UK health secretary says 'black lives matter' as he addresses BAME experience of coronavirus
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The UK health secretary has paid tribute to frontline workers from ethnic minorities as a report confirmed coronavirus disproportionately affects people from non-white backgrounds.
At today's Downing Street press conference testing co-ordinator John Newton said there could be many reasons for this.
"It is not necessarily because of their ethnicity, it may be related to their occupation or other reasons why they might be at higher levels of exposure," he said.
Health secretary Matt Hancock, however, said the findings of the Public Health England report were "troubling" but its publication was timely as "right across the world people are angry about racial injustice, and I get that."
He said: “Black lives matter and I want to say this to everyone who works in the NHS and in social care – I value the contribution that you make, everybody equally.
“I want to thank you and I want you to know that our whole country cares about your wellbeing and I value, too, those who come to our country to work in the NHS and in social care.
“And I love that this country is one of the most welcoming and tolerant and diverse – that goes for the whole country and it goes especially for the health and care system.”
Also at today's conference he again urged people to come forward for testing as he said there were 65,000 places "going spare" – with capacity outstripping uptake.
Mr Hancock said: “The number of tests done on June 2 was 135,643. This is different to testing capacity which stands at just over 200,000 and, as I said yesterday, this demonstrates that there is spare capacity in testing.
“So if you have symptoms of coronavirus – a fever or a new dry cough or a change in your sense of taste or smell – then please do go and get a test from the NHS.
“It is incredibly important that we can trace the virus by ensuring that anybody with symptoms has a test and, of course, we are rolling out testing across care homes and making sure that staff in hospitals get the opportunity to be tested as well.
“The number of (daily) confirmed cases is 1613 as of June 2 and brings the total of cases confirmed in the UK to 277,985 and, although the 1613 figure is slightly higher than yesterday, we can see that the seven day rolling average continues to fall.”
