Schools and shops are beginning to open their doors here in the UK, amidst concerns that the government is easing lockdown too early. Outdoor markets and car showrooms are allowed to re-open from today, while classrooms are reopening for children in reception, year 1 and year 6.
However, as many as a million children – half of those due to return – are expected to stay home due to safety concerns from both parents and schools. And overnight, the Association of Directors of Public Heath cast doubt on the government’s claims that the UK was meeting the five tests for easing lockdown. “Over the weekend we have seen signs that the public is no longer keeping as strictly to social distancing as it was,” it said in a statement. “A relentless effort to regain and rebuild public confidence and trust following recent events is essential.”
Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people who work for the city’s government will be offered risk assessments in an effort to tackle the health inequalities thrown up by the Covid-19 crisis.
The service – which will be open to staff of the Greater London Authority, Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade, among others – will consider the physical and mental health needs of all vulnerable staff workers.
The disproportionate impact the panedemic has had on ethnic minority communities has been a topic of concern to the mayor for some time. In a column for the Guardian in April, he noted that, despite making up just 14% of the UK population, BAME patients made up a third of critical covid cases. He called on the government to investigate, and asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to do the same the following month.
Today’s statement from City Hall notes that, according to the Office for National Statistics figures, black men and women are nearly twice as likely to die from coronavirus than white men and women, after taking into account age and socio-demographic factors. And a study by City Hall’s Intelligence Unit shows that London’s highest covd-19 death rate is in the east London borough of Newham, “where 82 per cent of the population are BAME, one in three is in insecure employment and there are high levels of deprivation, obesity and diabetes”.
More from City Hall here.
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