Plus, is working from home hurting your back?
| | | | An RAF plane carrying a big shipment of personal protective equipment from Turkey has now finally arrived in the UK after several delays. But more questions are being asked about why the UK didn't join an EU-wide scheme to source such kit early in the crisis. Was it effectively an administrative error, or a politically-motivated decision driven by anti-EU sentiment? Health Secretary Matt Hancock says it was the former, but Brussels sources disagree. Parliament will want to get to the truth, our political editor Laura Kuenssberg says. In other news, the first UK human trials for a vaccine, developed by Oxford University, will begin this week. Read more about efforts around the world to make a breakthrough. Term resumed this week, but worrying figures show only a tiny fraction of vulnerable children in England are taking up the emergency school places kept open for them. The Children's Commissioner says social workers should be "knocking on doors" to make sure those already at risk aren't in even greater danger at this time. Elsewhere, a union leader says supermarket and shop workers - retail "heroes", as he called them - deserve to be paid a minimum of £10 an hour and there should be a post-crisis "day of reckoning" on their remuneration. The BBC has analysed the latest figures to show which parts of the country have been worst hit by the disease. And amid all of the statistics, read the powerful story of one survivor, Elizabeth, who says she "touched death". Finally, we're all waiting for lockdown to end, so how close are we? Find out. | |
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| | | | | More than 150,000 people have died with Covid-19, but there are still no drugs proven to help doctors treat the disease. So how far are we from these life-saving medicines? There are three broad approaches being investigated. Antiviral drugs that directly affect the coronavirus's ability to thrive inside the body. Drugs that can calm the immune system - patients become seriously ill when their immune system overreacts and starts causing collateral damage to the body. And antibodies, either from survivors' blood or made in a lab, that can attack the virus . | |
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| | James Gallagher | BBC health and science correspondent | |
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| | | | Questions about the procurement of key equipment dominate many front pages. Opportunities were missed to secure at least 16 million face masks in the past four weeks, according to the Guardian. Offers from suppliers have been met with "silence" by the government, it says. The Daily Mirror claims tens of thousands of protective visors are sitting in a British warehouse - waiting to be shipped abroad - after the government refused to buy them. Plans for a much wider virus testing programme are also in "disarray", reports the Financial Times. Elsewhere, several papers focus on the news of human vaccine trials starting in the UK. The Metro says Prof Sarah Gilbert, who is leading the research, hopes a jab could be ready as soon as September. The i agrees researchers are making "very rapid progress". But the Daily Mail reports that the pandemic is resulting in thousands of cancers being missed every week, because patients are not visiting their GP. | |
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| In Coronavirus Newscast, The Receipts take over as the team focuses on the impact of the virus on people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. 5 Live's Must Watch podcast also has recommendations for the best things to catch on TV and streaming services this week . | |
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