this is bbc news. the headlines: rallies are being held across america to markjuneteenth, an unofficial holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the united states. demonstrations demanding justice are taking place in many cities. the day has taken on extra significance this year in response to the black lives matter movement. brazil has now recorded over a million cases of coronavirus and 19,000 deaths. it's the second worst—affected country after the united states. the latest 24—hour total is the highest of the epidemic and the virus appears to be spreading into rural areas, especially in the amazon.

now on bbc news — it's time for click. this week: using search to search for covid. tiktok, tiktok, time for school. breaking new ground with the last of us part ii. and it's time for us all to hitrecord. screaming, acoustic heavy metal chords. welcome, welcome, welcome to click. come on in, everyone. i hope you're well, and ladies and gentlemen, i give you lara lewington. hello spencer, and hello everyone. there have been rumours that over the past few weeks,

some of our viewers have followed in love with two things. i'm it's not you and me. but it is the picture on your wall and your cushions, and i believe that those cushions took on a whole life of their own last week. yeah, all right, 0k, so here is what happened. i don't know why, but i asked for suggestions on social media for a different arrangement than the usual rainbow that we have here, and there was one suggestion i got that i just thought was genius and i could not resist. so well done if you worked out what was going on. this was the progress of the cushions moving about throughout the programme, and this was the homage that we were paying. all i can say is, i'm sorry. clearly lockdown has been long. it certainly has. now, listen. you know how it is — a question pops into your head, and for most of us, what we do is go online and type that question into a search engine. more often than not these days, that search engine is google. in fact, google is so massive and can see so much that it can provide anyone with a good idea

of what is trending right now. and scientists are now investigating whether searches for particular medical problems could be used to predict a second spike in cases of covid—i9. in the uk, searches for "loss of taste and smell" were peaking before the lockdown, and long before those symptoms were announced as being linked to the disease. so our models that we have developed using online search data were peaking about 17 days before confirmed cases of covid—i9 were peaking in eight countries that we have analysed. and therefore, based on this observation, we thought that if this is to happen again, we may get an early warning based on online searches.

but trying to unlock what search tells us about the progress of a disease is much more complex than just finding out what the most popular search terms are. for example, there was a second peak of searches for loss of taste and smell, but that was after they were announced as official symptoms. dr lampos analysed thousands of search terms and found that it's notjust the obvious ones that can be used to spot outbreaks, and it's not even the most obvious people who are able to spot them. patrick berlinquette is not a researcher, he's a marketeer. and he doesn't use the google trends tool. he uses something that's even more powerful — google ads. so in the last 7—14 days, there's been an increase in positive case rates in the sunbelt states

in the united states. arizona, i've seen a 400% increase in anosmia search terms. south carolina i'm seeing a 300% increase. on the other hand, there's been a drop in the last 7—14 days in michigan. the correlation is exact between the increases and the decreases that have happened. so right now, what is your research telling you about where we might see an increase in cases next? so one area that stands out is definitely houston, where i'm seeing a 3x increase in search volume for anosmia starting ijune. is there a strong chance people are just searching for those symptoms because they've heard about in the news, rather than they've got it themselves? so i can see the word for word searches that do correlate with the keyword. people are literally entering terms like, "i can't smell since tuesday, what do i do?", "i lost my sense of taste and smell, what does that mean?". you know, i see those

kinds of searches. i don't see anything that would tell me that these searchers know what anosmia is, they've heard in the news. and there are some parts of the world where there's very little official health data available, where search data is flagging up some interesting anomalies. tanzania, where john magufuli, the president, is one of the few leaders around the world who is still denying the seriousness of covid. by analysing searches for loss of smell symptoms, we're able to form a strong hypothesis that actually there are many more cases of covid in tanzania than the official statistics from john magufuli's government are suggesting. and, in fact, search engine analysis has even suggested which government measures may have had the greatest impact on the outbreak. we see that, for example, the social distancing measures, as well as the lockdowns that

followed them in most countries, were effective. and in some countries, we also see that social distancing measures alone would have been effective. so we see that there was — that the trend was in decline a little bit before, like one or two days before, the application of lockdowns. so one would argue that maybe severe lockdowns were not necessarily the best course of action. but, again, we cannot be sure about that. public health england now includes ucl‘s findings in their response to covid—i9. it is important to remember, though, that this is relatively research, with the potential to get it wrong. but, when it's used with more conventional methods, it's looking like it can be a powerful tool.

wow, that was really incredible stuff. now, spencer, i've got an important question for you. tiktok — huge platform, hundreds of millions of users making short—form, quirky videos. have you ever made one? no. laughs. i have been watching it with interest, though. but i don't know about you, but the problem for me is that, just when i start understanding a new social media platform, you know, start understanding the language and getting followers, along comes another social platform. and it's almost like there is a new platform for each new generation. parents, that's why your kids aren't on facebook — because you are. true, and that's probably why, when i made this video for tiktok last year, i realised i wasn't really in the right place. # slam it to the left, if you're having a good time. # shake it to the right, if you know that you feel fine. # chicas to the front, go round... it was a true work of art,

it has to be said. what's funny, though, is even that song and that dress are completely culturally irrelevant to anyone who's under the age of 20. laughs. absolutely. i did feel at the time i had to be totally and utterly shameless, though. but things could be changing, as tiktok may be becoming a little more serious. browsing can admittedly be quite compelling, but making content left me want to hide under the table. tiktok‘s popularity has rocketed once again the lockdown, but it's not just about the fun. now the platform's got a really captive audience, it's time for them to learn. whilst its emphasis on fun and entertainment over news or politics had made it a welcome distraction during the pandemic, this week, tiktok is announcing a new strategic direction, with the education—focussed feature learn on tiktok.

going forward, learn on tiktok is going to be a long—term programme which is about us investing in partners and content creators from across the breadth of professional content creators, educational institutions like english heritage and cambridge university, all the way through to the breadth of creators who exist on tiktok. we're working with some kind of more educationally focused partners, so cambridge university is one of those. so there are some for either school age or university or postgraduate age, but a lot of the content will be much more focused. it will be focused on life skills, and things that are interesting for people. and how are you going to deliver that education? because presumably it's going to be in short, bite—size chunks, in the same way that any tiktok video is presented. we think this is about applying the power of tiktok to learning. and what i mean by that is it's about effects, it's about audio, it's about engaging transitions, using all the tools that make tiktok videos so engaging and fun.

amongst tiktok‘s partners is english heritage, a charity that manages hundreds of historic sites in the uk, and can see the importance of reaching a younger audience through social media. we think that tiktok's a really safe place to explore some of the stories that perhaps matter most people. so things like black history, for example, lgbtq stories from some of our sites, women's history as well. it feels like a very safe, welcoming environment to explore those stories. this is reminding me of youtube‘s journey. both platforms started off being all about viral video, all about the fun. and gradually, as time went by, a lot of youtube‘s content became more structured, more produced. and could be that tiktok is going to start to push that sort of content, too? until then, i'm sure we can all learn something useful — or not.

hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that india launched a new website to track healthcare supplies in real time for the covid—i9 pandemic, and facebook announced plans to allow its american users to turn off political adverts in the run—up to the 2020 us election. it was also the week that kuwait and bahrain‘s contact tracing apps came under scrutiny from the human rights group amnesty international after users that their location and near—location data was being traced. norway has also had to halt its track—and—trace app over data protection concerns, deleting all gathered data so far and suspending further use. apple revealed that $500 billion was traded in the app store economy throughout 2019. the company said they did not take any commission from more than 85% of those transactions. children in the us can now play video games with a prescription. us food and drug regulators approved the first medically prescribed

videogame for kids between the age of eight and 12 who have inattentive or combined type adhd. and finally, if you're returning to the zoo this week, make sure you keep your eyes out for any robotic creatures. the slothbot is a robot designed by engineers at the georgia institute of technology that takes its inspiration from the low—energy lifestyle of real sloths. powered by solar energy, the bot will monitor animals and enclosure conditions over longer periods of time. if you fancy a spot of escapism right now, then the chances are it's not by playing a videogame set in the midst of a global pandemic. and it's for that reason that the launch of part ii of the last of us, the massively successful, genre—defining game, was delayed. but then a spoiler was released online and that meant, pandemic or no pandemic, it needed to be released. it's received critical acclaim, but does it live up to the hype? marc cieslak has been finding out.

25 years after a devastating global pandemic, nature reclaims the earth. buildings lie empty. the wreckage of the world before surrounds you. inside every derelict shop, every creamy creepy asement, danger lurks, either from other survivors, or from humans afflicted with a fungal inflection that reduces them to flesh—eating monsters. the world of the last of us part ii is not a happy place. in creating a sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, its developers, naughty dog, have crafted a grim and sometimes unsettling game, one which often challenges the player to think about violence and its corrosive effect. i think the last of us, the original

game, is so well—regarded because it did something new. it was really defining what a ps3 game at the time looked like in terms of visual definition, in terms of fidelity, in terms of realism. but then on top of that, it laid on this human story of parenthood, of discovering what is love again, and to be protected. the player controlsjoel in the vast majority of the first game. this time around, ellie takes centre stage. where the last game was essentially an epic road trip which becomes an examination of paternal love, and the lengths one will go to to preserve it, the sequel is concerned with revenge, and the unhealthy effect it has on everything it touches. the game's narrative lead, halley gross‘s, background is in film and tv, notably writing for hbo's westworld. and i remember when i sat down with neil druckmann four years ago,