this is bbc world news, the headlines the authorities in washington have used tear gas on protesters outside the white house — as president trump warned he'll deploy the army to end the violence triggered by the death of the unarmed african—american, george floyd. in philadelphia, the us democratic presidential candidatejoe biden said black communities — already hard hit by the economic and health fall—out of the coronavirus pandemic — were being victimised, and their cries of anger were being ignored. president trump is facing a backlash over visits to two religious landmarks in washington. the president and the first lady — melania trump — visited the saintjohn paul ii national shrine in washington as well as st john's episcopal church. and dr abdullah abdullah — who is leading the afghan government's peace talks with the taliban has told the bbc that the organisation is yet to cut all ties to al qaeda. dr abdullah says the majority of afghans want peace.

you're watching bbc news... the uk government has admitted there are ‘huge disparities in the health of the nation‘ — after a report confirmed that those from black, asian and minority ethnic communities are more likely to die from coronavirus than white people. public health england said it was unclear why. speaking at the government's daily briefing, the health secretary, matt hancock, said he was determined to address the problem. the phc investigation into the way in which the virus targets people unequally and disproportionately has been put on the website. and this is a particularly timely publication. because right across the world people are angry about racial injustice. and i get that. black lives matter. and i want to say this to everyone who works

in the nhs and in social care, i value the contribution that you make, everybody, equally. and i want to say it right across society too. i want to thank you and i want you to know our whole country cares about your well—being. i value too those who come to our country to work in the nhs and in social care and i love that this country is one of the most welcoming and tolerant and diverse. that goes for the whole country and it goes especially for the health and care system. as i said in the house of commons earlier, the phd investigation found age is the biggest risk factor for coronavirus. next, gender. living in a city is a risk, and being black or being from a minority ethnic background is also a significant risk factor. there is much more walk to do to understand what is driving these disparities and how the different risk factors interact and we are absolutely determined to get to the bottom of this and find ways to close that gap.

—— much more work to do. i am delighted the minister for equalities will take this work forward working with php and many others. we value the contribution of everyone in fighting the virus and everyone has a contribution to make. the thing every single person can do is make their personal contribution to fighting this virus. in the first instance, things as simple as washing your hands, following social distancing rules and if you have symptoms, please self isolated immediately and get tested to protect your friends and family. let's keep going to get through this. we will now turn to questions, and the first from members of the public, and the first one is from danny in huddersfield. over the last week, a number of measures have been relaxed. if the r now begins to increase because of this, how will you identify which measures

need to be introduced to bring it back under control? that's a really important question and i will askjohn to come in in a second. the package of measures we have taken, we judge to be safe, but of course it depends on how people behave, so it's important people follow the social distancing guidelines, even as they are changed. we will keep it under review. and then if we need to make changes we can either make them at a national or local level and that will be determined by where we see any outbreaks, if we see them. and at a national level we can look right across the board. and of course we have been clear from the start that if we need to we can bring in further measures but we have chosen these measures in order to be able to relax some of the most stringent parts of the lockdown whilst also

keeping people safe. john? thank you, secretary of state. i think the answer, danny, is it depends on how the virus is coming back. key to any public health control, and also this virus is the surveillance information we have, including special surveys but also routine surveillance for example from general practice. if the virus came back in a particular setting, whether it was in health care or perhaps in a prison or whatever then you can undertake a lot of testing and infection control in that setting. if it comes back more widely and for particular groups then there are different measures that can be taken, so it would be in response to the way in which the epidemiology, the counts of the numbers of cases were increasing. it seems unlikely, from the example of different countries, that if we get a recurrence

of the virus it would be patchy and in local areas so that's why we are keeping that under control. —— it seems likely. next we have a written question from barbara in bridport who asks... this is another great question, and the answer is in the first instance antibody tests are being used by those in the health and social care sector. we are delivering around 40,000 per day across the nhs and social care, just over 40,000 per day on the latest figures. then we will roll them out across the country. we haven't yet been able to pin down the science of weather having antibodies means that you are at lower risk of getting

the infection again, and critically, at lower risk of transmitting the virus. we have tests in the field to find that out, so we will roll out antibody tests more broadly. we have bought a huge number of them to be able to do that. they involve a phlebotomist being able to take blood so you can analyse that blood which means we have to roll it out at the pace we are and we are trying to expand the rate of roll—out and i entirely understand your yearning to know. thank you. questions from the media, we can go to rhianna crocs ford from the bbc. thank you, secretary of state. many people from bame backgrounds will be confused why it has taken six weeks for the government to simply confirm what studies have already shown, that they are dying of covid—19 at significantly higher rates.

death from all causes in this period have been up to four times higher on average from people from these backgrounds and it has not been fully explained by the review today. firstly, how do you explain this disparity which hasn'tjust been caused by the virus, and why haven't you done more to protect and support these communities. and if i could also have a response from professor newton. secondly, on behalf of a colleague, you have been criticised from the statistics watchdog for the presentation of virus testing figures and isn't that embarrassing in such an important policy area. thank you. if i address the second question first and then bothjohn and i will answer on the first, which is so important. 0n the second question, the way in which we present the stats is the best we can. in having built the testing programme so rapidly, in such a short period of time, we are working with the stats

authority is to present these statistics in a way they are happy with and to make sure we are as transparent as possible. i spoke to sir david norgrove today, the head of uk statistics authority, and we will be working with them to make sure the statistics are constantly improved. but the way we present them is the simplest way of presenting a very complex picture of the overall five different pillars of testing, and that is the approach we have taken. 0n the first part of your question about the report from public health england, i think this is an incredibly important area. i have been really struck by the clear difference in the proportion of people who are dying with covid—i9 from ethnic minority backgrounds, and i want to get to the bottom of it, so i asked public health

england to do this work by the end of may and they have done that. you are absolutely right that there is much more work that needs to be done and this report shows that. so we are asking, i have asked the equalities minister to take this forward to explore the causes and what further can be done. professor newton has been involved in the work from the start. 0n the reporting of statistics, the object objective of the testing programme was to build the capacity to respond to the pandemic and it's what we do with a test rather than the numbers which matter. at the moment we have a falling number of infections and what we are keen to do is have high quality testing delivered quickly and to be very available. just the numbers of tests is not a measure of how effective the programme is, it is whether we are testing the right people, testing them quickly and getting results back put it we are happy to report the numbers in any way

that we are asked to. the review is an important piece of work, there was a great deal in it, a lot of different factors are looked at and normally a report like this would take a good six months so we have produced the analysis in a relatively short time. some of these data were already available so the office for national statistics and other research studies have published them we have confirmed that. is important to have confirmation in the number of sources. as you say, we were not able to look at all the potential explanations but you mentioned the all—cause mortality being four times higher, actually 3.9 times higher in black men than in normal times and it is raised by a 1.7 times in white men and i think 2.9 in asian men. there are a number of statistics in their. is quite a long report and there is a great deal

of background information and detailed information we think will be helpful. what we would like to do is get a lot of discussion about all these elements in particular with a lot of the people involved and the various groups involved in responding to it. we think the report will be helpful. some of it was available before but there is quite a lot of new information and it is not easy to go directly from the analysis to making recommendations and we need to get the report widely disseminated and discussed before deciding what needs to be done but clearly there are some fairly obvious conclusions that can be drawn, even from the data we have. can i follow up on that? firstly, thank you for acknowledging that black lives matter in your opening speech but a lot of people are already going back

to work scared they are not being a protected product measures announced today, as expected, to be in place to protect them but can you say anything to these communities and if not can you give us a timeframe or deadline when they will get recommendations about how to protect themselves going forward considering this risk will not be going away? absolutely. the number one thing i would say is that for anybody in a higher risk group, the most important thing to do is stringently follow the social distancing guidelines, including the work on social distancing at work that has been published. there is specific guidance for social distancing in the workplace. for all of the different high risk categories that the data demonstrate, it is really important that people follow those social distancing guidelines very stringently. we have been very clear about this from the start, about those who either have a medical condition and, as the phereporter says, age is the number one risk factor. around 90% of deaths are in the over 65s.

so the direct answer to the question is the same as to everybody but with more emphasis, which is that social distancing is the best way to keep yourself safe and others are safe, alongside the hygiene and washing your hands and making sure that if you have symptoms, get a test. i totally understand the concerns that people have and i understand the anger that people feel about racial injustice more broadly and i share it. we want to tackle it i fully acknowledge that, and it's very important that we address that, as i am trying to do within the nhs and social care that i am responsible for, and i think we need to do across society as a whole. thank you very much. emily morgan from itv. if i can pick up on something

rhianna said, you launched this review published with a huge fanfare, to look at how covid—19 was affecting ethnic minorities put it one of the objectives of the review was to make recommendations. where are those recommendations and will you be publishing any any time soon? absolutely, we need to go through the next stage of work to make sure that we take into account all of the different considerations. for instance, the phe report sets out it does not take into account comorbidities, different occupations because different people in different occupations have different risk factors, and of course... other health factors like obesity point that we have to make sure all those are taken into account. and scientifically and rigorously understand the causes behind the data that are clearly shown today and take the lessons from that.

yes, the recommendations, there are recommendations there but perhaps they are more to do with the fact that these are important data for people to be aware of. as the secretary of state said, even understanding the levels of risk associated with different factors is itself important in designing programmes to protect people. in fact, the nhs has already started a process of risk assessment for staff using these data are. there are recommendations but there are still some questions. what we do show is that there is no simple... there was a lot more than just the ethnic differences in the report, there are differences to do with levels of deprivation and where people live an occupation and so on and all these causes are the causes of health inequalities anyway. what the report emphasises that what covid—i9 has done is to emphasise the existing health inequalities in the country, and it shows us again that we need to address those inequalities were that they are to do with

deprivation or people's background. in fact, to some extent, the recommendations that have been made before about similar issues still apply. what we have put forward is some data that can be used, the secretary of state mentioned the relevant minister and the race disparities that have looked at the data and i think we will be seeing some recommendations coming out but it is important those recommendations are widely discussed with a lot of other groups, notjust from public health england. but we think the data will be important for those processes. you mentioned risk assessment and obviously they are now happening for ethnic minority members of staff in health care but what about the rest of the population? given that we know that ethnic minorities are being disproportionately affected by covid—19, shouldn't all ethnic minorities be put in an at—risk

category to protect them? if i may, the key point of the study is it showed that although clearly outcomes are worse for people in black and minority ethnic groups, it is not necessarily because of their ethnicity. exactly as you say, it might be related to occupation or other reasons why there might be a higher level of exposure put that one has to be a little bit careful in doing that risk assessment. one has to look at the causes of increased risk, which may be as much to do with other factors, not necessarily someone‘s background per se. although there is probably an element of that as well. the report, if nothing else, emphasises the complexity of what we are seeing. we are urging people not tojump to conclusions and institute measures which are not really justified by the data. there is an element of caution in our results

as well as obviously pointing out these obvious inequalities. thank you, emily. next question from ben kentish at lbc. good afternoon, i wanted to ask about the 0ns figures this morning because two months or so ago at the start of lockdown the government predicted a death toll between 7000 and 20,000 to. the onus the total excess mortality since the end of march is three times that -- the ons. it is around 62,000. i wondered if you have a sense of why you thought that was and therefore what lessons we could learn about that for the future. and one for professor newton, a testing capacity has increased significantly but still about a third each day is going unused. i wondered how you planned to use that spare capacity and whether it could be used for people who have been told to isolate

by the track and trace, test and trace system without symptoms to decide whether or not they do indeed have the virus. thank you. 0n the first question, i will take that and ask professor newton to answer the second. 0n the first question, we did not make a prediction of the impact of this disease other than right at the start when there were scientific predictions made which have been published showing that unmitigated, with no measures, the death toll would have been around half a million. and that led to a whole series of changes, including the social distancing and effectively the lockdown. because that was unacceptably high. and we are completely and fully transparent about the impact of the disease, and i welcome the 0ns‘s vigilance in measuring it. the good news from the 0ns stats this morning are that the number

of cases, the number of deaths, sorry, is coming down, and also the fact that the proportion of deaths in care homes is coming down, given that has been a very big focus of attention. professor newton. it's a very good question about what are the priorities for the testing programme. there are three priorities. the first is to support the test and trace programme and the secretary of state has said we are really keen for anybody with symptoms that might be too unwise to come forward and be tested so we can give a definitive answer and if they are positive, they can be entered into the test and trace programme. i should say, we were asked yesterday about some statistics but there are thousands of people already who have tested positive who have been successfully fed into the test and trace programme and using the online tool and identifying contacts, there are thousands of contacts

who have been successfully identified and agreed to sell to isolate. that programme is going well. we don't recommend testing for people who don't have symptoms because if you don't have symptoms, it is unlikely to be positive and even if somebody who is incubating the virus, the test may well be negative. if you have a test, if you are a compact if you have a test, if you are a contacted and during the 14 days of self—isolation you have a test and its negative, you still have to complete the 14 days isolation. there is little utility in offering tests to people who are compact there is little utility in offering tests to people who are contacts unless they develop symptoms when of course it is worthwhile. the second priority is to support the nhs in infection control and other settings like care homes so we are doing a lot of testing of staff to make sure that it is safe for people to be in a care setting or the nhs. that is a substantial requirement. the numbers are positive tests and particularly asymptomatic

positive tests in those settings are coming down. we are learning from those results to design infection—control programmes for the future. thirdly, we are using the test to support large—scale surveys. every now and again it will see a blip in the number of test done when we do a lot of tests for a survey, whether for the office for national statistics or one of the other imperial college surveys. those are the three priorities for testing but we are using a good proportion of the test, and there are of course the antibody tests which are being rolled out personally for health and care staff to understand how the infection has spread. can i come back on your answer, secretary of state? there were forecast published by members of the sage, neil ferguson for example, and he said today that the uk have been much more heavily affected by the buyer was than expected so i wondered if there was any analysis going on —— by the virus. and if you could share as to why that might be and how we could avoid if there was a second peak or a future epidemic, those same things happening again? it's undoubtedly true that we have

had a very significant impact from this virus. there is no doubt about that. we have been learning all the way through it how best to deal with that. impact the test and trace system that we have built over the past few weeks that has been up and running for the past five days is one of the lessons that comes out of it. the absolute vital importance of having a system that is big enough to be able to trace as many of those who have tested positive as possible. is in fact ties in with an additional answer i was going to give your second question which is that professor newton gave the long answer if you like but the short answer to the question of the gap between tests done and capacity is that we have spare capacity. this is a good thing but i would urge lbc listeners and everybody else in the country to use the capacity if they need it. if you need a test, you can get

one straightforwardly by going on the website and you are not only protecting yourself but also helping us to trace the virus and control it. and therefore keep the country safe. hello. we had a good dose of summer in the last week or so. much warmer than average for the time of the year., very dry and sunny big changes for the next few days. the changes have already happened we are seeing weather fronts from the north from that direction. take a look at this air currents over the next few days, how it establishes itself across the uk. yellow and orange replaced by this cooler blue colour streaming in from the north below average for the time of year. from this animation over the next few days, you can see where the clouds will become of the rain during clouds as well. you really get that sense that the

weather is streaming in like that's currents from the north. at the rainfall amounts will be very hit or miss, and we do need some rain, because it's been so dry. it looks as though in the next couple of days in northeastern parts of the uk as well as the welsh hills, we could get around 20 mm of rain, but this is at most many other parts of the country will just get a few drops here and there. so if you are a gardener, grower, expect some rainfall, but not an awful lot. so once again, it's the north and the east in this country that gets most of the rainfall through the course of the rainfall through the course of the rainfall through the course of the night. this night. towards the south, there will be patchy rain in the early hours of wednesday morning. quite a mild night in the heart of the country, around 13—15d. wednesday's weather map. you can see a weather front across england and wales, so that spells a lot of cloud crossing linn and wales, and you can see that rain streaming from the north, but it does become very patchy. exactly possibility of

downpours developing during the course of the afternoon in the south of the country. maybe even rumbles of the country. maybe even rumbles of thunder. take a look at the temperatures. 11 degrees in aberdeen, 15 in liverpool, and only the high teens in london after the high 20s we've been use to recently. those weather fronts keep invading the uk during the course of thursday. the weather keeps coming in from the north. 0ften cloudy. to go look at these arrows, straight northerly due south, so cool air spreading across the uk, and again, bits and pieces of rain here and there. for many of us, thursday is going to be an overcast breezy cool day with fleeting bits of rain. temperatures on thursday only 14 in london, for most of us, we are talking about the low teens, barely making double figures there in aberdeen. friday, more of the same. low— pressure aberdeen. friday, more of the same. low—pressure out towards the east. that means that the wind is blowing out of the north. i think on friday, we are kind of in between weather systems you can see her. it's to be a brighter day. what a bit of

sunshine in areas with scattered clouds, but it is going to be cool and breezy, so again, those temperatures are going to be struggling. now, of course, this time of year never really does turn freezing cold come of course, it can't, because the sun is strong. 0f the temperature struggle, talking bout 14—17 for most in the south of the country. take a look at next we can come of this coming weekend saturday and sunday are not cold compared to what we have been use to —— are cold compared to what we're used to. into the weekend and into next week, low—pressure is still with us, and the weather will remain u nsettled, with us, and the weather will remain unsettled, that means that there will be a lot of cloud around. going to be cool, and as long as this pattern continues, you can say summer pattern continues, you can say summer is on hold for now.

you're watching bbc news, this is 0utside source. i'm babita sharma. america is facing its biggest wave of protests for decades. president trump's critics say he's making the situation worse. donald trump has turned this country into a battlefield driven by old resentments and fresh fears. he thinks division helps them. if a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residence, then i will apply the united states military and quickly solve the problem for them.