A 5km running challenge has raised over £1m for NHS staff in just over two weeks after going viral on social media.
The Run for Heroes campaign challenges people to use their permitted daily exercise to run 5km, donate £5 to help frontline NHS workers, and then tag five others to do the same.
It has quickly spread on social media, with more than 200,000 runners taking part across 10 different countries.
Complications around the UK government’s procurement of ventilators continued, in a somewhat unbelievable and unlikely fashion. PA Media reported on Friday 10 April that the BBC has donated fully working ventilators for London’s new NHS Nightingale field hospital. The source…. The sets of Holby City and Casualty.
In UK politics, new leader of the labour party Sir Kier Starmer is seeking to reunite the opposition in an audacious bid to recall parliament. Sir Kier is demanding urgent talks with the speaker, saying that there was no substitute for parliamentary scrutiny, particularly at this time of national crisis.
Across the globe, each and every US state is now under disaster declarations as well as the US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico. This is the first time this has happened in history.
The World Health Organisation has urged Belarus to impose virus containment measures as the country enters a ‘new phase.’ President Lukashenko has been aloof in the severity of the situation, claiming vodka, driving tractors and bathing in a sauna would help fight the virus.
The European Union has agreed a £500bn rescue package for European countries hit hardest by the pandemic. During talks, miniusters failed to accept a request from France and Italy to share out the cost of the crisis by issuing ‘coronabonds.’
The agreed package is smaller than the European Central Bank had initially urged, as the ECB indicated the bloc may need up to £1.3tn to tackle the crisis.
After falling for a number of consecutive days, the Spanish death toll rose once again, with 619 new deaths registered. Italy’s death toll continues to fall. However, reports out of China indicate 108 new cases, with officials claiming these are ‘imported cases’ from affected Chinese nationals returning home. The UK will remain in lockdown for future weeks, while we watch as our European counterparts start to release parts of their workforce to start to help their economies.