Game on A few things which are still going on, in spite of coronavirus: — Football in Belarus, where the 2020 season recently began. Choice fixture over the weekend is Sunday’s clash between league-leaders FC Minsk and BATE. — Practice games in Sweden’s 5th and 6th divisions are going ahead as gatherings of fewer than
Is ‘the Science’ scientific? Sir: I hope that those in the highest places will have read and will act upon Dr John Lee’s excellent summary (‘The corona puzzle’, 28 March). His article cuts through the information overload and explains the surreal situation the country is now in. Draconian decisions have been made on the basis
Events make a mockery of predictions. And events of recent days have borne that truth out most starkly. Nobody could have predicted where our nation stands today. We have gone from being a supposedly divided country into one united in response to an unprecedented crisis. The news that the Prime Minister has been admitted to
The unclued lights, when preceded by a US state, form MISSISSIPPI 11, CALIFORNIA 22, VIRGINIA 27, HAWAII 37, RHODE ISLAND 40, OREGON 10, KENTUCKY 14 and INDIANA 7D. First prize David Simmonds, Crayford, DartfordRunners-up Fran Morrison, London SW15; Andrew Herbert, Brooke, Norfolk
Boris Johnson, who has tested positive for coronavirus, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of St Thomas’ Hospital in London on Monday night, after his symptoms worsened. According to Number 10 officials on Monday, Boris remains conscious and was moved to the ward as a precaution in case he requires ventilation. The Times reports today that he has
Keir Starmer, the newly elected leader of the Labour party, has taken no prisoners with his cabinet reshuffle. Corbyn allies like Richard Burgon are out, and Ed Miliband is back. Here is the full make-up of Starmer’s top team: Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Anneliese DoddsFormerly: John McDonnell An Oxford PPE graduate, Dodds is a long
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, contracted the coronavirus disease Covid-19, as did Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary. The Prince of Wales had earlier been tested in Scotland and isolated himself with the disease for a week. Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, also isolated himself after suffering symptoms, as did Dominic Cummings, the
The failures of Britain’s pandemic planning have been brutally exposed in the past few weeks. The scandalous lack of protective equipment for NHS workers, the failure to prepare for mass testing: there will be plenty of time, when this is over, to apportion blame for all this. But what is even more striking is the
People power Boris Johnson said that the reaction to the coronavirus crisis showed ‘There really is such a thing as society’ — an apparent reference to an interview Mrs Thatcher gave to Woman’s Own in 1987. A reminder of what she actually said: ‘I think we have gone through a period when too many people
Corona mysteries Sir: John Lee highlights the issue of dying of seasonal flu vs dying of coronavirus when assessing attributable deaths (‘The corona puzzle’, 28 March). The obvious solution would be a high autopsy rate. However, autopsies on known or suspected coronavirus deaths are not being done in case they lead to mortuary technologists and
The novels are A Modern Utopia (anagram of AORTAE IMPOUND 17/5), The Time Machine (HEATHEN/MIMETIC 22/27), Tono-Bungay (BATON/YOUNG 29/31) and Men Like Gods (SMOG/LIKENED 8/26) by H.G. WELLS (33). First prize Joanne Aston, Norby, Thirsk Runners-up David Morgan, Gilesgate, Durham City; R.R. Alford, Oundle, Peterborough
The health secretary Matt Hancock spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier this morning where he explained how he thought the government could reach his new target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day. This is an edited transcript of that conversation: Mishal Husain How do we get from a testing level of 10,000 tests a day
The former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption, QC, has denounced the police response to the coronavirus, saying the country is suffering ‘collective hysteria’. This is an edited transcript of his interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme earlier today. Derbyshire police have shamed our policing traditions BBC interviewer Jonny Dymond ‘A hysterical slide into a
Coronavirus Sunday dawned with 233 people in the United Kingdom dead thus far from the coronavirus Covid-19 (a week earlier it had been 21), and more than 12,000 in the world. Three days later it was 442 in the UK and more than 18,000 worldwide. About 107,000 of the world’s 410,000 cases detected had recovered.
Covid questions Sir: I worry that Matt Ridley and others are trying to frighten us about Covid-19 (‘Like nothing we’ve known’, 21 March). The fact is that we do not know how deadly the virus is. We know that it is widespread; but that does not make it deadly. How long-lasting is the danger from
Time out When did British workers start being ‘furloughed’? The word furlough is first recorded in the English language in 1625, believed to be derived from the Dutch verloffe, meaning a leave of absence of a sailor from the navy. It seems to have come back into parlance in Britain thanks to it being used
For days, the Prime Minister had been resisting the kind of measures which have placed many other countries into lockdown, confining their citizens largely to their homes. Civil servants had pointed to studies saying that many ‘social distancing’ strategies might do more harm than good. In the end, the trajectory of the virus — and
BIG, the solution at 21D, can be associated with the ten unclued lights. First prize Elizabeth Shorter, St Austell, CornwallRunners-up John Fahy, Thaxted, Essex; Roger Theobald, Laverstock, Salisbury
This is a crisis like no other: the economy is crashing, with bars and restaurants closing. In spite of Rishi Sunak’s offer of help, thousands have already been laid off. Many self-employed and freelancers are looking at months of uncertainty. Yet at the same time, certain parts of the economy are surging – and hiring.
For the Chancellor to produce an emergency bailout package just six days after delivering his Budget is an extraordinary state of affairs, but such is the fast-moving nature of the coronavirus crisis. The virus itself is growing along the expected trajectory, testing the limits of the NHS — but no one could have modelled the