Skip to main content

tv   Click  BBC News  March 21, 2020 12:30pm-1:00pm GMT

12:30 pm
she said that she loved me...and... you know, we...exchanged that for a few minutes and, you know, looked into one another‘s eyes. even in his grief, ken's thoughts are with other british families who may also lose loved ones to covid—19. you need to be strong for yourfamily and the memory good afternoon. a government minister has admitted of your loved one who died it is operationally difficult to help the self—employed in such tragic circumstances. through the coronavirus epidemic. they are not eligible for the scheme which will see the government pay ken has tested negative 80% of wages of retained for the virus but is still unable to get back to the uk. staff up to £2,500 per month. his strength comes from his family the financial measures and from the memory of the wife were introduced at the same time whose life he shared for 32 years. as the announcement that businesses — including all restaurants, my wife was the most incredibly cafes and pubs — could close. our business correspondent
12:31 pm
generous, loving...mum... katy austin reports. kimberley finlayson, who was 52, died after two emergency operations in indonesia. now it's time for a look at the weather with nick miller. hello. a lot of fine, settled weather out there, this weekend, with high pressure in control. though there is a brisk and chilly easterly wind. the best of the sunshine today will be the eastern side of england and scotland, that is where we will have the bluest sky. a lot of high cloud to the west, the sun will be quite hazy here. temperatures around 8—12 degrees or so. this is the brisk easterly wind. these are average speeds. it gusts higher, around 50 miles an hour, around some of the coasts of south—west england. so it will feel colder as a result. bit of low cloud toward some north sea coast overnight. we will see a bit of patchy rain edging towards the western isles of scotland but for most of us, dry, clear overnight and temperatures a few degrees either side of freezing. so, frost for many going
12:32 pm
into sunday morning. that patchy rain in the western isles will clear, any low clouds will clear the way from these north sea coast gradually during the day and what we're left is actually up lot of sunshine for sunday afternoon. temperatures pretty similar, but that brisk wind isn't quite as strong tomorrow. hello this is bbc news. the headlines... the uk is coming to terms with the closure of pubs, cafes and restaurants — for an indefinite period — to help slow the spread of coronavirus. ministers are urged to extend wage protection to millions of self—employed workers who face losing their livelihoods. supermarkets in the uk hire thousands more staff to keep shelves stacked in the face of panic buying. 324 more people have died in spain from coronavirus in the last 2a hours. 1,326 people have now lost their
12:33 pm
lives in the country to the virus. america orders people in more states to stay home. anyone flouting the restrictions in new york faces fines. australia's bondi beach is closed after large crowds ignore a ban on outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people. china says there has been no domestic transmission of covid—i9 in the country for three consecutive days. in other news, the american country music legend, kenny rogers, has died at the age of 81. now on bbc news, click looks at a company which is developing portable labs to test for coronavirus, and a tech based community initiative to support vulnerable people during the covid—i9 crisis. this week: the race to trace the coronavirus.
12:34 pm
the pop—up groups trying to help us all get through it. and breathe — helping children to use their inhalers. as the coronavirus has swept across the globe, the ability to know exactly where it is has become the crucial key to stopping it. we have a simple message for all countries — test, test, test. some countries have really cracked how to do this. south korea, with its drive—through ten minute tests, is held up as a model for others to follow.
12:35 pm
but many countries are struggling to test at scale. in the uk, testing is having to be limited — the cost, the infrastructure, the time the test takes are all holding up the battle against the disease. now, there are dozens of efforts going on around the world to try and solve this. and jen has been looking at one close to home in west london. around the world, companies and increasingly individuals, are racing to find ways to accurately test people for the coronavirus. the situation is changing daily, if not hourly. we simply don't have mass testing available for the population now and there's a big effort going on to try and get that in place as quickly as possible to be able to manage this. we're in negotiations today to buy a so—called antibody test, as simple as a pregnancy test, which can tell whether you
12:36 pm
have had the disease. there are two types of test being worked on. diagnostic tests, which identify people who currently have coronavirus, and antibody tests — these look for antibodies in the blood to see if a person ever had the virus in their system and if they did, when. the diagnostic tests are primarily based on a technology called pcr — polymerase chain reaction. this is a standard molecular technique that identifies the genetic material of the virus from a throat or nose swab. special emergency use authorisation from the american food and drug administration has enabled two companies to ramp up commercial testing efforts in the us. one is swiss company, roche, which uses these machines already in many hospitals across the country to increase the amount of people who can be tested at once. the other is thermo fisher which uses its applied
12:37 pm
biosystem pcr instruments. the company aims to produce 5 million tests for these machines by early april. but it's notjust big companies getting involved in testing efforts. in west london, a community of open source scientists, engineers and microbiologists working out of shipping containers in the open cell bio—village are trying to help. there are 70 shipping containers here with labs looking at a range of biotech challenges, from personalised medicine and dna sequencing, to bioelectronics and biomaterials. it's shared molecular biology lab has been transformed to experiment with expanding testing capacity while also designing a portable lab solution built out of a shipping container that could be easily transported. we're trying to use these automative methods to speed up the testing kit because in order to test large populations, we need millions of covid—i9 testing kits. us company, 0pentrons, has donated two of its liquid handling machines to the lab
12:38 pm
for their work. these plates can test up to 96 samples at a time. these are also pcr diagnostic tests, like the ones we saw with other companies. but these are open source rather than proprietary and they say they would like to get the cost of testing down to five to £10 per test. here in the uk, i think it's really about getting into that nhs pipeline, being able to augment someone's existing pathology department. and being able to say, look, here's the molecular biology kit with high throughput. so, the same one person could do 96 tests when they are doing one anyway. if it receives regulatory approval, the lab could theoretically be set up with just three machines inside a shipping container. as well as being able to augment existing pathology labs around the country, a shipping container set—up could help people in places with far less access to medical facilities. it's not only useful for the uk but it will definitely be useful for other countries. it can also be something that can be
12:39 pm
reused in case anything like that happens again. there's also a long—term value there really. there are other test being developed in the uk. the university of leicester is working on a facemask test, using money from research england and partnering with the nhs, to repurpose a test they were using for tuberculosis. by wearing a facemask for 30 minutes with 3d printed strips inside, it can show whether the person is breathing out the virus. scientists at the university of oxford say they have developed an ultrasensitive test that can work injust 30 minutes. they say it doesn't need the kind of machine used in the other tests and can be deployed to rural or remote areas quickly. they also say it's sensitivity means it can detect when someone is in the early stages of the virus, which could help slow down transmission. detecting the virus in the early stages in an asymptomatic carrier could indeed be game—changing in halting its progress. getting more tests out to as many people as possible as soon as possible could provide the data needed to accurately
12:40 pm
track the virus. that wasjen and it will be fascinating to see how that story develops. pretty quickly, i would imagine. now, with countries around the world battening down the hatches and locking down huge swathes of the population, everyone is having to make a plan for how they're going to live through this. technology will play a massive part and stephen beckett has been meeting the pop—up groups who are trying to do their bit. following in the footsteps of china and other countries around the world, many people in the uk are now being asked to stay at home or self—isolate entirely — particularly if they're in an at risk group. that isolation poses its own challenges, from getting access to the basic necessities, to looking after your mental health. well, last week, pop—up online communities have appeared to try and help solve some
12:41 pm
of those problems. this is the covid mutual aid network. each one of those pins is a local group pledging to help people in their community isolated by covid—19. and believe it or not, just a few days ago, none of them existed at all. in less than a week, the movement has snowballed into an entire improvised volunteering infrastructure. i'm so surprised by how much it has grown since then. now there are more than 7,000 or 8,000 local people involved. every single ward in london seems to be covered by a whatsapp group where folks are looking to volunteer or connect with other people who need help, so it's phenomenal. at the moment, the real heart of all of this is something quite basic, it's groups on whatsapp. these are just a few of the ones i've joined in the last few days and already they've got hundreds and hundreds of messages from people offering their help and trying to get involved.
12:42 pm
obviously, this isjust around me but i'm told similar groups are popping up all across london and in some places around the uk. beyond whatsapp, groups are using open access tools like google docs, sheets, and forms to bootstrap a whole volunteering infrastructure out of nowhere. all of that organisation is essential if the groups are going to reach more people in the community who may not be looking for support online. it's about 9am and i'm in an estate in central london waiting for a few members of the local group. they're planning to flyer this entire estate, every single house, this morning. the idea is if anyone needs help, maybe some supplies brought to their door, or even someone to tlk to for a bit of support — then they know they have someone they can call. i think this is a really scary and anxious time but the best way forward is everyone coming together. and what an amazing time
12:43 pm
to discover your neighbours in this time we're going to be shut up in our neighbourhoods. i think it's grown so quickly because, actually, everyone feels a little bit at a loss of what to do and how they can help right now. i think everyone's kind of thinking, well, we feel 0k perhaps, social media has pros and cons. this is one massive pro, so we're actually now able to unite online. given social distancing, we can now co—ordinate and plan remotely and get together and also give each other support. it's really important that we don't feel isolated at the moment, although we are physically. actually connecting via social media and bringing the community together is really helping to combat loneliness. the wider group are clear to point out that they are not medical professionals, nor is it an official charity. this is a volunteer community effort trying to do small things to help. does that mean the goodwill could be exploited 7 i think it's still a little bit tricky and dangerous at times because the wrong messages can be sent and we are struggling with that a little bit as well. some misinformation or fake
12:44 pm
news being passed around which is just not helpful. it's such early days for projects like this so it's not clear yetjust how much impact pop—up volunteering communities could have, but done safely, it feels to me like a good idea and some welcome good news. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week amazon stopped stocking all nonessential items from its warehouses following the demand for household necessities during the coronavirus pandemic. apple was served a record breaking $1.1 billion euro fine by the french competition authority for anti—trust practices. the company was found to have an unfair agreement to control prices with two french wholesalers. and the us department of health and human services was hit by a cyber attack in an attempt by hackers to slow down its response to the coronavirus pandemic. how would you feel if your
12:45 pm
favourite social media account called you ugly? it was revealed this week by the intercept that video sharing app, tiktok, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users it deemed too ugly, poor or disabled. tiktok said its initial goal was to prevent bullying and the guidelines have changed. if you thought gaming and reading were incompatible activities, think again. the uncensored library was created on minecraft by design studio blockworks. and contains censored journals and articles which are banned in several countries as a way of avoiding press censorship. and finally, if you're concerned about who's preparing your lunch, there's a robot to help with that. this robochef in tokyo, japan, has been cooking up noodles for customers. however, the kitchen bot does need a little human help to combine the noodles with broth and veggies. ramen to that.
12:46 pm
over a million children in the uk are suffering from asthma. a recent report suggests that 94% of all sufferers aren't using their inhalers correctly. but it seems there could be some technology that's coming to the rescue in the form of an augmented reality app. i've come to crawfords church of england primary school in suffolk where they've been trialing the app on both pupils who do and don't suffer from asthma. let's press play! the aim of myspira is to create a fully immersive experience to learn about asthma and the triggers, and at the same time, it gamifies improving inhaler technique. and it's centred around two inhalers here both providing treatment, one of them preventative and the other to be used in the case of an asthma attack. hello, i'm here to talk to you about asthma.
12:47 pm
someone who has asthma will have symptoms like coughing and wheezing. what we need is a rescue inhaler, otherwise known as a reliever. i was quite enjoying that but more importantly, i'm joined here by a few of the first users of the app. freddie, jasmine and john. this looks like a game of pairs, what are you learning from this element? each card will have something that could happen if you don't use your inhaler. this one says ‘coughing.’ i have learnt how to use the inhaler and what the different inhalers are called, and what can happen if you don't use the inhaler. well done, you found all the cards! the issues with not using inhalers properly is that we see a much higher incidence of emergency admissions with acute asthma attacks, and also chronic infection occurring and actually asthma deaths still happening.
12:48 pm
how useful do you think this is to somebody who doesn't actually suffer from asthma? i think it can be very helpful in case, let's say, you're with a friend or family member and there's no—one else there. and they have an asthma attack. you could find their inhaler and help them out with it. and how about you jasmine? because you do have asthma i know and how useful have you found it? um, it really helps, if you want to learn how to use your inhalers. if you don't use your inhaler properly, then your chest, will go funny. if you don't. one of the issues is that children will inhale — if they use an inhaler directly to their mouth, they will inhale too quickly. so, the inhaler technique is poor. effectively, you may is sprayed up in the air and take a big breath in. fact: asthma symptoms are often worse at night and also during exercise. john, what do you think of the app? like freddie said, it's great for people with or without asthma
12:49 pm
because you could get it at any point of your life. so even if you don't have it now, you could have it later. the interactive part of the app is what's key here and the gamification. we know that children learn through technology now, that's the way it is. during an appointment, we'd love to have more time to spend with them but what they can do with the app is take it home, learn in an environment they're comfortable in and learn at their own pace. i can't really question how immersive all of this is because all three of them looked totally glued to the tablet. the knowledge gleaned from this ar game could prove life—saving. i hope you've enjoyed the video. that's all they have to show you for now. that was lara with a reminder there are other conditions which also need managing. lest we forget. so, earlier we looked at how social media was allowing people to come together to help us all to get through the covid—19 outbreak. we have a different tale now of how tech can —
12:50 pm
in small ways — help chip away at poverty and hunger. david reed has been to mumbai to see an app which is co—ordinating free food to the city's poor. mumbai's dabbawalas mastered food delivery almost a century before mobile phones and apps were even invented. they've been studied my business schools and featured in movies. now they're among the lead actors in another story centring on an app to feed mumbai's hungry. a fascinating enough tale on its own, but for the extraordinary life stories of the other people behind the app. i met up with navin, who eight years ago had an appalling car accident in hong kong. i had a crash and i didn't
12:51 pm
even know i had a crash. he lingered in a coma for months. when he finally woke up, his outlook on life had changed. after spending five months in the hospital, i was given the chance to live again. and i had to ask myself the question, "what is the difference i have made asa human?" navin put his head towards one of the biggest issues of our time — inequality. his aim was to somehow get those with too much to give to those with not enough. a place like mumbai has very visible disparities of wealth. what is less easy to see is how do you get that oversupply, that excess, into the hands of those who really need it? navin teamed up with someone else who'd cheated death, cancer survivor and app developer darshan. they put together an hour that lets people pinpoint a need and find someone to meet it. you find some person who is in need of some food.
12:52 pm
you take a photo of that person and the location. then you can target that location and broadcast that within the group, with people who are in the vicinity. the need can be food, clothes, shelter — anything. the tag also carries other details: local landmarks, how many live at the address, that kind of thing. now, you can meet the need yourself or be like the dabbawalas and find someone on the app who's got something to give. shree ganesh restaurant cooked a little too much this lunchtime. they've put it on the gift—a—deed app, so food that would otherwise go to waste is picked up by the dabbawalas. they scan the app for someone nearby who needs it and they hit the road.
12:53 pm
manisha has six mouths to feed, she says they usually eatjust once a day, so she's super happy to have an extra meal today. oh, and she says the kids loved it. incidentally, the geotag for the need can only be removed by someone at that location. so once the need is met, the flag comes down. it's kind of like pokemon go, giving is becoming a game. the gamification starts from the time you start identifying the need. the app awards points to the users and the dashboard also reflects which are the top taggers in the city. so it's sort of like competitive philanthropy? i wouldn't even call it competitive but i would call it encouraging and rewarding people to see at any time the good they have done so that can do more good. to be contagious — goodness and contagious. the app's onlyjust off the ground
12:54 pm
but there's already been thousands of meals delivered. the developers envisage tweaking the app to track disaster relief and aid deliveries. if so, through their brushes with death, darsha and navin could end up — even saving — the lives of many others. that was david reed in mumbai. right. who's up for a big dollop of escapism? yeah, uh—huh? i thought so. well, the movie avengers: endgame is pretty hard to beat in that respect. and we've been behind—the—scenes with visual effects supervisor, matt aiken, to see how they brought the film's climactic battle to life. warning: this will contain spoilers. but, if you haven't seen it yet, well, i imagine you would be streaming in the next few weeks, actually. thanos did exactly what he said he was going to do. he wiped out 50% of all living creatures.
12:55 pm
our work on the end battle was — kind of encompassed all the different aspects of modern digital effects work. we had lead digital characters, we had giant battle scenes with entirely digital armies, the battles taking place in an environment that's almost entirely digital. lots of complex simulation work with destruction events and fire and complex — you know, all the superpowers often involve simulation work. digital doubles of, like, 47 lead marvel characters for those wide battle shots. so, you know, a fantastic space to be working in. i think the way that marvel, they way they really make it work is that they keep these vast battles — they keep them personal. so even though you've got these huge, wide, epic shots of the armies clashing, those are actually few and far between. we don't spent a lot of time in that sort of space and we quickly drill into the individual conflicts, battles. all the emotional lines that are playing out with all of these —
12:56 pm
these multitude of heroes are coming together on this battlefield. chunks of it could be blocked out quite early on, but there are pieces of the puzzle that were about tidying it all up. the sequence was‘t entirely filmed within the studio. they're being filmed on a green screen stage, but depending on how it plays out we may or may not keep the set part of the environment and sometimes what we'll do is we'll end up just keeping the actor's face. we actually welcome the opportunity to replace the environment in that way because it liberates us to take control of the lighting of the scene in many ways. we like to get things over the render farm overnight, but some of those big battle shots, you know, with thousands of digital extras, complex simulation work going on, yeah, there's weeks of rendering if you look at — breaking it down, just in some of those shots. but we do have a big renderfarm so we got it all through. there was a huge amount of pressure. that this was the culmination of 22 films — and not to muck it up — was what everyone was feeling.
12:57 pm
so there was a huge amount of focus on doing justice to this whole huge arc of storytelling. this is the fight of our lives. this is going to work, steve. i know it is. because i don't know what i'm going to do if it doesn't. well, i don't know about you, but i really needed that. and that's it for this week. don't forget, though, that you can always find us on social media — more than ever these days, for obvious reasons. and why not get in touch? let us know what you're doing to get yourself through the current situation. you never know, we might even put some of your suggestions on the air. and if you are stuck for something to do while you're working at home, why not check out our massive back catalogue? it's on the iplayer in the uk and on youtube everywhere. and we're on facebook, instagram and twitter, too @bbcclick. thanks for watching, be safe, and we'll see you soon.
12:58 pm
hello. a lot of fine, settled weather out there, this weekend, with high pressure in control. though there is a brisk and chilly easterly wind. the best of the sunshine today will be the eastern side of england and scotland, that is where we will have the bluest sky. a lot of high cloud to the west, the sun will be quite hazy here. temperatures around 8—12 degrees or so. this is the brisk easterly wind. these are average speeds. it gusts higher, around 50 miles an hour, around some of the coasts of south—west england. so it will feel colder as a result. bit of low cloud toward some north sea coast overnight. we will see a bit of patchy rain edging towards the western isles of scotland but for most of us, dry, clear overnight and temperatures a few degrees either side of freezing. so, frost for many going into sunday morning.
12:59 pm
that patchy rain in the western isles will clear, any low clouds will clear the way from these north sea coast gradually during the day and what we're left is actually up lot of sunshine for sunday afternoon. temperatures pretty similar, but that brisk wind isn't 00:29:13,748 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 quite as strong tomorrow.
1:00 pm

51 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on