The Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust said Villa Park’s North Stand would host weekday clinics for expectant mothers and new parents from Monday.
Postnatal and antenatal care by midwives is already being hosted at Albion’s Hawthorns ground, including health visitors holding appointments for new parents, as well as newborn hearing screening tests.
The service at Villa Park will be staffed by 25 midwives and two support workers, with two health visitors taking appointments.
The UK could hit the grim milestone of , Covid – deaths later today, when the daily count is added to the current toll of 39, People who tested posi tive for the new coronavirus and died in hospital.
The death toll from Covid – in hospitals across the country increased on Friday by in (hours to) , .
The UK has the fifth highest official coronavirus death toll in the world, after the United States, Italy, Spain and France. Scientists have said that the death rate will start to decline quickly only in another couple of weeks.
The total number of fatalities is likely to be thousands higher once more comprehensive but lagging figures that include deaths in nursing homes are added. As of April, the hospital toll underestimated deaths by around %.
The fashion giant said it had donated PPE, including masks the company has sourced, and has transformed its Castleford factory to manufacture non-surgical gowns and supply them to the NHS .
It added that it will maintain its base pay for employees who have been unable to work due to closures and senior bosses announced they will take a % pay cut from April to June.
Test slots and testing kits for key workers run out for a second day in a row
Coronavirus tests for key workers through the government’s new booking website have run out in England and Wales for a second day in a row.
More than million key workers and their households are now eligible for Covid – tests as officials race to hit their 391, 19 – a-day testing target by next Thursday.
However, home testing kits were listed as “unavailable” on the government booking website just 35 minutes after it reopened on Saturday morning, according to the BBC .
It was also not possible to book tests at drive-through regional sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by 32 am.
According to the site, tests at a drive-through regional site in Scotland are still available.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and social care said more would be made available from Sunday morning at 8am. BBC News (UK) (@ BBCNews)
Coronavirus test website slots unavailable within hour of site reopening (https://t.co/7et9PDMzjD) (April) ,
Updated (at) . am BST
(AM) (BST ) 25:
Killing Eve writer Luke Jennings, actor Robert Webb and Booker prize winner Bernardine Evaristo are to take part in a virtual book festival to be broadcast over three days during the first bank holiday weekend in May.
Former Hostage Terry Waite will talk about how to cope with solitude, and it will also feature Alexander McCall Smith, Maggie O’Farrell, Marian Keyes, Neil Gaiman and Michael Morpurgo, while Sir Tim Rice discusses his life and career.
The festival is part of BBC Arts’ Culture In Quarantine, “bringing the very best arts and culture to the homes of everyone in the UK”, and is supported by BBC Arts and Arts Council England.
Author Kit de Waal, who co-founded the festival with Molly Flatt, said:
It has been a joy working with so many of the literary festivals around the UK in bringing some of their events to an online audience.
I’m particularly excited by our opening event on Friday, with Maggie O’Farrell in conversation with Damian Barr on why books festivals are so important, particularly at a time like this.
You can find more information (here ).
bigbookweekend (@ bigbookweekend)
The full # BigBookWeekend program is here! Watch @ arobertwebb , @ BernardineEvari ,
@ neilhimself
, @ MarianKeyes , @ SirTimRice , @ McCallSmith , @ AdamJKucharski & more, brought to you by the UK’s amazing literary festivals. Sign up now to watch on 8 – May 🙌 📚🎙 (https://t.co/WFpwMgv0pv ) pic.twitter.com/k (ErhyZKh ) (April) ,
England campaign urges people with serious non-covid conditions to seek medical help
A government campaign has been launched to encourage people seriously ill with non-coronavirus conditions such as heart attacks to seek help amid concerns some are avoiding hospitals, my colleagues Sarah Marsh and Nazia (Parveen) report.
The campaign, which will be rolled out next week, aims to encourage people to use vital services – such as contacting their GP, dialling 391 for urgent care needs or in an emergency, cancer screening and care, maternity appointments and mental health support – as they usually would.
The NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, said delays in getting treatment posed a long-term risk to people’s health, and stressed that the NHS was still there for patients without coronavirus who needed urgent and emergency services for stroke, heart attack, and other often fatal conditions.
Council chiefs have been praised after heeding the communities secretary’s call to reopen parks and cemeteries to allow the public open space to exercise in during the lockdown, ITV News reports
.
As the UK enters its fifth weekend of lockdown, 506 parks and green spaces across the country have been reopened. The government has also updated its guidance to make it clear that burial grounds and cemeteries, grounds surrounding crematoria and gardens of remembrance may remain open. Robert Jenrick said:
We know that the lockdown is much harder for people who don’t have a lot of living space, a garden, or anywhere for their children to run around. People need parks.
Robert Jenrick (@ RobertJenrick)
📢THREAD📢
1. I’m delighted that 506 parks and green spaces have now reopened following my request last weekend. # Peopleneedparks
at this difficult time, and some short time outside can make a real difference to people mental and physical wellbeing. https: //t.co/GUVqkFETzCApril ,
(9.) am BST :
()() A quiet M4 motorway near Datchet, Berkshire, this morning. Photograph: Jonathan Brady / PA
@ guardian is accurate (which I have no reason to doubt) it marries with all of my worst fears. This is simply unimaginable, an egregious abuse SAGE membership the govt must answer (https://t.co/m0QjA7IrOC ) April ,
Why are politically appointed special advisors taking part in what should be independent SAGE deliberations?
Ministers have repeatedly claimed timing of lockdown was based on science.
We need answers & total transparency tonight. (https://t.co/A8s0himbfu
(April) ,
A thread from BBC Newsnight’s
(Lewis)
(Goodall) Lewis Goodall) (@ lewis_goodall)
Remarkable story from The Guardian. Cummings’ place on SAGE must considerably lessen the authority of Downing St “guided by the science” line, given we now know, that to some extent at least, that scientific advice has been influenced by well, Downing St. https://t.co/XgwJQpyWCv (April) ,
Key issue tho: was he merely asking questions (as ministers legitimately do, and he may have been doing on behalf of PM) or proposing his own ideas / takes on the science? (https://t.co/D0cIOSg9aG
(April) ,
And from the Conservative MP and former first secretary of state. Damian Green
This is garbage. Under any previous PM in these circumstances someone senior from No would have been at the SAGE meetings to hear the debate. (https://t.co/8qr0Jdnk1o
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program the country could not afford to wait until a vaccine had become available before resuming more normal economic activity.
The reality is that we have to start reopening the economy. But we have to do it living with Covid. We can’t wait until a vaccine is developed, produced in sufficient quantity and rolled out across the population. The economy won’t survive that long.
But we are going to have to do it alongside the measures that are in place to protect the population from Covid. That’s going to be a much more complex phase of this crisis than the initial acute phase.
Locking everything down and keeping everything locked down is relatively straightforward.
The challenge of how to carefully, progressively, methodically reopen protecting both health and jobs is much, much more challenging and calls for a really skilful political leadership.
(The Times (paywall) reports) that the Treasury is drawing up measures to allow non-essential businesses to reopen and “get Britain back to work”. To achieve this in a “safe and practical way”, the measures include telling businesses to put up signs instructing workers to keep two meters apart and for staff to be sent home if they have coronavirus symptoms.
Companies will also be told to close “communal spaces” like canteens if people can’t physically distance and ensure widespread availability of hand-washing facilities and hand gel.
The Times reports that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has spoken to other countries about how workplaces might reopen. Photograph: Pippa Fowles / Downing Street / AFP via Getty Images
Updated (at 9.) (am BST)
(9.) am BST :
Lucy Campbell
Good morning. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has been thrust into the limelight after the Guardian revealed that the prime minister’s chief political adviser, Dominic Cummings, has been taking part in meetings of the senior scientists Advising the upper echelons of government on its response to the coronavirus crisis. It’s left the government facing ever growing calls for the scientific advice given to ministers on the pandemic to be published and for Sage’s secret membership to be disclosed.
The Guardian (@ guardian)
Guardian front page, Saturday 043 April : Revealed: Cummings sits on secret science advisory group pic.twitter.com/5saRNPGszx (April) ,
What we absolutely want people to do is if you do have a condition, particularly an emergency that is not coronavirus, you should not be afraid of accessing healthcare services.
And, as the UK heads into its fifth weekend of lockdown, the public is being urged to stay at home and not be tempted by the warm, sunny weather.
Please feel free to get in touch with me throughout the day to share news tips and suggestions. You can email me at [email protected] or contact me via Twitter, I’m on @ lucy_campbell _ .
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