“The activism in America against systemic racism and injustice is a powerful lesson to us all,” said former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara on Tuesday, calling on ordinary citizens to create a culture that has no place for ignorance and prejudice.
Offering his views on racism after an African-American man George Floyd was killed last week while a white police officer pressed his knee on the handcuffed man’s neck in the USA, Sangakkara urged people to create a better society.
“We the people, the ordinary citizen, can together achieve extraordinary change for the better, to set in place a world culture of openness, respect and understanding,” he tweeted.
“A world culture that has no place for ignorance and prejudice and where true freedom reigns,” he said.
“The State should not determine our wisdom, compassion, empathy and understanding. It should not and cannot limit the openness of our hearts and minds to others nor our ability to embrace and value difference and differences,” he said.
Sangakkara said political leadership is nothing but a reflection of what a society is and to ensure that better people take that role, the ordinary citizens have to become better versions of themselves.
“We also choose our representatives from among our own. We are responsible for the character traits they bring to government. We are responsible for the people they are or have become. Their nature has been set by our influence and nurture,” he reasoned.
“Our choices guide the State’s attitudes, actions, policy and legislation. In order to establish the best government and the best most equitable governance we need to be better people,” he said.
His comments came after West Indian cricketers Darren Sammy and Chris Gayle denounced racism in social media posts.
“Our strengths and our weaknesses are mirrored in each other’s conduct and in the conduct of our elected representatives.
“We have to be courageous, keep the faith and actively participate in the journey. It’s our choices today that will determine the culture our children inherit tomorrow.
“If we want to be proud of our lives, to see our children proud to carry our legacy forward and onwards, then let’s be better. Let’s demand it of ourselves, for each other, for our children. CHOOSE,” he concluded.
Updated Date: Jun 02, 2020 19:34:22 IST
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The KwaZulu-Natal department of education will appoint a multidisciplinary team to investigate the disappearance of a large quantity of personal protective equipment (PPE) intended for schools.Â
The protective equipment vanished enroute to circuit offices and schools in the uMlazi, Pinetown and Zululand districts, according to a statement by the department.Â
Kwazi Mthethwa, the department’s spokesperson, saidon Tuesday that the department discovered this on Monday when schools and circuit offices were contacted to ascertain whether they had received protective equipment and in what quantities. These phone calls revealed that there is a mismatch between what was to have been delivered, and what was received.Â
“Someone knows where these things are between the school and the circuits. That is why we have opted for an investigation to reveal who is responsible for this, instead of pointing fingers,†said Mthethwa.Â
The department said it will not only cost it millions of rands to replace the protective equipment — money it does not have — but it will delay the opening of schools on Monday (June 8) for grades seven and 12. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said at a press briefing on Monday (June 1) that no school will be allowed to open if it does not meet the safety and health regulations to minimise the spread of Covid-19. In his weekly newsletter, President Cyril Ramaphosa also said no schools will open if they are not Covid-19 compliant.Â
Mthethwa said the schools in the three districts would probably remain closed unless the equipment was recovered before June 8.Â
“Not a single school in KZN is going to open without PPEs, we will not do that,†he said.
This latest incident comes after more than 450 schools in the province were broken into and items such as food and computers were stolen. Protective equipment was stolen in a recent burglary at two schools.Â
Last week, a man who tried to break into a school in Estcourt to steal protective equipment was beaten to death by residents, Mthethwa said.Â
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Wall Street continues rally as global markets climb.
U.S. stocks inched higher Tuesday despite another night of widespread protests as investors kept their focus on signs that the economy might finally be recovering.
The S&P 500 was up less than 1 percent in early trading, adding to small gains on Monday. European markets were also higher after an upbeat trading day in Asia.
Investors have largely looked past the civil unrest in the United States, which started in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody. Instead, they have been cheered by data showing the worst of the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic could be over, as states slowly begin reopening.
On Monday, an index showed U.S. manufacturing activity rose in May. The index was 43.1 last month, up from 41.5 in April, which was the lowest level in more than a decade, the Institute for Supply Management said. However, it was still below 50, which connotes an economy still in contraction.
Shares of airlines and cruise companies, some of the businesses most impacted by the coronavirus lockdowns, climbed in premarket trading on Tuesday by up to 5 percent.
In Europe, shares of Lufthansa rose 4 percent after the airline’s supervisory board agreed to the terms of a 9 billion euro, or $10 billion, bailout from the German government. The aid requires Lufthansa to give up some prime airport slots to competitors and accept a degree of government influence.
Airlines say it’s safe to travel. But is it?
Airlines and airports around the world are doing everything they can to instill confidence that it is safe to fly again, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Airlines are requiring face masks for passengers and staff, imposing new aircraft cleaning procedures, using social distancing to board flights, blocking middle seats on planes and, in one case, even prohibiting passengers from lining up to use plane bathrooms.
As to the airports, they are screening passengers’ temperatures through high- and low-tech means; using biometric screening to speed check-in, security and customs and immigration processes; and using autonomous robots to clean terminal floors.
But none of it is consistent. And it’s unclear whether the measures are enough.
“So much is uncertain right now,†said Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group, a San Francisco travel analysis firm. “Do airports and airlines need to invest in something long-term that will be permanent, like airport security, or are these short-term, tactical responses?â€
Dr. Joshua Schiffer, an infectious disease physician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said, “It’s next to impossible to have complete confidence you won’t get infected†on flights. But he added that he hoped that airlines would provide travelers “publicly available information on what the projected risk would be to a certain destination, so you could choose your airline based on the quality of this information.â€
The Congressional Budget Office projected on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic could cost the United States economy $16 trillion over the next 10 years. When adjusting for inflation, the pandemic is projected to cause a $7.9 trillion, or 3 percent, loss in “real†G.D.P. through 2030.
The projections reflect the steep long-term toll that the pandemic is likely to take on the economy, which could experience dampened consumer spending and business investment in the years ahead. Much of the diminished output is projected to be the result of weaker inflation, as prices for energy and transportation increase more slowly than they otherwise would have as Americans pull back on travel.
Phillip L. Swagel, the director of the budget office, acknowledged that “an unusually high degree of uncertainty surrounds these economic projections†because of what remains unknown about the pandemic’s trajectory, as well as the impact of social distancing and the legislation enacted by the federal government.
“If future federal policies differ from those underlying C.B.O.’s economic projections — for example, if lawmakers enact additional pandemic-related legislation — then economic outcomes will necessarily differ from those presented here,†Mr. Swagel wrote in a letter to Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent. The two senators had asked the budget office on Wednesday to examine the impact of the pandemic and the shuttering of local economies to combat the spread of the virus as lawmakers look to negotiate another round of economic aid.
In a joint statement following the release of the report, Mr. Schumer and Mr. Sanders said the estimate undercut Republican arguments that Congress should wait to approve another relief package, as well as President Trump’s call to include a tax cut in the next measure.
“In order to avoid the risk of another Great Depression, the Senate must act with a fierce sense of urgency to make sure that everyone in America has the income they need to feed their families and put a roof over their heads,†the two senators said. “The American people cannot afford to wait another month for the Senate to pass legislation. They need our help now.â€
A huge number of books are slated to be released this fall.
As publishers scramble to limit the economic fallout and sales declines driven by the epidemic, hundreds of books that were scheduled to come out this spring and early summer have been postponed, in some cases until next year.
The result may be an avalanche of high-profile books this fall, in the middle of a presidential election and an health and economic crisis, when consumers may be even more distracted.
Delayed titles include literary fiction by Elena Ferrante and David Mitchell, a book about manhood and parenting by the actor and comedian Michael Ian Black, “God-Level Knowledge Darts†from the comedy duo Desus and Mero, and nonfiction by prominent public intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Pankaj Mishra.
“We’re a little afraid of the fall season being a gridlock of big books,†said Jonathan Burnham, the publisher of the HarperCollins imprint Harper, which has moved a handful of books, including “Battlegrounds,†from Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser.
It may not be a bad problem to have. A flood of eagerly anticipated content is certainly preferable to the canceled shows, concerts and other events that have disrupted the broader cultural world.
The reshuffling has caused logistical logjams, as books by prominent authors move into an increasingly crowded window for media attention, reviews and bookstore display space. Some publishers, particularly smaller houses, worry that printing plants will be overwhelmed, which could make it difficult to keep books in stock.
“Most of us expected that, by fall, things would be, if not exactly back to normal, pretty close to it,†said the literary agent Bill Clegg, whose own novel, “The End of the Day,†was delayed until late September. “Now, two and a half months later, that idea has a distant, once-upon-a-time quality to it.â€
The new head of a powerful banking regulator is not letting his first full week on the job pass quietly, warning that measures meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus — including mandates for the use of masks in public — could endanger the financial system.
Brian P. Brooks took over on Friday as the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that oversees the country’s largest banks. Mr. Brooks, a former banker, sent letters to the country’s mayors and governors about the negative effects of restrictions on public activity. Among them, he said: Face masks could lead to more bank robberies.
Mr. Brooks’s letter was unusual in its tone and scope; banking regulators tend to keep their communications fairly abstract. But Mr. Brooks pointed to what he said were specific risks associated with “continued state and local lockdown orders.â€
“Certain aspects of these orders potentially threaten the stability and orderly functioning of the financial system,†he wrote.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone wear a cloth face covering when they leave their home, to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.
Target is temporarily closing or shortening the hours of about 200 stores, a spokesman, Joshua Thomas, confirmed on Sunday morning “out of an abundance of caution†to ensure “the safety of our teams.†The Target store on Lake Street in Minneapolis, the location nearest to where George Floyd died, was badly damaged and looted last week. Walmart and CVS also shuttered a number of stores. Amazon said it would scale back deliveries in some cities. Adidas is temporarily closing all of its U.S. stores, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Reporting was contributed by Alexandra Alter, Jane L. Levere, Emily Flitter, Sapna Maheshwari and Michael Corkery.
Americans are now accustomed to reading about the removal of Confederate statues across the country, but effigies to the men who fought to preserve slavery are not the only controversial likenesses to be found in the United States. On Friday night in Louisville, Kentucky, a man protesting the recent police killing of George Floyd (who was unarmed), inadvertently broke off the hand of the statue of Louis XVI that sits in a public square of the city named after the French monarch.Â
The next morning, a man claiming to be a modern-day relative of Louis XVI’s took to the digital streets of Twitter to express his tone-deaf dismay. Louis de Bourbon, who goes by the title of Duke d’Anjou, opined early Saturday, “As the heir of #LouisXVI, and attached to the defence of his memory, I do hope that the damage will be repaired and that the statue will be restored …â€
If I were the self-professed last heir to the Bourbon throne, who many believe is only a pretender, I might think twice before attaching my name to the memory of a man who was part of a family that oversaw the most brutal and punishing slavocracy in the world.
Slavery in the French-claimed Americas began and ended with the Bourbons. The practice of kidnapping and then enslaving Africans was adopted under Louis XIII in the 17th century. The Code Noir decree, issued under Louis XIV to regulate France’s enormous slave system in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Louisiana, not only mandated the expulsion of Jews from the colonies, but did very little to stop enslavers from exercising some of the cruellest tortures to be found anywhere in the Atlantic World.Â
Illustration depicting Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture participating in the successful revolt against French power in St. Dominique (Haiti). Hand-colored engraving.
Common punishments for enslaved people  —  who might have dared to run away, break a tool or otherwise refuse to completely give in to their master’s will  —  were burning and burying them alive; severing their limbs, ears and other body parts; bleeding them to death, and nailing them to walls and trees; as well as branding and other forms of mutilation.
The revised version of the Code Noir, issued under Louis XVI, was even worse. It spelled out in no uncertain terms that enslaved people were to be treated as meubles, or pieces of furniture, that could be bought, sold or discarded at the whim of any “ownerâ€.
Slavery was only abolished in the French colonies after Louis XVI  —  over whose fake hand Louis de Bourbon is now shedding all the white tears  —  was notoriously beheaded by the French Jacobins in January 1793. His death, however, did not stop this family from seeking to continue its practice of enriching themselves through the enslavement of black people.
Napoleon (not a Bourbon), who had come to power in France in 1799, officially reinstated slavery in the French empire in July 1802. But revolutionaries in Saint-Domingue put up the most ardent and ultimately successful fight against slavery the world had yet seen, culminating in Haitian independence in January 1804  —  enslaved people in Guadeloupe fought back, too, but they ultimately lost their struggle.
Even though Napoleon was busy fighting wars around the world, and seemed to lose sight of his loss in Saint-Domingue, successive Haitian governments remained wary that he might try to once again bring back slavery.
Under Louis XVIII’s authority, Malouet, the French minister of the marine, sent three commissioners to Haiti with the mission of coercing both Haiti’s leaders to surrender. He threatened that if they did not submit the Haitian people would be “treated as barbarous savages and hunted down like runaway slavesâ€.Â
One of the commissioners, Dauxion-Lavaysse, even sent a letter to Christophe that unabashedly revealed in no uncertain terms that France was ready “to replace the population of Hayti, which … would be totally annihilated by the forces sent against it.†The official reconquest instructions issued by Malouet, in fact, mandated the return of slavery and the wholesale extermination of most of the country’s population.
Although Louis XVIII’s plot was ultimately foiled by Christophe, not once, but twice  —  yes, Louis XVIII tried again in 1816 after the second restoration  —  the claim to dubious fame of his brother, Charles X, who succeeded him, was issuing the disastrous 1825 indemnity whereby the Haitian government was compelled into an agreement to pay 150-million francsas the price of Haiti’s liberty. Charles X’s successor, cousin Louis Philippe, was no better. Indeed, he oversaw the 1838 revision to that agreement which, while reducing the total amount to be paid to 90-million francs, forced Haiti to take out high-interest loans to pay the “debt.â€
Meet the proud legacy of the Bourbons. When they couldn’t re-enslave the Haitian people, they settled for impoverishing them. Contemporary economists, such as France’s own Thomas Piketty, are of the opinion that paying the indemnity  —  plus making the interest payments, which were only completed in 1947  —  led directly to Haiti’s precarious financial position today. Piketty has even publicly declared that he thinks France should repay Haiti “at least $28-billion†in restitution.
America’s statue problem goes far beyond the Confederacy
If I didn’t live in Charlottesville, Virginia  —  which has for years been embroiled in the fight to remove the statue of the leader of the Confederate army, Robert E Lee  —  I might be tempted to wonder about the US’s obsession with exalting the statues of and naming their cities after war criminals, imperialists, enslavers and traitors. (A gift from Louisville’s sister-city in France, Montpellier, Louis XVI’s statue was placed directly across from none other than that of Thomas Jefferson).Â
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – August 18, 2017: Sign underneath staue of Conferderate General Robert E. Lee that reads ‘HEATHER HEYER PARK’ on August 18, 2017 in Charlottesville. On August 12, 2017, a car was deliberately driven into a crowd of people who had been peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring 28. The driver of the car, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., had driven from Ohio to attend the rally. Fields previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs. He was convicted in a state court of hit and run, the first-degree murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, and eight counts of malicious wounding, and sentenced to life in prison. On March 27, 2019, he pled guilty to 29 of 30 federal charges in exchange for the prosecutors not seeking the death penalty. (Photo by Bill Tompkins/Getty Images)
But sitting here in the aftermath of the fatal days of August 11 and 12 2017, I am well acquainted with the kind of predictable absence of self-awareness, coupled with an equally stunning lack of knowledge about their own family history, that would lead a white man like Louis de Bourbon to plead in such earnest notes for the restoration of a piece of stone rather than to demonstrate genuine concern for those righteously protesting the death of an actual human being.
And while the so-called Comte de Paris piled on Saturday afternoon with his own tweet lamenting the amputation, claiming that it was “the hand of Louis XVI … that helped the US people to gain its freedomâ€, let us never forget that it was with this same hand that Louis XVI stole the freedom of millions of Africans. No, like the statue of Napoleon’s wife Josephine, which was beheaded in Martinique more than 20 years ago, never to be repaired, the statue of Louis XVI should remain forever handless in memory of his perpetuation of slavery.
Marlene L Daut is professor of African diaspora studies and the associate director of the Carter G Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Tropics of Haiti (2015) and Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (2017). You can follow her on Twitter at @FictionsofHaiti.
Americans are now accustomed to reading about the removal of Confederate statues across the country, but effigies to the men who fought to preserve slavery are not the only controversial likenesses to be found in the United States. On Friday night in Louisville, Kentucky, a man protesting the recent police killing of George Floyd (who was unarmed), inadvertently broke off the hand of the statue of Louis XVI that sits in a public square of the city named after the French monarch.Â
The next morning, a man claiming to be a modern-day relative of Louis XVI’s took to the digital streets of Twitter to express his tone-deaf dismay. Louis de Bourbon, who goes by the title of Duke d’Anjou, opined early Saturday, “As the heir of #LouisXVI, and attached to the defence of his memory, I do hope that the damage will be repaired and that the statue will be restored …â€
If I were the self-professed last heir to the Bourbon throne, who many believe is a only pretender, I might think twice before attaching my name to the memory of a man who was part of a family that oversaw the most brutal and punishing slavocracy in the world.
Slavery in the French-claimed Americas began and ended with the Bourbons. The practice of kidnapping and then enslaving Africans was adopted under Louis XIII in the 17th century. The Code Noir decree, issued under Louis XIV to regulate France’s enormous slave system in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Louisiana, not only mandated the expulsion of Jews from the colonies, but did very little to stop enslavers from exercising some of the cruellest tortures to be found anywhere in the Atlantic World.Â
Common punishments for enslaved people  —  who might have dared to run away, break a tool or otherwise refuse to completely give in to their master’s will  —  were burning and burying them alive; severing their limbs, ears and other body parts; bleeding them to death, and nailing them to walls and trees; as well as branding and other forms of mutilation.
The revised version of the Code Noir, issued under Louis XVI, was even worse. It spelled out in no uncertain terms that enslaved people were to be treated as meubles, or pieces of furniture, that could be bought, sold or discarded at the whim of any “ownerâ€.
Slavery was only abolished in the French colonies after Louis XVI  —  over whose fake hand Louis de Bourbon is now shedding all the white tears  —  was notoriously beheaded by the French Jacobins in January 1793. His death, however, did not stop this family from seeking to continue its practice of enriching themselves through the enslavement of black people.
Napoleon (not a Bourbon), who had come to power in France in 1799, officially reinstated slavery in the French empire in July 1802. But revolutionaries in Saint-Domingue put up the most ardent and ultimately successful fight against slavery the world had yet seen, culminating in Haitian independence in January 1804  —  enslaved people in Guadeloupe fought back, too, but they ultimately lost their struggle.
Even though Napoleon was busy fighting wars around the world, and seemed to lose sight of his loss in Saint-Domingue, successive Haitian governments remained wary that he might try to once again bring back slavery.
Under Louis XVIII’s authority, Malouet, the French minister of the marine, sent three commissioners to Haiti with the mission of coercing both Haiti’s leaders to surrender. He threatened that if they did not submit the Haitian people would be “treated as barbarous savages and hunted down like runaway slavesâ€.Â
One of the commissioners, Dauxion-Lavaysse, even sent a letter to Christophe that unabashedly revealed in no uncertain terms that France was ready to replace the population of Hayti, which … would be totally annihilated by the forces sent against it.“†The official reconquest instructions issued by Malouet, in fact, mandated the return of slavery and the wholesale extermination of most of the country’s population.
Although Louis XVIII’s plot was ultimately foiled by Christophe, not once, but twice  —  yes, Louis XVIII tried again in 1816 after the second restoration  —  the claim to dubious fame of his brother, Charles X, who succeeded him, was issuing the disastrous 1825 indemnity whereby the Haitian government was compelled into an agreement to pay 150-million francsas the price of Haiti’s liberty. Charles X’s successor, cousin Louis Philippe, was no better. Indeed, he oversaw the 1838 revision to that agreement which, while reducing the total amount to be paid to 90-million francs, forced Haiti to take out high-interest loans to pay the “debt.â€
Meet the proud legacy of the Bourbons. When they couldn’t re-enslave the Haitian people, they settled for impoverishing them. Contemporary economists, such as France’s own Thomas Piketty, are of the opinion that paying the indemnity  —  plus making the interest payments, which were only completed in 1947  —  led directly to Haiti’s precarious financial position today. Piketty has even publicly declared that he thinks France should repay Haiti “at least $28-billion†in restitution.
America’s statue problem goes far beyond the Confederacy
If I didn’t live in Charlottesville, Virginia  —  which has for years been embroiled in the fight to remove the statue of the leader of the Confederate army, Robert E Lee  —  I might be tempted to wonder about the US’s obsession with exalting the statues of and naming their cities after war criminals, imperialists, enslavers and traitors. (A gift from Louisville’s sister-city in France, Montpellier, Louis XVI’s statue was placed directly across from none other than that of Thomas Jefferson).Â
But sitting here in the aftermath of the fatal days of August 11 and 12 2017, I am well acquainted with the kind of predictable absence of self-awareness, coupled with an equally stunning lack of knowledge about their own family history, that would lead a white man like Louis de Bourbon to plead in such earnest notes for the restoration of a piece of stone rather than to demonstrate genuine concern for those righteously protesting the death of an actual human being.
And while the so-called Comte de Paris piled on on Saturday afternoon with his own tweet lamenting the amputation, claiming that it was “hand of Louis XVI … that helped the US people to gain its freedomâ€, let us never forget that it was with this same hand that Louis XVI stole the freedom of millions of Africans. No, like the statue of Napoleon’s wife Josephine, which was beheaded in Martinique more than 20 years ago, never to be repaired, the statue of Louis XVI should remain forever handless in memory of his perpetuation of slavery.
Marlene L Daut is professor of African diaspora studies and the associate director of the Carter G Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Tropics of Haiti (2015) and Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (2017). You can follow her on Twitter at @FictionsofHaiti.
And photographer Alberto Ghizzi Panizza then turned the eight-second footage into a composite photo – showing the tiny space station at 17 different points of its journey across the moon.
The 45-year-old photographer, from Parma, Italy, captured the striking photo at 10.28pm Italian time (9.28pm in the UK) on Sunday night.
The ISS crosses in front of the moon (Credits: Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/ SWNS.com)
The two Nasa astronauts had docked with the International Space Station just three hours beforehand, at 6.22pm BST – after launching from Florida at 3..22pm on Saturday (8.22pm BST).
Alberto said of the historic photograph: ‘It was a very emotional moment not only for me, but for all mankind.’
Coronavirus infections in hospitals and care homes are spilling into the community and sustaining the outbreak to the point that cases will remain steady until September, a leading scientist has warned.
Prof Neil Ferguson, the head of the outbreak influential modelling group at Imperial College London, said he was shocked at how poorly care homes had been protected from the virus and that infections in UK care homes and hospitals were now feeding into the epidemic in the wider community.
R, or the ‘effective reproduction number’, is a way of rating a disease’s ability to spread. It’s the average number of people on to whom one infected person will pass the virus. For an R of anything above 1, an epidemic will grow exponentially. Anything below 1 and an outbreak will fizzle out – eventually.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the estimated R for coronavirus was between 2 and 3 – higher than the value for seasonal flu, but lower than for measles. That means each person would pass it on to between two and three people on average, before either recovering or dying, and each of those people would pass it on to a further two to three others, causing the total number of cases to snowball over time.
The reproduction number is not fixed, though. It depends on the biology of the virus; people’s behaviour, such as social distancing; and a population’s immunity. A country may see regional variations in its R number, depending on local factors like population density and transport patterns.
Ferguson, who quit as a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) after breaking social-distancing rules, said that infected staff carrying the virus out of the workplace explained why the R value, the average number of people infected by a case, remained only marginally below one.Â
“I, like many people, am shocked about how badly European – or countries around the world – have protected care home populations,†Ferguson told a hearing of the Lords science committee. About 16,000 UK care home residents are believed to have died from Covid-19 in outbreaks that have struck 38% of care homes in England and 59% in Scotland.Â
“The infections in care homes and hospitals spill back into the community, more commonly through people who work in those institutions. If you can drive the infection rates low in those institutional settings, you drive the infection low in the community as a whole,†Ferguson said.Â
With the virus still circulating widely and restrictions being eased, Ferguson said there was “limited room for manoeuvre.†Lockdown reduced the spread of infection by about 80%, he said, “but to maintain control, we need to keep that transmission suppressed by about 65% so we have a little bit of wriggle room.â€
Prof Matt Keeling from Warwick University, whose modelling group is now providing the government’s “worst case scenarioâ€, suggested that researchers might have done more to understand the risks to care homes in particular.
“If the lockdown had been very strict, if we’d have thought more about what was happening in care homes and hospitals early on, maybe that was one of the areas where modellers did drop the ball,†Keeling told the hearing. “With hindsight, it’s very easy to say we know care homes and hospitals are these huge collections of very vulnerable individuals, so maybe with hindsight we could have modelled those early on and thought about the impacts there.â€
The researchers said it is still unclear what impact the recent easing of restrictions will have on the spread of the virus, but Ferguson dampened any expectations that the epidemic might peter out any time soon. “I suspect that under any scenario, the level of transmission and number of cases will remain relatively flat between now and September, short of very big policy changes or behaviour changes in the community,†he said.
“The real uncertainty is if there are larger policy changes in September, as we move into the time of year when respiratory viruses tend to transmit slightly better, what will happen then? And that remains very unclear,†he added.
Under further questioning about the outbreak, Ferguson described how scientists realised in early March that the UK had been much more heavily infected than anticipated, and that this was one of the reasons the country now has if not the largest, then one of the largest, epidemics in Europe.Â
“One thing the genetic data is showing us now is most chains of transmission still existing in the UK originated from Spain, to some extent Italy,†Ferguson said. “It is clear that before we were even in a position to measure it, before surveillance systems were even set up, there were many hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals coming into the country in late February and early March from that area. And that meant that the epidemic was further ahead than we had anticipated.â€
“That explains some of the acceleration of policy then. It also explains, to some extent, why mortality figures ended up being higher than we had hoped,†he added.
As ministers ease restrictions in England, health officials will rely on the new test-and-trace system to identify and clamp down on new outbreaks. The tests would be offered to people with symptoms, but since many people were infectious before feeling ill, and many never show symptoms at all, the system would have only limited use, the committee heard.Â
“By the time someone shows symptoms they have probably been infectious for a day or two,â€Â said Adam Kucharski, an associate professor and infectious disease modeller at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “As soon as someone becomes symptomatic, you have a very short time window before their contacts may become infectious and then you’ve got another generation of transmission to deal with.â€
Ferguson said the test-and-trace scheme “was not a panacea†because it relied not only on what proportion of people developed symptoms, but what proportion could identify past contacts, how quickly they could be contacted, and how many then abided by the self-isolation rules. He told the hearing that if the system worked perfectly, it might at best reduce R by 0.2 to 0.25, describing that as “significant, but not hugeâ€.
PHILADELPHIA — Joe Biden on Tuesday praised the nationwide peaceful protests to the death of George Floyd, calling his killing in police custody a “wake-up call for our nation” and drawing a stark contrast between President Donald Trump’s tactics and how he would respond.
In a speech from Philadelphia City Hall, Biden repeated Floyd’s final words before he died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes — and said it was time “to listen to those words … and respond with action.”
“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. George Floyd’s last words,” the apparent 2020 Democratic presidential nominee said. “But they didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation.”
“They speak to a nation where every day, millions of people — not at the moment of losing their life, but in the course of living their life — are saying to themselves, ‘I can’t breathe.’ It’s a wake-up call for our nation, for all of us,†Biden said.
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Biden said the country was “crying out for leadership that can unite us” — and that he, not Trump, could provide it.
“I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country — not use them for political gain,” he said. “I’ll do my job and take responsibility. I won’t blame others. I’ll never forget that the job isn’t about me.
Addressing Monday night’s events outside the White House when police used tear gas against peaceful protesters to clear the area for Trump’s photo-op outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Biden said that, “We can be forgiven for believing that the president is more interested in power than in principle, more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care.â€
Biden, noting that Trump had held up a Bible for the photo-op, said, “I just wish he’d open it once in a while.”
Trump, Biden added, “might want to open up the U.S. Constitution once in a while,” and read the First Amendment, hitting the president for urging governors across the U.S. to “dominate” protesters.
At the same time, Biden said there was “no place for violence” or “rioting” or “destroying property,” while also warning law enforcement that “nor is it acceptable for our police … to escalate violence.”
Biden’s remarks come a day after he spoke to African American leaders and visited a church in Wilmington, Delaware. On Sunday, he visited a site in Wilmington where demonstrators had protested Floyd’s death.
The former vice president recently came under fire for telling a radio host and African American voters in an interview that “you ain’t black” if they back Trump’s re-election. Biden later apologized for his comments, saying they were “really unfortunate” and that he “shouldn’t have been such a wise guy.”
Mike Memoli
Mike Memoli is an NBC News correspondent.Â
Adam Edelman
Adam Edelman is a political reporter for NBC News.
Rebecca Shabad
Rebecca Shabad is a congressional reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.
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