phe was involved in a controversial move to suspend virus testing.d plans to boost testing from 2000 per day to 10,000 but the next day the government said that community testing and chasing was to be halted with capacity focused on hospitals. on march 26th, the deputy chief medical officer said that community testing was not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward. but in early april the government set a higher new target of 100,000 tests per day. failing to have enough labs and virus testing facilities ready at the start of the crisis has been laid partly at the door of phe, although supporters say it was never meant to have that role and is now being made a scapegoat. 0ne health analyst was sceptical about the new policy. i think the announcement today from the secretary of state is frankly astonishing, i think we are in the middle of a pandemic and what is being proposed is a structural reorganisation of the public health system. i think now is not the time to do that. public health england has also been responsible for promoting good health in

but, at that time, the decisions were being made by government, not phe.mistakes made early on in the coronavirus crisis. most people working in public health in the uk believe very strongly that what is happening to public health england is scapegoating by ministers for mistakes which probably were not the responsibility of public health england but of government itself. and i think one of the things we should be really concerned about is if this leads to more central government control over our public health institutions, this will only harm british public health. there are also real concerns about the timing of the government's decision to shake up the system, this taking place in the midst of the pandemic. some experts say it is vital the inquiry promised by the government goes ahead. without that inquiry we cannot learn the lessons of what went wrong across multiple organisations and just pinning the blame on one across multiple organisationsand just pinning the blame on one organisation and not learning the lessons across the whole system will leave

critics may say the move announced could be to fix mistakes made by phe.e secretary of state, it is not independent or autonomous, all those decisions in march would have involved ministers, scientific and medical advisers as well. exactly who was responsible or culpable, we will have to wait for an independent enquiry, if and when it comes along. thank you for that. police in wiltshire say four people have died after a car crashed into a house on the a4. all the young men in the vehicle died at the scene, in derry hill, near calne. no—one in the house was injured. the bodies of two brothers who went missing in the sea near lytham st annes in lancashire have been found. the teenagers from west yorkshire got into difficulties, last night. a third person, their cousin, is recovering after managing to swim to shore. fiona trott has more details. the start of an 18—hour search, and this was just one part of it. one of these rnli lifeboats was out for 15 hours. they were later joined by another from blackpool. all of them searching for 18—year—old muhammad and

in march would have involved the chief scientific, chief medical advisers and ministers as well as phend culpability for some of the decisions made, we will have to wait for an independent enquiry, whenever that happens. the daily update on the uk's coronavirus figures show there were 1,040 new confirmed cases of covid—19 in the latest 2a hour period. the seven—day rolling average for daily cases is 1085, you can see from the chart that the average is slowly rising. 5 deaths were also recorded in that same 24—hour period. that takes the total number of deaths in the uk to 41,366. the number of reported deaths is generally lower at the weekend. on average in the past week, 13 people have died every day from coronavirus. 13 people have died every in belarus, the largest anti government protests since last week's disputed elections, have been taking place, with further calls for alexander lukashenko to step down. but he's vowing to stay in power, claiming belarus is under threat from foreign forces. mr lukashenko is accused of rigging the vote and unleashing a violent crackdown against de

there is another question about phe.ling with obesity, alcohol consequences and smoking cessation. for the time being hold onto those functions but it is not clear whether they will go after that. that is an important agenda. who will handle all this sort of thing in the months ahead? a lot more questions to answer. our top story this lunchtime. as students scramble to secure university places after the exam fiasco in england, an apology from the education secretary. as you can absolutely imagine, i am incredibly sorry for the distress that this has caused for those youngsters and incredibly sort of... this is not something that anyone wanted. coming up on bbc news, four positive coronavirus tests at marseille force the postponement of friday's opening match in the french top flight season. it was the opening night of a democratic party national convention unlike any other. no crowds, no razamtazz, but it was still box office. in an impassioned plea, former first lady michelle 0bama urged people to vote for the democrats

phe has come under intense scrutiny for its response professor maggie rae is the president of the ukndard—setting body for public health specialists in the uk. thank you forjoining us here on bbc news. it's a pleasure. good to have you with us. when we miss public health england? i think many people working in public health england need our thanks, and one of the things that i was very pleased with the secretary of state, matt hancock, acknowledged it was the excellent work was that excellent work that the people have been doing in the commitment to that staff that he very much sees them as forming pa rt he very much sees them as forming part of the new agency. so i think without the people, the organisation would not succeed. so i'm delighted that the secretary of state was so strong in his messages of support for the public health workforce. how sensible is it to attempt this kind of reorganisation in the middle of a global pandemic? i think that's the sort of thing, rebecca, that we are all scratching our heads a little bit about. because i know as part of the academy of royal med

she remembs s the phe cacall ththat she had w with her brbr after the incident, all too clclearly. >>irst words i said to him wewere it's all my fault. >> why? >> because, oh i need to stop now. and i said to him it's all my fault anand he said to me, no u are the e st sisistein the world.d. you trieded thelp us. ♪ before that, many people, thousands of innocent people were dyingng but the wororld s silelent. until that image of f my nephe, alan kurdidi. that was when itoved peoeople. it touched millions of people's hearts, and most of them stood up from their silence and they said enough is enough we need to help the othersrs. ♪ >> tima kurdi said that her brother, abdullah, now lives in ererbil in iraq'q's kurdish re. wewe were unablele to travel t o iraqaq because of f the coronas pandememic. on the phone, , he told us his thoughts abobout what happened back then.n. >> aftetethe accident, i was happy to s see how countriries opened their borders andheirir hearts to ththe fugees, , d how they gavave them a wararm welc. but ununrtunately, this warm welcome disasappeared aftetero or t

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but also unknowiy that app is collecting data from their phes, location data, using advertising ideas even from other apps on their phone to see their behavior, tlyftilize the app you have to consent, for instance, fob the app to access your list. there's a lot of data that is being selected on u.s. persons that we're concernedut. because we've seen the chinese acque eitr through stats or through attempted acquisitions, laquantities of sensitive personal data. on the content sidand foreign influence side you're aware of the many reports includingrom whistleblowers within the company of the company moderating some of the content on the app to exclude versions of chinese behavior that chinese government doesn't like, whe'str bout hong kong or taiwan or tibet or any of thether sensitive issues in china. so that is really our national security concern with tik tok. and i think as the president himself said today we continue to look at ways in which to mitigate those concerns. >>chifrin: i have to ask, yesterday president trump asked on twitter whether the elect should be delayed.se pompeo

andrew beggs in birmingham, and the phe labs at porton down.to amplify sequence, a standard dna sequence are made amplify sequence, a standard dna sequence are made in oxford by 0xford nanopore, so we can be confident that this can work. it will scale to millions of tests potentially a day so that is quite a big step up in testing capacity. when you say step up, that means presumably that we can have these tests in airports, schools, hospitals and turn them around, fast enough to avoid these sledgehammer national lockdown is that are becoming so damaging to everybody‘s mental and economic health. becoming so damaging to everybody‘s mental and economic healthm becoming so damaging to everybody‘s mental and economic health. it gives a lot more options to the people directing the response. both by having capacity in hospitals and capacity that you can move co mforta bly capacity that you can move comfortably around the country, it gives you options that you did not have before. this does need coordination. as you have mentioned, one exciting thing

let's turn to lake charles' mayor, nick hurnnter, on the phe with us. your time is precious. we appreciate it. you've been out looking at the damage. what have you seen? >> it's pretty catastrophic. this is a major event. i've never seen anything like it. i was here for rita in 2005. this surpasses the wind damage we esau with hurricane rita. >> what are you seeing exactly? does it appear to be the wind is the major actor here or did the storm surge reach near you? >> well, i can only speak for lake charles. the storm surge and water or flooding does not seem tof have been the issue that was as predicted for the city of lake charles. it also was flu shot as bad as was hurricane rita. however, i'm knowledge speaking for lake charles. when i'm looking out my window right now, i see buildings in downtown lake charles that look like swiss cheese with windows blown out. the local l tv tower collapsed. there are whole facades of w buildings blown out, not just windows. >> away ear lowe're looking at . it looks devastating. what are you telling folks now? many were evacuated. some m

phe has come under intense scrutiny of its response to the coronavirus crisis — but labour say the changes we know now that testing is. to detect and understand the virus. the decisions made initially when it came to testing, it was restricted to public health england and nhs even though there were lavatories and universities, research and other private labs, they were not being used and it is claimed that slowed the uk response to the coronavirus down. another area of concern way that public health england double zero, death figures. you may remember earlier this month the way england records its death figures has now changed. the understanding is that it was the way public health england was recording that data, almost potentially counting more deaths than necessary, the rest of the uk had a 28 day limit. people we re the uk had a 28 day limit. people were being counted four months earlier who tested and could have died from something else, that was skewing the figures. this morning, matt hancock made the announcement that the national institute for health protection is being set up, bri

did it gou pause when it is reported president trump over his phe calls, and there have been more than one of them with vladimir putin, since that information came out, has not raised it with president putin? well, it's been reported. it certainly wouldt surprise me if it is true. whether we have determined the to thal truthfulness of that, i don't know. s but i think uld understand that the russians are bad actors. they want bad things to happen in our country. and whether that is achieved by interfering with our elections or encouraging our adversaries or in any other way, they are going too it as long as charge.y like putin is in so this is something that i hope once we have the case to be made, that the president, the secretary of state and others are aggre bssively pushik, that this is unacceptable.sh >> woodruffld the president have raised it with president putin? >> don't knowhe context of those discussions. >> i don't know that it with do if i good to raise it with president putin. int i think if the president was confidenhe facts, that he should raise it with president putin.