26/05/2020
LONDON (Reuters) – The United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 47,000 on Tuesday, a dire human cost that could define the premiership of Boris Johnson.
The Office for National Statistics said 42,173 people had died in England and Wales with suspected COVID-19 as of May 15, bringing the UK total to 47,343 – which includes earlier data from Scotland, Northern Ireland, plus recent hospital deaths in England.
A death toll of nearly 50,000 underlined Britain’s status as one of the worst-hit countries in a pandemic that has killed at least 345,400 worldwide.
Johnson, already under fire for his handling of the pandemic, has had to defend his top adviser Dominic Cummings who drove 250 miles from London to access childcare when Britons were being told to stay at home to fight COVID-19.
One Johnson’s junior ministers, Douglas Ross, resigned on Tuesday in protest. Johnson has stood by Cummings, saying the aide had followed the “instincts of every father”.
The government says that while it may have made some mistakes it is grappling with the biggest public health crisis since the 1918 influenza outbreak and that it has ensured the health service was not overwhelmed.
Unlike the daily death toll published by the government, Tuesday’s figures include suspected cases and confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
But even these figures underestimate the true number of deaths.
In March, Britain’s chief scientific adviser said keeping deaths below 20,000 would be a “good outcome”. In April, Reuters reported the government’s worst-case scenario was 50,000 deaths.
Disease experts are watching the total number of deaths that exceed the usual for amount for the time of year, an approach that is internationally comparable.
The early signs suggest Britain is faring badly here too.
Excess deaths are now approaching 60,000 across the UK, ONS statistician Nick Stripe said, citing the latest data – a toll equivalent to the populations of historic cities like Canterbury and Hereford.
Source: Reuters
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20/01/2020
- Furious internet users have been digging for information on her background as they push for an explanation, while state media urges probe
- ‘Lu Xiaobao’, who posted pictures of her and a friend with her car at the site, claims to be the wealthy granddaughter-in-law of a revolutionary hero
Pictures of the women posing in front of a car in the Forbidden City went viral. Photo: Weibo
A Chinese woman who
drove her luxury SUV into Beijing’s Forbidden City
and posted pictures online has prompted a public search for information about her, while state media called for the case to be investigated.
The photos – showing two women standing in front of a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen parked in the World Heritage Site, which banned vehicles in 2013 – were posted on microblog site Weibo on Friday under the name “LuxiaobaoLL”. It was captioned: “As it is closed on Monday, [we] avoided tourists and enjoyed the palace.” The post went viral and drew tens of thousands of comments.
The Palace Museum, which runs the 600-year-old landmark, later apologised, confirming that a car had been allowed to enter the complex on Monday last week when it was closed to the public.
It did not identify the pair, but said it would “stop it from happening again”.
Lu Xiaobao claims she is married to the grandson of revolutionary hero He Changgong. Photo: Weibo
Social media user Lu Xiaobao, who posted the photos of herself and a friend, has claimed to be the wealthy granddaughter-in-law of a Chinese revolutionary hero, and that her fortune includes a house in Los Angeles worth more than US$11 million.
Lu herself and the family she says she married into have so far remained silent, and the claims could not be independently verified. But irate social media users have been digging online for information on her background as they push for an official explanation.
Some are concerned that flouting the car ban risked damaging the Ming dynasty complex, and the incident has also reinforced a widespread perception that certain people are granted privileges denied to ordinary Chinese because of their family connections.
Lucky Air passenger who threw ‘good luck’ coins at plane ordered to pay airline US$17,200
Social media users seized on one of Lu’s Instagram posts featuring a house she claims to have bought in 2018. The property is apparently owned by Wang Zhijie, wife of Liu Zhongtian, the billionaire founder of aluminium products maker China Zhongwang, raising suspicion that Lu could be connected to the family.
But the company denied there was any link with the woman in a statement issued on Sunday. “Mr Liu himself doesn’t know Luxiaobao LL or her relatives directly,” it said.
State media has also weighed in on the case, with People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, running a scathing commentary on Saturday calling for a thorough investigation by the Palace Museum.
“People are distressed because our national heritage and culture – which we treasure – has been damaged,” the commentary read. “People are furious because there are still people trying to challenge the consensus that the 600-year-old Forbidden City is no longer a private property for feudal privilege.”
The history of the Forbidden City: a visual explainer Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of state-run tabloid Global Times, also called for a better explanation of the incident.
The woman has claimed that she is married to He Gang, the grandson of He Changgong, who joined the party in 1922, a year after it was established, and played an important role in its early development.
But Hu wrote on Weibo that if the woman’s claim was true, her background was “not so eminent” since He Changgong had not taken any important positions after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
The Palace Museum banned vehicles from the Forbidden City in 2013 to protect the complex. The ban has been strictly enforced, including when former French president Francois Hollande visited that year and had to leave his car outside and walk into the palace.
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