be a counsellor or psychotherapist. As vice president of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), I’ve witnessed how therapists are at the frontline of providing support for those in need. But at the same time, over the past few months, many providers, independent practitioners and charities have seen funding cuts to their service and the number of funded sessions reduce.
The BACP expects demand for counsellors and psychotherapists to increase over the next few weeks and months, as people recognise they need some support. That’s why I’m backing the Association’s calls for the government to put in place a long-term plan to ensure the nation’s mental health needs are met, and to work in collaboration with professional organisations and service providers. This request complements the call for a Resilience Taskforce (to plan for the psychological and social consequences of the pandemic), which was launched this week by Sir Norman Lamb.
Ministers have made promises of support for mental health charities and there have been discussions of what the NHS can do. Part of this must be proper resources for counselling and psychotherapy, especially to support bereaved people, for those “locked down” with their abuser within a relationship, for vulnerable children, for older people, and for those going through the shock of losing their jobs.
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Counsellors and psychotherapists are the people who are listening to those in need right now, helping them to explore and understand how they are feeling about this unprecedented situation and their own unique personal circumstances. They are helping people come to terms with what they have been through and supporting them to thrive as they move on to their own “new normal”.
Counselling and psychotherapy must be accessible to those most affected by the disease, including BAME communities, families in deprived areas and frontline workers, and the millions who do not receive mental health support through their employer. We need a campaign to explain how to ask for help, what kinds of support are available, and to ensure people are matched to qualified therapists. And ministers need to remedy the fact that many therapists are self-employed and fall through the cracks of the government’s existing support schemes.
The nation is hurting, and the process of healing must start now.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--There's So Much Litter Everywhere. What's Going On?

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
The UK’s beaches and parks are enjoying a renaissance as lockdown restrictions ease, but their growing popularity has caused a problem: litter.
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With crowds flocking to spend time in the great outdoors, food packets, bottles, cans and disposable gloves lay across the ground – some blown from overflowing bins, some carelessly abandoned.
Despite the easing of lockdown restrictions, local authorities are still facing challenges, protecting and supporting those who are vulnerable, while also trying to maintain essential frontline services, says charity Keep Britain Tidy.
“Bins may not be emptied as often as normal and litter-picking may be limited, so if you’re eating or drinking in the park or at the beach, don’t leave your rubbish where you’ve been sitting and don’t fill the bins there with it – take it home,” Richard McIlwain, deputy chief executive, says.
“We all want to be able to enjoy places that are clean and litter-free and this will not be possible if people don’t act themselves.”
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Today on #WorldEnvironmentDay we're asking you, where is the #love? 🚯💔🌍
All photos featured are recent. It's a disgrace that with the easing of #lockdown came utter disregard for the #environment.
Please share this video to remind everybody to take their rubbish home. pic.twitter.com/OktKzS9c1q — keepbritaintidy (@KeepBritainTidy) June 5, 2020
Events usually scheduled to clear rubbish may have also been cancelled due to Covid-19 concerns. The Great British Spring Clean, for example, usually sees thousands across the UK engage in litter picking, but this year it’s been postponed until September.
And this isn’t just a problem in Britain. Mariajose Algarra, founder of the US movement Clean This Beach Up, started the hashtag #theglovechallenge to highlight the sheer number of plastic gloves thrown on the ground around the world.
Algarra is asking bypasses to snap a photo of abandoned gloves in the hope litterers will see the posts and think twice before dropping them again. More than 1,700 people have used the hashtag on Instagram, including those from Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Canada and Japan.
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wellsie82 via Getty Images
Algarra thinks the litter is due to a combination of “entitlement” and “laziness”.
“I think some litterers have a sense of entitlement, a feeling that other people, especially those who get paid to, should clean up after them,” she told HuffPost. “Others litter due to laziness and believe that disposing of trash property is an inconvenience. I don’t know how to get through to them.”
Algarra is asking those who see gloves and other forms of litter not to pick them up without proper protective equipment, due to possible Covid-19 contamination.
Richard Newstead via Getty Images
For those who want to protect local landscapes, the advice from Keep Britain Tidy is to take rubbish home so it doesn’t build up in the first place.
If you do want to engage in litter picking, the charity advises using gloves and a litter picker, washing hands before and after at home or a nearby facility, and carrying hand sanitiser if you have some.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--You Can Now Write Letters To Key Workers To Tell Them How Amazing They Are

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
If you’ve noticed a Clap For Carers-shaped hole in your life since the weekly round of applause ended, why not write key workers a letter of gratitude instead?
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Soumya Krishna Kumar, 19, has launched a letter-writing project, allowing volunteers to sign up and write thank you notes to key workers who’ve been instrumental in getting the UK back on its feet during the pandemic.
The first year University of Warwick maths student has orchestrated this while studying from her parents’ home in London. She came up with the idea after noticing people in her local mutual aid group wanted to help in the community, but were shielding at home or unable to leave the house.
Supplied Soumya Krishna Kumar writes a letter to a key worker.
“I thought writing letters was a fantastic way for anyone to get involved,” she tells HuffPost UK. “Obviously I also saw on the other end how hard our key workers were working.
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“Clap For Carers is amazing, but I don’t think it was quite enough. I don’t think it’s enough to clap for two minutes a week and then just carry on with our lives.”
The Crisis Project / Letters To The NHS Letter to a key worker
So far, the project – called ‘Letters For The NHS’ – has more than 700 volunteers and, as of last week, 225 letters have been sent out to key workers, including NHS staff, fire and rescue officers, and police.
The scheme was originally set up for NHS workers, but she’s now expanded the cause to all key workers.
How does it work?
People can nominate key workers to receive letters by filling in a Google form on the project’s website. Volunteers can sign up to write letters – they’ll then receive information on the key worker they’re writing to, including their first name and a rough outline of their job role.
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Once a letter has been written, it’s either scanned in and emailed to Soumya or sent to her by post. She then sends it on to the key worker it’s for, via post or email – depending on what details were left by the nominator. People can donate just £1 to help fund postage and ensure the letters are delivered in the safest manner, the website states. Data protection is taken seriously, it adds.
The letters have already had a positive impact. An intensive treatment unit (ITU) nurse said: “This letter touched me on an emotional level and brought a tear to my eye. Thank you for lifting the spirits of a very tired ITU nurse. I will definitely be nominating my equally exhausted co-workers.”
Responding directly to their letter, another key worker said: “Thank you for taking the time to buoy me up – you have made all the difference, to me.”
Soumya says the response so far has been heartwarming: “A lot of key workers message and tell us how lovely and unexpected it was because often, they don’t know someone has nominated them – the letter is a complete surprise.”
A YouGov poll found six in 10 key workers feel more appreciated than ever. Healthcare workers topped the list, with three quarters saying they feel more appreciated than before the Covid-19 pandemic started. It’s Soumya’s aim to keep this going.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--This Was Meant To Be My First Black Pride. I Need It Now More Than Ever

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My sexuality is precious to me – though it didn’t start that way.
I grew up in a family of pastors and religious leaders. My family and I would attend church every Sunday and bible study on Tuesday, where I was taught how to be a good wife to my future husband and a good mother to my future children. Sexuality was something I couldn’t talk about – never mind explore. Instead, it was ingrained in me that being gay was simply something that didn’t happen to “people like us”.
The TV shows we watched were always vetted (the That’s So Raven ban was especially traumatic) and any deviation from the norm was seen as rebellion. I was never exposed to queer people, let alone queer Black people. But I always felt conflicted. Though I tried to deny who I was, I knew my solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t the only reason a pit formed at the bottom of my stomach each time my family showed revulsion at queer moments. So I tried to explore my identity in secret, which my lack of knowledge about the LGBTQ+ community and constant fear of being ‘found out’ made frightening.
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When I left home, going to a predominantly white university meant there was rarely ever anyone who looked like me in the LGBTQ+ society – something I later found also representative of the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. Still extremely insecure about my sexuality, meet-ups and trips to Leeds Pride felt both daunting and isolating.
“This year was meant to be where I harvested the fruits of that labour, and I was excited to live as myself, not a palatable, watered-down version of me”
Though I now firmly identify as bisexual, I battled with a lot of internalised biphobia. I remember feeling like I wasn’t ‘gay enough’. Towards the end of university, I was very fortunate to become exposed to queer individuals who deviated from the norm’. I befriended bisexual women who reaffirmed my existence and experiences and, through them, I found a safe space to explore who I was. Through them, I was able to unlearn what it meant to be bisexual, and accept the fluidity of my sexuality.
This year was meant to be where I harvested the fruits of that labour, and I was excited to live as myself, not a palatable, watered-down version of me. Like many, I genuinely believed 2020 was meant to be ‘my year’.
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I was especially excited to be attending UK Black Pride for the first time. I knew the issues I had with my family were things many Black queer individuals experience. However, like the rest of the world, the Black community tends to be very socially conservative: there is a lot of homophobia and ignorance, even if it may seem as if things are progressing. We may be moving towards acceptance, however, we aren’t there yet – leaving Black LGBTQ+ individuals like me dealing with a lot of stigma.
This is why UK Black Pride was going to be so important to me. It was going to mark my first time being surrounded by people who experience the world in a similar way to me and looked like me too. It was going to be the one day in 2020 where my sexuality and race wasn’t cause for concern, but reason for celebration with my Black queer friends — something I had never experienced before.
“The lack of visibility for minorities has always made Pride feel bittersweet. It seems this year won’t be any different.”
Mixmike via Getty Images Rear view image of young couple walking with the pride event, hugging and waving pride flags
And besides June being Pride Month, the Black Lives Matter protests all around the world we are seeing, after the killing of George Floyd, would have given Black Pride yet more significance. The event would have been an opportunity to have a moment for ourselves, to collectively celebrate Black trans and queer individuals who feel (and are) an afterthought. Black Pride would have stood as a symbol of what we can achieve, and it would have been a moment of healing too – there is something reaffirming about being around people you don’t have to defend your existence too. But now the pandemic has postponed the physical event, the many Black queer individuals who need that relief will be will stuck at home, waiting another year.
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I know exactly what that feels like. Though I am out to my close friends, coming out to my family remains a privilege I don’t have. With the pandemic, I have had to move out of university accommodation to live with my mother, and I have found myself back in the closet I spent years breaking out of. Once again, I am exposed to grimaces and vocal displays of objection when watching shows with LGBTQ+ representation. Spending 24 hours a day in a house where the only time I am alone is when I go to the bathroom, I don’t know what I am going to do instead. So far, my Pride celebrations have been relegated to secret likes and retweets.
This month was meant to be for celebration, but how can I with all the protests around the world? How can I in such a heteronormative household? I have found myself feeling displaced and unable to discuss my own unique experience with those who claim to love me most – but who definitely wouldn’t if they knew who I really am. The lack of visibility for minorities has always made Pride feel bittersweet. It seems this year won’t be any different.
“It’s as if we can never catch a moment of respite before yet another crisis hits us the most.”
Like everyone, I feel robbed of so much this year. For Black LGBTQ+ individuals especially, this month is going to bring forth its own issues for many of us; with the disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths in the Black community and now with the spotlight being shone on police brutality, we are going through major trauma. Many of us are now having to march for our lives, during a global pandemic, putting ourselves and others at risk. It’s as if we can never catch a moment of respite before yet another crisis hits us the most.
However, I think it is vital for us to remember that we are not alone – even though it may feel like it. Lockdown is heightening our feelings of isolation, but we must remember we are collectively living through all this together. Though it feels as if our chance at finding and being a part of a community that shares are struggling is gone, it isn’t. Remember to reach out, especially on the hard days to friends, those whom you trust and organisations tailored to support our specific needs. Celebrate the good, even if you feel guilty due to the current climate.
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As for me, I am going to try my best to bring visibility to all queer people of colour, but especially those who are Black. And if that means I have to celebrate UK Black Pride through sneaky periodic bathroom visits, then so be it.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--'I Tested Positive For Coronavirus While I Was In Labour'

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In HuffPost Birth Diaries we hear the extraordinary stories of the everyday miracle of birth. This week, Steph Almond shares her story. If you’d like to share yours, email amy.packham@huffpost.com.
I was heavily pregnant with my first baby, with an induction planned for a Friday in early May – several weeks into the lockdown. Everything seemed to go fine. There were precautions, of course, and people wearing PPE, but, initially, the main difference was that my husband had to wait in the car outside.
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The later stages of my pregnancy had been strange. I’d had my baby shower the weekend before lockdown, then a few weeks working from home. But the first three weeks of maternity leave were sitting around with nothing to do.
Going into the hospital alone that day was a little unnerving. I didn’t want to make decisions on my own or answer questions I didn’t know. We had the attitude of: talk about everything we could beforehand.
After the induction, they sent me home and I had contractions all that evening – which got increasingly painful. Late that night, I rang up and was told to go back in. As I was in labour by now, my husband was allowed to come in with me.
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We were in a birthing centre in the hospital, which was relaxing. The midwife looking after us had a mask on, but everything otherwise was normal. She told me they’d need to test me for coronavirus – this was routine – and I had a swab test. That bit was horrendous, especially while also having contractions.
The labour was progressing quickly. I spent time in the pool, then moved to the couch. I remember someone calling the midwife out of the room at one point and I could hear muttering. I was exhausted and in pain. My midwife came back in: “I need to let you know you’ve tested positive for Covid-19,” she said.
I looked at my husband with fear. What did it mean? I had no symptoms, no idea how I’d got it. I’d not left the house for a month. I worried what it meant for my baby, but most of all, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. Was everyone judging me? Did they think I was irresponsible? I assumed they were thinking it was my fault, so I kept apologising. They said it was fine, to not worry about it. From then on, anyone who came into the room had to be fully in PPE.
But after the initial shock, I forgot about it because it was such a difficult labour, pushing for hours with nothing happening. That was the only issue on my mind. I was moved into the delivery suite – with the idea that they might need to use forceps. They had to get the room ready – which was complicated – and decide how to move me safely. It all took quite a while.
In the end, it wasn’t even a forceps delivery. I just kept pushing and pushing. It was awful. The baby pooed inside me quite a lot – he was barely conscious when he came out and my husband was traumatised. My son was immediately given checks, then placed on top of me. I’d laboured through the night, so we were introduced to each other at 7.34am on the Saturday morning.
I’d been so focused on getting him out, I’d forgotten about coronavirus.
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I became more conscious of it after he was born. They had to keep us in that room; they couldn’t risk moving us on to the ward near anyone else.
For the next 12 hours, anyone who came in was in full PPE, and they couldn’t leave to get something once they were in with us. Everything took longer. And I felt guilty the whole time, like it was a massive inconvenience.
My husband eventually went home to get some rest, while I stayed in with my son for 12 hours of monitoring. This finished at midnight and they were satisfied we could go home. I had to call my husband to wake him to come get me, not realising I’d be going home in the early hours.
Getting home was strange, as we hadn’t been given much information on what to do about my positive test. We stayed indoors and self-isolated, of course. My midwife phoned to check me in the days that followed, but no one came to see us until day seven. Those first few days were hard. I struggled a lot.
When the midwife visited, she was fantastic. She made me feel comfortable and checked over my son. But I was still quite nervous in those first few weeks. I was scared to tell anyone I knew about my positive test. It was embarrassment more than anything. There was definitely a sense of shame.
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We’re doing well now. I still think about what I missed out on in terms of support but while I could’ve done with more help, I cannot speak highly enough of our local services. The community midwives have been amazing, letting me ring up and ask questions – even though I felt bad harassing people. It wasn’t how I expected my birth to go, by all means, but I’m so happy we’re all safe.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-10--Should ‘Professor Lockdown’ Share The Blame For The UK’s Slow Response To Covid?

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Fergie time: double bubble, toil and trouble?
‘Boris Boosts Bonking Britain’. That may end up being the Thursday morning tabloid headline after the prime minister’s latest lockdown relaxation. Yes, thanks to ‘support bubbles’, single people young and old can from this weekend stay overnight with lovers, friends and relatives - for the first time in nearly three months. The ‘sex ban’ will be a little less, ahem, rigid this Saturday.
If this practice had been in place earlier in the pandemic, Professor Neil Ferguson - famously exposed for breaching the rules with visits from his new girlfriend - would still be a member of the Sage group of scientists advising the government. The ‘bonking boffin’’s nocturnal arrangements would be nobody’s business but his, and the public wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
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Prof Ferguson still managed to grab the headlines today, as he told MPs that imposing lockdown just one week earlier would have halved the UK’s death toll from Covid-19. The dramatic claim felt like a shared mea culpa rather than any attempt to slight the PM, but it nevertheless managed to make Boris Johnson look uneasy at his No.10 press conference.
Not for nothing did the PM highlight that “Professor Ferguson was a member of Sage at the time, as he fully accepts.” It was a point he made not once, but twice. And it’s true that the academic was part of the group that appeared to be slow to realise just how rapidly the virus was spreading in March.
Ferguson’s Imperial College modelling was of course responsible for the government finally gripping the enormity of the problem. Its warning of up to 250,000 deaths made everyone sit up and take notice and within days, the lockdown was finally imposed. Without it, we would be in even more dire straits than now.
Yet the UK’s death numbers still ended up among the highest in the world, and today his team’s own modelling came under fire. In a blog for HuffPost UK and on Radio 4’s More or Less statistics programme, Bath University’s Kit Yates revealed that some members of the Sage subgroup SPI-M were worried in early March about the ‘doubling rate’ for Covid.
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These modellers estimated that the virus was taking roughly three days to double its infections, yet “their estimates never found consensus within the group”. This rival model was never even referred up the chain to the full Sage. Why? Because Ferguson’s Imperial College model had “more influence over the consensus than others”, members of SPI-M have told Yates. And that model was clear: the doubling rate was a much slower five to six days.
This was based on an R number of around 2.4 (as it turned out a serious underestimate) of the virus, which was itself grounded in data from Wuhan, China. Those arguing for an alternative to the Imperial model said you didn’t even need to include data from Italy to get a shorter doubling rate, you just had to look at early data in the UK itself. Remember this is not hindsight, it’s what was being argued at the time by those minority voices on SPI-M.
British data available on March 14 - nine days before lockdown - showed the doubling rate was already a scary three days. But on March 16, guided by Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty (relying on the Ferguson model published the same day), Johnson announced that “without drastic action, cases could double every five or six days”. That underestimate was itself “drastically wrong”, Kit Yates says.
Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, speaking by video link to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. PA
Ferguson today conceded he had got his own 20,000 estimate for deaths-after-lockdown wrong, because he “underestimated how far this country was into the epidemic”. Yet he also had this key admission: “We knew the epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.” We ‘knew’, he said. But if he knew, why didn’t he recalibrate his own model to get us into lockdown quicker?
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These questions are clearly live ones for Vallance and Whitty. At the press conference today, the chief medical officer said part of the problem was that “we had very limited information about this virus”. He added there was “a long list of things we need to look at very seriously” including why testing wasn’t up to speed early on. Vallance said “the epidemic is shrinking, but not fast”, and important questions “still needed to be addressed”.
Johnson however refused to express any regret for the failure to lockdown earlier, ducking international comparisons once more and adding “a lot of these things are still premature”. It was a reminder that the ‘three amigos’ own social bubble that has existed since the start of this pandemic is now under strain.
Like one of those giant soap bubbles seen at kids’ birthday parties, the Johnson-Whitty-Vallance partnership has swirled and stretched for nearly three months (Vallance kept it intact with a new, cautious endorsement for the PM’s pressure for removal of the 2m rule).
That bubble is now a source of toil and trouble, and it may pop at some point. If it does, today proved that it may be the scientists - including Neil Ferguson - who have their own questions to answer along with Boris Johnson.
Quote Of The Day
“This government has put its arms around people in its crisis and done its best to help.”
Boris Johnson hits back at Keir Starmer saying he should not be ‘proud’ of UK covid death figures.
Wednesday Cheat Sheet
The PM revealed that Gavin Williamson will next week unveil plans for “a big summer of catch-up” for pupils hit hard by school closures, as experts warned of a ‘tsunami’ of anxiety for kids over the coming year.
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Johnson announced £63m in social support for the poorest children, half of what it would cost to extend free meals to all who need them this summer.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said Britain’s economy was likely to slump by 11.5% in 2020 - the worst in the world. It could contract by 14% if there is a second wave of Covid-19 later this year.
The number of deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK has passed 52,000, latest data showed.
Expanded and targeted coronavirus testing will be given to frontline workers in “high-contact professions”, such as bus drivers, the PM revealed.
Private hospitals requisitioned by the NHS will carry out cardiac operations and perform chemotherapy to help reduce waiting lists. Zoos and safari parks will open from June 15 in the latest lockdown easing.
What I’m Reading
Labour Is Ahead of The Tories On Six Key Measures - Peter Kellner
Why I Broke With Boris Johnson - Tim Montgomerie
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