thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Coronavirus: Here's What Hydroxychloriquine Can Do To You – And Four Other Things You Need To Know

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As England prepares to reopen schools and vaccine trials provide a sliver of hope normal life may one day return, Donald Trump told reporters he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine for several weeks.
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There is no evidence the anti-malaria drug works to combat Covid-19, of which there have been more than 1.5 million US cases.
Meanwhile, latest figures show the UK death toll had reached 34,796 as of 5pm on May 17.
Statista
Here’s what you need to know today:
What does hydroxychloroquine actually do to you?
The president’s revelation on Monday came as a shock to many, not least because the drug is completely unproven to work against coronavirus.
Hydroxychloroquine is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, but numerous clinical trials have yet to prove it effectively treats coronavirus. It also has the potential to cause significant side effects in some patients
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Neil Cavuto of Fox News who quick to tell viewers in no uncertain terms they shouldn’t follow Trump’s advice for their own safety.
Fox News's Neil Cavuto is stunned by Trump's announcement that he's taking hydroxychloroquine: "If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment ... it will kill you. I cannot stress enough. This will kill you." pic.twitter.com/e6D5alfAgc — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2020
Cavuto referenced a handful of research studies, including analysing patient data from Veterans Health Administration medical centres last month that concluded the drug shows no real benefit for treating coronavirus, and may actually be harmful.
A second study, conducted at Columbia University in New York, reached a similar conclusion earlier this month.
Others have also pointed to a review published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal listing a long list of side effects.
Side effects of hydroxychloroquine include paranoia, hallucinations and psychosis https://t.co/CVuH9QeI7p — Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) May 18, 2020
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“If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus ... it will kill you,” Cavuto said. “I cannot stress this enough: This will kill you.”
Former UK government chief scientific adviser Sir David King told Good Morning Britain: “I think he speaks from the top of his head and every word he says should be ignored in terms of advice.
“I’m sorry but this is not the pronouncements of a person who is listening to the scientists. He is making it up as he goes along.”
Meanwhile, the president tweeted a letter he had sent to World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
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He warned if the organisation “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days”, he would consider withdrawing the US as a member and stopping funding permanently.
First vaccine trials offer glimmer of hope
A vaccine could train the immune system to fight coronavirus, according to US scientists.
Neutralising antibodies have been found in the first eight people who took part in safety trials for the experimental mRNA-1273 vaccine.
The drug, being tested by firm Moderna, injects a small sample of Covid-19’s genetic code into patients.
The amount is enough to encourage a response from the immune system and the trials are expected to be rolled out more widely in the summer.
Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, said: “These interim Phase 1 data, while early, demonstrate that vaccination with mRNA-1273 elicits an immune response of the magnitude caused by natural infection starting with a dose as low as 25 micrograms.”
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He added: “These data substantiate our belief that mRNA-1273 has the potential to prevent Covid-19 disease and advance our ability to select a dose for pivotal trials.”
Professor Robin Shattock, Professor of Mucosal Infection and Immunity, Imperial College London, called the early results “encouraging”.
He added: “While it will be important to scrutinise the actual data, the reported findings are in line with expectations that vaccine candidates should provide levels of neutralising antibodies that are at least equivalent to convalescent subjects.
“This is a promising start, but efficacy data will be key followed by an ability to scale in a manner that provides global access should this vaccine be successful.”
Vaccine trials have offered a glimmer of hope. RODGER BOSCH via Getty Images
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Teachers reveal anger at government’s ‘shambolic’ plans to reopen schools
Teachers have described the “chaos” of staff scrambling to make classrooms safe amid intensifying pressure and a lack of clear guidance from the government, just a fortnight before schools reopen to some pupils.
With reception, year one and year six to return on June 1, as well as increased contact for year 10 and year 12 pupils, teachers have raised concerns about “impossible” social distancing guidance and being forced to teach classes they have no experience of.
They also fear being “demonised” after headlines urging teachers to be like NHS “heroes” and warn of a class divide that risks letting the poorest children fall further behind their peers - undermining the principal reason ministers are pushing for a prompt return to the classrooms.
One year five teacher at a school in north London said: “Everyone’s really anxious, we’re in panic mode really.”
Unemployment up by 50,000
Unemployment increased by 50,000 to 1.35 million in the three months to March, official figures showed.
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Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS, said of the latest unemployment figure: “While only covering the first weeks of restrictions, our figures show Covid-19 is having a major impact on the labour market.
“In March employment held up well, as furloughed workers still count as employed, but hours worked fell sharply in late March, especially in sectors such as hospitality and construction.
“Through April, though, there were signs of falling employment as real-time tax data show the number of employees on companies’ payrolls fell noticeably, and vacancies were sharply down too, with hospitality again falling steepest.”
Economist Sir Christopher Pissarides warned hours of work figures “fell catastrophically” while vacancies figures showed the labour market “more or less stopped functioning”.
The London School of Economic academic told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme employment figures are “not as bad”, but added: “Hours of work figures fell catastrophically.
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“And also vacancies fell which shows the labour market more or less stopped functioning at the beginning of the lockdown.”
Unemployment was up 50,000 in the three months to March. Polly Thomas via Getty Images
Young people are most likely to have lost work or seen their income drop because of the coronavirus pandemic, a report suggests.
More than one in three 18 to 24-year-olds is earning less than before the outbreak, according to a report by the Resolution Foundation.
It said younger workers – a quarter of whom have been furloughed by their employers – risk their pay being affected for years, while older staff may end up involuntarily retired.
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Care home deaths under scrutiny
Coronavirus in care homes will be thrust into the spotlight again amid reports ministers knew a month ago that temporary workers were helping spread the killer disease.
Care chiefs will appear before MPs on Tuesday to update them on how homes and their staff are coping with the pandemic.
It comes as The Guardian claimed a leaked Public Health England study found workers who transmitted coronavirus across six care homes had been brought in to cover for staff who were self-isolating to prevent the vulnerable people they looked after from becoming infected.
The paper reported the study was conducted over the Easter weekend from April 11 to 13. It alleges the results have been known in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) since at least the end of last month, but were only circulated to care home providers, councils and local directors of public health last week.
More than 22,000 care home residents are estimated to have died in England and Wales, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitting there had been “an appalling epidemic in care homes”.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson ‘Devastated’ Following Death Of Estranged Wife In ‘Tragic Accident’

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Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has spoken of his “devastation” following the death of his estranged wife, Paddy Bowden.
Paddy Bowden’s body was discovered at the house she once shared with the musician in Chiswick, West London, just before 10am on Monday.
Bruce Dickinson and Paddy Bowden were married for almost 29 years. David M. Benett via Getty Images
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In a statement, the 61-year-old singer said: “This is a terrible tragedy which appears to be a tragic accident.
“Our children Austin, Griffin and Kia and I are devastated.
“Out of respect for Paddy we won’t be making any further comment at this hugely difficult and painful time for our family.”
London Ambulance Service confirmed that they were called to the address at 9.42am after reports of someone feeling “unwell.”
A spokesperson said: “We were called at 9.42am today to reports of a person unwell in Chiswick.
“We sent two ambulance crews to the scene – the first one arriving within two minutes.
“Sadly, the patient had already died.”
Joel Ryan/Invision/AP
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Paddy, who was in her 50s, married Bruce in 1990 after being together for two years.
But they split in 2018 after almost 29 years of marriage, with news of the separation only emerging last November.
The couple have three children - sons Austin, 29 and Griffin, 27, and daughter Kia, 28.
The Run to the Hills singer’s split from Paddy came four years after he beat stage three throat cancer after being told he had two tumours on his tongue.
The frontman was later given the all-clear after six months of intense chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Bruce opened up about his health battle in his 2017 autobiography, What Does This Button Do?
He later told Rolling Stone magazine: “Living is living now, every minute, every second, for right now.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Easy Vegan Dinner Recipes You'll Fall In Love With

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Environmentalists have been urging us to eat less meat for years now, since it’s clear that cutting back on meat consumption is crucial to fighting climate change. And as the coronavirus pandemic brings about meat shortages, it seems like an especially wise time to be a vegetarian.
But many people are taking things one step further and making vegan recipes during the pandemic, cutting out all animal-based foods like eggs and milk, which have been tough to find in supermarket lately. As we try to make do with available ingredients and also boost our health at a time when self-care is paramount, adopting a vegan diet (or at the very least, eating a few vegan meals every week) is a reasonable option.
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But if you’re not used to eating vegan, prepare for your shopping list to look a whole lot different. Forget staples like butter and eggs, because you’ll be replacing them with cashews, healthy oils and specialty vegan substitutes.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--This Is Your Body And Brain On Coronavirus Quarantine

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Now that it’s day who-even-knows-anymore in the coronavirus pandemic, and the initial shock of it all is starting to wear off, you might find yourself distracted by a barrage of mental and physical symptoms that weren’t as prominent back when panic-induced toilet-paper hoarding was hogging your attention.
This is because the prolonged levels of anxiety we’ve been enduring the last few months are straight-up wearing us down.
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“The early optimism and community support begins to erode as the mind and body struggle to manage the persistent stress and sense of being out of control,” said Kimberly Johnson, an assistant professor of clinical mental health counselling at Touro College in Bay Shore, New York. “Couple this with feelings of grief, both tangible and intangible, and people have less resources with which to deal with life.”
Much of what we’re feeling, both emotionally and physically, are normal responses to an abnormal event, Johnson added. But the prolonged effects can be damaging if we’re not aware of them and make an effort to mitigate them (translation: self-care).
To make changes, it can be helpful to understand how the body — particularly the brain — responds to stress and change. Here’s what you should know.
Uncertainty Activates The Fight-Or-Flight Response
The pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders are things none of us have experienced before, so the brain doesn’t have data from past experiences that it can draw from to make informed decisions.
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“Uncertainty is a major trigger of stress that can boil over into clinically significant levels of anxiety,” said David A. Merrill, a psychiatrist and director of the Pacific Brain Health Center at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.
Uncertainty activates the autonomic nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, which prepares the body to fight a threat or flee from one. Once that threat is dealt with, the mind and body go back to their regularly scheduled programming.
But Covid-19 isn’t a temporary threat ― at least not right now. So the ongoing stress, anxiety and worry (“Am I washing my hands enough?” “Cleaning surfaces enough?” “Going out too much?”) have sent the fight-or-flight response into overdrive.
Stress Can Make It Hard To Concentrate
Chronic stress leaves the brain swimming in the hormone cortisol, which research suggests can disrupt the functions of the prefrontal cortex ― the area of the brain responsible for attention span, decision-making, problem-solving and emotion regulation. Cue brain fog, apathy, indecisiveness and mood swings.
Photographer, Basak Gurbuz Derman via Getty Images
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Isolation Triggers Restlessness, Loneliness And Depression
As a result of being quarantined, not only are we disconnected from the people we care about, many of us have also lost our jobs and are unable to do the things we’d normally do to blow off steam ― either because we can’t afford to or because our go-to stress-busters are no longer an option (eating out at restaurants, going to the movies, hitting up a workout class).
“The problem here is that our cortisol levels are too high, while our dopamine (reward) and oxytocin (bonding) levels are low,” said Patricia Celan, a psychiatry resident at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
This leaves us more at risk of developing feelings of restlessness, loneliness and depression during quarantine, especially if we place a high value on social interactions, Celan said.
Chronic Stress Leads To Tingling, Digestive Problems And More
When the fight-or-flight response kicks in, it triggers physical reactions.
“Symptom clusters for this include racing or pounding heart, shortness of breath and sense of numbness or tingling, among others,” Merrill said.
Over a prolonged period of time, these reactions can cause significant physical wear and tear on the body.
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“With the long haul of the quarantine, we’re seeing more lethargy, disrupted sleep and depression,” Merrill added. “These symptoms tend to negatively amplify each other.”
This is likely because there’s little separation between work (or the hunt for work) and home.
“Anecdotally, people are saying they’re working more and putting in longer hours,” Johnson said. “This is also true with essential workers ― their home is often not the sanctuary it once was.”
Now that our routines are upended, and there are no longer cues from our environment that it’s time to decompress, our body has no idea when to take a breather. It’s as if our central nervous system has a foot on both the gas and brake pedals simultaneously.
To top it off, chronic stress has a tendency to physically manifest in the form of digestive issues (think bloating, gas, cramps, nausea).
“The onset of irritable bowel syndrome during something as life-altering as a pandemic or having to go into quarantine is purely from the mind-gut axis and the effect of stress on the gut,” said Niket Sonpal, a gastroenterologist and professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. “This change in cortisol and other neurotransmitters can lead to constipation, diarrhoea or both.”
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Personality Type May Affect How You Handle Quarantine
For people who consider themselves extroverts, the quarantine is causing anxiety and restlessness at the loss of broader social interactions and being out in the world. But that doesn’t necessarily mean introverts — who typically isolate themselves whether there’s a pandemic or not — aren’t experiencing their own spirals of angst.
“Although we might think of these personalities as different, their key objective is exactly the same, which is to maintain some sense of control and mastery in their world,” said organisational and consulting psychologist Richard Citrin, co-author of ”The Resilience Advantage.”
Introverts do this by being more inwardly focused and isolating from people, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be around people, just that their level of interaction can be less,” Citrin said.
They might be missing the freedom to be alone in the crowded streets of the city they live in or meeting a friend for coffee. You don’t need to be a social butterfly to miss being out in the world.
From a work perspective, introverts might find themselves invigorated by working independently rather than in a busy, social office building. But Zoom meetings might cause them a significant amount of distress, and they might get lost in the shuffle.
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Plus, being quarantined at home doesn’t mean being alone.
“For some introverts, their homes are always full, with no time or space to themselves,” Johnson said. “The constant stimuli might be overwhelming and increase their sense of anxiety and stress, with little opportunity to be inwardly contemplative or quiet.”
Justin Lambert via Getty Images
How To Nurture Your Body And Mind During Quarantine
There are ways to mitigate these issues. Try these suggestions from the experts.
Acknowledge The Uncertainty
Research suggests that confronting uncomfortable feelings and reassuring yourself can help you feel more in control of your life.
“Realising you’ve made it this far through the crisis and you’re still ‘pushing back’ against the uncertainty can build up your tolerance for handling this situation,” Merrill said.
Get Into A Rhythm
“Following a schedule can help normalise your sleep and eating habits, which will lower your anxiety over time,” Merrill said.
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The hints of predictability can act as emotional pillars to lean on and help you find a sense of stability during the daily grind.
Carve Out Time For Solitude
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the 24/7 social demands of your household, set aside consistent pockets of “me time,” with boundaries around being approached during this time, Celan said.
(For introverts or highly sensitive people who need to recharge more often, consider setting up a permanent “cave” you can retreat to at a moment’s notice.)
This can act as a signal to your body that it’s time to transition from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.
Think Outside Yourself
Turning your attention to emotionally supporting others can act as a form of mindfulness that short-circuits your worries about uncertainty, while also offering up another layer of emotional connection to stave off feelings of loneliness. For example, text someone who may be alone or check in to see if your housebound neighbour needs groceries or your immunocompromised relative needs a prescription picked up.
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You can also try loving-kindness meditation, a practice that involves mentally sending good vibes toward others through repeating a series of mantras. Research suggests this form of meditation reduces people’s focus on themselves, lowering symptoms of anxiety and depression in the process.
Find A Balance That Works For You
The most important thing is to listen to your body and honour how you feel.
If you’ve reached your isolation quota, but nobody’s available to chat, you can seek out connection through, say, group workouts on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram Live or other similar sources of community.
On the flip side, if you’re running into social or Zoom fatigue, you might want to take a “quality over quantity” approach instead, Celan said. Keep only your most important connections on the books in order to keep relationships strong yet steer clear of burnout.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--I Chose To Spend Lockdown On My Own, And I Have No Regrets

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As a university student, I have a room of my own, but not a home.
When the coronavirus pandemic escalated, my shared accommodation started emptying out, everyone around me asking each other ‘when we planned to go back home’. In a matter of days, the borders between countries had closed, opportunities to travel were becoming increasingly scarce, and my flat was rapidly emptying.
When my mom asked if I wanted to leave London, my answer was simple: I had plenty of reasons why I was better off staying where I was. I had already stocked up on food, I could easily get infected at the airport, I could focus better on my writing when alone. Plus, let’s be honest, wouldn’t we kill each other sooner or later, stuck under the same roof with no way out?
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Eventually, due only to financial reasons, I decided to leave buying my ticket two days before the UK went into lockdown. There was one condition, however, which I kept entirely to myself: I was only willing to leave after I found out there was a place to live by myself near my parents’ house.
“Most of my life choices are fuelled by my need for solitude, order and independence”
One could argue that this is the best outcome for everyone. I had quarantined for 14 days anyway; by living alone, I am keeping my family safe. But what I’m doing goes much deeper than familial love.
Most of my life choices are fuelled by my need for solitude, order and independence, and the sense of safety I get from those things. Sharing space with others long-term terrifies me more than anything.
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My need for privacy, I believe, is the aftermath of my eating disorder’s worst moments. Even though my habits are not as destructive as they’d once been, the company of their echoes mean I’m never really alone. Though I don’t binge or purge – or hide chocolate packets in my room – any more I still flinch when someone disrupts my evening ritual. If I’m completely alone, with no one to knock on my door or see through me, I feel independent and self-sufficient.
Living alone in lockdown, on the good days, I almost fool myself into believing everything is normal. I make my coffee, do some reading and writing, attempt to study. I get a bit too excited about my meal plan for the day. I let myself be spontaneous within my perfectly curated framework. And not one part of my body is tense – I don’t have to prepare five potential scripts for one conversation, or to protect myself from sensory overload. I’m able to breathe freely, unburdened with having to remember how to properly ‘be human’.
“Self-care, I think, requires us to be a bit selfish sometimes.”
On the bad days? Solitude leads my attention to the news, and doesn’t let me forget the reality of what’s going on. In order not to think, I write (very bad) short stories, and sit on my couch with a book in hand, pretending to read and getting disrupted by ideas for (very bad) short stories. I begin to wonder: how does loneliness feel? It used to be a constant, but I don’t remember it any more.
Not a day goes by, however, that I don’t experience this dichotomy between guilt on the one hand and a thrilling sense of independence on the other. I’m still learning how to care for and respect my own needs. Does it mean that my decision could be considered an act of self-love and self-care, or is it mere selfishness? Can it be both?
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Self-care, I think, requires us to be a bit selfish sometimes. It requires us to drop toxic relationships, to tune out the voices of those bringing us down. For those of us that are more introverted, it also requires limiting the amount of time we’re able to spend around other people without going crazy.
I’ve always been a lonely type, but my reaction to the pandemic has taken it to an entirely new level. I’ve been building this identity for years and only recently stopped feeling guilty for it.
I still call my mom every day, even though we’re living in the same city, so she’s not as worried about me as she’d been before. The other day, my dad came over to take out my trash – since I can’t yet leave the apartment. He had a mask on, as well as a pair of disposable gloves, and we were standing two metres apart. It was a surreal yet heartfelt moment – and the moment I realised that maybe I have been selfish, and that I have twisted the idea of solitude as self-care on its head.
But I also don’t regret a thing. My parents are staying safe and healthy, and we’re close enough to know we can be there for each other if anything happens. I wake up every day, and flow through ups and downs, and rooms, in between heightened awareness and blissful avoidance. But at least I have the entirety of the air for me and my habits to roam freely.
Alex Blank is a student and writer
Have a compelling personal story you want to tell? Find out what we’re looking for here, and pitch us on ukpersonal@huffpost.com


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--'We're In Panic Mode': Teachers Reveal Chaos Behind Plans To Reopen Schools In June

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Teachers have described the “chaos” of staff scrambling to make classrooms safe amid intensifying pressure and a lack of clear guidance from the government, just a fortnight before schools reopen to some pupils.
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With reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to return on June 1, as well as increased contact for Year 10 and Year 12 pupils, teachers have raised concerns about “impossible” social distancing guidance and being forced to teach classes they have no experience of.
They also fear being “demonised” after headlines urging teachers to be like NHS “heroes” and warn of a class divide that risks letting the poorest children fall further behind their peers – undermining the principal reason ministers are pushing for a prompt return to the classrooms.
One Year 5 teacher at a school in north London said: “Everyone’s really anxious, we’re in panic mode really.
“We have a WhatsApp group for our teachers and documents are being sent back and forward that we’re all trying to make sense of, but it’s really unclear what we’re supposed to be doing.
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“We’re two weeks away from potentially reopening, but the government’s approach has been shambolic. It’s chaos, to be honest.”
Some local authorities, such as Liverpool City Council, have already said they will not be opening on June 1, while one headteacher in Kent wrote to parents to tell them he’d rather pupils “repeat an academic year then go back too soon, and for parents not to lose a child.”
Meanwhile a government minister has refused to rule out “penalising” teachers or councils who keep schools shut, as some academy leaders call for a return to the classroom.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson has said there would be a “cautious, phased return” to the classroom. PA
Teachers have highlighted the contradictory statements behind the government’s decision. A document outlining the underlying scientific advice states: “There is a high degree of confidence that the severity of disease in children is lower than in adults.” But the guidance also still emphasises a need for strict hygiene measures and attempts to socially distance.
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A document published by the Department for Education, most recently updated on May 12, places a heavy emphasis on hygiene – cleaning hands more often than usual, promoting “catch it, bin it, kill it”, and cleaning “frequently touched surfaces” with detergents and bleach. But there’s no information on how often surfaces should be cleaned each day, and whether or not the responsibility for the task should fall on teaching staff.
The use of PPE, such as face coverings, is “not recommended” by the guidance. According to the document, published on the government’s website: “Face coverings may be beneficial for short periods indoors where there is a risk of close social contact with people you do not usually meet and where social distancing and other measures cannot be maintained.”
This, the government says, does not apply to educational settings – unless a child has fallen ill with symptoms at school and needs to be tended to by a member of staff.
The guidance gives no reasoning as to why face coverings are not recommended in schools, raising concerns for teachers who have spent months rigorously following social-distancing advice – including the new recommendations to wear face coverings – outside of the classroom.
One Year 4 teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing PPE – I’m not a doctor or a nurse and I’m not dealing with someone in a hospital bed, I’m dealing with a group who are active and jumping around in front of me.
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“But at the same time I’m conflicted because I don’t want to catch it either.
“I just want there to be some honest advice rather than what we seem to be getting from the government, which is ‘masks are good’ one minute, and ‘masks don’t do anything anyway’ the next.
“It feels like a political decision rather than an actual scientific decision.”
“I don’t have any faith that the government is going to be supplying PPE”
With years of budget cuts already behind them, most teachers have grown used to having to buy their own materials – down to pens and pencils – to support their classes.
As one teacher explained, there seems to be no indication this won’t also be the case when it comes to hygiene provisions such as antibacterial gel and soap, as well as PPE.
One Year 3 teacher explained that even before lockdown she had been buying products like antibacterial handwash.
“Even at Christmas I was putting out appeals for people to send in pens and paper,” she said.
“It really has gotten pretty bad, so I don’t have any faith that the government are going to be supplying PPE or extra cleaning equipment for us.”
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The list of recommendations for how schools could adapt to social-distancing rules is extensive, and – in the eyes of the teachers HuffPost UK spoke to – largely unachievable in a traditional classroom.
Guidance includes planning outdoor lessons, removing all soft or “intricate” hard-to-clean toys, staggering assemblies and breaks, keeping pupils in the same groups all day, propping windows and doors open for ventilation and cleaning surfaces such as bannisters, light switches, desks and chairs more regularly.
Even with half the pupils, primary school teachers have said it would be impossible to sit children the required two metres apart. With high-fives, fist bumps and other contact with pupils forming part of the daily routine, it’ll take time for children to adapt to an entirely foreign way of conducting themselves in a classroom.
The Year 3 teacher explained: “Even with half the pupils, my classroom isn’t big enough to have pupils sat two metres apart which I think is true for most primary teachers.
“With hygiene it’s really difficult, unless you’re going to spend a lot of the day checking that hand washing and sanitising is happening, which is problematic in itself.
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“They’re seven and eight years old. For my class, part of the routine was coming in and giving a high five or a fist bump and those are little things that are really important to settle them in for the day.
“That will have to change, which is doable but isn’t going to happen straight away and we don’t really have the safety net of time.”
“Teaching Year 1 for the first time would be a real learning curve.”
Some teachers are not able to return for medical reasons, putting an even greater strain on school staff to teach not only their own year group through online methods, but also adapt to a new cohort of students at a stage they may never have taught before.
With the number of classes effectively doubling, teachers are anticipating the need to continue to teach their own class at a distance, while also learning themselves how to teach an unfamiliar curriculum to younger children.
A Year 5 teacher said: “Teachers are going to have to teach different year groups, potentially alongside the home-learning for older children.
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“We have a teacher who is pregnant, another who can’t come in for medical reasons, so it’s going to be really tight. I might find myself teaching Year 1 for the first time, which would be a real learning curve.”
The teacher explained that while no firm decisions had been made about the approach, senior staff had proposed teaching in ‘pods’ or ‘bubbles’, where one teacher and, in some cases, a teaching assistant, stays with the same group of children all day – potentially for the rest of the academic year.
While this will immediately limit the contact pupils and teachers have outside their own group, the teacher said with families taken into consideration, each person in the bubble would be directly and indirectly in contact with around 100 more people than they would be if they were remaining at home.
Questions have also been raised about the rationale of why reception, Year 1, and Year 6 classes have been prioritised – especially when the older children set to transition to secondary school in September would usually be focusing on school plays and other less academic activities from June following their SAT exams.
If it were about making sure the children who most needed access to teaching received it, a more appropriate move would have been to reopen Year 5 instead of Year 6, one teacher said.
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A spokesperson for the Department for Education said the primary groups had been picked as “key transition years” – with the youngest children just grasping basic skills in socialising, as well as in reading, writing and counting.
They added that Year 6 had been chosen to aid the progression onto secondary school, while Year 10 and 12 were vital years for GCSE and A-level preparation.
“Our headteacher has been bombarded”
The issue of when to reopen a school goes beyond following government guidelines. Parents trust schools to know what to do to keep their children safe, and in many cases expect teachers and senior staff to have access to information that isn’t distributed to the general public.
Throughout the course of the coronavirus pandemic, that has not been the case. Day after day, families are contacting schools for more information – only to find that teachers have nothing to add.
So far, all the guidance available to teachers has been distributed at the same time it was sent out to the general public.
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A Year 5 teacher in north London said: “It’s caused a lot of problems because when I’ve spoken to parents on the phone they’re asking things like ‘do you know when they’ll go back?’ and they expect us to know more.
“It’s been a nightmare for our headteacher because she’s had to answer everyone’s questions – she’s been completely bombarded on all sides; from the parents, her staff, the governors.
“The government is saying contradictory things – stating that it’s safe to go back because you can socially distance, but also ‘we understand that children won’t’.”
Children of essential workers eat lunch in segregated positions at Kempsey Primary School in Worcester. PA
Concerns have repeatedly been raised that more disadvantaged children without access to laptops or space to study at home are being left behind by more privileged classmates, with this argument forming a central aspect of the reasoning behind schools reopening on June 1.
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But, as one teacher pointed out, reopening schools could widen this gap even further, with BAME children from disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to have underlying health issues such as asthma and therefore forced to stay at home.
Research published on Monday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reveals that poorer families are less likely to want to send their children back to school amid the pandemic, despite these pupils having fewer opportunities for home learning,
The Year 5 teacher added: “Something I’m concerned about is that disproportionately the children who fall under multiple categories – disadvantaged in terms of getting free school meals, are from BAME backgrounds, have special educational needs – are the children who also have underlying health conditions.
“It’s really hard because disproportionately, our disadvantaged children are more likely to have to shield for medical reasons and that seems to be the case across the country so they’re not going to be able to come back anyway.
“So this rhetoric of ‘we need to get the disadvantaged back into school’ – they’re not necessarily going to be the children who are able to come back to school which could just exacerbate that gap.”
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“I don’t think we should be made to feel like we are lazy or we don’t care.”
The government and unions have been caught up in an increasingly complicated dispute over a return to the classroom, with teachers told by their representatives not to engage with headteachers until unions are assured of their safety.
The National Education Union (NEU) has set out five tests for a return to the classroom, the first of which is a clear downward trend in the number of cases confirmed each day. Second is a national plan for social distancing and PPE provision, third is “comprehensive access to regular testing” for children and staff, fourth is “a whole school strategy” for if and when a case is confirmed, and fifth is protection for the vulnerable – including relatives of schoolchildren who could be impacted by school-home transmission.
As the unions have taken a more forceful approach, criticism against their actions – and the perceived reluctance of teachers to return to the classroom – has intensified.
In its most recent statement published on May 16, a spokesperson for the teachers’ union NASUWT welcomed education secretary Gavin Williamson’s comments that there would be a “cautious, phased return” to the classroom, but called for concrete guidance on health and safety measures.
They said: “Schools are looking to the government for clear and unequivocal guidance on the health and safety measures they will need to have in place prior to reopening.
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“The bottom line is that no teacher or child should be expected to go into schools until it can be demonstrated that it is safe for them to do so.” Teachers, many of whom are afraid for their own safety as well as the safety of the children they teach, have watched on in horror as “war rhetoric” and anti-union sentiment has crept into the conversation about returning to the classroom.
Comparing teachers with NHS staff, they say, has been extremely damaging. “If NHS staff don’t go to work, people will die,” said one teacher.
“That’s not the case for us. If we go back too soon we could be putting medics at an even higher risk.”
A Year 3 teacher added: “NHS staff have been doing incredible, incredible work, but we’re at this risk of teachers being demonised because we’re not saying ‘we’re ready to go in and fight this fight.’
“We can’t necessarily ‘fight’ it, it’s a lethal virus and I don’t think we should be made to feel like we are lazy or we don’t care just because we’re not engaging.
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“It’s not the war, but we just get this sort of empty poetry from the government when what we actually need is strategy, plans and clear instruction.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We want children back in schools as soon as possible because being back with their teachers and friends is so important for their education and their wellbeing.
“Plans for a phased return of some year groups from June 1, at the earliest, are based on the best scientific and medical advice. The welfare of children and staff has been at the heart of all decision making.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Coronavirus Trampled My First Year As A Teacher, But Taught Me The Meaning Of Resilience

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Covid-19,
I would start this letter with ‘dear’ – but there is nothing beloved about you.
You are brutal. You have taken innocent lives, torn families apart and shaken up our daily routines. The severe disruption you have caused around the world is mind-blowing.
It’s been over six weeks since we had to close our academy in Lincolnshire. Six frustrating and emotional weeks spent teaching from the confinement of my home, isolated in one of the most rural and least affluent areas in the East Midlands.
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As a trainee teacher, you have robbed me of finishing my first year in school with my students. My first year will always be the year you have so unfairly stained. It will always be the year that I had to say goodbye to students and colleagues within hours, not knowing when I would see them again.
I had to say goodbye to my Year 11 form group with a heavy heart, wishing them the best of luck in all their endeavours. I tried to smile, stay positive, and ensure them it was all going to be alright. I wanted to say I will see you soon, but I couldn’t. The uncertainty that lingered in the air was crippling. And it still is.
“I miss the four walls of my colourful classroom. I miss celebrating the small successes and the big leaps with my pupils...”
I miss the four walls of my colourful classroom. I miss celebrating the small successes and the big leaps with my pupils. I miss catching up with colleagues, and I genuinely miss the highs and lows that teaching brings.
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Now because of you, instead of sweet smiles, warm hellos and cheeky comments, I sit alone talking into my laptop, staring at a screen – nervously waiting for a reply on the other end. While most are engaging with this new way of learning, I haven’t heard much from some of my students in weeks. My work life now consists of answering emails, looking up login details and sorting technological difficulties, while simultaneously trying to teach engaging live lessons from my home and figure out where to upload tasks.
It’s not what I signed up for. But at least you’ve given me time to reflect. You’ve shown me how passionate I am about teaching, and that I miss my kids and my classroom more than I ever thought I would.
I started my teaching journey with the education charity Teach First, just over a year ago. Before then I had no idea of how unfair education could be in Britain. While completing my master’s degree in teaching English as an additional language, I discovered the Teach First Training Programme – which recruits and trains people to become teachers in areas serving disadvantaged communities.
“Although I despise coronavirus, I appreciate these strange circumstances for helping me to realise how much my kids and this profession means to me”
Asked to teach in Boston – a place I didn’t know existed before – I soon realised the challenges rural areas in this country can face: as schools in less affluent and isolated areas can struggle to attract staff and it’s our kids that suffer as a result. Those challenges are maximised in these circumstances – as pupils can feel unmotivated while isolated at home, or worse – don’t have the tools or an appropriate environment for home learning.
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But that’s what keeps me going: the want to stick around for my pupils, the want to make a difference to their education. And nine months into my first year, despite the current circumstances leaving me feeling more solitary than ever before – I can confidently say that I have made the right decision. Thanks to my pupils, school and Teach First community in my area, my resilience and courage has grown immensely from moving here.
In spite of all this tragedy and anxiety we’re facing, we must think of the silver linings – the resilience we have to adapt and come out of this situation stronger. This is not the time to overwhelm students. This is the time to show them we’re still here. It’s the time to keep learning engaging and fun. To support our pupils and their parents as they realise how critical, yet challenging education is.
So, Covid-19, although I despise you for all you have done, I appreciate these strange circumstances for helping me to realise how much my kids and this profession means to me. It’s something us teachers all need to hang onto – until we’re back in our classrooms again.
Regards,
Just one (of many) resilient teacher
Have a compelling personal story you want to tell? Find out what we’re looking for here, and pitch us on ukpersonal@huffpost.com


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--3 Simple Nail Art Ideas For People Who Are Truly Shit At Home Manicures

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We’re here to guide you through the coronavirus lockdown. Sign up to the Life newsletter for daily tips, advice, how-tos and escapism.
Lockdown may have given us more time than usual to do our nails, but that doesn’t mean we’ve become pro technicians over night. If, like me, you find block colour difficult enough, nail art can feel like a recipe for smudges.
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But Maddy Ayers (@MaadNails), a nail artist who works at ISLA Berlin, says getting creative with a home manicure doesn’t have to be complicated. So, she’s given us the step-by-step instructions for three simple designs, chosen with the artistically challenged in mind.
You shouldn’t need to buy any new tools, providing you have a bobby pin and some nail varnish at home. And if the end result still fails, at least it’s give you an evening of entertainment. Now is the time to experiment!
Daisies All Day
Maddy Ayers
This design is perfect for summer and if you lack the patience for multiple flowers (same), it works just as well with one flower per nail.
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Apply a thin layer of base coat Using a bobby pin and small amount of white polish (or whatever you have!), make five dots in a circle to make your flower. Try not to let the dots touch! Repeat all over the nail, or just have one flower per nail, as you like With your bobby pin, add a yellow dot in the centre of each flower Finish with a layer of glossy top coat (Seche Vite is the best), making sure to cap the ends.
Perfect Polka Dots
Maddy Ayers
Inspired by the style of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, the spots in this design can be any colour you wish, although striking yellow and black is popular. The lines aren’t meant to be perfectly straight, which is ideal for nail art novices.
Apply a thin layer of base coat Add two coats of bright yellow With your bobby pin and black polish, draw a wavy line of large dots down the middle of the nail Following the same curve, add lines of smaller dots until the each nail is full Clean up the edges using a make up brush dipped in polish remover Finish off with a layer of shiny top coat.
Holy Cow! What Great Nails
Maddy Ayers
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This design really is fool-proof because the blobs look better when they’re all different sizes. White and black nail varnish gives the full, fun farm effect, but you can use the technique with any two contrasting colours.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--We Need To Talk About Nipples (With Artist Emma Low & Nurse Clare O’Neill)

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Women’s bodies, particularly breasts, are hypersexualised – yet our nipples are often censored. And the nipples we do see are almost always the same: small, pert, pink, probably symmetrical and located on a slim, white, cis-gender body. Not only is this lack of representation damaging, but focuses too much on aesthetics.
We’re joined by two amazing guests on this podcast: Emma Low, an artist who makes clay boob pots that are not only fun, but crucially super inclusive (check them out at Pot Yer Tits Away Luv) and Clare O’Neill, a breast cancer survivor and nurse working for CoppaFeel! Charity to talk about nipples in their many, many contexts.
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Transcript
Brogan Driscoll:
Hello and welcome to HuffPost’s brand new weekly podcast, Am I Making You Uncomfortable? Presented by me, Brogan Driscoll.
Rachel Moss:
And me, Rachel Moss. This podcast is a frank, honest conversation about women’s bodies, health and private lives. Fearless, inclusive and empowering, we cover underreported issues and tackle topics you’re too squeamish to talk to your friends about.
Brogan Driscoll:
Today we’re talking about women’s nipples. We’ll be joined by Emma Low, an artist and creator of Pot Yer Tits Away Luv, and Clare O’Neill, a nurse working for breast cancer charity, CoppaFeel!
Rachel Moss:
You can join in the conversation by using our hashtag #AIMYU, which stands for Am I Making You Uncomfortable?
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So, it dawned on me when we were planning a podcast all about nipples that I haven’t actually seen many female nipples in my 28 years on this planet, which sounds like a really, really strange thing to say. But obviously, we see nipples in TV and film. But I think somewhere along the line, I must have internalized some kind of shame or idea that nipples are private things, because whether I’m on a beach and women are topless or a I’m at a mate’s house, and they’re getting undressed, I almost instinctively look away from boobs, and particularly nipples.
And so actually, because I’m a straight woman, when I stop and think about it, the only nipples that I am well acquainted with are my own and my mum’s, which is so, so weird.
Am I a weirdo? Or do you get what I mean? How many nipples do you think you’ve seen in your life?
Brogan Driscoll:
I really like the thought of being well acquainted with the nipple. It feels really formal. I think I’m a bit of the opposite, but I feel that might be because I am a “whip your boobs out” kinda gal. In appropriate situations, obviously.
I don’t know, I feel I’ve seen quite a lot of nipples. I mean, obviously I don’t stare at them. I sunbathe topless. I haven’t always done that. But I’ve started to do that in the last couple of years, which is just so nice and liberating. And I don’t know if anyone can relate to this, but if you’ve been sunbathing and then if you swim, or if you get in the sea or in the pool with no top on, it’s so nice. Your boobs are just like (noise) and it actually feels really nice. Maybe you should try it. Yeah. But yeah, I’m definitely nips out.
Rachel Moss:
I am the complete opposite in that regard. When I was younger, late teens, early 20s, I was very self-conscious about my boobs. I was quite scrawny. I’m one of those people who developed really late, was always quite childlike.
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I think as well, when we got magazines when you were a teenager, and they said, what body shape are you? And it was, apple, pear, and then it was... boy-like. I was always boy-like. Which, when you read that and you’re 14, 15, 16 and then your mates are developing massive knockers, you just, you just feel quite shit about yourself.
And unfortunately, I think I did carry that through to my early adult life. I’m late 20s now, I’m 28 and I have managed to shake it off mostly. It creeps up on me when I’m on holiday, I think, and other people are sunbathing topless and I just wouldn’t.
Brogan Driscoll:
Yeah, I like that people choose to do either. I’ve been on holidays where I might take my bikini top off. It’s mainly because of (this is really vain) but it’s mainly cause I don’t want to have strap marks and because of that lovely swimming experience, which I described earlier.
But everyone seems to just make the choices that feel good for them, at least in the situations I’ve been in or what makes them feel comfortable. But I’ve been thinking about… Obviously, we knew that we were going to be chatting about nipples today, so I’ve been thinking about them quite a lot and how nipples are censored.
You never see nipples in an advert. You can see all around the nipple, but you never see the actual nipple. And the same with lots of social media posts will be censored if you see the actual nipple. So it’s quite a unique area of the female body because we see so much and yet it’s hidden away and so we’re robbed of our ownership of them.
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Rachel Moss:
Obviously, we’re speaking a lot about body image relating to nipples because that is a big part of the conversation, but also nipples aren’t just there for aesthetic purposes. They actually have a role to play in our lives, whether that’s breastfeeding when people become mums or also showing signs of breast cancer or other underlying issues. So, really I think, just talking about them more is important because they have a function.
Brogan Driscoll:
Definitely. We’ve been inundated with women getting in touch to share their thoughts and feelings around their own nipples.
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Caller:
I guess the first time I realized that I even had nipples was when I was about 10 and getting changed in the school changing room. And one of the other girls was quite shocked by the appearance of my nipples and asked me why they were so dark. This little girl in question was Swedish and very fair, and obviously was just as shocked to see my nipples as I was to have them pointed out to me and I think that was my first realization, not only that that felt uncomfortable (someone else commenting on your body) but perhaps also the one of the first realizations that I wasn’t white, and that was one of the more prominent markers of that as I’m a white passing mixed race person. And I think that that experience probably did mean that I carried certain prejudices towards my own breasts moving into adulthood.
Caller:
I had a quite messy relationship. And when that ended, I got my nipple pierced on a whim, just the one but it’s one of the favourite things I’ve ever done, and it’s massively improved my confidence, and made me love all parts of my body so much more than I ever did before.
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Brogan Driscoll:
Clearly such an emotional topic and I’m so excited to get into it.
We’re super excited to have Emma Low on the podcast today. She’s an artist who makes clay boob pots that celebrate real bodies and boobs in all shapes and sizes. She runs the aptly named Instagram account, @potyertitsawayluv, where you can see her creations on happy customers shelves filled with pens and plants. So Emma, tell us how did you get into making pots with boobs on?
Emma Low:
I started in 2016 as a present to someone else, actually, which isn’t very feminist of me. It was for a man... who shall remain nameless.
And then someone saw it and was like, “Oh, that’s cool. Could I have one?” And then I just started making more. And here we are four years later.
Rachel Moss:
Love that. So the pots, for anyone who hasn’t seen them, they are very varied in shape and size, colour, skin tone, everything you could possibly imagine. All different boobs are welcome. And I know that women can almost request a pot that’s like their boobs. So how does that work? Can you talk us through the creative process? So for example, if I wanted a pot that looks like my boobs, do I send you a boob pic? How does that work?
Emma Low:
Yes, you do.
Rachel Moss:
Oh!
Brogan Driscoll:
Amazing!
Emma Low:
And so when I first started, I was a bit unsure of how I was going to do it. Obviously, there wasn’t really a plan. I didn’t have any marketing going on, any brand thing. I just rolled with the punches. I always say that the pots are a likeness, they’re never going to be an exact replica. And I think that’s why people like them because it’s quite nice to see how someone else sees you.
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Brogan Driscoll:
How long does each pot take to make?
Emma Low:
It really depends on how motivated I’m feeling. There’s stages, so I work with air drying clay, which is not the same as ceramics. So I have to build the pot and then I have to leave it to dry and then I come back to it, then I’ll sand it, then I’ll paint it, then it’ll have a topcoat.
And then usually I’ll take photos for Instagram. So the process is quite lengthy. I would say from the initial sending of the photographs to people receiving their pots, it could be anywhere between two to four weeks.
Rachel Moss:
We were talking at the start about the lack of nipples that we see in our day-to-day lives because you catch cleavage all the time, if people wear certain outfits, but yeah, you never seen nips. They are hidden away.
Emma Low:
But if you do see them then there’s usually an embarrassment.
Brogan Driscoll:
Mmm, nip slip.
Emma Low:
An awkward moment of, “oh, you shouldn’t have seen that! ” or even if your nipples are just a little bit erect. I think people get quite uncomfortable about it, which is funny.
Me and my housemate talk about this all the time because obviously… t’s getting a little bit warmer now. Men love to just roam the streets without their tops on and we always laugh, like imagine if we were doing that, people would be crashing their cars into lamp posts and stuff.
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We would be arrested!
Brogan Driscoll:
I was saying earlier, how I’m a whip them out gal on holidays and stuff. I just love to be able to do that. And it’s frustrating to have them super sexualized and it be a massive taboo to not be able to get your nipples out.
Emma Low:
I mean going on holiday, that’s a really good point because you go to places like Europe, and everyone’s completely naked, bushes are hanging out, hairy legs, no one cares, no one even bats an eyelid. And the mere mention of a nipple here is very taboo, I would say.
Rachel Moss:
So you’ve clearly got quite an open attitude to nipples and you believe that we should be able to be free and express ourselves. Have you always had that? Is that something you’ve developed that came in time with you setting up Pot Yer Tits Away Luv?
Emma Low:
No. I grew up in a household where we would see each other naked all the time. And so for me, a body is not a sexual thing, unless it’s in that context.
So I think that really helped me to not have as many boundaries, if that makes sense. I want people to feel as free as I feel. I mean, I have a very normative body. So for me to say I want everyone to feel how I feel is a little bit… probably naive, because I’m represented everywhere.
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And that was the whole movement behind me making the pots, was that I wanted it to be somewhere where people could come and feel more represented and celebrated and not necessarily have anyone tell them what they should feel about their body, but just feel like, “oh, that looks like me. I can maybe be a bit more accepting of me.”
Brogan Driscoll:
You’re making a really interesting point. And that’s what’s so striking about your work and the way that it’s presented on Instagram, is that we can really see the breadth of the pots that you create and that message comes across really loud and clear, I think.
Emma Low:
It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I’m at. Obviously when it started out, it was just women I was doing it for but now I make pots for anyone, regardless of what gender they identify as.
So I try to not really…
Although my name is Pot Yer Tits Away Luv, I don’t want it to be exclusive to women, because I think that is quite damaging to a lot of people. And a lot of people don’t really know what they identify as. So maybe having a place to just explore your body and just accept it as what it is. Maybe will lead you to a place where you feel more accepting of yourself as a whole.
Brogan Driscoll:
You’ve worked with so many people. Have you got any stories about the impact that your work’s had on people?
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Emma Low:
I mean, it completely depends. Everyone is so different, mentality wise, but physicality wise, everyone’s different as well.
So some people will be really vocal about how they feel about their pot, like they love it or where they’re going to put it, or who they’re going to show it to, or they’re going to take it to work, or just whatever.
And other people just get it and never say anything ever again cause it’s really theirs to do whatever they want with it. I just feel it’s their thing. It’s their need, they want it for some reason, and then when they get it, they can do whatever they want with it. I’m just the middle person.
Rachel Moss:
It’s interesting that you say people order pots because they’ve got some kind of need, because we’ve heard from a lot of our listeners who have a lot of body hang-ups to do with boobs, and particularly nipples.
So we wanted to play you a couple of testimonials from those listeners, just to hear a couple of different views and see what you think about them.
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Brogan Driscoll:
So this testimonial is from a woman who got in touch to tell us about how she’s seen a lack of representation as a black woman in media and a lack of representation of what her breasts and nipples look like and how that’s impacted her personally and how it’s also impacted a particular relationship.
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Caller:
So I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with my nipples because I’ve always felt they don’t really look like anyone else’s. That’s not to say that they’re in any way flawed.
They just don’t seem to be the kind of nipples that you see often. You don’t see them in a great Renaissance painting, or in an advertisement for a product or in a sex scene on the BBC. And that’s because my nipples are large and brown. The kind that you find on a brown or black woman’s body.
The feeling that that lack of representation has created is one of paranoia, especially when I’m with a new sexual partner. I always feel like my nipples are some kind of big reveal. I remember a few years ago once, I was at this guy’s house in East London and we were making out and I took my bra off and he just stared at me, but not in the hot way… in a confused way.
And I said, “What’s wrong?” And he was like, “Nothing. I’ve just I’ve just never slept with a… with a black woman before” to which I responded, “So?” and he just said, “It’s just your nipples. They’re not pink.”
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Rachel Moss:
So Emma, obviously you have spoken to more women about nipples than most people. Are you surprised hearing that testimonial that we’ve got through? Or have you heard things similar to that before?
Emma Low:
I’m not surprised that if you’re not represented, then you would have some sort of self-confidence issues.
I think that’s why, when I started out doing the pots, I wanted to make sure that I was including bodies like that. I often feel I may be crossing a line as a white woman, that I shouldn’t necessarily be making money off of other women’s bodies or other people’s bodies.
But then again, if I wasn’t including everyone, then I wouldn’t be staying true to myself, which is something that’s important to me. So... I mean, I think it’s interesting that that was the reaction that her partner had as well, because that says a lot, doesn’t it?
I just think it would be so much better if younger people were taught more about what different bodies look like, because that could have been so unavoidable. So yeah, that makes me feel a bit sad. Also, it doesn’t surprise me.
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Rachel Moss:
We’ve spoken a bit about sort of the mainstream representation of nipples, be that TV and film and you touched on sex education there as well. Is there anywhere else you think these ideas of good boobs and bad boobs come from?
Emma Low:
It’s terrible, but I’m an avid watcher of Love Island. And there was a point where they were sharing cosmetic surgery adverts in the breaks between broadcasting Love Island and I think stuff like that is super super damaging.
For one, people can do whatever they want with their bodies. If you feel that you want cosmetic surgery to live a more authentic life, then be my guest. It’s your money. It’s your body. At the end of the day you can do whatever you want.
But I don’t think we should be actively encouraging people to alter themselves to fit into a mold that’s completely unachievable for most people.
Brogan Driscoll
I think you hit the nail on the head there.
Rachel Moss:
We’re going to play a second testimonial for you now. It’s one of our listeners talking about how her relationship with her nipples has changed since becoming a mother.
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Caller:
I’ve always had a really difficult relationship with my breasts, particularly my nipples. Felt so self conscious and uncomfortable. The thought of getting them out mortified me but that all completely changed when I had my daughter and I breastfed her, to the point apparently when she was handed over to me, I just whacked my boob out in front of everyone, no problem, to feed her.
And it’s completely changed how I view my body and view my nipples. Now when I look at them, I feel so much pride and love and just see them representing her and my bond with her, and just fills me with so much joy and so much more confidence.
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Emma Low:
That’s really lovely. I think that spiked my interest as well, because a lot of people feel a certain way about their bodies until they actually realize what their body’s functions are.
That’s really nice that that natural instinct just kicked in and she was able to just be like, “This is what they’re there for. It doesn’t matter what they look like, they’re fulfilling a purpose.”
And I have had a lot of people who have contacted me and I’ve made pots of them, who have had children, and they’ve said that their breasts and their nipples have changed and they change throughout pregnancy and then they changed to something else.
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I think your body is ever evolving with everything. For me, I feel personally, that it’s just you have to accept that you’re human and humans are flawed in a way that makes you who you are. And that’s quite nice. We all have those.
Rachel Moss:
That is a really lovely note to end on. But before we say goodbye to you, there’s a question that we ask all of our guests who come on the podcast every week, and that is…
What makes you uncomfortable in life? Anything. We’ve had pantomimes, we’ve had small talk.
Emma Low:
Oh, great, okay, mine is emotional vulnerability.
Rachel Moss:
Tell us more.
Brogan Driscoll:
Deep.
Emma Low:
I just absolutely hate sharing my feelings and I’ve realized quite recently that I am terrible at communicating them. Yeah, that’s something that makes me obviously feel very uncomfortable.
Rachel Moss:
But the fact that you’ve just shared it on a podcast, I would say that shows that you’re getting over it a little bit.
Emma Low:
Well, maybe.
Brogan Driscoll:
Thank you so much.
Emma Low:
Thank you so much. That was really fun.
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Brogan Driscoll:
Thank you so much to Emma Low for joining us. That was a really insightful conversation. If you want to follow her work, she’s on Instagram at @potyertitsawayluv
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Caller:
It was actually my high school boyfriend who made me realize something was a little unusual about my breasts. I’d heard the expression “inverted nipples”. I knew Kate Moss actually had them, but I’d never applied it to my boobs, which I actually quite liked.
He was lovely about it, as have most partners been since, but it does feel fraught, getting naked in front of someone for the first time. I worry they’re defective, that I might not be able to breastfeed in future and to be honest, even the word “nipples” makes me feel uncomfortable because I know something’s not quite right with mine.
Caller:
I have always felt really uncomfortable about my nipples. They’re a lot larger than what you see most girls who model and things… and I am a model. So I always thought that it was really weird that they were a lot larger. And even in music, you hear guys talk about gumdrop nipples, which are a lot smaller. So I always was really insecure about that. But lately I’ve been trying to embrace my body and it is what it is.
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Rachel Moss:
You’re listening to Am I Making You Uncomfortable? And if you want to get involved online and join in the conversation, our hashtag is #AIMYU
Brogan Driscoll:
So we’re super pleased to have Clare O’Neill with us today. Clare was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 at age 33, and is now thankfully in remission. She’s a nurse and now works for Coppafeel!, a breast cancer charity, where she is a health care coordinator and sometimes dresses up as a giant boob at festivals, as one of the charity’s boobettes.
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Rachel Moss:
Clare, thank you so much for joining us. Before you joined the call, we were talking to Emma Lowe, who is an artist who makes these amazing plant pots and pen pots that look like boobs. They’re super fun.
We kept saying over and over again, they’re all different shapes and colours and sizes. Amazing.
We were talking a lot with her about the aesthetic of boobs and body image concerns around boobs but of course, behind every boob and every nipple, there is a person and a story. So we are really grateful for you to come on today and to share a bit of your personal story with us.
I know you were diagnosed with breast cancer really, really young. What first alerted you that something might be wrong healthwise?
Clare O’Neill:
So I was just in the bathroom and I was just looking in the mirror and I noticed a sort of dimple. And we often talk about orange peel skin. So it’s a bit dimply, but it looked like it was being pulled in from the inside, which actually, it turns out it was.
So I noticed a dimple and then I felt around the side of my boob and it felt a bit hard. It didn’t necessarily feel like a lump, but there was definitely an area of hardness. And that obviously scared me. So that’s how I noticed.
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I went to my GP, and my GP felt certain that it couldn’t be breast cancer. But he fortunately did the right thing, and referred me to the breast clinic anyway. It was because I previously had a chest CT for a chest infection at the hospital and he actually couldn’t see that scan, because it’s a different trust, but that’s a whole other story.
But he said, because I’d had that scan he said, if it was breast cancer, it almost certainly would have been picked up on that scan. It actually turns out that that’s not true. When I went to the breast clinic, I spoke to the radiologist and he said, “No, I’m looking at that scan now and we can’t see it on there.”
So that’s one of the myths that I try and debunk now in my job when I go and speak to GPs, but the main thing is my GP did the right thing, which is, he referred me to the breast clinic anyway.
Brogan Driscoll:
And so what was the treatment plan for you?
Clare O’Neill:
First of all, I was asked by the oncologist if I have children, and I said no. And she very cleverly said, well, we’re going to get you an appointment at the fertility clinic. And that was the first thing that I had.
I had two cycles of IVF to try and harvest some of my eggs, because they knew that the treatment would probably make me infertile. They didn’t know what it was going to be yet, but a lot of breast cancer treatments do cause infertility. So that was the first thing I had. It was smart of her to not ask me if I wanted children at that point.
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I know a lot of women might not have, but it doesn’t hurt to have an appointment with the fertility clinic and at that point, I’d just been told I had breast cancer. So I probably didn’t want to have the conversation about whether or not I wanted children at that exact moment.
So I had two cycles of IVF and we made some embryos, me and my husband, and they are now in the freezer at St. Bart’s. And then I had surgery. I had about a month of daily radiotherapy.
And then I had hormone therapy, which is tablets to reduce the estrogen in my system because my breast cancer was estrogen positive, which means it was caused by estrogen, which meant that I had to have this drug called tamoxifen.
It reduced the estrogen in my system, which essentially put me into an early menopause really, and I’m no longer on tamoxifen now. So I don’t have any treatment anymore.
Bogan Driscoll:
And how did your treatment and your breast cancer, your experience of it impact…
Because, we’re talking about as women, what’s our relationship with our nipples specifically.
I wonder, how did this whole experience impact your relationship with your breasts and with your nipples?
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Clare O’Neill:
Well, I think it’s a really huge subject actually, which I think it’s a really good thing that you guys are doing this podcast and partly just because in general, there is definitely some gender inequality in healthcare and across the board in health care, there is some health inequality there.
And so we don’t really always know everything that we need to know about our bodies. But I found that when I was diagnosed, I think probably like a lot of women actually, who go through breast cancer.
Suddenly, a lot of my ideas of womanhood were all wrapped up in my boob and what that represented.
Breasts are discussed in lots of different contexts. Social, sexual, maternal, and obviously, me having to have fertility treatment, thinking about whether or not I could breastfeed, thinking about whether or not I would keep my breast, sexuality. All of those different things made me challenge all of those notions of womanhood and think about what they really meant to me.
So, it is difficult to think about the nipple and divorce that from the breast, but for me it was really just about... my surgery, the incision was at the site of my areola, which was done for, I guess, aesthetic purposes. So you couldn’t see the scar when it healed.
But my boob changed and it also of course dulls all the nerve endings when you have surgery in your breasts for whatever reason, and any surgery will dull all the nerve endings. So my nipple isn’t as sensitive as the other one. It’s still pretty sensitive, so it’s not really a huge problem. I think there are much bigger problems.
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When women have breast cancer, obviously, they’re thinking about their life and they’re thinking about treatment and that’s obviously a priority.
But they’re also thinking about bigger things like confidence, how it’s going to affect their relationship. And so for me, I was worried in the early stages about whether or not I would feel separated from my boob, if I was ever going to like it again, if I was ever going to feel attractive.
I don’t really feel that anymore. My boob is healed and I feel like it is part of me again, but there is always that thing of it’s… I like to say it’s got character now I guess.
Rachel Moss:
I like that.
Brogan Driscoll:
Some signs of breast cancer come from changes in the nipple area, is that right?
Clare O’Neill:
Yeah, absolutely. So, all boobs are different. And this is what we say to women all the time.
You’re the expert when it comes to checking your boobs, so because maybe you have lumpy boobs around your period, and maybe you have inverted nipples. These are things that people sometimes have, right?
But if you don’t usually have inverted nipples, and then suddenly you do have an inverted nipple, that would certainly be a sign that we would want you to contact your GP, if you have any discharge, any bleeding, any crusting around the nipple. These are all potential signs and symptoms of breast cancer. So certainly we would want people to contact their GP if they had any of those symptoms.
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Rachel Moss:
So we spoke earlier a lot about body confidence relating to boobs and to nipples. And actually, there was a study out a couple of years ago by Anglia Ruskin University that said if women don’t like their boobs or their nipples, then they’re less likely to check for signs for breast cancer.
What advice would you have for those women? Or is there anything you would tell them about the importance of doing it? How do you get over that hurdle?
Clare O’Neill:
It’s tricky because as I mentioned earlier, boobs are thought about in lots of different contexts, and it’s sometimes really hard to just remember that they are just a part of our body, but I do say to girls, your boobs are yours. They belong to you. You should take ownership and responsibility for them. It is difficult to get people to engage with their boobs. We have had people say to us anecdotally, oh, I don’t want to touch my boobs. It’s almost as though women sometimes feel their boobs are for their partners and not for them.
So there are some really strange relationships out there between women and their boobs and it is difficult to try and get that across. It doesn’t help that we do have that problem with seeing the female nipple as an obscene image or whatever. As though it’s genitals, which it isn’t. But I guess it’s just about people taking responsibility for their own health ultimately.
Rachel Moss:
In really practical terms, how should you check your breasts? Do you have any tips for how you’re meant to feel? Do you start from the bottom and go to the top? I feel breasts are naturally a bit bobbly and lumpy. Or maybe that’s just me, overshare. How do you know what a normal bit of boob gristle is, compared to something that’s problematic?
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Clare O’Neill:
Yeah, it is hard because the thing is, we don’t want people to feel signs and symptoms or see signs and symptoms of breast cancer in their boobs, cause we hope that they’re never going to have any. The chances are you’re never going to be any. So it’s tricky.
Before I had breast cancer myself, I would have thought the same thing. Every so often I would have thought, “Is this a lump? Or is this? What is this?”
The more that you do it, the more you get used to what your normal is. I’ve had surgery on my boob now. So I have to get used to a new normal. It’s scary at first because I think, “Oh, is that a hard area?” It’s just for me now it’s scar tissue. I know that scar tissue. So all boobs are different. That’s the important thing.
In terms of actually checking, we don’t say that there’s a specific technique that you should be using for checking your boobs. The only rules I would say is to make sure that you’re doing it properly. So again, it’s not just about feeling, it’s about looking in the mirror as well. Checking right up to your collarbone and under your armpit, where there can also be signs and symptoms, and just being aware of what those signs and symptoms are. It’s not just a lump. It can be anything that’s unusual that you should probably get checked out with your GP, so things like dimples.
Some women who have had breast cancer have said anecdotally that one boob just suddenly felt very hard compared with the other one. They couldn’t necessarily feel a lump but it was just hard.
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So that’s the kind of message that I would want to get across really to women, is if you are aware, and you’re doing it regularly and you know your boobs and you know the signs and symptoms of breast cancer then you’re doing it properly.
We often get questions from pregnant women. And that can be much harder to determine what is changes in pregnancy? And what could be a sign or a symptom of breast cancer? Breast cancer in pregnancy is rare, but it does happen.
So we still want women to be checking, and actually pregnant women who get diagnosed with breast cancer actually get diagnosed later. And we also know that black women get diagnosed later than white women. And there are lots of multifactorial reasons why that might be. But I’m very interested and Coppafeel! are very interested in those reasons and trying to address those health inequalities.
Brogan Driscoll:
Thank you so much Clare, that’s so informative.
Clare O’Neill:
They’re welcome.
Brogan Driscoll:
We have one question that we put to each of our podcast guests, which we’d love you to answer, obviously. The question is, what makes you uncomfortable?
Clare O’Neill:
I make myself uncomfortable Brogan. I have that very awkward combination of being probably a fairly outspoken person with really bad anxiety, so I have a really bad filthy mouth problem quite a lot of the time. I would say the answer to your question is... I make myself uncomfortable.
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Brogan Driscoll:
Oh Clare, that’s a great answer. Thank you.
Rachel Moss:
Thank you Clare.
Clare O’Neill:
Thanks so much for having me on.
Rachel Moss:
You’ve just listened to Am I Making You Uncomfortable? And our hashtag is #AIMYU
A huge thank you to Emma Low and Clare O’Neill for joining us on today’s podcast. I’m Rachel Moss, and you can find me @rachelmoss_
Brogan Driscoll:
And I’m Brogan Driscoll, and you can follow me @brogan_driscoll


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Slowly, Surely, Keir Starmer Is Imposing His Will On The Labour Party

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Starmer Army starts to march
On the day that Keir Starmer removed Jeremy Corbyn’s general secretary Jennie Formby earlier this month, the Labour leader was politely brutal. Formby had left by “mutual consent”, he said, because “we need to move on as a party”. And the number one priority of her successor should be to “focus on winning the next general election”.
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It was a clear signal that Starmer is heartily sick of the era of internal politics that has characterised the general secretary post for more than a few years. He wants someone who is both a highly competent administrator and proven campaigner, but not someone who has an eye on the next vote in an NEC meeting. “We need to call time on the factional fixer model,” is how one ally puts it, referring to both the Formby and Iain McNicol eras.
While he may want a ‘non-factional’ future, Starmer has to use his authority (and the varied pro-Starmer factions) to get there. But as the past few days have shown, he’s also unafraid of being ruthless about it. When the Left of the party pulled off a rearguard action to take control of the general secretary shortlisting process, Starmer decided to bide his time. He got the process extended and used the delay to ensure his ‘favoured’ candidate David Evans had a path cleared for him.
At today’s NEC meeting there was a reminder that hand-to-hand combat has not gone away. Starmer’s attempt to expand the longlisting panel with his allies was met with a flat out refusal by chair Andi Fox. The panel still has a Left majority, unlike the wider NEC, where Starmer has between 18 and 21 of the 38-strong ruling body. If for some reason that panel decides it doesn’t want Evans when it longlists this Thursday, the whole NEC could well revisit the issue next week.
But Starmer’s ruthless streak comes with a cost. Unite’s Anneliese Midgley had been seen by many as exactly the kind of uniting figure the party needed, complete with a strong campaigning background. Her decision not to apply followed a lack of encouragement from Starmer’s team, which itself left a sour taste in the mouths of those of the Corbyn Left who had supported his leadership campaign.
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The irony is that Midgley’s Unite links were seen by some as an “an optics problem” externally for the new leader, though internally most knew she worked with all wings of the party (as MPs’ Twitter love for her today proved). Now Starmer has a different kind of optics problem. “A white man leader [Starmer], white man chief of staff [Morgan McSweeney] and white man GS [Evans] is not a good look,” as one party insider, themselves a Starmer supporter, put it to me. Several women, including Momentum-for-Starmer tribune Laura Parker, expressed their unease.
Given the fact that Labour operates a secret ballot vote for its general secretary, it’s perfectly possible that Evans’s progress could be derailed. Irritation among some swing NEC members at being bounced could manifest itself with a vote for another candidate, possibly former Cooperative party chief Karin Christiansen.
Still, Evans remains the favourite for now. And if he does get the general secretary job, another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is ‘Starmerism’ could slot into place. Evans is a former assistant general secretary and north west regional secretary who knows how to campaign in the northern Red Wall as much as in marginal London areas like Croydon and Hammersmith.
Although some see him as ‘Blue Labour’ before the term was discredited, others say he is much more interesting than that label. A believer in values-based analysis, his main thesis is that Labour can only win if it builds a coalition across aspirational voters, metropolitan voters and those voters motivated by safety and security concerns (strong on law and order, national security, patriotism). He correctly foresaw that the Brexit earthquake would play out in 2019 more than it did in 2017.
PA
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Starmer’s new head of policy, Claire Ainsley, offers another clue too to the direction the party may take. Ainsley’s 2018 book The New Working Class is required reading among Starmerites as it describes the need to appeal to the ‘precariat’ of low-paid workers in call centres, online delivery vans, cleaners and yes care workers. And again it’s their values as much as their economic status that defines them: a belief in hard work, fairness and family.
But when it comes to ‘fairness’, immigration is a policy that shows how difficult the new direction could prove. Ainsley has backed the idea of - wait for it - a points-based immigration system (though crucially not one whose salary cap excludes care workers). On Monday, Labour voted against the second reading of the Immigration Bill that would enact a points-based system, partly because of care worker concerns.
New shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds went on the front foot to declare the bill was against the ‘national interest’ because our NHS and care homes relied on 180,000 overseas staff to function. But several Labour MPs were still extremely worried about the signal that the vote sent to those voters who want a ‘fairer’ immigration system.
A handful told the whips they would not vote (Yvette Cooper was the only MP to go public) but many more did so with gritted teeth. “A significant number of us were incandescent at the whip,” one backbencher tells me. “Yes, we sent the voters a message alright, and the message was fuck off.” Some believe the Tories are already storing up 2024 campaign slogans that Labour voted against controlling immigration, leaving Starmer exposed on his varying positions on ending EU free movement then loving free movement.
For now, the Starmer Army is just pleased that he’s showing the steady progress required in lots of other areas. But some Labour MPs believe that once the Covid crisis is less salient, Starmer will need to focus relentlessly on his new agenda of reshaping Britain to reflect the values of the voters, while offering credible policies for those facing job insecurity. The Labour leader is beginning to impose his will on his party. Winning over the electorate is the much more difficult task. The two, however, are not unrelated.
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Quote Of The Day
“We’re likely to face a severe recession the likes of which we have not seen, and of course that will have an impact on unemployment.”
Rishi Sunak
Tuesday Cheat Sheet
Any changes to the lockdown need “a highly effective ‘track, trace and isolate’ system to be running first, MoD scientist Angela McLean said. Any changes to social distancing should be based on incidence of the virus “not on a fixed date.”
Her remarks followed Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey telling SkyNews: “If the science was wrong, [if] advice at the time was wrong, I’m not surprised if people will then think we then made a wrong decision.”
Latest estimates suggest there have now been 55,000 excess deaths in the UK since the pandemic started. The ONS said 11,600 people have died from coronavirus in care homes.
Martin Green, chief exec of Care England, told MPs that the government had a “policy of emptying hospitals and filling care homes” early on.
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Labour cancelled its annual conference. The Lib Dems are expected to follow suit, but the Conservatives are still ‘planning’ to go ahead in Birmingham.
Environment secretary (and former fruit farmer) George Eustice urged Britons on furlough to apply for fruit picking jobs to make up for lower numbers of Eastern Europeans in the UK this summer. He directed people to the pickforbritain.co.uk website.
Michael Gove published a 291-page draft comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. Some trade experts swiftly said it seemed almost designed to fail, while a survey of social scientists found 71% do not expect a deal to be struck this year.
Second World War veteran Captain Tom Moore is to be knighted after his heroic efforts to raise money for the NHS.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--Captain Tom Moore To Be Knighted

Captain Tom Moore To Be Knighted

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Second World War veteran Captain Tom Moore is to be knighted after his heroic efforts to raise money for the NHS.
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The 100-year-old received almost £33 million in donations for health service charities by walking laps of his Bedfordshire garden.
Prime minister Boris Johnson described Sir Tom as a “true national treasure” and praised his “fantastic fundraising” which he said “provided us all with a beacon of light through the fog of coronavirus”.
Johnson recommend Sir Tom be exceptionally honoured by the Queen, who has approved the honour, Downing Street has announced.
His knighthood comes just weeks after he was made an honorary colonel to mark his centenary and fundraising efforts.
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Sir Tom set out to walk 100 laps of his garden in Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire before his 100th birthday on April 30, and he completed the laps ahead of time.
His initial fundraising target was £1,000, but his determination captured the public imagination during the pandemic and within days he had raised tens of millions of pound
He also released a charity single, You’ll Never Walk Alone, with singer Michael Ball, which reached number one in the charts, making him the oldest artist ever to have a UK number one single.
Johnson said: “Colonel Tom’s fantastic fundraising broke records, inspired the whole country and provided us all with a beacon of light through the fog of coronavirus.
“On behalf of everyone who has been moved by his incredible story, I want to say a huge thank you. He’s a true national treasure.”
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A government spokeswoman added: “We know there is huge appetite to say thank you to all those supporting the nation during this emergency and doing incredible things day in, day out, up and down the country.
“We will ensure these unsung heroes are recognised in the right way, at the right time.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer congratulated Sir Tom who he said had brought “inspiration to millions and helped all of us to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of our NHS”.
He added: “In his actions, Tom embodied the national solidarity which has grown throughout this crisis, and showed us that everyone can play their part in helping build a better future.”
Sir Tom enlisted into the eighth battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (8 DWR), an infantry unit that was converted to operate Churchill tanks as part of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC).
In 1940 he was selected for officer training and rose to the rank of captain, later being posted to 9 DWR in India.
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He served and fought in the Arakan in western Burma, since renamed Rakhine State, and went with his regiment to Sumatra after the Japanese surrender.
After the war he returned to the UK and worked as an instructor at the Armoured Fighting Vehicle School in Bovington, Dorset.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-05-19--“Shabbily Treated” BAME Community Deserves Public Inquiry Into Impact Of Coronavirus

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A public inquiry to examine the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities is urgently needed, campaigners have declared.
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High-profile figures including author and journalist Gary Younge, MP Diane Abbott and Professor Azeem Majeed were among those who spoke out at an online meeting calling for an investigation similar to the inquiry following Stephen Lawrence’s death.
Anti-racist campaigners have also highlighted the hypocrisy of desperately needing migrant workers in the NHS, care homes and other sectors during the current crisis and the legislation preventing them from working when the disaster is over.
HuffPost UK revealed how people from BAME communities felt they were being “thrown to the wolves” with the government’s new back-to-work guidelines in an easing of lockdown measures.
The UK has one of the highest per capita death rates in the world for coronavirus and around 28 per cent of Covid-19 deaths were people from BAME communities.
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A postman wearing protective personal equipment walks through East Ham, east London. EMPICS Entertainment
Ethnic minority groups are at greater risk of dying from coronavirus than the white population, according to the latest analysis by the Office for National Statistics.
Black people are four times more likely to die from a coronavirus-related cause than white people with black men 4.2 times more likely and black women 4.3 times more likely.
The analysis also showed that Bangladeshi and Pakistani men were 1.8 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white men while women from those ethnic groups were 1.6 times more likely to die than white women.
Weyman Bennett, co-convener at Stand Up To Racism, told HuffPost UK that it is a mistake that the government has not taken the impact on BAME communities into account when considering things like the reopening of schools.
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“It is better to lose some of your education than to lose a parent or a grandparent.” - Weyman Bennett, Stand Up To Racism
“There has not been enough work done on the impact of ending lockdown on BAME communities.” he said.
“It is better to lose some of your education than to lose a parent or a grandparent.
“BAME frontline workers have paid the price for the heroic role they have been playing battling Covid-19.
“We need an inquiry to find out why so many people from BAME backgrounds have died as a result of coronavirus.
“We need this to find out the truth and also for those who lost their lives.”
The online meeting discussed the government’s Immigration Bill with the second reading back on the parliament agenda.
Weyman Bennett, co-convener at Stand Up To Racism. Stand Up To Racism
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Bennett said many people are furious at the Tory plans that “will starve the NHS, care homes and other vital services of the migrant workers they so desperately need to operate successfully.”
He said: “The government’s failure to end NHS surcharges is a further insult. Migrants are still being forced to pay hundreds of pounds to access the very services they are fighting and dying to provide.
“It is a slap in the face to expect migrant workers to pay a visa surcharge for themselves and their families and to treat them as unskilled labour when they are critically needed.”
Bennett added that he is the “proud son” of a Windrush nurse and that she and her generation were treated “shabbily” – and says history is now repeating itself.
“My mother and her generation were treated shabbily and this is being repeated again now in the way those who are sacrificing their health and their lives working for frontline services and this is contributing to the hostile environment which should have ended with the Covid-19 crisis.
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“Clearly, the issue of racism – whether the institutional racism that has contributed to such a disproportionate number of BAME people among the Covid deaths, or whether the operation of a deliberate ‘hostile environment’ – remains a central political issue and a factor which in many ways is in play during the current coronavirus crisis.
“Racism is a dangerous virus and we have to call it out and organise to oppose all forms of racism now.”
London bus driver Greesman Ranjith Chandrapala died of Covid-19 on May 3. His daughter Leshie Chandrapala expressed her concerns about the easing of lockdown forcing more people to use public transport and putting more drivers with inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) at risk.
Similarly, Oyinkansola Honey Iloba, the daughter of nurse Eyitolami Olaolorun who died of coronavirus on April 16, urged people to stick to the government’s previous “stay at home” message.
Diane Abbott MP. PA
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Diane Abbott MP said: “There is no denying that the coronavirus is hitting Black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities hardest.
“The urgent question is why so that we can do something about it in time.
“There can be little confidence that this government will mount an inquiry which explores all the relevant factors or that it will bring the necessary sense of urgency. But we must insist on both.”
Bell Ribeiro Addy MP said: “We need to be clear about who will bear the brunt of the premature end to lockdown.
“Overwhelmingly, those being forced to put their health at risk and go back to work are in low-paid occupations, which are disproportionately done by BAME people.
“The decision therefore risks compounding already shocking inequalities in terms of Covid-19 health outcomes.
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