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tv   BBC News  BBC News  May 23, 2020 3:00pm-3:46pm BST

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this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. uk prime minister borisjohnson‘s special adviser, dominic cummings, faces calls to resign after travelling hundreds of miles to stay near family during lockdown — he insists he behaved " reasonably and legally". it's not a good look though, is it, mrcummings? who cares about good looks? it's a question of doing the right thing. it's not about what you guys think. investigators recover the black box data recorder of the passenger plane that crashed in the pakistan city karachi on friday killing at least 97 people. a two—week quarantine for most people entering the uk —
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with fines for those who don't self—isolate. and coming up, we'll be putting your questions on coronavirus vaccines to two specialists — dr andrew preston from the university of bath and dr kate broderick from a pharmaceutical company developing their own vaccination. hello and welcome if you're watching in the uk or around the world — and stay with us for the latest news and analysis from here and across the globe. borisjohnson‘s top aide, dominic cummings, is facing calls to resign saturday after it emerged that he'd travelled more than 250 miles
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with his sick wife to be near relatives during the uk lockdown. downing street says that mr cummings drove from london to county durham to ensure that his young son would be properly cared for if he too became unwell, and that his actions were in line with coronavirus guidelines. mr cummings told reporters that he had behaved reasonably and legally. our political correspondent helen catt reports. you're supposed to be more than two metres apart. dominic cummings at his london home, insisting he did not break lockdown rules. i behaved reasonably and legally. that's not a good look so is it, mr cummings? who cares about good looks. he was about doing the right
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thing. it's not about what you guys think. when he self—isolated with coronavirus symptoms in march, it wasn't here but more than 250 miles away at a family property in durham. dominic cummings should have done the right thing, he should have resigned but now that he hasn't, boris johnson must show leadership and he must remove him from office immediately. but we now know, from what's been said on the bbc this morning, that the government in london have been aware of this for weeks, so why have we not been told about this? why has borisjohnson not recognised that this is something that would be seen by millions of people has been unacceptable? mr cummings is understood to have left london, with his wife, who had developed coronavirus symptoms and their young son, after lockdown rules were put in place on the 23rd of march. under government guidance, anyone who lives with someone who has developed symptoms is told to stay at home for m days. durham constabulary says that:
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in a statement, downing street said that... the statement goes on... earlier this month, professor neil ferguson quit his role on the government's scientific advisory committee stage —— sage. after the telegraph reported he had broken lockdown rules by allowing his married lover to visit him at home. catherine calderwood resigned as scottish health adviser after visiting her
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second home twice. labour has said the country d ese rves a nswe i’s . either way, more questions are likely to be asked. chris daw qc is a criminal barrister and author of the upcoming book ‘justice on trial‘. let's start with what the legal situation is. what, in law, could he potentially have done wrong? well, he potentially breached the coronavirus regulations, which were imposed on all of us towards the end of march, which required you to stay at home unless you had a reasonable excuse at home unless you had a reasonable excuse to leave your home. and that law, which applies to everybody, was accompanied at the time by government guidelines which were effectively that you must stay at home unless you have a reasonable excuse. home unless you have a reasonable excuse. and so, when it comes to a reasonable excuse, travelling 250
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miles, not only in anticipation of potential infection or some particular childcare issue, but when actively symptomatic, when there are people in the vehicle who was symptomatic with coronavirus is so obviously not a reasonable excuse to travel or to leave home. they had a home, they could have self isolated in their home, as the rest of us we i’e in their home, as the rest of us were being told to do. there was no guidance to the effect if you have children and i worried about becoming ill you can travel halfway across the country. that was exact opposite of what the gunmen were telling people to do. so potential breach —— that is what the government wei’e breach —— that is what the government were telling people to do. but all of this must be put into the public domain. the police report, the decision—making around that and we have to ask the really big question here, if this was legitimate and if there was actually a belief that there was a reasonable excuse a belief that there was a reasonable excuse to travel this distance, why wasn't the public told about it? he isa high wasn't the public told about it? he is a high profile government figure
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with influence directly on the prime minister. so if he's going to travel, people are going to see and that's what happened. and people are going to report it to the police. so if it's all above board, why did he hide his location for all these weeks and not make it clear that he had chosen to travel 250 miles to self—isolate? what if he had had a car accident? or a breakdown? self—isolate? what if he had had a caraccident? ora breakdown? what if someone have had to come and attend the vehicle? they would have been placed at risk by his actions. presumably those of the reasons that these regulations were introduced in these regulations were introduced in the first place, in order to reduce the first place, in order to reduce the risk of the infection spreading because of circumstances to which you've described. and with obvious he heard people saying if you are ill don't go to your second home for that reason. but in terms of the police involvement here, durham police issued a statement here saying they had spoken to the people in the house after receiving this report. is that all they will have done or would there have been more involved in that process? they probably wouldn't have done that much. in fairness, the police across
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the country have been policing this ina very the country have been policing this in a very key and minimalist way because rightly so, they could have gone into hard against people. but this is quite an extraordinary piece of travel. this is not someone who has gone out and done an extra bit of exercise and driven a few miles when the encouragement was that he should stay at home. this is someone who has travelled a very long distance. so what the police would have done is, having received a report, they would, as i believe the statement makes clear, they would have reiterated law in the guidance but they would have used common sense. because using police resource from the person is already done the travelling, to conduct an investigation and take a long time about it, would not have been a proportionate use of police time. they must have come to the conclusion that just wasn't worth taking any formal action. the formal action, as you know, involves a penalty, a relatively small financial penalty and at the end of the day, most police interventions have resulted in warnings rather
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than formal prosecution or action of that kind. so if they made the decision that having spoken to the people in the house that that was sufficient, does that mean they made a calculation that this wasn't actually a breach of the guidance? or does it mean they would have made a decision that it wasn't worth pursuing the stage of actually issuing a summons and finding someone? exactly. it doesn't mean that they came to the conclusion that they came to the conclusion that he had not broken the law. the great majority of people who have broken the regulations, we have heard the stories about people, before the guidelines were relaxed, travelling hundreds of miles to the la ke travelling hundreds of miles to the lake district and all the rest of it. they had all broken the law but the great majority of them didn't get penalised because the police exercised their discretion to give a warning. there has been a relatively small number of penalties actually issued, relatively small number of fines compared to the vast numbers of breaches of regulations up and down the country. so theyjust exercise discretion. why then should he bejudged by different
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exercise discretion. why then should he be judged by different standard just because he happens to be the prime minister's chief adviser? he shouldn't bejudged prime minister's chief adviser? he shouldn't be judged by a prime minister's chief adviser? he shouldn't bejudged by a different standard, he should bejudged by the same standard as everybody else. and that standard is that if you are responsible, as he is, for an important part of the governance of oui’ important part of the governance of our country and you directly break the law and you directly break the government's guidelines at the very time when the government is telling everybody in the country to stay at home and not to travel, how can you have the confidence of the public you are going to stick even to the rules that your government is telling everybody else to stand by? it is blazing hypocrisy and somebody at that level of government, with that much influence over public affairs cannot conduct himself in that way and expect to stay in office. others have resigned and rightly so. because even though they had more important roles in the scientific process and actually had fundamental roles to the safety of the country, they realise that if they break the rules they had to go. he has said that as far as he was concerned he behaved reasonably in
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the interests of his family. he said it doesn't matter how it looks, it's doing the right thing. and he felt it was doing the right thing by his family. you may disagree with that but that was his defence. i mean, if you want to kind of clear some of this up, is there anything more he could do? yes, he could consent to the police releasing whatever information was told the police. more importantly, he could release the records of any discussions he had in government. because surely he must have told people that he was planning on doing this. it's a huge risk to the government for the chief adviser to the prime minister to be travelling 250 miles in the middle of lockdown. huge risk, as has come to light because we having this conversation now. so to light because we having this conversation now. so surely he can release the fact that he must of got permission from somebody, he must have cleared it with somebody in the civil service that he was intending to do this. and if not, it'sjust that it wasn't above board at all. because if he really believed it was
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a reasonable and lawful way to behave, then he would have made it clear. we could have told that mr cummings is travelling 250 miles and all of you, members of the public, if you feel the need to do the same, then it's reasonable. it's reasonable for him, is reasonable view. so all of the decision making, whether he did or not tell people needs been public main, including the police report. thank you very much for being with us on bbc news. i'm just a reminder that the government briefing, the daily news briefing from downing street will be taking place from about 4pm uk time, that's of course british summertime, four o'clock bst and it will become and appearon four o'clock bst and it will become and appear on bbc news, so do stay with us for that. in other news... the pakistan govenrnment has launched an official inquiry to investigate the plane crash that killed at least 97 people. the announcement was made earlier saturday in a press conference led by the civil aviation minister.
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the pakistan international airlines passenger plane was flying from lahore in the north of the country when it came down near the runway in a residential area of karachi. according to officials only four people on the ground were injured. it comes as the pakistan pilots‘ association said it has ‘no faith‘ in the official investigation. our pakistan correspondent, secunder kermani has the details. today, funerals are taking place for some of the victims of the tragic crash. whilst dna tests have been conducted on the bodies of others before they can be handed over to relatives. amongst the dead, entire families. translation: brother was arriving here after two months. he was due to celebrate his daughter‘s breaking of fast yesterday. he had made all the arrangements, including food. he had even paid for that. he was coming to meet his father and his relatives didn‘t know he would be buried today.
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you can‘t believe how big the grief and the tragedy is. there were two survivors, one reported. the pilot‘s last contact with air traffic control suggest the engines had failed.. an investigation is under way with preliminary findings expected in a month. pakistan‘s pilots association has expressed concerns that previous probes had not been thorough enough and called for international investigators to insist in the inquiry. the british government is facing more questions over its plans to introduce a 14—day quarantine for people arriving in the uk. from june eighth, travellers will have to self—isolate for two weeks and could face fines of £1,000 if
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they break the rules. france has said that visitors arriving from the uk will also have to self—isolate for 14 days — from the same date. airlines and travel companies are worried it could damage their businesses even further. the uk government says the measures are designed to stop a second wave of coronavirus. the headlines on bbc news... boris johnson‘s special adviser, dominic cummings, faces calls to resign after travelling hundreds of miles to stay near family during lockdown. he insists he behaved reasonably and legally. investigators have recovered the black box data recorder of the passenger plane that crashed in the pakistan city karachi, killing at least 97 people. a two—week quarantine for most people entering the uk, with fines for those who don‘t self—isolate. it‘s time for your questions
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answered, and we‘ve been asking people to send in their questions about coronavirus vaccines and the spread of infection. with me is dr andrew preston, a specialist in infection biology at the university of bath here in england and dr kate broderick, senior vice—president at the pharmaceutical company inovio based in san diego in the us. a warm welcome to both of you. let‘s go straight in with the questions. let me ask this one first of all to andrew. this is from an e—mail question, no name but we have had it by e—mail. my wife and i have to shield because we have underlying health conditions. nobody approaches the house except the delivery of essential items. with the relaxing of lockdown rules, would you advise whether ourjobbing gardener can visit the premises, providing he doesn‘t come into the house and the two metre social distancing recommendation is adhered to? that
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sounds pretty reasonable. as long as it doesn‘t come into the house then you should be able to keep easily been self isolating. you just need to be aware that anything that the person touches, even gate handles, door handles, could be contaminated, so door handles, could be contaminated, so you need to be really careful about that. and then of course one of the issues might be if the gardener were to have an accident on the premises and need help, they would be putting themselves at risk if they have to go out and administer some of that help. so thinking about the activities very carefully but again, if they can just keep themselves well away and the gardener doesn‘t come into the house, and very mindful of things that he might‘ve touched, they should be to maintain their shielding as they have been doing. one example might be the gardener will wear gardening gloves, so that should be all right because he‘s not going to be touching surfaces with his bare hands. would that be enough in terms of the things he touches, whether it‘s the garden hoe of the lawn mower or whatever it maybe? to
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be honest now because it‘s very easy to contaminate the surface of the gloves, so ideally if he uses his own equipment and none of theirs that that would be even better but no gloves are not particularly great at stopping contamination. if the gardener wipes their face than the gloves will be contaminated and that might pass it on. i wish to stay with the gardening because kate‘s has got some lovely flowers behind her there! good to see you again. what hope is there for the shielding group, how is this going to be sustainable without an impact on well—being and livelihood ? sustainable without an impact on well—being and livelihood? if a vaccine that only hope of getting back to some sort of normality? firstly, i would like to say that i'm very hopeful that we will have an effective vaccine. so i do want to bear that in mind, to give you all a little bit of hope. i feel very confident about that.
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unfortunately though, i do think that until we have an effective vaccine vaccines, i do think that particularly vulnerable group will have to be really very mindful of their activities. we are still not clear then why they are so badly affected by coronavirus, is that fairto affected by coronavirus, is that fair to say? i think we are getting itioi'e fair to say? i think we are getting more and more understanding of the pathology of the disease, of why it seeitis itioi'e pathology of the disease, of why it seems more disproportionately target certain people than others. but certainly, if you have underlying issues with your respiratory system, that certainly puts you at a higher risk group and that's understandable because it is of course attach your lungs. but certainly people who have what we have immunocompromised for what we have immunocompromised for what whatever reason. so a lesser ability to promote those antibodies. people do need to be much more aware
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of their actions during this time. andrew, another question, please can you explain to me the phrase shedding the virus. i was led to believe it was transferred from water droplets but can the virus be spread by the sweat or fibre of clothing? shedding isjust simply the process of bringing the virus from the inside of your body to the outside. we can breathe it out, sneeze, cough, present in saliva. so packets outside then that is called shedding. —— if that gets outside. if you‘re having to wipe your hands and that‘s contaminated if you‘ve been touching your face then it can been touching your face then it can be present on clothes. kate, you mentioned the vaccine and one question being asked is how close
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are we question being asked is how close are we to getting a vaccine? just to pick on that, for example, we heard from the who at all press conference, he said he wasn‘t very optimistic because other vaccines have been quite tricky to find. with you as someone on the coal face of this, where does your confidence come from and what are your sort of rough timetable might be to which that might be fulfilled? yeah, and i would love to be able to say, oh, it'sjust round would love to be able to say, oh, it's just round the would love to be able to say, oh, it'sjust round the corner but i do wa nt it'sjust round the corner but i do want to be realistic and say developing vaccines under normal circumstances takes a long time. we are trying to do everything as quickly as we can but i don't think it isa quickly as we can but i don't think it is a matter of weeks or months away. i do think we're still potentially about the 12 months to 18 month timeframe for the vaccine. i have confidence that we, all of
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out i have confidence that we, all of our partners in the scientific community work on this project at the moment, ifeel confident community work on this project at the moment, i feel confident that within that group of people we will be able to come up with some vaccine solutions. and the reason that i say thatis solutions. and the reason that i say that is we certainly have had a lot of experience working with vaccines for another outbreak which of course is also coronavirus and really showed that vaccine to be highly protective and highly efficient in the clinic. so based on our experience there with another coronavirus, i feel confident that we coitie coronavirus, i feel confident that we come and i'm sure others, will be able to replicate that success. thank you. andrew, this is another question, who is suffering from the hot weather at the moment. i live in a care home and we have been told not to use fans. the carers say it
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circulates the germs. in this hot weather what are we meant to do? is it really bad to have a fan on? well, the fan will move around in the room. there is the idea that if you have the virus present in the room it keeps it up in the airfor longer rather than settling. i would hope by now in a care home, all attention is on stopping the virus mention a care home itself in certain into the resident‘s room. again, even opening a window in warm weather, as long as there is no one passing by, physically if you‘re not on the ground floor, it is about stopping the virus from getting into the room. with the focus is on that then the use of a fan shouldn‘t really pose any particular risk. the risk would be the virus getting on in the first place. so i think been able to ease any discomfort during hot weather is probably outweighs any small risk of moving small bits of virus around in the air because hopefully all the precautions will be stopping it from entering the resident‘s room in the first place.
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good. that will give them a bit of ammunition to hit back hopefully if he wants to have an argument with the carers! this one is from peter phillips, i don‘t think it is that peter phillips because katie says i, like many other pensioners, have had vaccine that protection against pneumonia. my question is does the vaccine in any way help me in protection to mitigate any of the potential effects from covid—19? kate. it's a great question and i think the answer is we don't know at the moment. because we still don't fully understand the mechanism of how this particular virus infection works. certainly, just in general, an elderly population, they really have to be very, very careful about their day—to—day duties here. unfortunately, covid—19 disproportionately affects their age
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gi’oup disproportionately affects their age group and so since we know, unfortunately, not enough about the virus spread at the moment, just keep up with all of those public health information that you've been given about social distancing, about quarantine and lockdown. that's really your best way to protect you. thanks, kate. ask questions andrew. i take thanks, kate. ask questions andrew. itake drug, thanks, kate. ask questions andrew. i take drug, 20 mg weekly that is for rheumatoid arthritis. i have tha nkfully for rheumatoid arthritis. i have thankfully been furloughed but i‘m expected to return to work at the end of may. i‘m genuinely scared for my health, life i go back to work. that drug is not a strong immunosuppressant are some of the others that are used for rheumatoid arthritis. some patients are being
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advised to shield but if this is a weekly dose than that is suggesting this is a well patient so perhaps not experiencing a diseased severe disease episode at the moment. so for those well—controlled patients with none of the other recognised... and they only a single immuno oppression, the advice is for them to self—isolate or maintain social distancing at their discretion. so i do think they have cause for concern if they‘re going back to an area where they maybe exposed but again, all work places where are supposed to be safe. we are going to have to leave it there. andrew and kate, thank you both very much for answering our questions. you are watching bbc news.
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the worldwide tourism industry has been badly affected by coronavirus, and many popular destinations are now trying to find ways to welcome visitors back. italy is planning to reopen its airports from the 3rd ofjune, and whilst we have been on air the spanish prime minister has announced that he expects people to be returning to spain injuly. one popular destination of course is greece which is also set to resume injuly. our correspondence greece which is also set to resume in july. our correspondence in athens explains. greeks have been able to come to the beaches for a couple of weekends now. but what about the rest of us? well, from the 15th ofjune, the greek authorities are going to welcome tourists back from all over the world without a quarantine. there will be some exclusions, though, countries with high infection rates, and at the moment that looks like britain, russia and the united states. greece has been very successful in controlling the pandemic, fewer than 170 deaths.
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so, it wants to tread very carefully. it needs to reopen its beaches, and as of monday, the greek islands will reopen again, too. but it has to take a very cautious approach to this. it realises business won‘t be the same as before, but just these small, incremental changes, letting people get back to the beach, get in the sea, is very important to regaining that life we once had. i have to say there are worse postings this time of year! beaches across cyprus have reopened, as the mediterranean island nation gradually eases its lockdown. the country‘s health ministry has issued strict social distancing guidelines for beachgoers. it comes two days after a mini heat—wave in the region saw temperatures hit 43 degrees celsius. cyprus partially sealed its borders ahead of most european nations, managing to keep the number of coronavirus—related deaths to fewer than 20. now it‘s time for a look at the weather with tomasz schafernecker.
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hello. a lot of sunshine today, but it is a very blustery, particularly across the northern half of the uk. in fact, gusts of wind in places are in excess of 50mph, mostly where the showers occur. to the south, you‘ve got sunshine but it‘s also very, very breezy. the temperatures will get up to about 20 degrees in london, that‘s the exception. for most of us it is closer to around 16—17, and in that wind off the atlantic, in western scotland, where it‘s raining heavily, only around 11 celsius. that rain will continue across the north—west tonight, but winds will be easing and by early sunday morning, they will be much lighter right across the uk. temperatures overnight will be about 10—11, and then tomorrow morning in the north we will have cloud and some bits of rain, but then it should dry out, with some sunshine. the best of the sunshine will be across wales and the south and it will also feel warmer and the winds will be lighter, too.
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bye— bye.
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hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines... you‘re supposed to be more than two metres apart. boris johnson‘s special adviser, dominic cummings, faces calls to resign after travelling hundreds of miles to stay near family during lockdown. he insists he behaved reasonably and legally. reporter: it‘s not a good look, is it, mrcummings? who cares about good looks? it‘s a question of doing the right thing. it‘s not about what you guys think. investigators recover the black box data recorder of the passenger plane that crashed in the pakistan city karachi on friday, killing at least 97 people. a two week quarantine for most people entering the uk, with fines for those who don‘t self—isolate.
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in about 15 minutes we will be joining viewers on bbc one for the downing street news briefing. that is ata downing street news briefing. that is at a quarter to four. now on bbc news, it is time for click. hello, you. hope you‘re doing ok. lara‘s on the end of this line, you‘re looking well, mate, how have you been? how‘s the first week of not—quite—so—lockdown lockdown been? it has been good being able to go out and do more exercise.
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i did 30,000 steps yesterday. wow, is that good? i have no idea, no—one‘s ever explained this step business to me. but talking of health, another issue that has been happening over the past couple of months is that when people have needed to go to the doctor or hospital, they have been nervous about either catching the virus or playing their part in overwhelming health systems. so that has meant in some cases, that people have missed urgent care that they really needed. sojen copestake has been to harrogate district hospital and a gp surgery in london to find out how staff has been trying to see more patients remotely where they can. when coronavirus hit the uk, we saw hospitals being rapidly set up to take more patients and even new ones were built. but in the last month, admissions to hospital emergency rooms have dropped to the lowest point since records began. many hospitals have seen a decline
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in the number of patients coming in for emergency care or scheduled appointments due to the coronavirus. but technology is enabling safe social distancing while also ensuring that important issues aren‘t missed. finding ways to quickly adapt nhs system to remotely check on patients with acute or continuing illnesses has been an urgent task. we have been shown some of the ways doctors are working to carry on seeing patients without physically seeing them. something as simple as sending an image on a phone is incredibly complex for the nhs. there are rules surrounding patient data that make it difficult to share scans, even between hospitals and doctors. but with coronavirus doctors had to quickly find ways around this to enable them to work from home. when covid occurred, the approach to the deployment changed. the nhs has a number of challenges around governance arrangements, they have a lot of sensitive information and sometimes that can be a barrier to deploying technology in the nhs. it was a very pragmatic approach taken by the guys across this region
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than to make sure that those final remaining steps were accelerated. the yorkshire imaging collaborative were already working with agfa healthcare on ways to share x—rays and scans among six hospitals using the xero exchange network browser. but now the system is entirely accessible from home, meaning doctors can consult on radical patient care including for cancer from their living rooms, with no ppe required a no risk of spreading the virus. i think everything‘s escalated, over the last month i have really integrated it into my house so i can work almost exactly as i do at the hospital. all the data regarding the patient is all kept on hospital servers, which are all very secure, there is high level encryption, i have to use a special vpn network to access it, as soon as i log off there is nothing on my computer to identify that patient, or any images remaining whatsoever, so if i had my computer stolen there‘s no data on there. the only potential risk is when people come around sticking cameras through my window
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and have a look at what‘s on the screen. gps are also finding new ways to see patients remotely. we‘re all now familiar with apps like gp at hand and push doctor which allow you to see a doctor by video call on your mobile. the medicspot takes things further. these se machines are used in 318 pharmacies and and 86 nhs care homes and gp surgeries, including dr yasmin razak‘s clinic in west london. it moves beyond the simple video call with a doctor by giving the patient access to a blood pressure monitor, pulse oximeter... did you get a reading? ..stethoscope. .. ..contactless thermometer... ..and even a light to check their ear, nose or throat. obviously we‘re doing everything remotely and digitally as much as possible for patient safety, but there are times we really do need to examine our patients. and so it gives us also that safety aspect that we can listen
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to the heart and lungs, look inside the throat and ear and make a proper diagnostic assessment rather than just rely on a conversation over the phone or a remote video. the system cuts down on the use of vital ppe as the doctor does not need to wear it and change for each consultation. this is very helpful as at this surgery, ppe is in short supply. while we were filming, a volunteer from a 3d printing charity dropped off a donation. this is a face shield, and these are 3d printed, the black part has been 3d printed by somebody locally, and then we have cut the visor and attach the elastic and we are disturbing them to frontline health workers. it turns out there is a distributed manufacturing capacity across the uk to make 140,000 so far. we have a need, and it's wonderful that you have come to support us because unfortunately as we were saying, through normal procurement lines we can't actually access ppe, and so gps are having to do their best to find it from everywhere available
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to support their staff. i think it's amazing that you've come and helped us, i'm really, really grateful. new apps are also allowing patients and doctors to interact remotely. silo allows doctors to communicate with enhanced security, allowing them to annotate photographs and blur patient records so they don‘t have to meet in person. while zesty helps patients access their medical records, book appointments and even attend consultations online. we are often guilty about being slower to adopt technologies in health, but sometimes it takes a crisis like this to come out with a positive change, and i think it‘s really shown us that the benefits of adopting remote technologies to deliver healthcare, and we won‘t be going back. i have to be honest, i have really struggled with my motivation during the lockdown, and i‘m just not the kind of person that goes for a run —
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i‘m not a jogger — so for the last week i‘ve been travelling to exotic locations and working out in virtual reality. this is supernatural, a vr fitness experience, and the company promises it‘s the most fun you can have working out, although that‘s what everyone who tries to trick me into exercise says. i‘m in machu picchu today and i have to strike these orbs as they come towards me, and when i see triangle, i have to squat into it and you have to forgive me if i don‘t put my back into it today because turns out after doing this for a week, your legs really hurt, so i guess it‘s kind of working. you might notice a striking similarity with a popular vr game, beat saber, which is one of those breakout vr hits, and it is very similar, although the developers of supernatural have tried to distinguish it make it appeal to more thanjust a gaming crowd, and they‘ve done it by having fitness trainers in the game. today i‘m doing full body work with raneir. enough talk, let‘s get into some warm—up.
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and they‘re using big—name artists and songs. ‘take on me' by a-ha plays but they‘re hoping to charge a monthly subscription, and that has annoyed some oculus qwest owners, who are used to paying just once to own a game. 0k. well, online from the company is chris milk. chris, i‘ve been doing this for a few days and my thighs are killing me! is that normal? we hear that a lot. a lot of people aren‘t used to lower body bodyweight exercises. what i‘m excited about is people say that they are... their lower body is sore but they don‘t actually remember the workout being hard. nobody likes multiple squats in a row. if you can hide it inside of a fun activity, you don‘t remember the pain of the workout because it wasn‘t painful. how are you going to make it appeal to more than just gamers? because i suspect most people who have one of these headsets are gamers.
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we‘re trying to bring virtual reality to a different demographic. the oculus quest is what we‘ve launched on. we‘re getting a lot of people that are saying they bought a headset either off of ebay or a off a third—party for the purpose of exercise using supernatural, and we are engaging with all of them — we‘ve learned so much in the last month from having thousands of people inside of it. at the moment this is only available in the us and canada, where the earliest adopters are about to end their free trial month, so the company is about to find out if people are prepared to pay. one obvious downside to working out with vr is you get really sweaty in the headset, although supernatural‘s offering a free silicon face shield to anyone who signs up for the free trial. i‘ve been comparing the experience to ring fit, it‘s nintendo‘s latest fitness game for the switch, and you use your body and this ring to control a character on the screen, and it has you doing jogging, sports and yoga poses, even stretching and squeezing this ring to defeat an evil dragon
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in the game who wears a wrestling singlet. as you would expect from nintendo, it‘s very cute and a little bit weird. what‘s even cooler is the controller can measure your heart rate to if you‘re working up a sweat, and i certainly did, although like a lot of nintendo games, this one is full of text from you have to skip, skip, skip your way through and a lot of the time ijust feel like, "get on with it!" a lot of these might be a passing phrase, like wii fit was, but i‘m determined to lose my lockdown weight and at least they got me moving every day and sweating it out. how absolutely fantastic was that? we‘ve got to talk to chris, he‘s online now. mate, how do you feel after all that? i‘m exhausted! doing that for a few days in a row has left my thighs so sore i could barely sit down.
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0h goodness! but was it better than doing a youtube workout? it can't be very comfortable wearing a vr headset for it? ok, yeah, it‘s definitely gross having the headset on. you get sweaty with vr at the best of times, and doing a full workout with it on, you do get very warm and steamy in there, it‘s not nice. at least with this, you‘re forced to do what it‘s telling you, rather than if it was just a youtube video, i could just ignore it. don't you think this is alljust a bit of a novelty, really? would you keep doing it? ok, yeah. it might be a fad, i‘m not sure yet, but ultimately it‘s got me working out. before i was doing nothing, i wasn‘t going for a jog, now i‘m doing these exercises every day. so i‘m going to stick at it and work on my ‘fad‘ bod rather than getting a dad bod. nice! brilliant! chris, you‘re such a great sport. it‘s always brilliant to talk to you, thanks for doing that for to us! that is it from us for this week. check out the full—length version waiting for you right now on iplayer. you can keep up with the team throughout the week on youtube,
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instagram, facebook and twitter — @bbcclick. thanks for watching, and we‘ll see you soon. thanks for watching. we will see you soon.
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this is bbc news, as we build up to today‘s downing street briefing on the coronavirus. the headlines... boris johnson‘s special adviser dominic cummings faces calls to resign after travelling hundreds of miles to state near family during travelling hundreds of miles to state nearfamily during lockdown. he insists he behaved reasonably and legally. reporter: it‘s not a good look, is it, mrcummings? who cares about good looks? it‘s a question of doing the right thing. it‘s not about what you guys think. the french government announces that people arriving in france from the uk will have two self—isolate for 1h days from the 8th ofjune.
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uk businesses will be

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