Daily Archives: 10 Jun 2020

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

Coronavirus came to UK ‘on at least 1,300 separate occasions’

Coronavirus came to UK ‘on at least 1,300 separate occasions’

A new study showes that less than 0.1% of those imported cases came directly from China. Instead the UK’s coronavirus epidemic was largely initiated by travel from Italy in late February, Spain in early-to-mid-March and then France in mid-to-late-March. 

[When we didn’t even ask for their names or contact details, let alone test them or ask them to self-isolate. Yet now we are “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted” and insisting on 14 days quarantine. Many believe that this policy which has huge economic consequences and makes no sense has simply been introduced because it is thought in No 10 to “please the crowd”. Does this Government know what it is doing? – Owl]

www.bbc.co.uk  

Coronavirus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, a major analysis of the genetics of the virus shows.

The study, by the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium (Cog-UK), completely quashes the idea that a single “patient zero” started the whole UK outbreak.

The analysis also finds China, where the pandemic started, had a negligible impact on cases in the UK.

Instead those initial cases came mostly from European countries.

The researchers analysed the genetic code of viral samples taken from more than 20,000 people infected with coronavirus in the UK.

Then, like a gigantic version of a paternity test, the geneticists attempted to piece together the virus’s massive family tree.

This was combined with data on international travel to get to the origins of the UK epidemic.

 They found the UK’s coronavirus epidemic did not have one origin – but at least 1,356 origins. On each of those occasions somebody brought the infection into the UK from abroad and the virus began to spread as a result.

“The surprising and exciting conclusion is that we found the UK epidemic has resulted from a very large number of separate importations,” said Prof Nick Loman, from Cog-UK and the University of Birmingham.

“It wasn’t a patient zero,” he added.

The study showed that less than 0.1% of those imported cases came directly from China. Instead the UK’s coronavirus epidemic was largely initiated by travel from Italy in late February, Spain in early-to-mid-March and then France in mid-to-late-March.

[The study estimated that approx. 34% of detected UK transmission lineages arrived via inbound travel from Spain, approx. 29% from France, approx. 14% from Italy, and approx. 23% from other countries. The relative contributions of these locations were highly dynamic.]

“The big surprise for us was how fluid the process was, the rate of and source of virus introduction shifted rapidly over the course of only a few weeks,” said Prof Oliver Pybus, from the University of Oxford.

The study estimates 80% of those initial cases arrived in the country between 28 Feb and 29 March – the time the UK was debating whether to lockdown.

After this point, the number of new imported cases diminished rapidly.

The earliest one could be traced back to the beginning of February, but it is possible there were cases even earlier that could not be picked up by the analysis.

The study also says the controversial football match between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid, on 11 March, probably had very little impact on bringing the virus into the country.

An estimated 3,000 fans flew in from Spain to watch the game, but there were 20,000 people flying in from Spain every single day in mid-March.

“[It] shows that individual events such as football matches likely made a negligible contribution to the number of imports at that time,” the study says.

The imported cases each started off a chain of transmission where the virus is passed from one person, to the next, to the next and so on.

However, the study shows lockdown has massively disrupted the spread of the virus.

“If there’s good news here, these chains of transmission were and are being suppressed and going extinct as a result of social distancing and we continue to see that now,” Prof Loman said.

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

Councils face bankruptcy as they try to prepare for a second wave of Covid-19

“Unless we get some certainty around income levels recovering or certainty of any additional help from the government in terms of this year’s budget or future years’ budgets, there a risk at some point in the future we may be faced with having to look a Section 114 notice,” says Jon Triggs, head of resources at North Devon Council…..

North Devon Council is run by the Lib Dems, but all but two of Devon’s parliamentary constituencies are represented by Conservative MPs. Again, it appears Tory cuts are coming back to bite their local parties and voters.”

By Anoosh Chakelian www.newstatesman.com 

In February 2018, for the first time in nearly 20 years, a council went bust. Northamptonshire County Council issued a section 114 notice, which stops any new spending – effectively declaring bankruptcy. It was a rare move for a local authority. Hackney Council was the last to do the same in 2000.

There were idiosyncratic problems with the way the council was run, but it had also fallen victim to cuts. Local authorities have lost 60 per cent of core government funding since 2010. Worse for defenders of the austerity agenda, Northamptonshire was a Tory council.

County councils – generally Tory-run – appeared particularly hard-done-by in 2018. Their core government funding was decreasing faster than other types of councils, and were calculated at the time to face a 93 per cent fall in funding by 2020.

As I reported at the time, there were Conservative councillors and right-wing Conservative MPs who believed Northamptonshire wouldn’t be the last.

And, come the Covid-19 pandemic, so it turns out. Councils all over the country are on the brink of effective bankruptcy (local authorities cannot technically go bankrupt, and must keep providing certain mandated services that are their statutory duty).

The costs of responding to Covid-19 and losses of income from lockdown incurred by councils in March, April and May amounted to £3.2bn, according to the Local Government Association (LGA). This national total has been met by the two tranches of emergency funding of £1.6bn each provided by government to councils so far, unevenly divvied up.

Yet councils could need as much as £6bn more, according to LGA figures, to cover the costs of coping with the coronavirus pandemic during this financial year. Since the government urged councils to spend “whatever is necessary” on the coronavirus response, the promise to reimburse all that spending has been diluted, and already councils have not been repaid enough to fill their budget black holes.

“Unless we get some certainty around income levels recovering or certainty of any additional help from the government in terms of this year’s budget or future years’ budgets, there a risk at some point in the future we may be faced with having to look a Section 114 notice,” says Jon Triggs, head of resources at North Devon Council.

The crunch point could be around the corner: “Not in less than two months. We’re probably talking a few months,” he tells me.

Because of Devon’s reliance on tourism and hospitality – industries ravaged during the lockdown – other councils in the county are in the same situation, according to Triggs.

“We’re not the only council to raise the risk of a section 114 as you know, there’s lots of councils out there. All the other councils in my area are saying exactly the same.”

North Devon Council is run by the Lib Dems, but all but two of Devon’s parliamentary constituencies are represented by Conservative MPs. Again, it appears Tory cuts are coming back to bite their local parties and voters.

“We’d seen significant cuts since 2010 so council funding has reduced significantly,” says Triggs. “For us, being a shire district council, we’ve seen an almost 40 per cent funding reduction, in terms of core government grants.

“Every type of authority is affected differently and the south-west, obviously being so heavily reliant on visitors and tourism, is going to take a lot longer to recover. Different councils will recover at different paces, depending on where you are in the country.”

Indeed, all areas of different political stripes appear to be facing immediate financial crises. From the majority-Conservative Norfolk County Council to the Labour-run Croydon Council in south London, officials have had to deny considering section 114 notices after reports of their dire budget black holes due to Covid-19 spending.

“Local government continues to lead the way during the emergency response to this crisis, but they are being stretched to the maximum,” says the leader of Bedfordshire Council and chairman of the Local Government Association, James Jamieson. “Councils will need further funding and financial flexibilities in the weeks and months ahead to meet ongoing COVID-19 pressures and to keep services running normally.

“Certainty around this is desperately-needed so councils can balance their budgets this year and take vital decisions about how to pay for vital local services next year.”

If the government does not deliver on full reimbursement, it could lead to councils issuing section 114 notices and toppling across the country.

“It is the very last resort,” says Sharon Taylor, the Labour leader of Stevenage Borough Council, which had the issue of a section 114 “under review” in May.

“I don’t think any of us [council leaders] could rule it out – none of us know what’s going to happen over the next few months.

“But were we to get a second wave of this and the lockdown was going to start all over again, if you get in a situation, we’d be having to review this before September, I suspect, if that was us. I don’t think any of the councils are out of the woods yet.”

If councils had to put a halt on spending, this means they could only deliver their core functions: mainly social care for vulnerable adults and children. Services crucial to the pandemic response – from rough sleeping programmes, local domestic abuse support, and the provision and maintenance of public parks – would be lost, as would services key to the aftermath, such as fitness and a leisure.

“If all of that starts to take a major hit and we can’t deliver those services, that will be a really big issue,” says Taylor.

“This is because local government finance was so fragile in the first place. We were all living on a wing and a prayer even before Covid came along, and ten years of austerity, ten years of cutting away at these services that people are now realising are essential.”

Not only could councils face bankruptcy just as they are required to help people through a second wave, but their pandemic response has already been hampered by austerity.

“Your ability to be able to react to a pandemic such as this is put under pressure because of that lower level of resources – not just financial resources but also manpower resources,” says Triggs. “As councils, we’re being asked to do a lot more in the pandemic response, with a workforce that has had cuts to it over the last ten years.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

GP app users able to see other people’s consultations

Babylon allows its members to speak to a doctor, therapist or other health specialist through a video call on a smartphone. It has more than 2.3 million registered users in the UK.

The breach emerged when one of its users discovered they had access to video recordings of other patients’ consultations.

www.theguardian.com 

Babylon Health has suffered a data breach involving confidential patient information, with users of its GP video consultation app allowed to see other patients’ appointments.

The breach emerged when one of its users discovered they had access to video recordings of other patients’ consultations.

Babylon later said a small number of UK users could see each other’s sessions and that the problem was a limited software error and not a “malicious attack”.

In a statement provided to the Guardian, Babylon Health said: “On the afternoon of Tuesday 9 June we identified and resolved an issue within two hours whereby one patient accessed the introduction of another patient’s consultation recording.”

“Our investigation showed that three patients, who had booked and had appointments today, were incorrectly presented with, but did not view, recordings of other patients’ consultations through a subsection of the user’s profile within the Babylon app.

“This was the result of a software error rather than a malicious attack. The problem was identified and resolved quickly.

“Of course we take any security issue, however small, very seriously and have contacted the patients affected to update, apologise to and support where required.”

The company said it had notified the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Affected users were in the UK. No international users were affected.

Babylon allows its members to speak to a doctor, therapist or other health specialist through a video call on a smartphone. It has more than 2.3 million registered users in the UK.

Babylon user Rory Glover told the BBC when he logged onto the app there were about 50 videos in the consultation replays section of the app that did not belong to him.

“You don’t expect to see something like that when you’re using a trusted application. It’s shocking to see such a monumental mistake made,” he said.

Glover said he would not use the Babylon app again.

“It’s an issue of doctor-patient confidentiality,” he said. “You expect anything you say to be private, not for it to be shared with a stranger.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

George Somers statue targeted amid anti-racism protests in Lyme Regis

The “Black Lives Matter” anti-rascism protests have raised the issue of slavery. The latter is an extreme form of human exploitation. Any wealth accumulated on the back of the cotton, sugar or tobacco trades, all of which boomed in the “golden era” of the merchant trading companies in the two hundred years before the abolition of slavery can almost certainly be linked to slavery. 

Owl’s view is that there can be few forms of wealth creation that do not not involve exploitation of human endeavour in one form or another, they are just less extreme and less obvious. See, for example, the wealth creation of the East India Company

From a local history point of view (and not often remembered or talked about), the inhabitants of the southern coastal communities in Devon, and particularly Cornwall, were also the victims of White slavery. For over 300 years, were at the mercy of Barbary pirates (corsairs) from the coast of North Africa, based mainly in the ports of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Their number included not only North Africans but also English and Dutch privateers. Their aim was to capture slaves for the Arab slave markets in North Africa. By the 1650s the attacks were so frequent that they threatened England’s fishing industry with fishermen reluctant to put to sea, leaving their families unprotected ashore.

It was ended by combined British and Dutch military action in 1816 with the release of 4,000 slaves, nothing like the scale of Black slavery, but slavery none the less.

About Francesca Evans lyme-online.co.uk

The statue of Admiral Sir George Somers in Lyme Regis has become the target of vandalism amid anti-racism protestsThe word “murderer” has been written on an information about Sir George Somers’ life next to his statue

The word “murderer” has been written across an information board next to the statue in Langmoor Gardens. A cardboard sign describing Sir George as an “opportunist” was also removed from the statue this morning.

The vandalism of the information board follows anti-racism protests held across the UK over the weekend, in response to the death of George Floyd in America last month.

George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed face down in the street. Chauvin has since been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Anti-racism protests have since been held across the globe, including in Bristol where a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down.

Sir George Somers was a former Mayor and MP of Lyme Regis, who founded the isles of Bermuda after being shipwrecked there in 1608 on his way to the new English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

Lyme Regis is now twinned with St George’s in Bermuda, where Sir George is widely celebrated and suggestions that he was involved in the slave trade have been refuted.

Lyme Regis historian and author Peter Lacey, whose book ‘Elizabethan Lyme’ includes a section on Sir George’s life, said he died in 1610 and the slave trade “did not get under way until the 1640s”.

The Mayor of Lyme Regis, Councillor Brian Larcombe, was contacted by ITV show ‘This Morning’ yesterday to ask if there were any concerns or reservations about the statue of Sir George.

The mayor has condemned the vandalism of the information board and is expected to release a full statement on the issue later today.

Comment is also expected from the Lyme Regis/St George’s Twinning Association, which erected the statue.

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

Public inconvenience: how lockdown caused a loo crisis

“Google data for the warm May bank holiday weekend showed an 136% uptick in visits to parks and open spaces. Yet public toilets have been closed over concerns about Covid-19 transmission in such shared, confined spaces. With limited public toilets available – and cafes, shops and pubs also closed – it is perhaps no surprise that many Brits have answered nature’s call outside. But is there a responsible way to wee in the wild?”

[East Devon District Council to discuss reopening more public toilets www.sidmouthherald.co.uk ]

Summer has arrived, once more delivering its sensorial pleasures: the clink of glasses out on a patio, the sound of music drifting from open windows, the sight of barbecue smoke billowing. But this year, you may notice something else on the summer breeze: the stench of urine.

Since lockdown was relaxed in the UK, tales of overcrowded parks lined with men urinating into bushes have abounded. So, too, have stories of beaches peppered with dirty pants, or forests sullied with babies’ wet wipes.

Arguably, such scenarios are inevitable. Google data for the warm May bank holiday weekend showed an 136% uptick in visits to parks and open spaces. Yet public toilets have been closed over concerns about Covid-19 transmission in such shared, confined spaces. With limited public toilets available – and cafes, shops and pubs also closed – it is perhaps no surprise that many Brits have answered nature’s call outside. But is there a responsible way to wee in the wild?

According to Lisa Ackerley, a chartered environmental health practitioner, the answer is a comprehensive no. She says that although one person doing it once may be harmless, at scale it will inevitably start ruining public spaces. “If everybody did it in parks, there’d be nowhere to sit. People are already saying that the stench in certain places is unbearable. Then there’s the fact that people aren’t just peeing, they’re pooing – and they’re not going to be washing their hands in the park. That’s irresponsible.”

According to the World Health Organization, hand hygiene is the single most important measure for public health, says Ackerley: “We’re thinking a lot about coronavirus, but people could carry other illnesses and not realise.” She cites norovirus, for example.

Meanwhile, says Ackerley: “Even the smallest amount of poo on a beach can severely affect water quality.” And, although going to the toilet in the sea is relatively harmless, it can be a problem in smaller bodies of water. In 2012, Time described how a lake in Germany had to close when urination caused an algae bloom that poisoned all the fish.

People need to think about toilets before they go out, says Ackerley: “It’s a matter of planning. If you think you won’t be able to go to the toilet because you’re too far away from home, and there are no public toilets open, perhaps you shouldn’t be going to that place.”

But plans can go awry, and, in a pinch, people may be left with no other choice. Dylan, 28, intended to use the public toilets on a long walk through London, but discovered they were closed. “I found an area of thick bushes and made sure I was totally out of view. When I was halfway through peeing, I heard a bleep and turned to see two guys in hi-vis jackets standing behind me. They weren’t police; they were park officers I think. They scanned my ID, and gave me a fine.” The fine of £195 was reduced to £95 when Dylan explained that he was out of work and waiting for universal credit. “But that is my current food budget for the month. It seems excessive.”

He explained to the council that he had no alternative and that the toilets were closed. “They said it’s not their responsibility to provide the public with the place to urinate, but I actually kind of think it is.” That is not a legal obligation, however, which is partly why there is just one public toilet per 12,500 people in England.

Then there is the issue of safely using whichever scant facilities are available. A survey by Unilever found that 87% of people across Britain are worried about contracting Covid-19 from surfaces they touch in public places, with a third needing particular assurances about small businesses and independent venues.

Currently, residents of England are able to use the toilets of friends and families during visits to their gardens, if unavoidable. In these circumstances, the government advice is to “avoid touching surfaces and if you use the toilet wash your hands thoroughly, wipe down surfaces, use separate or paper towels and wash or dispose of them safely after use.” Ackerley says this advice should be used when visiting any shared toilet. Social distancing should also be observed in toilet queues.

As far as reopening toilets goes, there is a lot to consider. Smaller venues with just a few toilets may not be able to keep them all open if the distance between cubicles is less than 2 metres. Then there is the greater need for handwashing facilities. Could coronavirus signal the end of the public urinal to make way for cubicles with sinks? Ackerley is not so sure.

“I’d like to see better design of public toilets so that you don’t have to go through a myriad of doors to get to them. In France you used to have pissoirs [public urinals], where people could walk in without touching anything. I think it’s the time to think about that more. If you’re a bloke and you need to pee, you could just walk into a pissoir. That’d be so much better than going against a tree, wouldn’t it?”

Particularly when you consider that increasingly it’s not just men going against the tree. The Sheewee, a device that helps women to urinate standing up without exposing themselves, has seen sales increase by 700% during the lockdown.

“We could even have some of the old squatting toilets that they have in other countries,” says Acklerley. These are hands-free systems, where the flush is a pedal on the floor. “We need to rethink toilets and not dismiss some of the things we used to use. A lot of the older ways may well have been very good.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

Surge of new coronavirus cases confirmed in Somerset

Article from last week Wednesday June 3.

The Somerset County Council area has seen the biggest increase across the county in the latest 24 hour period with 42 fresh cases, bringing the total up to 745 in that part of Somerset.

There has been a surge of new coronavirus cases across Somerset, with a big rise in positive tests within one area.

Public Health England confirmed there had been 53 new cases of coronavirus across Somerset as of 9am of today (Wednesday, June 3).

The latest figures show there are now 1,471 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county.

The Somerset County Council area has seen the biggest increase across the county in the latest 24 hour period with 42 fresh cases, bringing the total up to 745 in that part of Somerset.

The North Somerset Council area has seen 10 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, increasing the area’s figures up to 461.

One new case has been reported in the Bath and North East Somerset area – the latest total there has increased to 235 confirmed cases.

Where new coronavirus cases are in Somerset

The in the Somerset County Council area has been driven by new cases in the Somerset West and Taunton council zone.

Latest figures from Public Health England show there have been 21 new cases in this district, as well as 16 new cases in Sedgemoor and five fresh cases in South Somerset.

The Mendip area has meanwhile seen no confirmed cases.

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across each district in Somerset, as of 9am today, is as follows, with new cases confirmed in the last 24 hours in brackets.

  • North Somerset – 461 (+10)
  • Bath and North East Somerset – 235 (+1)
  • Somerset West and Taunton – 282 (+21)
  • South Somerset – 189 (+5)
  • Sedgemoor – 211 (+16)
  • Mendip – 63 (=)

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 across each local authority area in Somerset is now as follows:

  • Somerset (county council) – 745 (+42)
  • North Somerset – 461 (+10)
  • Bath and North East Somerset – 235 (+1)

Coronavirus deaths in Somerset

The new cases of COVID-19 comes as two new coronavirus-related deaths have been confirmed in Somerset today as reported by daily NHS figures.

A patient within the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust died on Monday (June 1) while another person died at Yeovil District Hospital on the same day.

The number of deaths of people under the care of Somerset NHS Foundation Trust is now at 48. There have also been 25 deaths within the Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

The total deaths across the county now stand at 147.

The total number of people with coronavirus to have died under the care of each of Somerset’s six hospital trusts since the start of the virus outbreak are as follows:

  • Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust – 66
  • Somerset NHS Foundation Trust (includes Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton and a number of smaller community hospitals across the county) – 48 (+1)
  • Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – 25 (+1)
  • Virgin Care Ltd – Paulton Memorial Hospital – 4
  • Weston Area Health NHS Trust – 3
  • Virgin Care Ltd – St Martin’s Hospital, Bath – 1
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

10 Jun 2020

Posted under

Misc

Six councillors quit Tory party at borough council!

Another local council loses its Tory majority!

Six Tory councillors on Spelthorne Borough Council have quit the party meaning the Conservatives lose their majority for the first time in the council’s history.

Six councillors quit Tory party at borough council in Surrey

Jamie Phillips www.getsurrey.co.uk 

The six councillors, who include leader Ian Harvey and deputy leader Olivia Rybinski, announced their resignations from the Conservative Party with immediate effect on Tuesday (June 9).

In a statement, the councillors made a number of allegations against the borough’s Conservative Party and how it is run, saying it made their “continuing membership untenable”.

Cabinet members Jo Sexton, Amar Brar and Helen Harvey have also quit the party alongside long-term Tory member Richard Smith-Ainsley.

It means the Conservative Party now has 17 councillors and the other groups collectively have 22.

The six former Tories have now formed a new party, known as United Spelthorne Group, which will “continue to put the needs of Spelthorne residents first”.

Cllr John Boughtflower will fill the vacant leadership for the Spelthorne Conservative Group, while Cllr Jim McIlroy will take up the deputy leader role.

Cllr Harvey, who has served as leader for more than four years, said in a statement: “’When I took over as leader of the council in 2016, the borough was facing a severe financial crisis due to swingeing cuts to government and Surrey County Council grants, compounded by historic poor financial decisions.

“Our renowned investment strategies have reinvigorated Spelthorne finances to the extent that we have now embarked on our ambitious second stage of regeneration and have commenced a building programme which will deliver over 1,200 homes within five years.

“We have delivered a balanced budget with increases below inflation for the last four years; the lowest council tax increases in Surrey this year. I am proud of what has been achieved under my leadership.’’

Cllr Boughtflower and Cllr McIlroy have been approached for comment.