UK unveils £1b aid package for schools after lockdown
MUSLIMS AND JEWS HAVE HIGHER COVID DEATH RATE, UK FIGURES INDICATE
British PM Boris Johnson yesterday said schools will get £1 billion in funding and hoped that every student goes back to school full time in September. “We are now moving into a different phase,” he said, adding that test and trace systems could replace a national lockdown. The UK lowered its virus alert level even as deaths rose by 173 to 42,461
The United Kingdom’s chief medical officers have agreed that the Covid-19 threat level should be lowered one notch to “epidemic is in general circulation” from “transmission is high or rising exponentially”.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre recommended the Covid-19 alert level should move to level 3 — a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation — from level 4 — a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or rising exponentially.
“There has been a steady decrease in cases we have seen in all four nations, and this continues,” the chief medical officers of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland said.
“It does not mean that the pandemic is over. The virus is still in general circulation, and localised outbreaks are likely to occur.” The United Kingdom has a Covid-19 death toll of more than 50,000, making it one of the worst hit countries in the world.
Minority groups at risk
Meanwhile, Britain’s statistics office yesterday said the death rate from Covid-19 in England and Wales is higher among people who identify as Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Sikh than Christians or those with no stated religion
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics also reflected previous studies which showed that black and other ethnic minority groups had a far higher risk of death from the disease than those with white ethnicity.
According to the ONS, which examined data from the start of March until May 15, the mortality rate among Muslims was higher than any other group, with those who were Jewish, Hindu or Sikh also showing higher death rates.
“Jewish males are at twice the risk of Christian males, and Jewish women are also at higher risk,” said Nick Stripe, Head of Life Events at the ONS, adding that more research was needed to explain this.
The mortality rate among Muslim men was 98.9 deaths
per 100,000 and 98.2 deaths per 100,000 for women. For those who said they had no religion in Britain’s 2011 census, the figure was 80.7 deaths per 100,000 males and 47.9 deaths per 100,000 females.
Figures showed that the highest mortality rate was among black men at 255.7 per 100,000 compared to a rate of
87 deaths per 100,000 white males. The death rate was 119.8 per 100,000 for black women and 52 per 100,000 for white women. That echoes an official study earlier this month which found black and Asian people in England were up to 50 per cent more likely to die after becoming infected with Covid-19.