The UK is still carrying out fewer than 15,000 coronavirus tests every day despite promises to swab 100,000 people daily by the end of the month. Hopes were raised last Friday that the Government could be on track to hit the ambitious target when a record 19,116 people were tested in 24 hours. But that number … Read more
A new tool designed to monitor the impact of coronavirus on the UK found that population movement dropped by 98 per cent since the start of the lockdown. Experts in big data and AI from the University of Oxford developed the COVID-19 Impact Monitor and say it already shows ‘dramatic changes’ in everyday life. The … Read more
A second Chinese city has banned its residents from eating dogs and cats with a new law in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Zhuhai, a city bordering Macau with a population of 1.7 million, issued the order in line with a government’s proposal which lists dogs as ‘companion animals’, an official told state media. Shenzhen … Read more
More than 13,000 letters meant for the people most at risk from coronavirus were sent to the WRONG address in a ‘potentially disastrous mistake’ Some 75,000 people in Wales identified as at a very high risk from Covid-19 13,000 letters were sent to the previous addresses of intended recipents Plaid Cymru’s local government spokeswoman Delyth … Read more
UK charity develops ‘chatbot’ to help people with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions get medical advice and deal with isolation during the coronavirus crisis AI-powered tool COVA has been developed by British charity Versus Arthritis It was created after the charity was inundated with requests for help Chatbot incorporates advice from NHS and government sources … Read more
Married At First Sight‘s Steve Burley revealed that his Melbourne barbershop business was struggling last week. And on Wednesday, the Kingsman Barbers owner, 51, said he would be offering a free haircut to people financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Steve announced the offer in a string of videos posted to his Instagram Stories, captioned: ‘You’ve looked … Read more
A McDonald’s restaurant in China has allegedly banned black people from entering the store out of fears that they might be coronavirus carriers. A video recently circulating online showed a customer holding a sign that read: ‘We’ve been informed from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant.’ The store is believed … Read more
NATURE Dangerous Earth by Ellen Prager (University of Chicago Press £20, 272 pp) Are we in the right mood just now for reading about natural disasters? Actually, it’s when you think things can’t get any worse that a book explaining just how much worse they can get is genuinely bracing, like a cold-water swim on … Read more
Deadly tornadoes that ripped through the South this weekend destroyed 1 million homes and businesses from Texas to the Carolinas, as those left homeless in some cases were moved into hotels because opening shelters was too risky because of the coronavirus outbreak. The storms which struck on Easter Sunday left at least 31 dead and … Read more
Every day we hear remarkable stories of courage and tragedy as the coronavirus stretches the health service to the limit. But up and down the country, ordinary people are making unsung sacrifices — big and small — to help do their bit to pull the nation, and the NHS in particular, through the crisis. Here, … Read more