#Social Media App Development Company in Manchester

[mobileappdevelopmentcompanyinuk]

How to Build a Social Media Application in 2023

In the modern digital era, it is rare to encounter an individual who isn’t engaged on social media platforms. These applications have revolutionized how we communicate, transforming various aspects of media, culture, education, politics, and business. Social networking sites seem endless, from YouTube and Facebook to Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok.

Recent statistics from a reputed mobile app development company in the UK indicate that approximately 4.89 billion individuals are active on social media accounts worldwide as of 2023, representing a 6.5% growth compared to the previous year. Moreover, it is projected that this number will reach around six billion by 2027, reflecting the continuous expansion and influence of social media on a global scale.

Is it the right time to launch your social media app in Manchester? If yes, you should know to get started.

But before that, let us take a sneak peek at the different varieties of apps currently thriving in the market.

Different Types of Social Media Applications

When thinking about social media applications by hiring a Social Media App Development Company, the usual ones that come to mind are Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. However, various categories of platforms fall into this realm:

Social Network Apps: These apps, such as Facebook and Instagram, are designed to connect people and provide a platform for sharing thoughts, experiences, and images. Over time, they have evolved into valuable marketing tools for large and small companies.

Media Sharing Networks: These platforms facilitate sharing various media types, including videos, photos, and GIFs. Examples of media-sharing networks include YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. They encourage user-generated content, allowing creators to make, upload, edit, curate, and share content.

Social Review Networks: Apps in this category provides social proof about products and services, allowing users to find company information without wasting time and money.

Community and Discussion Forums: While discussion forums may have lost some popularity with the rise of social networks, they remain relevant to many communities. Platforms like Reddit and Quora enable people to connect on specific topics, share unique experiences, and find communities with similar interests.

Bookmarking and Content Curation Networks: Bookmarking sites help users organize resources and websites by tagging and categorizing links. Pinterest is an example of a platform that serves as both a bookmarking site and a marketing tool for promoting businesses, blogs, YouTube channels, and other creative works.

Blogging and Publishing Platforms: Distinct from content management systems like Wix or WordPress, blogging and publishing platforms enable users to create profiles and share posts on various topics without the need to build a website or pay hosting fees.

Interest-based Networks: These social media apps focus on specific topics or hobbies, catering to the interests of particular user groups. For instance, Goodreads allows users to share their thoughts about books and create recommendation lists.

Anonymous Social Networks: Anonymous social sites enable users to ask questions or share stories without revealing their identities. These platforms are viral among teenagers who want to discuss controversial topics anonymously.

Microblogging: Microblogging platforms like Plurk or Twitter allow users to share short entries within a maximum character limit, such as 280 characters. Users are encouraged to engage in discussions, comment, and retweet posts. This feature attracts business owners who can promote their products and services engagingly and concisely.

How to Develop a Social Media App?

Once you have opted for the type to create your own social network app, it is time to get started…

Step 1: Define the Target Audience

The initial step in creating a successful social media app is understanding the environment, defining a specific niche, and identifying the target audience. While the development stage is crucial, it is equally important to understand the app’s purpose clearly and its intended users.

Here are some essential steps to consider before diving into social network app development:

Market research

Finding a niche

Defining the target audience

While the answer may seem straightforward, it requires deeper consideration. Understanding your target audience’s needs and preferences will enable you to create detailed project specifications.

Step 2: Choose the Revenue Model

Revenue generation is critical to consider when developing a social media app. Here are some monetization strategies you can adopt:

Advertisements

Freemium model

In-app purchases

Selecting the most suitable revenue model will depend on factors such as your target audience, app features, and market trends.

Step 3: Develop a USP and Strategy

Merely knowing how to create a social media app is just the beginning. Copying an existing app will not lead to success. To stand out and increase the chances of success, developing a unique set of features and a compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is crucial.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

Prepare Business Model Canvas

Step 4: Choose the Right Features

The social network app development approach varies depending on the specific case, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Here are some basic features to consider when building a social media app:

User profile

Social authorization

Content uploading

Posts Creation

Feed

Notifications

Search tab

User interaction

In-app messaging

Account Analytics

Consider incorporating these features while customizing them to align with your app’s unique goals and target audience.

Step 5: Choose Social Media App Development Company in Manchester

To bring your idea of a social media app to life, you’ll likely need assistance from experts who know how to develop such apps. Hiring professionals with expertise in social media app development can be the most efficient and cost-effective option in the long run.

Working with an experienced IT outsourcing team ensures minimal redoing and unexpected delays and eliminates scalability and customization issues. You can create your dream app without micromanaging every step of the development process.

Step 6: Select the Technology Stack

Understanding the underlying technology is essential when creating a social media app. The technology stack required for social network app development depends on your target platform.

Android:

Programming language: Kotlin, Java

Integrated Development Environment (IDE): Android Studio

Software Development Kit (SDK): Android SDK

Notifications: Google Cloud Messaging

Geolocation: Google Map API

AR filters: ML Kit

iOS:

Programming language: Swift, Objective-C

IDE: Xcode

SDK: Cocoa Touch

Notifications: Apple Push Notifications

Geolocation: MapKit

AR filters: ARCore

Step 7: Promote Your Social Media Application

After launching your social media app, the work is far from over. App promotion is crucial to attract users and increase visibility. Here are several strategies you can employ:

App Store Optimization

Organic User Acquisition

Paid ads

Influencer marketing

Partnership promotions

Wrapping Up!

Social media has transformed into a vital channel through which billions of individuals access information about the world. What initially served as a platform for connection has evolved into something of great importance today. Consequently, social media holds a prominent position in present-day society and boasts an extensive user base, making it one of the largest markets available. If you are considering entering this market and developing a social media app, there is no more opportunity to seize.

Article Resource - https://zimblecode.com/how-to-build-a-social-media-application-in-2023/

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Man-Sized

3/9 Hope is a Dangerous Thing

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!OC

Tags: Explicit content, +18 audiences only. Smut, romantic angst, fluff. An unapologetic LOVE STORY. Sexual tension, mutual pining, banter, flirting, developing relationship, strangers to lovers. Simon Riley has a dark past (partly inspired by Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comics).

CW/TW: References to PTSD, depression, past torture and abuse in later chapters.

Summary: A uni student who pole dances at a strip club to pay her rent encounters a mysterious giant of a soldier seemingly incapable of falling in love.

She googled the name Simon Riley and found close to nothing. He wasn't on Facebook or any other social media platform, and she was pretty sure he had given her a false name until a short news article popped up. It was in some Manchester local paper, and from almost 20 years ago. He had won medals in local school olympics, and even with the black and white raster image and a 20 year younger, estimated 90 pounds skinnier Simon Riley, she could recognize that jaw and those eyes.

Days passed by, and he sent her a message every night. They communicated only through text – he never called. It felt like she was living in the turn of the century, the way he refused to use social media or any messaging app. He asked her how her school was, what classes she was taking at the moment, and if work was good. She sent her a photo every night before going to sleep; it simply became a habit. Some were cuter, some were naughtier, but he always expressed his gratitude with a sly, sexy comeback that made her think she might actually be the only girl Simon was texting with.

He rarely disclosed anything about his work, and never sent another picture even when she tried to request one in a roundabout way. She soon stopped fishing for more details of his work because he always redirected the conversation elsewhere. All she knew was that he was used in some special operations of a private, international company. And from what she could deduce from that one single picture he had sent her, the company he worked for had a lot of money.

The headset, the tactical gear, the weapon she distinguished with another profound googling session to be some sort of an assault rifle… All that shit spoke the language of international investors with certain political interests. Simon was doing something that most likely included hybrid warfare, clandestine operations, dealing with nuclear threats and bio-weapons and whatnot.

She wondered why he had been so trusting; after all, she knew his whole name now and knew it wasn't an alias but his real, actual childhood name. Not that she was any kind of threat. Perhaps that was why…

But what made her a bit depressed was that he also didn't seem to regard her as someone he needed to protect. By staying in contact with him, she supposed she was taking at least some kind of a risk. But Simon didn't seem to care. It was both exciting and infuriating to keep in touch with a man like him.

After six days of excited, heated messaging, he sent a text "Off to work." It wasn't that cryptic; she figured it meant that he wasn't to be disturbed or that he wouldn't be able to talk for a while.

A while… that turned into a week.

She found herself zoning out in dull classes, thinking about what Simon was doing right now. Was he infiltrating some foreign military base, or going on a mission to prevent a hijacking, or storming a terrorist compound, or… whatever the fuck soldiers like himself did.

She began her day with a caffeine overdose and then went to listen to some professor talk about medieval manuscripts or Dante Gabriel Rossetti or curse tablets of ancient Rome, only to realize she was thinking about Simon firing his assault rifle in another continent with a skull mask on. She kept thinking about whether he was in danger, whether he would come back, whether she would ever see him again.

The while turned into another week, and she began to get anxious. Should she text him and ask how he was doing? Ask “You still at work?” or “What about that date?”

The last message she had sent was a reply to his work announcement. Have fun! — from 17 days ago.

17 days.

Was he dead?

His message It's your fault if I get killed now seemed more like a gloomy prediction of a future without Simon Riley.

But at the beginning of the third week of silence, she realized she had just been an idiot. Simon wasn't dead or injured or taken prisoner or anything like that.

He had simply forgotten about her.

He had realized she was not a Bond girl after all, but just another boring chick. He had found someone better. Something like that. A man like him could have pretty much any woman on this planet if he wanted to.

That was just the way the world was built.

She wouldn't say that she was depressed. She wouldn’t admit that she was devastated. She just needed a little time to clear her head.

It was difficult to sleep, and school felt more boring than ever. Work just reminded her of him. One day, she nearly fell from the pole while doing a simple straddle because she saw a man looking like Simon walk in the club.

He had given her an exorcism, only to replace the demons that haunted her with himself. Now she needed an exorcism from Simon, but no one knew how to do that.

She just needed to give it time, sleep it away, study it away… Distractions filled her day, and still, she refreshed their conversation every night before going to sleep, as if it was a fault in her phone that prevented his messages from reaching her. And felt like a stupid bitch, a lovesick fool while doing so.

And then, one Tuesday afternoon, after almost four weeks, he appeared at her uni.

She was arriving from a class that had just ended when she hurried past a man she had been pining for for 25 days.

"You working tonight?"

Hearing that voice in a place she had least expected to hear it made her shoulders shoot up and her breath get caught in her throat as she stopped and turned around.

"Jesus…- You scared me."

He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Boo."

"When did you… What are you doing here?"

She didn't say I'm happy to see you. I missed you. That would've sounded too desperate. Right? Even after 25 days.

He looked her up and down, and her knees felt like pudding.

"I like to stalk school girls."

She tried to suppress her smile. God, she had missed that cheeky humour.

"Pervert. No, I don't have a shift tonight."

"Then I can finally take you out on that date."

It was like her dreams had suddenly come true in one single minute. She went from a bird with a broken wing to Icarus flying toward the sun.

"What do you have in mind?"

"You'll see."

He was even taller than she remembered, broader, even when he was wearing all black. People were staring at them, staring at him, because he certainly didn’t look like someone who studied in the Art and Culture Department.

"How did you even know I was here right now?"

"Doesn't really need a rocket scientist to find that out, luv."

Right. But the fact that he had made the effort to dig up what classes she took, when and where, and then come and surprise her like this, made her heart ache. He gave her another once-over, and she squeezed her bag against her chest like that could shield her from the searing gaze.

"You look hot."

And that definitely made her blush… She was an umptieth year student and didn't bother to take pains anymore when she dragged herself in the class. She had her comfiest ballerinas on, her hair was tied to a simple ponytail, and she had no foundation, no mascara, only a bit of her favourite lipstick on. She was wearing a huge, flowy skirt the color of a Halloween pumpkin and a black, simple turtleneck — while perhaps neat and cute in this environment, to him, she would've thought she looked more like a librarian. Far from a hot Bond girl who danced at a strip club with curled hair and cat eye makeup.

"Um.."

"Such a diligent little student."

It seemed he did have an actual thing for school girls, even if they were almost 30 years old. She would never have guessed that this would send him itching. If Simon preferred the girl next door look to her being half-naked on a stage with a pole, then perhaps she did have a chance after all.

"I knew you were a good girl but I didn't know- "

"Stop it, people can hear you," she hissed while, in truth, feeling quite exalted by that good girl talk. She grabbed him by the arm, and he allowed her to guide him out of the building while looking perfectly content with himself and what he was doing to her.

They began the walk to her place so she could shower and get changed for whatever he had in mind for that date. The complete turnaround in her mood, the shot of hormones and giddy feelings and butterflies in the stomach left her feeling shaky. Even the colors seemed more vivid all of a sudden. It was a bit frightening how one single person could change the whole world in a second, have a remedy for all the shit she had been rolling in for the past week. Or two weeks. Or three.

"Sorry that it took so long. Work was... a bit of a challenge."

"It's okay."

Well, it really was not, but she would rather die than tell him that.

"It's better if you don't know where I am and when. I hope you understand that."

Safety measures for her sake after all. Now she felt almost flattered that he hadn't told her he was coming. Jesus...

"Yeah. Sure," she tried to sound neutral about it, but the sudden shyness that had taken over made it sound like she was being passive-aggressive. "I mean, I didn't expect you to entertain me every night."

Well, that sounded even more sour and pathetic… She snapped her mouth shut and tried to calm her heart that was racing from his presence, his scent which had been only a memory until now.

"So, what will you become when you graduate? A historian?”

"I’ve always wanted to work in a gallery. You know, as an art curator or something like that."

"Hm. Ambitious."

She wasn’t entirely sure if he was mocking her, but she laughed. In the culture business, it was a sought-after position, but of course it wouldn't seem like much to someone who wasn’t familiar with the art world.

"What about you? What do you wanna be when you grow up?"

"Alive."

Simon's humour was dark, but after seeing that picture of him, she knew he meant what he said. And she realized that it wasn't perhaps one of her most brilliant ideas to get attached to a man who could actually be killed.

When they got to her place, she went straight to the shower and left the door open, secretly wishing that he would be the one to sneak in this time. But he never showed up, and when she stepped into her small living room, she found Simon had dozed off on her sofa. He barely fit her neat little couch and was lying on his stomach, with one hand dangling out and brushing the floor. The soft snore made it clear that he was very tired and not just chilling in a very relaxed position.

It was a cute sight, downright adorable.

But it also hurt her heart. What made him so exhausted, time after time, month after month? He wouldn’t tell her, and it was futile to ask. The man was overloaded with stress and things ordinary civilians had no clue about. She had no clue about.

He must think of her as a harmless little mouse who knew nothing of the world's darkness. And she didn't. She had her own demons and traumas, but didn't everybody? Simon, on the other hand, seemed to have the combined lives of a gladiator, spy, and war veteran. He had access to a reality that was out of sight and mind for the rest of the civilized world.

Was Simon a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a hero that saved people, or a soldier who executed orders of rape, torture, and kill?

These were questions she had never thought she would need to find answers to. The guys she had dated had been equally as harmless as her. If not even more harmless. And that was saying something.

When she had dressed, she walked to him and heard how the snoring stopped immediately.

Simon was awake and listening. He had woken just from a few soft steps, from her tiptoeing and kneeling beside the sofa, and she wondered if he had been trained for this; to wake up when someone was sneaking up on him. The thought was both gruesome and spine-tingling.

But she hadn’t meant to steal his precious sleep. And if he was so exhausted, he should sleep and not take her out…

Now that he was supposedly awake, she dared to raise a hand and caress his back, remembering what he had said in the shower when she had stroked him. His upper back was tense, even when he was lying relaxed like this, and she felt pity: someone should give this man a back rub, a whole body massage to get those muscles loose. Get some blood flowing. She caressed him with the back of her palm, then slowly traced every little vertebra of his spinal column with two fingers.

He was using both one of the cushions and her sweater as a pillow. Something in the sight of him pressed against her old, snug woolen shirt made her hand come to a halt somewhere on his lower back.

“Don’t stop,” he muttered, sleepy against the softness of her home and hand. She had to fight back the reflexive flinch: his voice was always so rough, even when he whispered and the words were muffled by the support his head was resting on.

“You have tension in your back,” she told him, not knowing why she was whispering too. It wasn’t like he was about to dart off from a sudden noise.

He merely purred for an answer, still sounding drowsy and half-asleep. How disarmed and defenseless he seemed now… On that little couch, under her gentle touch.

“I need to buy you a massage gift card for Christmas,” she blurted and regretted it immediately.

Buy him a Christmas present? As if they were some kind of a couple already… As if this wasn’t barely the second time they were spending time together.

At first, Simon didn’t show any signs of wanting to escape that hopeful suggestion of them becoming something more than just fuck buddies someday. But then he suddenly turned, and she took her hand away.

“I’d rather have you massage me,” he offered with a soft smile and a dreamy stare.

Good. Good, everything was good..

She hadn’t ruined it, hadn’t lost another poker game to this man. She still had cards to play.

She noticed the obvious signs of his arousal and felt wild in the breeze of the moment. Or perhaps she wanted to brush away what she had just said — and make him forget it too.

She reached for his pants to take them off, and he helped her with them, clearly having no objections to what she was about to do. Which was giving him a blowjob that would erase the traces of him thinking he had an obligation to buy her a present for this Christmas.

When she took him in her mouth, he grabbed the edge of the sofa as if the situation was a little too much for him.

"Didn't see that coming…"

His voice had an edge of trepidation to it. Uneasiness, almost worry. But he must've liked it, for he eased into it shortly after, slumped back onto the couch, and spread his legs in relaxation. She guided her frustration and doubts into the blowjob, tried to turn into someone else — to that girl from the stage. The Bond girl he had met, the woman of his dreams: just anything but a meek little woman who rarely left her house except for class or work.

She was fully present, not sloppy at all, almost felt like a magician as she forced groans out of him and felt his balls pull taut under her touch. He would never fit inside her mouth completely, but she tried her best.

She sure as hell made an effort.

"You must've really missed m- ah… Fuck.."

It was pretty evident that he enjoyed it. After those weeks at work, perhaps this was what he had wanted all along? To come somewhere safe, some place completely different, and throw himself on a soft couch for a quick nap before some homely girl came to give him a few caresses and a blowjob.

She swirled her tongue around the tip, gave him a little suck, then took him in as far as she could and felt him all the way at the back of her throat.

"Bloody hell Sarah..."

It couldn't be that good…

But he was all but melting under her tongue and touch. Was it just that it had been so long, or was this a rarity in his life? She'd thought that women touched him often, but apparently, they didn't. Or then he didn't allow them to.

Perhaps Simon didn't allow himself to be touched by women. He made love to them and fucked them against a wall in the shower, but he didn't get attention and caresses and blowjobs.

Well, this was news.

It didn't take too long before he came with a hoarse grunt that nearly made her shrink from him. It sounded both sublime and painful, and sent ripples of gold in her stomach and a pang of wet heat between her legs. The load was generous, but she didn't pull away, briefly wondering how awkward it would be to choke on his cum the second time they met. It had been a while for him, then, and she felt disappointed. It wasn't anything special after all, merely the cause of him not having had the opportunity, desire, or time to fap.

His chest was heaving, and she had made a mess in her attempt to swallow it all while keeping everything under control. With Simon, she wasn’t in control, and she had no choice but to accept it.

He reached a hand to absentmindedly caress her hair, and she rested her head on his thigh — but they didn't stay that way for long, for he stirred, and she had to draw back.

"Your turn," he suddenly rose from the couch while still looking like someone who was about to pass out. He got out of his pants, pulled his shirt over his head, threw it somewhere on the floor, and hauled her up in a bridal carry. He literally swept her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom, and she must’ve looked like a deer in headlights.

Because Simon was and wasn't safe.

He had strength, charisma, and forearms to die for, but he didn't feel like someone she would choose to tell her every secret, someone who she would call if she needed help. He came into her world and walked out of it like there was a swinging door between the two of them.

He didn't commit. Which meant that she couldn't commit. Which furthermore meant that she had trouble getting wet.

As infuriating as it was, dark and dangerous didn't exactly turn her on. This wasn't dating; this was more like an adventure or a roller coaster ride. She didn't know what phase they were in because the usual dating-related stuff was off the board. There was nothing to hold on to.

He laid her on the bed, crawled next to her, then reached a hand under another skirt she had chosen for going out with him.

"Perhaps later," she whispered as his hand was already traveling up her thigh. She almost took those words right back when she saw the obvious hurt flash in his eyes. She didn't know if she had de a chip to his pride or if it was something else, but he clearly hadn't expected her to say no to him again.

"Why won't you let me touch you?"

"I…"

She didn't know what to tell him.

What could she say? That she felt unsafe with him? That wasn't even entirely true.

She couldn't tell him that she needed trust and commitment while knowing he couldn't give them to her. Her shy silence stretched on, and the frightened state she was in only worsened when he stared at her, tilted his head, and wouldn't remove his hand.

Then he kissed her — unhurriedly, languidly, and the hand just stayed there under the skirt, pressed against her thigh, firm and broad. Only after she answered his kiss with a shy hunger did he move it further up, up — until it came to rest on her sex.

The kissing finally did it: at some point, she could feel the sudden rush of wetness down below. Her lips trembled when he pulled away only an inch and looked into her eyes while their breaths danced in between their lips. His palm moved only a tiny bit; he was soothing her, coaxing her to open for him. Eventually, his fingers met the soaked spot on her panties, and she swallowed. There was a slight twitch at the corner of his lips, just a tiny little hint that he knew he was doing it right.

"Did you like the picture I sent you?"

Oh fuck.

"Um, yeah.."

He pressed a finger against the center of her wetness, covered only by the thin fabric, and she tried to draw breath as inaudibly as she could.

"Did you get wet?"

So fucking cocky…

"Yes, she whispered against his lips, which finally curved into a small smile.

"Come again?"

"Yes."

The smile widened into a smirk as he moved to slip underneath the fabric. Her folds parted without effort as he guided his finger over her, the length and thickness now resting on her entrance and all the wetness that only increased by the second. She was blinking and breathing shallowly against his mouth while he simply continued to drink in every sign of her unease and arousal.

"Is that why you asked for more?"

Oh God… 

"Yes. Would you just-"

"Begging already?"

He was so… infuriating. So cocky, so damn self-confident… It drove her crazy.

"No."

Something flickered in his eyes, a twinkle of endearment.

And not just a twinkle. It was bold, blazing mischief. Shit… She was fucked.

"I'll make you beg."

Oh my God…

He moved even lower, then dipped one finger in, so deep that she was left blinking again. Her mouth opened, then closed, and she realized she must be looking like a fish on dry land. He pulled out, and she wanted to protest, but her pride stood in the way. The moisture was spread all over her folds, especially over the tight, sensitive bud that had been left without attention for so long from the sadness and hopelessness, from her having thought Simon wouldn't come back. She couldn't even touch herself because she had already gotten used to thinking about him when she did that.

A shaky little moan finally hit his lips, and he kissed her again while drawing a circle on the bud, sweeping a few strokes across her folds, then driving two fingers in. Slowly, lovingly. The laced fabric that was stretched to give him space must be sodden by now, but he wouldn't pause to take it away. He just continued to fuck her slowly with his fingers while holding that kiss, holding her steady with his mouth only.

He had taken her hesitation as a challenge, and she wondered if she was some kind of a challenge to him overall. If something in her made him want to break her, get to the bottom of her, get a reaction out of her… And he was succeeding splendidly. She was everything but frigid now. He only needed a finger or two to make her like this. And perhaps that voice of his. That stupid cockiness.

He left her mouth and pulled out, only to finally reach for her poor underwear and take it off. She didn't object this time, but when he moved between her legs and she realized he was about to replace those panties with his face, she jerked away from him.

"Hold on…"

"Nah. You hold on."

He wouldn't relent. He simply pressed his mouth against her pussy which, by now, was wet to the point of leaking, and grabbed hold of her hips as if to remind her that she couldn't get away even if she tried. She could only sink back to the bed and let him have his way: to embark on a mission to make her beg.

And she did beg, eventually, when he pressed his tongue flat against her and plunged it inside, and sucked her clit and did it all with such infuriating patience and laid-back attitude that it made her squirm against him. He caressed her with his tongue, those lips, caressed her with his thumb before guiding it inside as well while kissing her thighs, now wide open for him.

She didn't beg with words, but she did coat the air with sighs and moans that must've stroked his ego like nothing else. Even the stubble did its job: it didn’t sting. It only drove her more mad. She could hear him chuckle against her occasionally, could feel him smile in her pussy as he ruined her with that mouth. Even the intrusive thoughts of whether Simon had done this to dozens of women before her and would do it to dozens after her didn't prevent her from approaching the peak in minutes, mere minutes…

Just as she was about to grasp his hair for support, to brace herself for the incoming, he withdrew. The bastard rose to sit and left her shaking and whimpering.

"Wh-… why did you…"

He was licking his lips, smiling, and stroking himself, fully erect again. The fact that he was hard from pleasing her with his mouth, left her feeling even more weak.

"You want it?"

"Fucking hell, Simon." She knew how she must look: dripping wet, with desperation in her eyes and a shaky curse on her lips.

"Is that a beg?"

He placed the thick tip to her entrance, and she throbbed and writhed against him like she was about to come from the slightest touch of that cock.

"Yeah… Yes, please, Simon, just-"

He granted her plea to the full before she had even finished it. The spread, the feeling of being filled with him, was so exquisitely divine that it only took less than five thrusts before she came.

He looked annoyingly pleased while watching her have one of the most powerful, gratifying, leg-shaking orgasms of her life. Perhaps it was only a proper way to greet a man who had been inside her head for so long: who was finally inside her for the first time in four desolate weeks. She didn't feel wild or raw now; she felt like molasses, like puddle of tears, a boneless, limp heap of muscle from all that love and gentle fucking.

After the tension, tremblings, and shaky sighs had left her, and she was merely panting, he finally stopped. Lodged deep inside her to feel the rest of the waves, he was still watching her. The stare of those warm eyes was too much to bear after another implosion that made her even more attached to this man.

"If you call me a good girl, I swear I'll slap you again," she whispered. The body against him shook from silent laughter. He kissed her again, buried his fingers in her hair, gave her another rock of his hips. And then, suddenly stopped just to whisper in her ear…

"That's my good girl."

Fuck…. 

It was useless. Utterly, completely useless with Simon.

"Ok… Ok." She tried to gather herself while he was still inside her, still filling her and shielding her with his body. "You're asking for it, so I'm not giving it to you."

"Poor me," he answered with that gruff, heart melting voice.

She was laughing again, smiling for the first time in days. Beaming, even…. Probably looking like a brain-dead idiot.

"This was a good date. I had fun."

In her opinion, it was the best date ever, but would she let him know it and stroke that ego further? Hell no.

"This wasn't what I had in mind," he hummed while moving to kiss her neck.

"What if we just stayed here for the rest of the day?"

"Wouldn't mind that."

“You know.. I... really missed you,” she finally confessed with a whisper while he was preoccupied with her neck; safely somewhere else than right there in front of her, staring her in the eyes, gathering evidence of her vulnerability. He huffed a chuckle against her skin in response, sounding close to relieved.

"I missed you too."

[comtecpresentation01]

What are the Primary Features of Event Management Software?

For the majority of live, hybrid, and virtual events, cloud-based event management software is used. The benefit of using these systems is that the software can be run remotely without a server or local computer. To ensure that different ticket types can be used for the same event, check your event management software.

Sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees would not likely all have the same tickets. Therefore, provide a wide range of event experiences, from the cheapest base tickets to upgraded tickets that grant access to private sessions and VIP areas. The event production management in Manchester software’s database is frequently viewed as its central component. It assembles all the information gathered through procedures like registration, market research, or guest acquisition.

Then you can make mailing lists, lists of people who will be attending events in person, or event schedules. The database and budget modules store and make accessible to you all the necessary and significant information in one location. Events management agency includes the following attributes to manage the elements listed below:

Event website: It should be simple for you to create a native website that includes all information about your event, such as the schedule, speakers, sessions, and other event specifics. Invitations to the event and event marketing: A contemporary event management system enables event organisers to market and promote the event by sending out invitations to potential attendees.

Campaign Management and Event Marketing: A tool for promoting your event should be included in the event management software. You should be able to manage all of your campaigns across mailing lists, blogs, and social media platforms using this software. You must also establish an online community to have a successful promotional campaign.

Management of Attendees: How involved your attendees are with the event will determine how successful it is. The event management system should therefore have the capabilities to enable administrators to communicate with participants via emails, push alerts, polls, and surveys.

The trend of virtual gatherings was started by the coronavirus epidemic, which put an end to in-person activities. Numerous virtual event apps have appeared on the market, and virtual meeting software like Zoom has experienced exponential development. The trend of remote working is still present today even though most offices have reopened under restrictions.

As a result, companies are embracing the idea of hybrid events. Your event calendar should include information about when and where events will take place so that attendees are kept informed. It should be simple to use, completely customizable, capable of supporting multiple tracks, and equipped with labels and filters to facilitate quicker search results.

[croods-blog]

The Ultimate Guide to Monetizing Your YouTube Channel with Croods: How to Make Money from Youtube Channel without Hiring an Agent

Introduction

Introduction: If you’re an experienced YouTuber, then you know that monetizing your channel can be a breeze. But if you’re just starting out, and don’t have a lot of money to invest, it can be tough to figure out how to make money from your channel. That’s where croods comes in—we’ve got the guide for you! In this guide, we’ll show you how to make money from your YouTube channel without hiring an agent or spending any money on advertising. We won’t sugar-coat it; croods is not a magic bullet. But if you want to make some serious cash from your channel, we think this is the perfect guide for you.

How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel.

The first step in monetizing your YouTube channel is to create a channel and get it up and running. Once you have a channel, the next step is to determine how you would like to monetize it. There are a number of ways to monetize your YouTube channel, but the process will vary depending on the channels we’re discussing. One way to monetize a YouTube channel is through advertising. Advertisers can pay you to watch their ads or they can pay you to share their content with others on your channel. You can also sell merchandising items like T-shirts, hats, and other accessories that you produce or market through your account. There are also several means by which advertisers can reach out to viewers of your YouTube channel. One way is by using remarketing technology which allows brands or agencies to place short videos on top of videos viewed by viewers on other websites or apps. The videos will play automatically when someone clicks on them from a website or app, providing an extra revenue opportunity for brands that want to reach more people across different devices. Other methods for reaching viewers of a YouTube channel include via video commentary, donation drives, and paid search results (when ads are shown). Commentating is another great way for advertisers and agencies to reach viewers of a YouTube channel as it allows them to interact directly with viewers in real time. It’s also an great opportunity for broadcasters who want to interview high-profile athletes or entrepreneurs about their businesses while they’re live online. Finally, donation drives provide an excellent way for fans of a particular video game or topic (or any other interest-based topic) to give back without havingto leave their home country or continent! How to make money from your YouTube channel Once you have determined how you would like to monetize yourchannel, it’s time start planning the budget and execution phase of making money from your channel. This involves setting up costs associated with producing content (such as filming locations, wardrobe rentals, editing services), building relationships with key production partners (like editors and sound engineers), and marketing the content through social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). In order for content creators everywhere to generate income from their work, effective marketing strategies need To be put into place from day one! Some tips for effective marketing include: 1) Building strong relationships with key production partners – this means finding companies who understand what type of content you wish to produce and have an affiliation with said company; 2) Developing targeted ad campaigns that resonates with viewership; 3) Generatinglnumerous blog posts related specificallyto the topic ofcontent being aired; 4) Posting fresh footage all week long in order Manchester United FC's Europa League Quarterfinal match against Ajax Amsterdam – expect huge traffic boost!

How to Use the Social Media Platforms to Monetize Your Videos.

In order to monetize your YouTube channel, you'll first need to create and post quality videos that can be shared on social media. You should also consider using the social media platforms to market your video content, generate leads and sales, and drive traffic to your website or e-commerce store. Here are some tips on how to monetize Your YouTube Channel with Croods: 2. Monetize Your Videos With Videos Marketing One of the best ways to monetize your videos is through video marketing. By creating and posting high-quality videos that can be shared across social media platforms, you can make money from your channel without hiring an agent. This method is especially beneficial if you have a wide audience and want to reach more people. You can also use video marketing techniques like creative editing, sound design, and music creation in order to make your videos stand out from the rest. 3. Use Social Media Platforms To Drive Traffic To Your Website Or E-Commerce Store Another great way to monetize your videos is through website or e-commerce advertising. by using relevant keywords in your videos, you can bring in visitors who may be interested in what you have to offer. Additionally, by using search engine optimization techniques (like ranking your site higher in Google), you can surface relevant pages that might lead customers directly to your store or website. Finally, by promoting products related to your content (such as selling T-shirts or badges related to the video content), you can generate additional revenue while still providing valuable content for viewers to enjoy.

The Best Way to Monetize Your YouTube Channel.

One of the best ways to monetize your YouTube channel is through social media. Use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share your videos with friends and followers, and then drive traffic to your channel through ads. You can also use Google AdWords to target viewers on YouTube based on their interests or video watching habits. Use Croods ads to Monetize Your Videos Another great way to monetize your channel is through ads. With Croods ads, you can place ads on your channels at no cost to you. You simplyupload a video and then place an ad inside it. Once clicked, the viewer will be taken directly to the advertiser’s website where they can find more information about the product or service being advertised. The Best Way To Monetize Your YouTube Channel: Tips for Beginners In order to make money from your YouTube channel, there are a few things you must do in order to get started: 1) Make sure you have a high quality video that can be seen by viewers everywhere 2) upload quality videos that are easy enough for viewers to watch 3) use effective marketing strategies (e.g., social media promotion, paid search engine optimization) 4) make sure your channel is well-branded and easy to navigate

How to Make Money from Your YouTube Channel.

One way to make money from your YouTube channel is by making videos that are fresh and interesting. You can use this approach to generate leads, as well as to network with potential customers. Additionally, you can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to reach more people in the industry. Use Social Media to Generate leads One way to get leads from potential customers on your YouTube channel is by using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to generate content that will interest them. You can also use these sites to share video content that is relevant to your viewers. By doing this, you’ll be able to build brand awareness for your channel and attract new viewers who may be interested in watching your future videos. Use Videos to network with people Another way to make money from your YouTube channel is by using videos as a promotional tool. You can use them to connect with people who might be interested in watching your future videos or buying products from you. By sharing video excerpts from upcoming episodes of your show or uploading original content, you can create a relationship with potential customers and keep them engaged throughout the course of their journey through your channel).

How to Find and Use the Right Social Media Platforms for Your YouTube Channel.

Many social media platforms are great for reaching a wide audience. For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all great places to post videos. fiancé can also use these platforms to connect with fans and followers, which can help increase viewership of his or her videos. Use the right platforms to reach your target audience YouTube is a great platform to reach a specific audience. To find out how to reach this audience, you should look into YouTube advertising or video marketing strategies. Additionally, you can use YouTube channels as vehicles for promoting your products or services. For example, if you have a website or product that you want to sell on YouTube, you can create a video about it and post it on your channel.

How to Monetize Your YouTube Videos with croods Ads.

To monetize your videos, you’ll need to generate ads. Ads can be used in a variety of ways, including on the first video, in the intro and outro videos, and throughout the content of your channel. The most important thing is to target your ads so that they hit the right people and help you make money.Learn More Use targeted ads to increase your revenue Targeted ads are ads that are specifically designed to reach a particular audience or group of viewers. By targeting your ads this way, you can increase your revenue by making sure that each viewer who sees an ad knows that it was created for them specifically. You can also use targeted ads to create awareness for upcoming events or products that you want to promote. Use video marketing tools to monetize your videos Video marketing tools like Google AdWords or Facebook Advertising can help you monetize your videos with little effort on your part. These tools allow you to place small banner adverts on top of selected YouTube videos for a set amount of money (usually $1 per minute). This money goes towards advertising the video and generating Revenue from views and clicks on the adverts.

Conclusion

Monetization of a YouTube channel can be a great way to generate revenue and reach a wider audience. However, it's important to take some time to plan and create quality videos that will engage viewers. By using the right social media platforms and targeted ads, you can make sure that your videos are monetized in the most efficient way possible. In addition, video marketing tools can help you increase revenue from your YouTube channel. By utilizing these tools, you can generate more money and keep your viewers engaged longer term. Read the full article

[flynews47]

Digital Marketing Firm Nottingham

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[sciencespies]

Covid-19 news: Infection rate in England rises to one in 500 people

https://sciencespies.com/biology/covid-19-news-infection-rate-in-england-rises-to-one-in-500-people/

Covid-19 news: Infection rate in England rises to one in 500 people

By Michael Le Page , Clare Wilson , Jessica Hamzelou , Adam Vaughan , Conrad Quilty-Harper and Layal Liverpool

Public information messages in central Manchester, England

Jon Super/AP/Shutterstock

Latest coronavirus news as of 5 pm on 25 September

Infection rate within communities in England and Wales continues to rise 

One in 500 people in England had the coronavirus in the week ending 19 September, up from one in 900 people the previous week, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics. “It’s a worrying increase and is occurring across all age groups, particularly in the North of England and London,” said Simon Clarke at the University of Reading in a statement. “While it’s true that there are many more tests conducted nowadays, this is clear evidence of an accelerating spread of the virus,” said Clarke. “We can expect to see an increasing burden placed on our hospitals and a consequent increase in deaths.” 

Northern Ireland, which was included in the survey for the first time, and Wales have also seen increases in infections. One in 300 people are estimated to have had the virus in Wales and Northern Ireland during the same time period. In Wales, this figure is up from one in 500 the week before. This weekend, new restrictions will be put in place in the Welsh city of Cardiff as well as in Swansea county areas and in the town of Llanelli. 

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The UK’s R number – the number of people each coronavirus case infects – has increased for the third week in a row, up to an estimate of between 1.2 and 1.5, an increase from between 1.1 and 1.4 the previous week, according to official figures. This is most likely to represent the situation two to three weeks ago due to a time lag in the data used to model the R. Infections across the country are estimated to be growing at a rate of between 4 and 8 per cent every day.

Other coronavirus news

Only 11 per cent of people told to self-isolate actually do so for the full 14-day period, which the UK government has been aware of since June. The finding comes from a survey that began in February. Results were published online yesterday to the pre-print server medRxiv and have not yet been peer-reviewed. The government’s scientific advisors recommend that 80 per cent or more of the contacts of people diagnosed with the coronavirus self-isolate for the full time period in order to help limit onward spread. 

Independent SAGE – an independent group of scientists publishing advice for the UK government – says Sweden’s success in tackling the coronavirus pandemic has been overstated. In a report published today, the group dismissed the idea of “herd immunity” as a strategy for dealing with the UK’s epidemic in the absence of a vaccine and said it is “irresponsible and unethical to try”.

Spain’s government has recommended imposing a new partial lockdown on the entire city of Madrid due to rising cases. The capital accounts for more than a third of the country’s hospital admissions, according to local authorities. Under the new restrictions, people would be banned from travelling outside of the city but would still be allowed to leave their homes to go to work and school.

The Netherlands recorded its highest daily increase in cases since the start of the pandemic, with 2777 new cases confirmed today. The country’s previous record for daily new cases was set just yesterday, when 2544 cases were recorded.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 984,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 32.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

When did the coronavirus first reach Europe and the US?: No cases were reported outside China until January 2020, but a study published on 10 September claims that cases in the US began to rise by 22 December. Many people there and in Europe suspect they had coronavirus around this time. Yet overall, the evidence suggests there were few cases outside China this early on. 

Birdsong during lockdown: If you thought birdsong sounded different during lockdown, it turns out you were probably right. The uniquely quiet circumstances of the covid-19 restrictions in San Francisco saw birds respond by lowering their pitch, singing sexier songs and making their songs clearer.

Essential information about coronavirus

Everything you need to know about the pandemic

What is covid-19?

What are the worst symptoms and how deadly is covid-19?

You could be spreading the coronavirus without realising you’ve got it

Which covid-19 treatments work and how close are we to getting more?

What are the main coronavirus vaccine candidates?

What to read, watch and listen to about coronavirus

Health Check is New Scientist’s weekly health newsletter by reporter Clare Wilson. This week she examines a new study from the only city in the world to have achieved herd immunity to the coronavirus and explores what the impact might be if the UK were to try a similar strategy.

Race Against the Virus: Hunt for a Vaccine is a Channel 4 documentary which tells the story of the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of the scientists on the frontline.

The New York Times is assessing the progress of different vaccine candidates and potential drug treatments for covid-19, and ranking them for effectiveness and safety.

Humans of COVID-19 is a project highlighting the experiences of key workers on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus in the UK, through social media.

Coronavirus, Explained on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the on-going coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.

New Scientist Weekly features updates and analysis on the latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic. Our podcast sees expert journalists from the magazine discuss the biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week – from technology and space, to health and the environment.

The Rules of Contagion is about the new science of contagion and the surprising ways it shapes our lives and behaviour. The author, Adam Kucharski, is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in the book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.

Previous updates

The new NHS Covid-19 app for England and Wales

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

24 September

NHS Covid-19 app goes live in England and Wales but testing and tracing still limited

The official test and trace app for England and Wales went live today, with more than one million downloads so far. The app uses Bluetooth technology built into smartphones to detect people nearby and alert users if any of those people later test positive for the virus. The government is urging everyone over the age of 16 to download and use the app. 

Some users have already reported issues with the app, and it does not work on some iPhone and Android smartphones, including iPhone 6 and older models. UK health minister Matt Hancock told BBC Breakfast this morning that the app would run on the “vast majority” of smartphones in the country. But there are concerns that limitations in testing and contact tracing could negate any potential benefit of the app. 

The latest NHS Test and Trace figures reveal that it is taking longer to return results for coronavirus tests in England. Only 28.2 per cent of coronavirus tests performed in community testing centres returned results within 24 hours in the week leading up to 16 September, down from 33.3 per cent in the previous week. During the same period, NHS Test and Trace reached 60.2 per cent of the contacts of people who were diagnosed with the virus, below the level of 80 per cent or more recommended by the government’s scientific advisors. 

Just 18 per cent of people in the UK report self-isolating after developing symptoms of the coronavirus and only 11 per cent say they self-isolate after being told by contact tracers that they have been in contact with a confirmed coronavirus case, according to a preliminary study by researchers at King’s College London. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, surveyed more than 31,000 people in the UK between 2 March and 5 August.

The number of new coronavirus cases in England also went up, but less sharply than the previous week, with 19,278 people testing positive for the virus between 10 and 16 September, compared to 18,371 the week before. This small weekly increase may reflect “oddities in the reporting testing system, rather than a sudden plateau in viral cases,” said James Naismith at the University of Oxford in a statement. 

Other coronavirus news

The number of people in the UK diagnosed with common conditions – including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and mental health conditions – was about 50 per cent lower than would normally have been expected between March and May this year, a study has found. The study, published in The Lancet Public Health analysed electronic health records from 47 general practices in Salford, UK, between January 2010 and May this year. The UK went into lockdown on 23 March.

United Airlines in the US is expected to become the first airline to offer rapid coronavirus testing to some of its passengers. The firm plans to conduct a trial of the programme on flights from San Francisco to Hawaii starting on 15 October, using 15-minute rapid tests supplied by US biotechnology company Abbott.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 978,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Testing troubles: How the UK can get its catastrophic coronavirus testing under control. 

Doctor administers a vaccine

Udom Pinyo/Getty Images

23 September

Volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus in first challenge trials

Healthy volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus to test the effectiveness of experimental coronavirus vaccines in London next year, in the world’s first human challenge trials for coronavirus. About 2000 people in the UK have volunteered to be given one of a number of experimental vaccines and then receive a dose of the coronavirus under controlled conditions. The volunteers have joined the trial, which is due to begin in January, through advocacy group 1Day Sooner. Earlier this year the group organised an open letter signed by prominent researchers including Nobel laureates, urging the US government to immediately prepare for human challenge trials. The researchers behind the trials, which are being funded by the UK government, told the Financial Times that the trials would play an important role in helping to identify the most promising vaccine candidates likely to move into clinical testing in early 2021.

Other coronavirus news

There were 6178 new coronavirus cases recorded across the UK today, the highest daily total since 1 May. Scotland recorded 486 new coronavirus cases yesterday, the highest daily figure since its epidemic began, first minister Nicola Sturgeon told a briefing today. In the Scottish city of Dundee, 500 university students have been told to self-isolate due to a suspected outbreak in a halls of residence. Meanwhile, in England, more than a million pupils were absent from school last Thursday for reasons related to covid-19, according to the nation’s Department for Education. Yesterday, the Isle of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall in England recorded its first coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson has urged people in England to follow new rules announced yesterday aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus, warning that the government could introduce further restrictions if people fail to adhere. “If people don’t follow the rules we have set out, then we must reserve the right to go further,” Johnson said during a televised address. However, some have questioned the logic behind the new rules. “Closing down restaurants and pubs earlier will do little to stave the spread for as long as multiple different households can interchangeably meet up,” David Strain at the University of Exeter said in a statement.

The official test and trace app for England and Wales will be launched tomorrow after being trialled in Newham in London and the Isle of Wight. It will be the second iteration of the app, after the first was abandoned because it struggled to detect iPhones. There are concerns about the lack of transparency around the new app, and the government has not yet demonstrated that it is effective and ready for mass rollout, the Health Foundation charity said in a statement today.  

Germany’s contact tracing app, the Corona-Warn-App, has been used to transmit 1.2 million coronavirus test results from laboratories to users during its first 100 days, according to officials. The app has been downloaded more than 18 million times since it was first launched in June and more than 90 per cent of laboratories in the country are now connected to it.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 972,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Asymptomatic infection: People who have the coronavirus without symptoms appear to have similar levels of the virus in their noses and throats to people with mild symptoms, a study has found. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are as likely to spread covid-19 as those who are sick.

Doctor’s diary: How can we deal with the long covid-19 symptoms?

A staff member wears a face mask as she serves customers at the The Shy Horse pub and restaurant in Chessington, Greater London

BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

22 September

New restrictions for England could last six months, UK prime minister says

People in England will be asked to work from home where possible and pubs, bars and restaurants will be required to close at 10 pm each night, under a series of new restrictions announced by UK prime minister Boris Johnson today, which come into force on Thursday. Under the new rules, which Johnson today told MPs could stay in place for six months, pubs, bars and restaurants will be restricted to table service only and face masks will be compulsory for hospitality staff and non-seated customers, as well as for retail workers and taxi drivers. In Scotland, a ban on meeting people in houses will be extended from Glasgow and its surroundings to the entire country, and bars, pubs and restaurants will have to close at 10 pm. 

Linda Bauld at the University of Edinburgh said in a statement that the new measures for England are not as stringent as might have been expected, with some of them already in place in parts of the nation under local lockdowns. “What is worrying, however, is that they will be accompanied by sticks but no carrots,” said Bauld, which she says “risks rising levels of non-compliance” among the public. Shops and hospitality businesses that fail to comply to the rules on use of face coverings, contact tracing and limits on maximum group sizes, risk closure or fines of up to £10,000. Fines for individuals not wearing face coverings or following rules will be increased from £100 to £200 for the first offence. 

Cabinet office minister Michael Gove told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people should work from home “if you can,” a reversal of advice from the prime minister in July, when he encouraged people to go back to workplaces. 

“The urging of people to work from home if at all possible is sensible. There should never have been encouragement of people to return to their workplace,” Michael Head at the University of Southampton said in a statement. “We have already seen outbreaks linked to the office environment, and there is no reason to promote an increase in numbers of commuters travelling on public transport.”

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has backtracked on advice it posted last week regarding airborne transmission of the coronavirus. The advice suggested the virus spreads through tiny droplets that can linger in the air. The World Health Organization acknowledges that there is some evidence that airborne transmission can occur in crowded spaces with inadequate ventilation but says the main route of coronavirus transmission is through larger droplets from coughs and sneezes, which can land on surfaces and get onto people’s hands. The CDC retracted its guidance yesterday, with a spokesperson telling CNN that a “draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error.”

More than 200,000 people in the US have now died from covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, the highest number for any nation. The country has recorded more than 6.8 million cases of the coronavirus.

Covid-19 was a factor in 1 per cent of all deaths registered across England and Wales in the week ending 11 September, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figure is among the lowest since March but there are concerns deaths may rise due to recent increases in cases and hospitalisations.

No new locally acquired coronavirus infections were recorded in New South Wales in Australia today for the first time in 76 days. Two infections confirmed yesterday were both returned travellers in hotel quarantine, according to local health authorities.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 965,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Staff at a NHS appointment only testing facility take testing kits from members of the public in Redcar, England

Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

21 September

New localised lockdown restrictions to come into force in parts of the UK tomorrow

Amid warnings from scientists that the UK’s epidemic is doubling every seven days, which could lead to 50,000 cases a day by mid-October, the UK has imposed new restrictions to try and limit the spread of coronavirus. The country’s chief medical officers also advised that the coronavirus alert level be raised from 3 to 4. According to the government’s 5-tier alert system, an alert level of 4 indicates that transmission is high or rising exponentially and warrants increased social distancing measures. The UK is currently recording around 3000 cases per day, compared to around 5000 a day at the peak of the epidemic in spring. 

Wales has now followed England in introducing additional localised coronavirus restrictions, set to come into force tomorrow. In total, at least 13.9 million people in the UK now face some form of additional local restrictions. From 6 pm tomorrow, people in Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend, Blaenau Gwent and Newport in Wales will not be allowed to leave those areas or to meet with people from other households. Restaurants, bars and pubs will be required to close from 11 pm each night. Similar restrictions will affect Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales as well as 10.9 million people in parts of north-west England, West Yorkshire and the Midlands starting tomorrow. Today, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon told journalists that additional lockdown restrictions will “almost certainly” be put in place in Scotland over the next few days as well. 

Other coronavirus news

Coronavirus restrictions will be lifted across New Zealand today, with the exception of Auckland, where some restrictions will remain in place. “Our actions collectively have managed to get the virus under control,” the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference today. There are currently 62 active cases of the virus in New Zealand, 33 of which are connected to a cluster in Auckland. Rules in Auckland will be eased further on Wednesday, with a limit on gatherings to be increased from 10 to 100 people.

Strict new lockdown measures came into force in Spain’s capital Madrid today. At the weekend, thousands of people in the city’s southern district of Vallecas took to the streets to protest against the new restrictions. Under the new rules people won’t be allowed to leave the areas where they live except to go to work or for emergency medical treatment.

India’s Taj Mahal reopened today for the first time since it was closed due to the pandemic in March. Visitors will be required to adhere to strict physical distancing rules and the number of visitors will be limited to 5000 per day – a quarter of the usual rate.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 961,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 31.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Death toll: Most people still don’t have any level of immunity to the virus behind covid-19. But there is a growing risk that some of us are becoming immune to the enormous numbers that this pandemic is throwing out on a weekly basis. The global death toll from covid-19 is nearing 1 million. That is a number that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become blasé about.

UK epidemic: The UK faces a “very difficult problem” of rising covid-19 deaths and cases if it does not change course, chief medical officer for England Chris Whitty has warned.

Shoppers walk past an electronic billboard displaying a UK Government advert in Newcastle, UK

OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

18 September

UK government considering short-term national lockdown in October

The UK could face a second nation-wide lockdown in October, according UK health minister Matt Hancock. In an interview today, Hancock told Sky News that the government isn’t ruling out a short-term national lockdown in October. “We do have to recognise that the number of cases is rising and we do have to act,” he said. This comes after warnings from senior scientific advisors to the government that the UK is about six weeks behind France and Spain in terms of coronavirus cases, and can expect to see a significant increase in cases by mid-October without further intervention. France set a record for daily new coronavirus cases in the country on Thursday, recording 10,593 new cases within 24 hours, according to its health ministry.

The latest estimate of the UK’s R number – the number of people each coronavirus case infects – is between 1.1 and 1.4, up from between 1 and 1.2 the previous week and between 0.9 and 1.1 the week before, according to the latest government figures. The current number is representative of the situation two to three weeks ago due to a time-lag in the data used to model the R number. In documents released today, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warn that new infections in the UK may be doubling as quickly as every seven days and, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics, about one in 900 people in communities in England had the virus in the week ending 10 September, up from about one in 1400 the previous week. 

Parts of north-west England, West Yorkshire and the Midlands have become the latest areas in the UK to see tightening coronavirus restrictions. Starting on Tuesday, people in these areas won’t be allowed to mix with people from other households, and pubs and restaurants will be required to shut at 10 pm each day. “It does seem ironic that after encouraging mass attendance at pubs, cafes and restaurants through ‘eat out to help out’, that we are now contemplating restricting or closing those activities down,” said Jonathan Ball at the University of Nottingham in a statement. At least 13.5 million people in the country are now facing local restrictions of some kind, including 10.9 million people in England. 

Other coronavirus news

Details on a participant in the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine trial who experienced neurological symptoms, which halted the trial in early September, have been revealed in an internal safety report by the firm. The 37 year-old woman experienced symptoms of a rare neurological condition called transverse myelitis, including pain, weakness and difficulty walking, according to the report.

Israel today became the first country to introduce a second nation-wide lockdown, with people required to stay within 500 metres of their homes, except if they are travelling to work. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 947,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 30.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

People entering Oxford Circus Station in London, England.

17 September

Steep rise in new coronavirus cases in England despite testing shortage

The weekly number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in England has risen sharply, as the country is experiencing testing shortages. Between 3 and 9 September, 18,371 people were diagnosed with covid-19, which is “a substantial increase of 167 per cent compared to the end of August,” according to NHS Test and Trace. These may be “the last reliable figures” on the state of the nation’s epidemic for some time because of the reduced availability of tests, said Daniel Lawson at the University of Bristol in a statement. 

The time for tests to be returned is also taking longer. The proportion of test results received within 24 hours fell to 14.3 per cent during the same period in September, down from 32 per cent the week before. “Tests which take many days to report and action, are of no value in suppressing the pandemic,” said James Naismith at the University of Oxford in a statement. In June, UK prime minister Boris Johnson told parliament that all coronavirus tests would be returned within 24 hours by the end of the month.  

The website for booking coronavirus tests online in the UK is struggling to cope with the growing demand for tests. An increasing number of users are reporting receiving error messages when attempting to book tests on the site.

Other coronavirus news

Today the UK government announced new restrictions affecting almost two million people in the north-east of England, where case rates are particularly high. Under the new rules, which come into force at midnight tonight, people will be banned from meeting people from other households. Restaurants, bars and pubs will also be required to close at 10 pm. Affected areas include Sunderland, where the infection rate is currently 103 per 100,000 people, as well as Newcastle, South Tyneside and Gateshead, all of which have infection rates above 70, UK health minister Matt Hancock told MPs today. “The data says that we must act now,” said Hancock. 

Europe has “alarming rates of transmission”, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned today, as it encouraged countries to stick to the recommended 14-day self-isolation period for people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus. In the UK, the recommendation is currently 10 days. Other European countries, including Portugal and Croatia, are considering reducing the length of recommended self-isolation, according to the Guardian. “Knowing the immense individual and societal impact even a slight reduction in the length of quarantine can have […] I encourage countries of the region to make scientific due process with their experts and explore safe reduction options,” Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said at a press conference.

It will take at least a year before a coronavirus vaccine becomes generally available to the US public, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield told a US Senate panel yesterday. In an interview with Fox & Friends earlier this week, US president Donald Trump said a vaccine could be ready “in a matter of weeks.”

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 942,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

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What now?: Five scientists tell us what happens next with the covid-19 pandemic.

People queue at a coronavirus testing facility in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham

Jacob King/PA Wire/PA Images

15 September

Widespread reports of people struggling to get coronavirus tests in England

England’s coronavirus testing system is significantly overwhelmed, with many people in the nation’s 10 worst-hit coronavirus hotspots unable to get tests. People trying to book swab tests on Monday in Bolton, Salford, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Preston, Pendle, Rochdale, Tameside and Manchester were told that it was not possible, according to LBC. Bolton currently has 171 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people, the highest rate in England. “It seems that there are several bottlenecks in the testing procedures. These are not being made publicly available so we can only speculate that these may be limited materials for the testing process, capacity and procedural issues,” said Brendan Wren at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in a statement. “This needs to be addressed urgently, and if it is [a lab] capacity [problem] then university labs should be more widely deployed,” said Wren.

A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care told the Guardian: “It is wrong to say testing is not available in these areas, and our capacity continues to be targeted where it is needed most.” However, there have also been reports of testing shortages elsewhere. NHS Providers, a body that represents hospital trusts in England, told the BBC that NHS staff are having to self-isolate, because they are unable to get tests for themselves or their family members. 

Laboratories analysing community swab tests in England were stretched to capacity as far back as August, emails seen by the Guardian revealed today. NHS England sent an email to all NHS laboratories on 24 August calling for them to support the UK Lighthouse Labs Network, a private group of labs that has been analysing community swabs, due to a “surge in capacity.”

Other coronavirus news

A report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation warns that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed back progress on improving health around the world by “about 25 years.” The pandemic has increased poverty by 7 per cent and led to a drop in routine vaccination coverage from 84 per cent last year down to 70 per cent, according to the report. “It’s a huge setback,” Bill Gates said at a media briefing on the report’s findings today. The report also highlighted the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women, racial and ethnic minority communities and people living in extreme poverty. 

Schools in England have seen a higher absence rate among pupils this term compared to last year, according to the nation’s Department for Education. Official figures suggest 88 per cent of pupils attended school last Thursday, below the figure for the same term last year of about 95 per cent. Since schools reopened earlier this month, school leaders have warned that delays in testing are leading to year groups being sent home, the BBC reported.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 930,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Anti-government protesters rallying in Madrid, Spain amid the covid-19 outbreak, on September 12, 2020

Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto via Getty Images

14 September

New global record for daily new coronavirus cases as WHO warns of rise in deaths in Europe

A record single day increase in global coronavirus cases was recorded on Sunday with 307,930 new confirmed cases . The largest increases were in India, the US and Brazil, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO also warned that Europe can expect to see more deaths from covid-19 as soon as next month. “It’s going to get tougher. In October, November, we are going to see more mortality,” said Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, in an interview with the AFP news agency today. Cases in Europe have increased sharply over the last few weeks, with case rates highest in Spain and France. There are 270.7 cases per 100,000 people in Spain and 153.9 per 100,000 people in France, according to the latest 14-day cumulative figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. In the UK there are 51.1 cases per 100,000 people.

Other coronavirus news

Laboratory-made antibodies will be given to about 2000 covid-19 patients in UK hospitals as part of the UK’s RECOVERY trial, a large-scale clinical trial to test existing drugs as therapies for covid-19. In June, data from the RECOVERY trial provided the first evidence that a steroid drug called dexamethasone could save lives for those with severe covid-19. In the new trial of antibodies made specifically to combat the coronavirus, the first patients will be given the experimental treatment in the coming weeks. “There are lots of good reasons for thinking it might well be effective – stopping the virus from reproducing, stopping the virus from causing damage, improving survival for patients,” Martin Landray at the University of Oxford, who is co-leading the RECOVERY trial, told the BBC. “Monoclonal, or targeted, antibodies are already used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases,” said Fiona Watt, executive chair of the Medical Research Council in the UK, in a statement. “The new trial will tell us whether antibodies that attack the virus can be an effective treatment for covid-19.”

An email seen by the BBC reveals that UK government chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance argued that the UK’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions be imposed earlier than they actually were, and in response he was given a “telling off” from other senior officials. Vallance referred to advice given by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on 16 March, suggesting “additional social-distancing measures” be implemented “as soon as possible.” The UK went into lockdown on 23 March, about two months after the country’s first confirmed case, which some researchers blame for the UK’s high number of coronavirus deaths.

Israel has become the first country to announce a second nationwide lockdown to begin Friday and last three weeks. It is an effort to contain a second-wave surge of new cases, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday. People will be required to stay within 500 metres of their homes, with the exception of travelling to workplaces. Schools will also be closed.

US president Donald Trump held the first indoor presidential campaign rally in months in Nevada on Sunday, despite local officials saying it violated the state’s rule limiting gatherings to 50 people. In a statement before the rally, Nevada’s governor Steve Sisolak criticised Trump’s decision saying “Now he’s decided he doesn’t have to respect our state’s laws. As usual, he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him.”

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 925,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 29 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

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Racism in healthcare: Covid-19 is affecting ethnic minorities more severely, but we will never understand why if we don’t collect the right data, says Alisha Dua.

Members of the public attend an NHS covid testing facility in Bolton town centre as restrictions are tightened in the area on 9 September

Anthony Devlin/Getty Images

11 September

New data suggests England’s R number could be as high as 1.7

The UK’s coronavirus epidemic is growing, according to the latest government figures. Simon Clarke at the University of Reading described this as a “massive blow to the government’s strategy to contain the spread of covid-19.” The UK’s R number – the estimated number of people each infected person goes on to infect – is between 1 and 1.2, up from between 0.9 and 1.1 last week. This data is representative of the situation two to three weeks ago, due to a time-lag in the data used to model the R, but is in line with more recent data for England from a separate study by researchers at Imperial College London, which suggests England’s R number could be as high as 1.7. 

The study, commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, tested over 150,000 people in communities in England between 22 August and 7 September and used this to model the R number. It found that 0.13 per cent of people tested positive – equivalent to 130 per 100,000 people in the population. The latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics also indicate an increase in infections in communities in England and Wales in recent weeks.

The rise in cases “suggests that the recent uptick in cases is not just because of greater testing,” said Clarke in a statement. “It’s likely that the coronavirus is circulating more freely out in the community again, meaning we are likely to need greater restrictions on our lives to push the transmission rate back down again.”

Other coronavirus news

A new coronavirus contact tracing app will go live across England and Wales on 24 September, the government announced today. The new app will allow people to scan QR codes to register visits to bars and restaurants and will use Apple and Google’s method for detecting other smartphones nearby. The UK government was previously forced to abandon development of an earlier app, built on different technology, due to its inability to recognise a significant proportion of Apple and Android devices. Scotland’s app, Protect Scotland, went live yesterday.

Birmingham in England is being put under a local lockdown due to a spike in cases. The city now has the second highest rate of coronavirus infection in England, after Bolton. There were 85.4 cases per 100,000 people in Birmingham during the week ending 7 September, up from 32 in the previous week. People in Birmingham will no longer be allowed to meet with other households.

India has recorded the highest number of daily new coronavirus cases in a single country since the pandemic began, with 96,551 cases recorded in the country on Thursday.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 910,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 28.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Reports of reinfection: In recent weeks, the first confirmed reports of people who have been re-infected with the coronavirus have begun to trickle in. Such cases suggest that, in some people at least, the immune system doesn’t develop lasting protection against the virus. How worried should we be?

An adult singer from the York Minster Choir walks to rehearse ahead of a performance in York, England.

Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

10 September

Latest figures show significant jump in weekly coronavirus cases in England

The number of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England was 9864 in the week ending 2 September, up 47 per cent from 6732 in the previous week, according to the latest figures from NHS Test and Trace. It’s the highest number of weekly positive cases recorded since the system was launched in May. During the same week, NHS Test and Trace only managed to reach 69.2 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed with the virus in England – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors to limit infections from spreading. 

Public health specialists have raised concerns about the feasibility of government plans announced yesterday to spend £100 billion on expanding testing to 10 million tests per day by early 2021. Chaand Nagpaul, council chairman of the British Medical Association told the BBC it is unclear how these tests will work, given the “huge problems” with lab capacity. Sarah-Jane Marsh, director for testing at NHS Test and Trace apologised for the problems with the testing scheme earlier this week. Even if testing can be expanded, concerns remain about accuracy and contact tracing capacity. Transport secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast this morning that the technology to carry out the plan doesn’t currently exist.

Other coronavirus news

US president Donald Trump admitted to playing down the threat posed by the coronavirus in March, during an interview with journalist Bob Woodward revealed in his forthcoming book. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on 19 March. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged the virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu” as early as February – a time when he was publicly saying the virus was less of a concern than the flu.

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot today told an online briefing he is hopeful that the company’s coronavirus vaccine candidate could be ready for global distribution in the first half of 2021. Trials of the vaccine, which is being developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, were put on hold yesterday after a participant developed neurological symptoms. An independent safety committee is currently reviewing data on the affected participant, said Soriot. 

Scotland’s Test and Protect system, the nation’s equivalent to NHS Test and Trace in England, today released its Protect Scotland app, which alerts people if they have been in close contact with someone who later tests positive for the coronavirus. Like Northern Ireland’s app, Scotland’s new app was built using the toolkit provided by Apple and Google. England doesn’t yet have a widely available equivalent app but has been testing a similar one on the Isle of Wight and in the London borough of Newham over the past month, after abandoning development of an NHS Covid-19 app built on different technology, due to its inability to recognise 96 per cent of Apple phones and 25 per cent of Google Android devices.

University students in England may be required to stay in their student accommodation and avoid visiting their family homes in the event of local coronavirus outbreaks, according to new guidance published by the UK Department for Education today. Students with covid-19 symptoms should “self-isolate in their current accommodation”, the guidance says. It also suggests that universities group students living in halls of residence into “households” that include all of those living on the same floor or sharing communal facilities, potentially including as many as 30 students. The guidelines add that private gatherings, including those within student households, must still be limited to a maximum of six people.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 905,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

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Coronavirus and flu: Doctors are fretting about concurrent outbreaks of flu and covid-19 but some virologists are worrying about another scenario: a Frankenvirus. Could the coronavirus merge with another virus to create a new threat?

A general view of analytical chemists at AstraZeneca headquarters in Sydney

DAN HIMBRECHTS/AAP/PA Images

9 September

UK government plans to expand coronavirus testing to 10 million tests a day

The UK government plans to carry out 10 million coronavirus tests per day by early 2021, according to documents obtained by the BMJ. Currently, the UK’s testing capacity is 350,000 per day. As part of the new plan, £100 billion will go towards the expansion of the country’s testing programme, the documents revealed, and GSK and AstraZeneca are among firms named for supplying tests and laboratory capacity respectively. 

Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told the BMJ the plan is too optimistic and disregards “enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes.” NHS Test and Trace in particular has been criticised for its repeated failure to reach a sufficient proportion of the contacts of people who test positive for the virus in England. Between 28 May and 26 August, the scheme reached 78.5 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed in England – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors. 

Jon Meeks, a biostatistician at the University of Birmingham who reviewed the documents for the BMJ, tweeted that the documents “show a severe lack of science or reality. No consideration of harms that screening us all would create.” In the BMJ he raised the problem of false positives: “If you test 60 million people [with a 99% accurate test] we will be classifying a group the size of the population of Sheffield as wrongly having covid.”

Other coronavirus news

Advanced trials of one of the most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates have been put on hold after a participant became ill in the UK. Drug firm AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine in partnership with the University of Oxford, has voluntarily paused the trials. This is standard procedure in vaccine development, and allows time for the researchers to determine the cause of the illness and ensure the safety of participants. AstraZeneca described the action as “routine” in a statement to STAT. The vaccine candidate has already passed preliminary trials, and is now undergoing phase II and III trials involving approximately 30,000 participants in the US as well as in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. These larger trials are designed to test whether it can prevent people from becoming infected with the coronavirus or getting ill with covid-19, as well as assessing long term safety.

Social gatherings in England will be limited to a maximum of six people from Monday 14 September, in an effort to tackle a recent spike in coronavirus cases. People will not be allowed to gather in groups larger than six either indoors or outdoors, with the exception of gatherings in schools, workplaces and some events such as weddings and funerals. UK health minister Matt Hancock told the BBC today that the new rule is “super simple” and will be “enforced by the police.” People could be fined between £100 and £3200 for violating the rule, he said. “We’ve seen in other countries around the world where they don’t take action then you end up with this second peak, resulting in more hospitalisations and more deaths, and we don’t want to see that here,” said Hancock.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 898,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Severe symptoms: An out-of-control human peptide called bradykinin could be responsible for some of the varied and sometimes deadly symptoms seen in people who have contracted the coronavirus. We already have drugs to control bradykinin, which are being tested as treatments for people with covid-19.

People walk on the street in central Bolton, Greater Manchester

Jon Super/Xinhua/PA Images

8 September

New restrictions could be introduced across England due to surge in cases 

The government could tighten restrictions on people meeting in England following the recent spike in coronavirus cases. According to several reports, the government could reduce the number of people allowed to meet outdoors to six, down from the current limit of 30. Restrictions on how many people can meet indoors may also become tighter, according to Sky News. Under current guidelines, only two households can congregate indoors. 

England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said the new wave of cases was because “people have relaxed too much.” Today, 2420 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the UK, down from 2948 on Monday but still high compared to daily figures in recent months. John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies told ITV that the UK as a whole is in a “risky period” because the country’s R number – the number of people each infected person goes on to infect – has risen above 1. An R number higher than 1 means that an epidemic is growing. 

Some measures are already tightening in some parts of the UK, including Bolton, in Greater Manchester. The town currently has the highest case rate in the country, with 120 cases of the virus per 100,000 people. Pubs and restaurants there will now have to be take-away only and stay closed between 10 pm and 5 am, UK health minister Matt Hancock announced today. The current guidance, which says people should not socialise with those from a different household, will be made legally binding, he told MPs. The number of people allowed to visit hospitals and care homes will also be reduced under the new measures. “The rise in cases in Bolton is partly due to socialising by people in their 20s and 30s. We know this from contact tracing,” said Hancock, adding “we’ve identified a number of pubs at which the virus has spread significantly.” 

Other coronavirus news

Amid increasing reports of people being told to attend drive-through testing centres hundreds of kilometres away from their homes, the director of testing for NHS Test and Trace, Sarah-Jane Marsh, tweeted an apology today to people in England who haven’t been able to get tested for the coronavirus. Marsh described laboratory processing as “the critical pinch-point” and said “we are doing all we can to expand quickly.” Last month researchers warned that the UK would probably face a second wave of coronavirus infections in winter if the country’s testing and contact tracing system didn’t improve by September.

There were 101 deaths from covid-19 in England and Wales during the week ending 28 August, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. This is down from 138 deaths in the previous week and is also the lowest number of deaths from the disease recorded since the week ending 13 March.

A school in Nottinghamshire in England has been forced to close after its head teacher was admitted to hospital with covid-19. Pupils and staff at Trowell Primary School have been told to stay home and self-isolate until 21 September. In the week since pupils returned to classrooms, coronavirus outbreaks have been reported at dozens of schools in England and Wales. Across Liverpool, an estimated 200 pupils are self-isolating after positive covid-19 cases at five schools, while five teachers at a school in Suffolk have tested positive.Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 897,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

What is a vaccine and how do they work?: The latest video in our new YouTube series, Science with Sam, explains how vaccines work by training your immune system to recognise viruses and bacteria. We also take a look at the unprecedented worldwide effort to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, and consider the challenges involved in making, testing and distributing covid-19 vaccines.

People undertake a coronavirus test at a walk-in test facility in Bolton, UK, September 7, 2020

Phil Noble/REUTERS

7 September

The UK recorded its highest number of daily new cases since May on Sunday

There were 2948 new coronavirus cases confirmed in the UK today, down slightly from the 2988 new cases confirmed on Sunday, which marked the highest daily increase in cases recorded in the country since 23 May. “This is especially concerning for a Sunday when report numbers are generally lower than most other days of the week,” said Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia in a statement. “Sadly it is beginning to look like we are moving into a period of exponential growth in the UK epidemic and if so we can expect further increases over coming weeks,” said Hunter.

UK health minister Matt Hancock yesterday expressed concern about the rise in cases, which he said were largely among people under 25, especially those between 17 and 21. “Of course younger people can pass on the disease to their grandparents and we do not want to see that,” Hancock said yesterday. In France and Spain, rises in infections among younger adults in August were followed by higher numbers of hospital admissions for older and more vulnerable people in subsequent weeks. “It’s concerning because we’ve seen a rise in cases in France, in Spain, in some other countries across Europe, and nobody wants to see a second wave here,” Hancock said today.

Hancock’s concerns about younger people transmitting the virus to more vulnerable groups are shared by the government’s scientific advisors. A report endorsed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published last week warns there is a significant risk that reopening universities could amplify local and national transmission, adding that “it is highly likely that there will be significant outbreaks.” Because of the higher proportion of asymptomatic cases among younger age groups, cases and outbreaks are also likely to be harder to detect among student populations, says the report.

Other coronavirus news

India confirmed 90,632 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, the country’s health ministry reported on Sunday, setting a new global record for the number of infections recorded in a single country in one day. India has confirmed more than 4.2 million cases since the pandemic began, the second-highest number for any country after the US.

The Tokyo Olympic Games will take place next year “with or without covid”, according to John Coates, vice-president of the International Olympic Committee. Previously, the committee said they would cancel the Games scheduled for July 2021 if necessary. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 889,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 27.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Keeping schools safe: There is wide agreement that schools must reopen, and stay open. Achieving this is fraught with unknowns, however. Although it seems that children are less likely to transmit and get sick from the coronavirus, we don’t know why that is the case. Should an outbreak occur, pupils’ families and school staff could still be at risk. In order to keep schools safe, governments must be prepared to shut down other areas of society to keep overall levels of virus transmission low.

Sputnik V, Gamaleya National Center

THE RUSSIAN DIRECT INVESTMENT FUND

4 September

Russia’s vaccine candidate produced antibody and T-cell responses in early-stage trial

A preliminary trial of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine candidate Sputnik V suggests it is safe and induces an immune response. The vaccine was approved by Russian authorities last month, before any data had been made public or a large-scale trial had begun. In the preliminary trial, it was tested in a small group of 76 healthy volunteers. All the volunteers developed coronavirus-specific antibodies and T-cells, and none experienced serious adverse reactions, according to results published in The Lancet today. However, it still isn’t clear whether the vaccine protects people from becoming infected with the coronavirus or from getting ill. This will be investigated through phase III testing, which is already underway, and which is expected to include 40,000 people across Russia. 

Some researchers are concerned that vaccine developers may come under political pressure to release doses of the vaccine for administration to the general public, before phase III testing is complete. “A vaccine should not be used to short-cut the implementation of public health interventions that are already known to be safe and effective, until the vaccine itself has been shown to be safe and effective,” said Eleanor Riley at the University of Edinburgh, in a statement. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) today said it does not expect widespread coronavirus vaccination until mid-2021. “We are not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris at a briefing in Geneva. Harris said phase III trials will need to go on long enough to determine how “truly protective” and safe a given vaccine candidate is.

Other coronavirus news

Preliminary findings from a study by Public Health England found low rates of coronavirus infection among children and teachers in pre-school and primary school. Researchers took swabs from more than 12,000 children and teachers across 131 primary schools in England in June and early July, and detected only three cases of the virus. Ravindra Gupta at the University of Cambridge said the findings are not surprising, since limited numbers of children were attending schools in England during this time period. “We must not be complacent and falsely reassured,” said Gupta in a statement. “From September there will be more children, more mixing, more crowding and over winter less time will be spent outdoors,” he said, adding that there will be less chance to socially distance in schools in the coming months than it was possible to do in June.

New Zealand has recorded its first death from covid-19 since 28 May. A man in Auckland died after being admitted to hospital. His death is the first connected to a recent outbreak in the city, including 152 cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 870,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 26.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Social distancing: Computer scientists have used a database of public cameras to keep track of how well people are adhering to social distancing guidelines.

A medical worker takes a swab to test for the coronavirus at a drive-in testing facility

ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images

3 September

New funding announced for trials of rapid new coronavirus tests in the UK

The UK government today announced £500 million worth of funding for trials of rapid coronavirus tests, including recently developed swab and saliva tests that can be performed in 90 minutes or less. The trials will also include community pilots investigating the effectiveness of repeat testing in schools and among the general population. “We are backing innovative new tests that are fast, accurate and easier to use and will maximise the impact and scale of testing, helping us to get back to a more normal way of life,” UK health minister Matt Hancock said in a statement today. 

Having quicker tests could help speed up the identification of infected people and the tracing of their close contacts. But having a rapid test is “useless” if contacts can’t be identified because the tracing system is overwhelmed, Joshua Moon at the University of Sussex said in a statement. NHS Test and Trace has been criticised for its repeated failure to reach a sufficient proportion of the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus in England. According to the latest figures, 78.5 per cent of the contacts of people diagnosed with the virus in England were reached by NHS Test and Trace between 28 May and 26 August – below the target of 80 per cent or more recommended by government scientific advisors.

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has notified states to prepare for the roll-out of a coronavirus vaccine within two months. “Limited covid-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020,” according to CDC documents first published by the New York Times.  And in a letter to governors on 27 August, first obtained by McClatchy, CDC director Robert Redfield wrote: “CDC urgently requests your assistance in expediting applications for [vaccine] distribution facilities and, if necessary, asks that you consider waiving requirements that would prevent these facilities from becoming fully operational by November 1, 2020.” But public health researchers are concerned that the move is being driven less by evidence and instead by a political effort to rush a vaccine before the November election. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota told the Associated Press that “the public health community wants a safe and effective vaccine as much as anybody […] but the data have to be clear and compelling.”

Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi will start testing their protein-based coronavirus vaccine candidate in humans for the first time, to assess its safety and ability to induce an immune response. If this and subsequent trials are successful, the companies have said they could be requesting regulatory approval in the first half of next year. 

A surge in demand for coronavirus tests has left the UK struggling to keep up. Some people with symptoms who tried to book coronavirus swab tests online told the BBC they were directed to testing centres more than 100 miles away from their homes. This could act as a “big disincentive to being tested”, Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia told the BBC, potentially limiting efforts to contain localised spikes in cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 864,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 26 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Pharmacist holding packs of dexamethasone anti-inflammatory steroid tablets.

LEWIS HOUGHTON / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

2 September

Steroid drugs that reduce inflammation found to save lives from severe covid-19

A group of drugs that reduce inflammation have been confirmed to increase survival in people with severe covid-19. In a landmark study bringing together all the trials done so far looking at the effect of steroids on coronavirus, researchers in the World Health Organization (WHO) REACT working group analysed results from seven randomised clinical trials, which included 1703 critically ill patients with covid-19. They compared the outcomes of those who had received one of three corticosteroid drugs – dexamethasone, hydrocortisone or methylprednisolone – with those who received standard care or a placebo. The researchers found that 32 per cent of those who received a corticosteroid treatment had died from the disease after 28 days, compared to 40 per cent of those who did not. 

“The evidence for benefit is strongest for dexamethasone,” Stephen Evans at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said in a statement. These new results, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, add weight to earlier findings from the RECOVERY trial, which found that dexamethasone reduced deaths in critically ill covid-19 patients by a third for patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those receiving oxygen – the first drug shown to do so. “This analysis increases confidence that [dexamethasone] has a really worthwhile role in critically ill patients with covid-19,” Evans said. As a result of the study, the WHO is expected to update its guidance on treatment. In the UK, the drug has been in use for treating severely ill covid-19 patients since June.

Other coronavirus news

The US will not take part in a global initiative to develop and distribute a future coronavirus vaccine, because of its association with the WHO. More than 170 countries are participating in the initiative, called COVAX, which is working to ensure the equitable and fair global allocation of a potential vaccine. “We will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China,” White House spokesperson Judd Deere said in a statement. The US is due to withdraw from the WHO entirely next July – a move Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has vowed to reverse if he is elected in November.

Coronavirus restrictions have been eased in parts of Greater Manchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire in England, with the exceptions of Bolton and Trafford in Greater Manchester. The government today announced that restrictions on meetings between different households indoors in these areas, which were also due to be lifted today, would now remain in place due to increasing infection rates. Bolton currently has one of the highest rates of new virus cases in England, with 59 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending 29 August. Similar restrictions have also been introduced in the Glasgow area in Scotland, which has seen a rise in cases over the last two days.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 858,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 25.8 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Schools reopening: Schools across England and the US are about to reopen their doors to students who have been at home for months thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. What is the best way to keep children, and school staff and parents, safe?

Face coverings in schools: Should children returning to school wear face coverings? Official advice on this has evolved during the pandemic.

Oxford vaccine: A large trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford has begun in the US. With similar trials already under way in the UK and Brazil, hopes are rising that we could find out if the vaccine works before the end of the year.

Pupils wash their hands as they arrive on the first day back to school at Charles Dickens Primary School in London

Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images

1 September

Pupils around the world return to schools with new coronavirus measures in place

Millions of pupils returned to school today for the first time since coronavirus lockdowns were introduced, including pupils in France, Poland, Russia, England and Wales as well as in Wuhan in China, where the coronavirus was first detected. Schools in England and Wales have introduced hygiene and social distancing measures in line with recently updated government guidance, including wearing of face coverings by pupils in communal areas and staggering of break times for different year groups. But a survey of 653 parents in these regions by YouGov revealed that 17 per cent were considering keeping their children out of school due to concerns about coronavirus. 

UK schools minister Nick Gibb today urged parents to send their children back to school. Doing so would “help them catch up on the lost education they’ll inevitably have suffered in the lockdown period,” he told the BBC Breakfast show. A survey of thousands of teachers by the National Foundation for Educational Research suggests that children in England are three months behind in their studies following lockdown, and that the estimated learning gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils has risen by 46 per cent. 98 per cent of the teachers in the survey, which was conducted at the end of the last school year in July, said their pupils were further behind in the curriculum than they should have been at the time.

Other coronavirus news

The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson today told MPs that people in the UK were returning to the office in “huge numbers”, although no evidence has emerged to support the claim. A spokesperson for Johnson told the Huffington Post “people will be returning to the office after the summer break and also children going back to school gives parents some added flexibility.” The UK government’s campaign to encourage people to return to offices launched today. But in a recent survey of more than 6000 workers who have been working from home due to the pandemic, nine out of 10 said they would like to continue to do so.

Pharmaceutical giant Astrazeneca has expanded its agreement with UK company Oxford Biomedica to scale up production of its coronavirus vaccine candidate. Oxford Biomedica has agreed to produce tens of millions of doses of the vaccine candidate, which is being developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with the University of Oxford. The candidate recently entered late-stage trials in the US, with 30,000 people enrolled. In a statement, AstraZeneca said its global manufacturing capacity was close to 3 billion doses.

Although there has been an increase in the use of face coverings in the UK, only 13 per cent of people who wear reusable face masks are maintaining them in a way that is helpful to stopping the spread of coronavirus, according to a poll of 1944 people by YouGov. The survey found that the use of face coverings in the UK increased from 38 per cent to 69 per cent from mid to late July. However, only 13 per cent of people who said they wear washable face masks also said they wash them after every use and at 60 degrees C or higher.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 851,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 25.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Immune response: Throughout the coronavirus pandemic there have been fierce debates over the science – when to lock down, whether face coverings help and whether children are less susceptible, for example. The latest row is over whether we have been ignoring a crucial part of our immune response to the virus: T-cells.

Children wait outside the school gate in Johannesburg, South Africa.

KIM LUDBROOK/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

28 August

Children are at “strikingly low” risk of getting severely ill from coronavirus

Children are much less likely to get severe covid-19 than adults, and it is very rare for them to die from it, according to a UK study that was published in the BMJ today. The study tracked 651 under-18s admitted to hospital with coronavirus between January and July in England, Scotland and Wales. Six children died, 1 per cent of the total, and they had all had other severe illnesses before the virus struck, some of which were themselves life-limiting. The authors say this is a “strikingly low” death rate compared with 27 per cent for all ages in the population as a whole over the same time period. The findings are in line with previous similar research. Young people make up 1 to 2 per cent of cases of covid-19 worldwide, although it’s not clear why they seem to be less affected.

“There have been no deaths in otherwise healthy school-age children,” Calum Semple at the University of Liverpool told the BBC. “There is no direct harm from children going back to school,” he said. The findings come as some UK schools have been reopening for all their pupils for the first time since lockdown in March, with most schools in England due to be back by next week.

Other coronavirus news

The UK has announced plans for quickly immunising large numbers of people if a coronavirus vaccine is developed before winter. They involve allowing a wider range of healthcare staff to give shots, such as midwives, physiotherapists and dentists, as well as pharmacists, who already administer flu vaccines. It also grants powers to approve any vaccine that is proven safe and effective before the end of the year to the Medicines Healthcare Regulatory Agency. This body will become responsible for approving all drugs and vaccines from the start of 2021 once the UK’s Brexit transition period is over.

Schools reopening in the US have found Legionnaires’ disease bacteria in their water supply, which can cause deadly pneumonia. The Legionella microbe was found in the water supply of five schools in Ohio and four in Pennsylvania last week, and experts say it could be in more.

The World Health Organization is trying to get more countries to join Covax, its coronavirus vaccine allocation scheme, according to documents seen by Reuters. The WHO plan would see countries pooling funds so that if one vaccine succeeds, all participants will get a fair allocation. But the UN agency has struggled to get enough richer nations on board. Countries including the UK, the US and Japan have made their own deals with manufacturers developing vaccines, securing millions of doses for their own citizens. 

Several large US states have said they will not follow official federal policy to stop testing people who think they have been exposed to the coronavirus but who do not have symptoms. In a rebuke to the new testing policy announced by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), California, Texas, Florida, New York and four other states have said they will continue with the old regime. The CDC’s move provoked claims that it was a politically motivated move to lower the number of people testing positive ahead of the 2020 election.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 832,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 24.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Internet outage slows covid-19 contact tracing: Health officials were unable to trace and isolate the contacts of thousands of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England until up to a week later.

A woman walks past chairs painted with the colours of the Tour de France leaders’ jerseys on the seafront in Nice, France

ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images

27 August

WHO warns Europe is entering “tricky moment” as coronavirus cases climb

As some European countries have continued to report growth in covid-19 cases, governments are responding by tightening up restrictions and safety measures. France reported 5429 daily cases today, up from 3776 a week ago, and Italy counted 1366 cases, its biggest daily increase in more than three months and up against 642 a week ago. Daily numbers in other major European countries are relatively stable, with Spain at 7296, Germany at 1507 and the UK at 1048.

The French prime minister Jean Castex warned the country had seen an “undeniable surge” of cases and the epidemic “could become exponential”, with cases rising as quickly as they did in the early days of the pandemic. The virus is now circulating in 20 of the country’s 101 “departments”, up from two previously. With France’s reproduction number – the average number of people one infected person will likely infect – now at 1.4, Castex said masks will become mandatory in Paris. The 21-day Tour de France will still go ahead this Saturday.

The German government today rejected calls to relax restrictions, with a leaked plan saying private parties will be limited to 25 people and the anticipated end of a ban on large public gatherings in October will instead be extended to the end of the year.

Hans Kluge at the World Health Organization said today that Europe is entering a “tricky moment” as schools reopen across the continent, though he stressed that schools had not been a “main contributor” to the epidemic. Asked by New Scientist at a press conference today if European countries’ responses to growing cases this week are commensurate with keeping the virus in check, Maria van Kerkhove at the WHO said: “What we are seeing is countries applying different measures. What we are seeing are targeted, tailored approaches. Hopefully these are time-bound.” On measures such as mandating face coverings and limiting the size of gatherings, she said: “All of these are different tools that may need to be applied. I think what we’re seeing is this calibration, of putting in efforts to suppress transmission to keep it at a low level while allowing societies to open up. This is one of the critical things we are all trying to figure out now.”

Other coronavirus news

The number of patients getting heart disease services at hospitals in the US and UK dropped by more than half during the countries’ lockdown, researchers have found. Writing in the journal Open Heart, they warned cardiology departments need to be prepared for a “significant increase in workload” in the coming months as a result.

In the UK, government statistics today show that three months after the launch of England’s contact tracing scheme, it is still falling short of reaching 80 per cent of close contacts of people who have tested positive for covid-19, the level the government’s scientific advisers say is needed. Three quarters of close contacts were reached between 13-19 August. Nearly 300,000 people have been reached since the system’s launch.

Separately, anyone in the UK on a low income who needs to self-isolate for 10 days and cannot work from home will be eligible to get £13 a day from the government in areas affected by local outbreaks, health secretary Matt Hancock said today.

A drug used to help cats with another coronavirus has been found to show promise in tackling the current coronavirus outbreak. The drug, GC376, and its parent, GC373, are “strong drug candidates for the treatment of human coronavirus infections because they have already been successful in animals,” the team write in Nature Communications. Here’s the New Scientist guide to all the latest on covid-19 treatments.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 826,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 24 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Is the rush to roll out a coronavirus vaccine undermining safety? Some shortcuts are being taken in the race to get a coronavirus vaccine approved, but there are also more resources, openness and scrutiny than ever before.

Pupils in Glasgow, Scotland return to school after lockdown on 12 August

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

26 August

Face coverings will now be mandatory for secondary school pupils in areas of England under lockdown 

Secondary school pupils in areas of England under local lockdowns will now be required to wear face coverings in all communal areas except classrooms, after the government reversed its guidance last night. The government has been under mounting pressure from headteachers to adopt a stricter policy on the use of face coverings ahead of schools reopening next month. Within coronavirus hotspots, “it probably does make sense in confined areas outside the classroom to use a face covering in the corridor and elsewhere,” UK prime minister Boris Johnson told journalists today, citing recently updated World Health Organization guidelines. The new rule won’t apply to schools in areas that aren’t under lockdown, although head teachers in any secondary school will have the flexibility to introduce their own rules. In Wales, the decision on the use of face coverings in schools will be left to individual schools and councils.

Other coronavirus news

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been criticised for changing its guidelines on coronavirus testing to say that some people without symptoms may not require a test, even if they have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. The change has not been explained by CDC leaders. Leana Wen, a doctor and public health professor at George Washington University, told CNN, “These are exactly the people who should be tested,” as they are key to contact tracing.

Fewer than 40,000 cases were confirmed in the US yesterday and daily new coronavirus cases there have been falling, after peaking on 22 July at about 70,000, though this may be due to insufficient testing. The total number of tests administered has fallen from an average of more than 820,000 per day in mid-August to about 690,000 per day in the last week or so.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 820,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Vaccine race: Some shortcuts are being taken in the race to get a coronavirus vaccine approved, but there are also more resources, openness and scrutiny than ever before.

Face coverings: Do you get angry when you see someone without a face covering? They might have a good reason to avoid one, even if it isn’t obvious.

Father and two children walking to school wearing face masks

Sally Anscombe/Getty Images

25 August

UK government under pressure to review policy on face coverings in schools in England

There is growing pressure on the UK government to review its policy on the wearing of face coverings in schools in England, after the Scottish government today announced that secondary school pupils will have to wear them in communal areas from Monday. Public Health England’s current guidance, issued in July, doesn’t recommend the use of face coverings in schools. The Association of School and College Leaders – a headteachers’ union in the UK – has criticised the lack of clarity around the rules on whether teachers and pupils can wear face coverings in schools in England. “The guidance is silent on what schools should do if staff or pupils want to wear face coverings,” the union’s general secretary, Geoff Barton told the BBC. During a visit to the south-west of England today, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said the government is continuing to look at the changing medical evidence, adding “if we need to change the advice then of course we will.” The Welsh government has said it will review its position on face coverings in schools. 

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization issued new guidance saying that children above age 12 should wear face masks in line with recommended practice for adults in the place where they live. Recent outbreaks in Scotland “reinforce the idea that covid-19 transmission in schools is potentially substantial”, said Rowland Kao at the University of Edinburgh in a statement. “Should masks be adopted, their use must be accompanied by awareness of the need for good mask hygiene and regular handwashing.”

Other coronavirus news

Two more patients have been reported to have been reinfected with the coronavirus, one in the Netherlands and another in Belgium. Yesterday, researchers at the University of Hong Kong announced that they had documented the first case of coronavirus reinfection. “That someone would emerge with a reinfection, that doesn’t make me nervous,” Marion Koopmans at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands told Dutch broadcaster NOS. “We have to see whether this happens more often.” 

Coronavirus cases in Spain are continuing to surge, with 175.7 cases per 100,000 people, according to the latest 14-day cumulative figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. This is compared to 62.8 cases per 100,000 people in France and 22.5 cases per 100,000 people in the UK. Unions in Madrid last week warned that the primary care system was “on the edge of collapse” due to lack of staff and capacity for testing.

People living in the Gaza Strip have been put under a lockdown after local authorities confirmed the first locally acquired cases of the coronavirus. A 48-hour lockdown went into effect on Monday evening across the territory.

Bali in Indonesia will not reopen to foreign tourists this year due to concerns about rising coronavirus cases.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 814,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.6 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Less deadly in Europe: It is becoming increasingly clear that people are less likely to die if they get covid-19 now compared with earlier in the pandemic, at least in Europe, but the reasons why are still shrouded in uncertainty.

Plasma treatment: Blood plasma donated by people who have recovered from covid-19 will be used as a treatment for the infection in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency use authorisation for the treatment on 23 August, but the evidence that it works is lacking.

First case of reinfection: A healthy 33-year-old man is the first person confirmed to have caught the coronavirus twice, according to unpublished research from the University of Hong Kong. As details of the case emerge, researchers say there is still much we don’t know.

Hong Kong residents receive free covid-19 test kits

MIGUEL CANDELA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

24 August

Researchers say they have detected the first case of coronavirus reinfection

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong say they have documented the first case of a person being reinfected with the coronavirus. The team analysed virus samples taken from a man when he first tested positive for the coronavirus in late March, and again when he tested positive for a second time in mid-August. They discovered several differences in the sequences of the virus from the first and second infections, suggesting the man had been infected with two separate strains of the virus, rather than one long-lasting infection. Their findings have been accepted for publication in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

What will the discovery mean for the dozens of vaccine candidates being developed to protect people against the coronavirus? It may indicate that being infected with the virus doesn’t necessarily protect people against future infections, said David Strain at the University of Exeter in a statement. “Vaccinations work by simulating infection to the body, thereby allowing the body to develop antibodies. If antibodies don’t provide lasting protection, we will need to revert to a strategy of viral near-elimination in order to return to a more normal life,” says Strain. But Brendan Wren at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it is important to take these results into context: “This is a very rare example of reinfection and it should not negate the global drive to develop covid-19 vaccines.”

Other coronavirus news

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sunday issued emergency use authorisation for convalescent plasma as a treatment for severe covid-19. This is drawn from people who have recovered from infection with the coronavirus and contains antibodies to fight the virus. In a statement the FDA said that “the known and potential benefits of the [treatment] outweigh the known and potential risks.” More than 70,000 people in the US have received convalescent plasma as a treatment for covid-19 since March, through a programme run by the Mayo Clinic. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said studies have found a 35 per cent improvement in survival for covid-19 patients given the plasma.

At least 17 staff and pupils at a school in Dundee have tested positive for the coronavirus less than two weeks after pupils returned to schools in Scotland. Kingspark school closed last Wednesday and pupils have been told to self-isolate until 3 September. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon today announced that secondary school pupils in Scotland may be advised to wear face coverings, in light of new guidance from the World Health Organization. Schools in England are due to reopen in September, but a spokesperson for the prime minister today said there are no plans to review the current guidance in England for the wearing of face coverings in schools.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 809,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 23.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Australia’s second wave: Australia’s second wave of the coronavirus appears to be finally subsiding, but the country isn’t out of the woods yet.

Vaccine technology: Prevention is better than cure, so we should start using genetic techniques to stop dangerous animal diseases jumping to humans, say Scott Nuismer and James Bull.

Commuters arrive for work at Victoria Station in London

Alex Lentati/LNP/Shutterstock

21 August

Coronavirus R number in UK rises slightly but infections appear to be levelling off

In the UK, the latest estimate for the R number, the number of people each coronavirus case infects, has risen to between 0.9 and 1.1, up slightly from 0.8 to 1.0 the previous week. However, due to a time lag in the data used to model the R number, this is more representative of the situation two to three weeks ago. Estimates for the infection growth rates range between -3 and 1 per cent. This suggests infections in the UK are levelling off on average, in a continuation of the trend observed over the last few weeks. This is consistent with the latest results from the random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics, which suggests about 24,600 people in England – 1 in 2200 – had the virus in the week ending 13 August, compared to 28,300 people – 1 in 1900 – in the week ending 9 August

Local coronavirus restrictions in place in parts of northern England will be lifted on Saturday. People from two different households in Wigan in Greater Manchester and Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire will now be allowed to meet in homes and gardens. But restrictions will remain in place in some other parts of Greater Manchester and Lancashire, as well as in parts of West Yorkshire and in Leicester. Oldham, which had the highest rate of infections in the UK last week at 103.1 cases per 100,000 people, has avoided the introduction of restrictions but will be subjected to “a more targeted intervention”, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. 

Other coronavirus news

Travellers arriving in the UK from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago will be required to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, starting at 4.00 am on Saturday, UK transport minister Grant Shapps announced yesterday. There are currently 47.2 cases per 100,000 people in Croatia compared to 21.2 per 100,000 people in the UK, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Those arriving in the UK from Portugal, which currently has a case rate of 28.5 per 100,000 people, will no longer need to self-isolate. Shapps said it would be “too difficult” for the UK to adopt a more targeted approach to the quarantine rules like Germany’s, affecting travellers from specific regions rather than entire countries, due to the difficulty in assessing infection patterns overseas in sufficient detail.

Coronavirus cases have been reported among pupils or teachers at 41 schools in Germany’s capital Berlin, less than two weeks after schools reopened. Berlin was one of the first places in Germany to reopen schools after the summer break. Schools in Scotland reopened earlier this month and schools in England will reopen in September. 

South Korea recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since 8 March, with 324 new cases confirmed on Thursday. There have been 732 cases linked to the new outbreak so far, 56 of which have been linked to a single church in Seoul.

Lebanon has reintroduced a partial lockdown and an overnight curfew in an attempt to suppress a recent spike in coronavirus infections in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion. The country recorded 605 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily case number so far.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 794,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Coronavirus and flying: Is it safe to fly with the coronavirus still circulating? That depends partly on where you are. But while hard evidence is scarce, it appears the risk of being infected with covid-19 during a flight is relatively low.

Commuters at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof central train station in Frankfurt, Germany.

Alex Kraus/Bloomberg via Getty Images

20 August

WHO warns of “risk of resurgence” in Europe as Germany and Spain see cases surge

The risk of a resurgence of the coronavirus “has never been far away,” the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge said during a briefing today. Europe recorded 40,000 more coronavirus cases in the first week of August, compared to the first week of June, when cases were at their lowest, and cases have steadily been rising in the region, in part due to the relaxation of public health and social measures, he said. Germany recorded its highest daily number of new cases since April, with 1707 new cases confirmed on Wednesday. Spain recorded 3715 cases on the same day, the highest daily number there since the country’s lockdown was lifted in late June. “Authorities have been easing some of the restrictions and people have been dropping their guard,” said Kluge. 

Kluge thanked young people for the sacrifices they have made to protect themselves and others from covid-19 but expressed concern about people aged between 15 and 24, who account for a growing number of cases. “Low risk does not mean no risk. No one is invincible,” he said.

Other coronavirus news

England saw a 27 per cent increase in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus in the week ending 12 August compared to the previous week, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. Its latest figures state that 6616 people tested positive for the virus, whilst the number of people tested for the virus went down by 2 per cent over the same time period.

UK health minister Matt Hancock yesterday told the BBC that people in the UK should be able to return to workplaces without the need for wearing face masks, citing evidence from NHS Test and Trace that people have been largely catching the virus in meetings between households rather than in offices. But researchers, including microbiologist Simon Clarke at the University of Reading, say there isn’t sufficient data to rule out the risk of transmission within workplaces and from workplaces to households. “The virus needs to be taken into homes by someone and they will have had to pick it up from somewhere else […] even a single workplace transmission could lead to multiple onward infections in a family, household or other setting.”

India reported a record daily increase in coronavirus cases for the country today, with more than 69,652 cases confirmed, according to its health ministry.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 788,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Rewilding the sky: Let’s take inspiration from the way we intervene to help degraded ecosystems recover and attempt to restore the atmosphere back to full health, taking advantage of the lull in human activity under covid-19, writes Graham Lawton.

A medical worker takes a swab sample in a drive-thru testing centre

REUTERS/Carl Recine – RC2Z2I9ILO1A

19 August

Random swab testing survey to be expanded in England and to other UK nations

Coronavirus tests will be carried out on more people in the UK to help monitor the spread of the virus, the government says. The random swab testing survey for coronavirus by the Office for National Statistics, which started in May, will be expanded to test more people in England as well as people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the UK’s health minister Matt Hancock announced today. In England, the survey will expand from testing 28,000 people every two weeks in the community, outside of hospitals and care homes, to testing 150,000 people. Hancock said this is part of a wider effort to expand coronavirus testing in the UK.

Testing larger numbers of people will allow smaller changes in infection growth trends to be interpreted with more reliability, says biologist and medical innovation researcher Michael Hopkins at the University of Sussex. It will provide a “higher definition picture of the outbreak”, helping to pinpoint at-risk groups within the population, says Hopkins. More widespread testing could also help capture people who have the virus but are asymptomatic. An analysis by the ONS published yesterday found that only 28 per cent of people testing positive for the coronavirus in England reported having symptoms around the time they were tested.

Other coronavirus news

Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison backtracked today after saying that coronavirus vaccination would be mandatory in Australia. Currently there isn’t a coronavirus vaccine available but there are 160 vaccine candidates being developed and 31 are in human trials. The Australian government recently secured access to the vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and has now said that if the vaccine is approved it will offer it to Australian citizens for free. Clarifying his earlier comments about making the vaccine mandatory, Morrison said “we can’t hold someone down and make them take it”, adding that vaccination would be “encouraged.”

Almost 1200 fewer people died this year in New Zealand up to 20 July compared to during the same period last year, a rare trend in light of the global pandemic. Some researchers speculate this may be due to a reduction in deaths from other respiratory illnesses, thanks to the introduction of measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus. In May, neighbouring Australia reported lower flu rates than usual, which was also attributed to coronavirus lockdown measures. New Zealand has recorded only 22 covid-19 related deaths. 

South Korea recorded its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases since March yesterday, with 297 cases of the virus confirmed. Officials in Seoul have begun introducing restrictions on gatherings in the city and its surrounding area, prohibiting indoor gatherings of more than 50 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 782,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 22.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Achieving herd immunity: Today, some headlines celebrate the fact that many places might have achieved herd immunity including Britain and pockets of London, New York and Mumbai. But others warn that millions will die before we get there. The true picture is far messier, partly because scientists don’t even agree on what herd immunity is, let alone how it might be achieved. So how will we know when populations are protected against the coronavirus?

A worker holding a tray containing ampoules of “Sputnik V”, a covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Zelenograd, Russia

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images

18 August

“We need to prevent vaccine nationalism,” says WHO director-general

The World Health Organization (WHO) today called for an end to “vaccine nationalism”, the hoarding of vaccine doses by some nations. “The fastest way to end this pandemic and to reopen economies is to start by protecting the highest risk populations everywhere,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing today. “We need to prevent vaccine nationalism,” he said. The priority should be protecting essential workers and other at-risk groups, Ghebreyesus said: “If we can work together, we can ensure that all essential workers are protected and proven treatments like dexamethasone are available to those who need them.” Although there currently isn’t a vaccine available for covid-19 there are more than 160 candidates in development, with 31 in human trials. Several countries have already secured deals for doses of some of these vaccine candidates. The UK has purchased at least 190 million doses, including 100 million of the vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. 

Separately, Takeshi Kasai, WHO Western Pacific regional director, told the briefing that “the epidemic is changing.” He said that “people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are increasingly driving the spread. Many are unaware they are infected.” This increases the risk of the virus spreading to the more vulnerable,” he added.

Other coronavirus news

Public Health England will be replaced by a new public health agency, UK health minister Matt Hancock confirmed today. The new agency, called the National Institute for Health Protection, will combine “the expertise of Public Health England with the enormous response capabilities of NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Centre,” Hancock said at the Policy Exchange think tank. Dido Harding, the current head of NHS Test and Trace, will lead the new organisation initially, Hancock said. NHS Test and Trace has been criticised for repeatedly failing to reach the proportion of contacts of people diagnosed with coronavirus that is recommended by government scientific advisors – 80 per cent or more. Between 30 July and 5 August for instance, the system only managed to reach 74.2 per cent of the contacts of people who tested positive for the virus in England. 

The proportion of people in the UK who reported experiencing symptoms of depression was 20 per cent in June, up from 10 per cent in July last year, according to a survey by the Office for National Statistics.

Voters from six US states filed a lawsuit against the country’s president Donald Trump and the postmaster general Louis DeJoy yesterday over cuts to the US postal service ahead of the upcoming general election. Many states are expecting a surge in postal ballots this year due to the pandemic.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 775,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 21.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Travelling abroad safely: Many countries have seen an increase in coronavirus cases, making going abroad more of a gamble. So what are the different options for managing the current risks from international travel, and which countries have got it right?

Return of covid-19 to New Zealand: New Zealand has acted swiftly to contain a new coronavirus outbreak after going 102 days virus-free, but it’s still unclear whether it can stamp it out again.

A-level students hold a sit in protest at the Department for Education over the results fiasco

17 August

A-level and GCSE grades in England to be based on teachers’ predictions instead of controversial algorithm

Pupils in England will be given A-level and GCSE grades estimated by their teachers rather than by an algorithm that sparked protests after it was used to moderate the grades of A-level pupils last week. The algorithm, which was introduced because the pandemic disrupted the usual exam process, resulted in about 280,000 A-level pupils in England seeing their scores drop by at least one grade or more compared to their predicted results.Those from disadvantaged backgrounds were worst-affected. UK education minister Gavin Williamson today announced that England’s exams regulator, Ofqual is scrapping the algorithm, bringing policy in line with the UK’s other nations. Williamson and Ofqual chair, Roger Taylor apologised for the “distress” caused. 

Other coronavirus news

England’s health agency, Public Health England, could be replaced by a new body specifically focused on dealing with pandemics. The new agency would be modelled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute and is expected to be announced this week by the UK’s health minister, Matt Hancock, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph. The article also indicates that Hancock plans to merge the NHS Test and Trace scheme with the pandemic response work of Public Health England. “The reports in the media of a proposed ‘axing’ of Public Health England is of huge concern,” said Amitava Banerjee, clinical data scientist and cardiologist at University College London. A major restructuring of public health function, as the global covid-19 emergency continues, will divert limited resources away from public health measures such as testing and tracing, said Banerjee. 

Voters in the US are concerned about whether it is still safe to post their ballots, after the country’s president Donald Trump last week said he would block additional funding required for the postal service to handle the expected surge in postal ballots this year. Many US states have been trying to make postal voting easier so that people are able to vote safely during the pandemic.

South Korea tightened social distancing rules on Sunday after 197 new coronavirus cases linked to a new outbreak were confirmed on Saturday. “We’re facing a crisis where if the current spread isn’t controlled, it would bring an exponential rise in cases, which could in turn lead to the collapse of our medical system and enormous economic damage,” director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jeong Eun-kyeong said during a briefing.

New Zealand’s general election will be postponed by a month due to an on-going coronavirus outbreak in Auckland, the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. Nine new cases in the new cluster were confirmed today, bringing the total to 58 cases so far.

A new test for coronavirus-specific T-cells – immune cells that help the body fight infections – could help researchers developing vaccine candidates. The test is being developed by UK company Indoor Biotechnologies, which says early trials found that some people who had the coronavirus but tested negative for antibodies went on to test positive for T-cells. It still isn’t clear whether antibodies or T-cells provide long-lasting immunity against the virus and how long such immunity might last.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 776,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 21.7 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Coronavirus and pets: Reports of pets being infected with the coronavirus have been growing, but how worried should owners be? And could pets be spreading the virus between people?

Passengers wait next to the Eurostar Terminal at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris.

Michel Euler/AP/Shutterstock

14 August

UK visitors to France could face restrictions after UK imposed quarantine on arrivals 

Travellers arriving in France from the UK could be required to quarantine for two weeks after arrival into the country, Clément Beaune, France’s junior minister for European Affairs, told journalists on Thursday. His statement came after the UK added France and the Netherlands to its list of countries from which arriving travellers will be required to quarantine for 14 days. France currently has a coronavirus case rate of 34.0 people per 100,000, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with 41.6 cases per 100,000 people in the Netherlands. The case rate in the UK is currently 17.3 per 100,000 people. The UK’s new rules are effective from 4:00 BST on Saturday 15 August and will also apply for people arriving in the UK from Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos and Aruba. Transport minister Grant Shapps said that there are currently about 160,000 people from the UK on holidays in France. 

Other coronavirus news

Restrictions affecting parts of northern England and Leicester will stay in place due to on-going local outbreaks, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care announced today. People living in the affected areas in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, East Lancashire and Leicester aren’t allowed to meet with people from other households indoors or in private gardens. Oldham in Greater Manchester has experienced the largest week-on-week rise in cases in England, recording a rate of 107.5 cases per 100,000 people between 2 and 8 August, up from 57.8 during the previous week. The government says the restrictions will be reviewed again next week. 

Elsewhere in England, easing of restrictions allowing small wedding receptions, live indoor performances and beauty treatments will go ahead from Saturday after being delayed from the original date of 1 August, UK prime minister Boris Johnson confirmed today. Bowling alleys, casinos and play centres will also be allowed to reopen.

Despite some local outbreaks, coronavirus cases across England as a whole appear to be levelling off, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS estimates that 28,300 people in England – one in 1900 people – had the virus in the week ending 9 August, the same as the previous week.

New Zealand has extended a lockdown in Auckland by at least 12 days, the country’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. New Zealand had been free of locally transmitted coronavirus infections for 102 days until four people from the same household in Auckland tested positive for the virus earlier this week. The number of cases in the new outbreak there has since risen to 29. 

North Korea has lifted a three-week lockdown in the border city of Kaesong after a suspected coronavirus case there, state media reported today. The World Health Organization last week said that tests on the suspected case – a man who returned to North Korea after defecting – had been inconclusive. North Korea has not reported any other cases.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 760,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Staff of Guardian Funerals transport the casket of Covid-19 victim

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

13 August

UK government has changed the way deaths from covid-19 are recorded in England

England’s covid-19 death toll has been revised down by more than 5000, after the UK government announced a new UK-wide standard for recording deaths caused by the coronavirus. The changes mean the removal of 5377 deaths from Public Health England’s official record, decreasing the UK’s total numbers of deaths from the virus from 46,706 to 41,329 as of 12 August. 

People who recovered from covid-19 before dying from other causes more than a month later may have been included in the previous death toll due to the way Public Health England was collecting its data. “It had become essentially useless for epidemiological monitoring,” said epidemiologist Keith Neal at the University of Nottingham, UK. From now on England’s official death toll will only include people who died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus, bringing it in line with the other nations in the UK. 

Other coronavirus news

The number of patients admitted to hospitals in England for routine treatment was down by 67 per cent in June compared to the same time last year, according to data from NHS England. The number of people visiting accident and emergency units was also down, by 30 per cent compared to last year, as was the number going to their family doctor with symptoms of cancer and being urgently referred to a specialist , at 20 per cent lower than last year. The NHS England data also suggests more people waited longer than usual for planned procedures, such as knee and hip operations. The Health Foundation charity told the BBC that this indicates the NHS is still “nowhere close to business as usual following the first outbreak of covid-19,” and warned that long waiting times could lead to deterioration in people’s health.

The coronavirus may have been circulating in New Zealand for weeks prior to the country’s new outbreak, according to New Zealand’s director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield. The first person in the new cluster of cases started showing symptoms as early as 31 July, Bloomfield said during a media briefing in Wellington, adding that genome sequencing was underway on the original four cases to try and trace the train of transmission. Officials are also investigating the theory that the cases were imported via refrigerated freight. New Zealand had been free of locally transmitted coronavirus infections for 102 days before four people from the same household tested positive earlier this week. 

Authorities in two cities in China said they found traces of the coronavirus on imported frozen food and on food packaging. Samples of chicken wings imported to the city of Shenzhen from Brazil and packaging of frozen shrimp imported from Ecuador to a city in China’s Anhui province tested positive for the virus. It isn’t yet clear when the products became contaminated but China is increasing screening at its ports. The coronavirus can survive for up to two years frozen at -20°C but is destroyed by heating to 70°C. The World Health Organization says that there isn’t currently any evidence that people can catch the virus from food or food packaging. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 750,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.6 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy: Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has both been hailed as a success, and condemned as a failure. So which is it?

Two woman in Ripollet, Catalonia wearing face masks outside a coronavirus testing area.

PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images

12 August

Germany and Spain among a growing list of western European countries where coronavirus cases are surging

Coronavirus cases are rising in Germany, Spain and other countries in western Europe, with Spain recording 1418 new infections on Tuesday, and Germany detecting 1200 cases in the last 24 hours, the country’s biggest daily increase for three months. In the Netherlands, daily new infections are back to about half the level they were at during the initial peak. Spain now has the highest rate of coronavirus infections in the region, with 94 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 38 in the Netherlands, 30 in France, 18 in the UK and 14 in Germany, according to cumulative figures for the last 14 days from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. 

Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, says people returning from holiday may be the reason for the increasing number of cases in Germany, as the UK and Germany continue to warn people against non-essential travel to parts of Spain. Any holidaymakers returning to the UK from Spain are required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. The list of countries from which all arrivals to the UK must quarantine may be updated this week to include 14 more countries, including France.

Other coronavirus news

The World Health Organization (WHO) is in talks with Russian authorities about reviewing the coronavirus vaccine candidate whose approval for use in Russia yesterday sparked criticism from researchers. Russia’s vaccine, Sputnik-V, is not on the WHO’s list of six vaccines that have reached phase III trials involving clinical testing on large groups of people. Russia’s health minister Mikhail Murashko today dismissed safety concerns expressed by foreign researchers about the rapid approval of the vaccine as “groundless.”

Lebanon announced its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases yesterday since the start of the pandemic, with more than 300 new cases and seven deaths from covid-19. Hospitals in the country are overwhelmed following the aftermath of the explosion in Beirut last week. WHO spokesperson Tarik Jarasevic told a UN briefing yesterday that the displacement of people due to the explosion risks accelerating the spread of the coronavirus there.

At least 800 people are estimated to have died around the world as a result of misinformation about the coronavirus during the first three months of this year, a study has found. A further 5800 people are estimated to have been admitted to hospital for the same reason during this period. The majority of the deaths and hospitalisations were due to people consuming methanol and alcohol-based cleaning products, incorrectly believing that they were cures for covid-19, according to the study, which was published in The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 744,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.4 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Children at risk: A staggering 115 million children in India are at risk of malnutrition, as the world’s largest school lunch programme has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Who should get vaccinated first?: It is August 2021, and the moment the world has been waiting for has finally arrived – a vaccine against covid-19 has passed all the tests and is ready to be rolled out. But this isn’t the end. There are more than 7.5 billion people in need of vaccination but perhaps only a billion doses available in the first six months of production. Who gets one?

Staying connected: Greeting neighbours or gossiping with a colleague can boost your health and well-being, but coronavirus lockdowns are putting that in jeopardy. Here’s how to stay connected.

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced new lockdown measures in Auckland after four new coronavirus cases were detected in the community

New Zealand government

11 August

New Zealand reimposes Auckland lockdown after first locally transmitted cases for 102 days

New Zealand has reported its first new coronavirus cases thought to be acquired through local transmission, after going 102 days without a single reported case outside of managed isolation or quarantine. Four people within one family in south Auckland tested positive for the virus, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said today at a press briefing. New Zealand has been widely praised for its aggressive response to the coronavirus, closing its borders to non-nationals and implementing one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, all at a time when the country had only 205 cases and no deaths from covid-19. Testing is now being ramped up in Auckland and lockdown restrictions will be reimposed there from tomorrow. Everyone except essential workers will be asked to work from home and schools will be closed for most children. Other public facilities, including bars and restaurants, will be required to close and gatherings will be limited to 10 people. 

Other coronavirus news

Researchers have expressed concerns about the approval of a coronavirus vaccine candidate in Russia today. The virus has been approved for widespread use, despite only being tested in dozens of people. “There is no data on the Russian-led vaccine for the global health community to scrutinise,” said Michael Head, public health research fellow at the University of Southampton, UK. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin said one of his daughters has already been inoculated, and claimed it was safe. 

The number of contact tracers working for NHS Test and Trace will be reduced by 6000 in England by the end of this month, the UK government has announced. The remaining 12,000 contact tracers will work more closely with local public health authorities to help with contact tracing within communities. Between 16 and 22 July, NHS Test and Trace only managed to reach 75 per cent of the contacts of people who tested positive for the coronavirus in England. Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace said that having a more localised approach will ensure more contacts of coronavirus cases within communities can be reached.

Australia’s remote Northern Territory will keep its borders shut to coronavirus-affected states until at least 2022, according to local officials. People arriving from affected states will be required to quarantine at a hotel for 14 days at their own expense.

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 737,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 20.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Latest on coronavirus from New Scientist

Question about the UK’s new rapid tests: Two 90-minute tests for the coronavirus will be rolled out by the UK government in the coming weeks – and while both are promising, neither has publicly available data to support its use.

Common cold virus vaccine: A vaccine that protects against one of the main common cold viruses – respiratory syncytial virus – has been shown to be safe and effective in a clinical trial and could be available by 2024.

A man seen in a street during a snowfall in the early stages of the pandemic.

Sergei Fadeichev/TASS via Getty Images

10 August

No indication there is seasonality with the coronavirus, says WHO 

There is no indication that the coronavirus is seasonal and it could bounce back any time, World Health Organization (WHO) leaders said at a press briefing today. Evidence suggests the coronavirus is unlike flu, which tends to spike in autumn and winter. “If you take pressure off the virus, the virus will bounce back. That’s what we will say to countries in Europe – keep the pressure on,” said Mike Ryan, WHO executive director of the emergencies program. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of WHO’s covid-19 response, said that the majority of the world’s population remains susceptible to the virus, and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasised the importance of countries taking targeted action to tackle local outbreaks through methods like localised lockdowns employed in Leicester, UK. 

Other coronavirus news

The WHO says it has only received a fraction of the funding it needs for an initiative aimed at developing and distributing drugs, vaccines and other tools to help tackle the pandemic. “While we’re grateful for those that have made contributions, we’re only 10 per cent of the way to funding the billions required to realise the promise of the ACT [Access to Covid-19 Tools] accelerator,” Tedros said during a press briefing today.

“Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic,” Gkikas Magiorkinis, an epidemiologist at Athens University and one of the scientists advising the Greek government, told journalists today. This comes after Greece recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, with 203 confirmed on Sunday.

In France, it is now compulsory to wear a face mask outdoors in certain crowded areas within Paris. Health officials said the rate of positive coronavirus tests was 2.4 per cent in the Paris area compared to the average of 1.6 per cent for people tested in the country as a whole. Other cities, including Nice and Lille, have also introduced new rules making face masks mandatory in specific outdoor areas.

It has been more than 100 days since New Zealand last detected a locally acquired coronavirus case. As of today, the country has only 21 active infections, all of which are being managed in isolation facilities. Authorities are still testing thousands of people each day. “We need to be prepared to quickly stamp out any future cases,” said New Zealand’s director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield on Sunday. 

Coronavirus deaths

Matthew Rowett

The worldwide death toll has passed 731,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 19.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

NHS advice board promoting Test and Trace in Birmingham city centre in the UK

Mike Kemp/In PIctures via Getty Images

7 August

The number of people estimated to have the virus in England may be levelling off

The number of people estimated to have covid-19 in England appears to be levelling off, after rising slightly in July, according to a random swab testing survey of almost 120,000 people by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS estimates that 28,300 people outside of hospitals and care homes in England had the virus in the week ending 2 August – about one in every 1900 people. This is down slightly from the previous week’s estimate of 35,700. But it isn’t clear how infection rates may differ across different regions. In Wales, which was included in the survey for the first time, an estimated 1400 people had covid-19 in the week ending 2 August, equivalent to one in every 2200 people.

The proportion of people in the UK who say they have been wearing face coverings has gone up for the second week in a row, according to a separate ONS survey. In the week ending 2 August, 96 per cent of people said they had worn a face covering outside their home, up from 84 per cent in the previous week and 71 per cent the week before. The survey also found that 72 per cent of people said they had socialised with others in person, just over half of whom said they had always maintained social distancing. 

Other coronavirus news

Coronavirus vaccine trials could be undermined by the lack of diversity among participants, according to researchers. In the recent trial of a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca, fewer than 1 per cent of the approximately 1000 participants were black and only about 5 per cent were Asian, compared to 91 per cent of participants who were white. In a smaller trial of a vaccine candidate being developed by US company Moderna, 40 out of 45 participants were white. “Diversity is important to ensure pockets of people don’t have adverse side-effects,” Oluwadamilola Fayanju, a surgeon and researcher at Duke University told the Guardian.

The city of Preston in England is being placed under stricter local lockdown measures following a rise in coronavirus cases. From midnight on 7 August residents from different households aren’t allowed to meet indoors or in private gardens. These new measures are in line with those currently in place in east Lancashire, Greater Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire.

More than one million people in countries across Africa have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, although health officials say this is certainly an underestimate. “We haven’t seen the peak in Africa yet,” Mary Stephen, technical officer at the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa told Al Jazeera. Although the majority of cases confirmed so far are in South Africa, it is also performing significantly more tests than other African countries.

India has recorded its highest number of daily new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, with 62,538 cases confirmed on Friday. There have been more than 2 million cases recorded in the country since the pandemic began.

Coronavirus deaths

The worldwide death toll has passed 715,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 19.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.

Click here to see previous daily updates

Matthew Rowett

Matthew Rowett

Matthew Rowett

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An Investigation into Potential Job Roles & Agencies - Part 2

1. Junior User Experience Designer, FinancialForce

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/job-listing/graduate-user-experience-designer-financialforce-JV_IC2698423_KO0,33_KE34,48.htm?jl=3715772076&utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

https://www.financialforce.com

The job opportunity at FinancialForce is a great one, however I won’t be able to apply for it this time as I will still be at university when the application deadline is, and I want to develop myself and my portfolio further until the end of my university course in May. Nevertheless, I believe this would be a good opportunity for me as it is close to Leeds, and is easily accessible by the motorway. 

FinancialForce are a company that ‘accelerate business value with comprehensive best practices and the most intelligent analytics’.

The role itself is part of the UX team. The attractive aspect of this job is that it is a junior designer role, which would be perfect for me in my current career position. There will be an opportunities in the role to ease into more responsibility, which again is a positive as it would help me progress in the company.

What will the company offer to me in the role?

A structured plan to enable me to realise my potential and mature as a designer

Training opportunities

A place for me in a growing, market leading company

Facts about the role

The role is based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Expected start September 2021

I will have a dedicated mentor (who they call a Graduate Success Coach) from day 1, offering support and guidance

This is a permanent position from day 1

The first 6 months of your FinancialForce career will be spent working through our supportive Graduate Program

How can I be successful in the role?

I need to be a good communicator, with the ability to articulate my ideas effectively

Be a self starter, motivated with an appetite to learn

I must have a good understanding of a user centred design process

Experience in creating design assets - user journey maps, wireframes and prototypes

What else would give me an advantage to get the role

Worked in an Agile environment

Hands on experience with user research and usability testing

Experience of business software or a business environment

The application includes a link to your LinkedIn profile, as well as your CV and any additional files of your work. This is a reminder of how important it is to have a social profile, especially LinkedIn.

2. Pocketworks

https://pocketworks.co.uk

Pocketworks is an agency in Leeds that design apps. The company was founded in 2012 by Tobin Harris, who realised that companies were not realising their potential with their apps. I have spotted the same thing! So it is good that we both think alike. 

This company sounds very interesting to work for, as they share the same ambition as me: creating experiences for clients that make their lives easier, in this case making them profit.

It was interesting to see their work process, which is to innovate, deliver, improve and learn by using data analysis and prototypes. They are aware of the UX process, which is beneficial to me as an aspiring UX Designer, as I will develop by working this way.

The project that stuck out to me was the instant match analysis data that gets sent to football referees. This project sounds really interesting, and even though the details were private, it stuck out to me. I am a massive football fan, so projects like this are unique and I would love to work on a project like this.

Here is what the client had to say about the project:

“Our users have a challenging lifestyle, often on the move. We wanted to develop a valuable and convenient tool for them to benefit from every day, and it was vital we partnered with a company that got this vision."

“We were scouting for leading expertise and skills, as well as passion for what we wanted to achieve, and we found that in Pocketworks."

"The project ran smoothly, the teams collaborated every step of the way and the final app, used by more than 500 match officials and staff across all UK professional leagues, is testament to this.”

Mike Adamson, Head of Systems & Analysis, PGMOL

3. Supremo

To look for some more agencies in and around the Manchester area, I found an agency called Supremo. It actually neighbours Salford university, which is handy.

https://www.supremo.co.uk

Supremo have a unique website, with a circle icon as a mouse. This was a fun addition to the website and shows that they are aware of design.

Their values are admirable:

- Straight talking

- Warm welcome

- Big ideas

- Open ears

I think this is very refreshing to hear, as most agencies seem to be slightly hard to reach, and it feels like you are not very welcome with the door closed. The fact that they are encouraging you to get in touch really gives you that extra confidence in yourself to get in touch with them.

They offer students positions to gain experience, which absolutely took me back. I’ve never seen anything like this before; it is so fantastic to see that they are aware of the struggles of students starting out in their design career. For example, the description below mentions the benefits such as working alongside professionals, networking and gaining skills to become ready for future employers. Just the fact that they are aware of this as an agency and are offering a service to help, is genuinely incredible.

The available roles are a design placement and a development placement. The design placement looks extremely attractive to me at this moment in time. To apply for the role, it says that you need to simply email them.

Their portfolio is easy to navigate; helped by a filter with branding, UX Design and web development. 

My favourite piece of work that stood out to me was Walk the Bear, which is an app that acts as therapy, which involves walking and talking. This idea is unique and it is relatable to me, as I love a walk in the countryside.

The idea is to walk and talk with a psychologist, outside in beautiful places. What a fantastic idea! 

What is behind the idea? Why walking and talking?

Exercise - Research indicates that physical activity produces changes in your brain that make you happier and more relaxed.

Fresh Air - Regular doses of fresh air help to boost your immune system, reduce stress, and maintain good overall health and well-being.

Beautiful Scenery - Trees, lakes and other natural and urban scenery inspire you to look beyond yourself to new ideas and opportunities.

https://www.walkthebear.org/about/

4. Eden Agency

https://eden.agency/work/ai-android-app

Eden Agency is an agency that began with two software developers. The team is now almost 20 people. The team includes developers and system architects, designers and UX designers, strategists, testers, project and account managers.

They have always adapted to technology, which has helped them grow as an agency. They’ve developed smartphone apps as well as interfaces for XR since the Oculus Rift was released.

Again, their aim is to create digital services that improve lives and communities.

The piece of work that stood out to me the most was an app for Hillarys, which is a company that fits blinds. They wanted to give customers an idea of the way their windows could look before booking an appointment with them, which is why they asked for Eden Agency to help. 

The brief was to:

‘Help us sell the dream of great shutters to customers by letting them see the dressings in their window before our advisors visit.’

The idea is for the customer to take a picture of their window, and then choose from available blinds that can be fitted into the space. The user has 4 options to choose from: Style, Panel, Colours & Louvres.

5. UI/UX Designer Internship, WellBe

https://angel.co/company/wellbe-3/jobs/939171-ui-ux-designer-internship?utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

Another avenue I could go down is an unpaid internship, which may not be possible however if I were to change my living arrangements and move back home this could be a possibility. It is always important to keep an open mind about your career path.

An unpaid internship has its benefits, as it is not as popular due to there being no salary, however the experience and the networking opportunities would be priceless. This would be beneficial to me as I have no proper UX experience in terms of a paid job, and I will be able to grow my portfolio. Also, doing unpaid work is attractive to future employers, as it demonstrates your willingness to learn, and that money isn’t the driving factor in your career.

My responsibilities in the role will be to:

Generate wireframes and prototypes

Develop design concepts from initial sketches through to polished final screens and assets

Create and illustrate content for blogs, website, press and social media channels

Translate high level design requirements into wireframes and engaging, functional user interfaces

Assist with conducting user research

For this role, I will need to have:

Strong UX/UI skills

Solid design education or background

Ability to problem solve, nothing is unachievable

Aptitude for learning

Start-up mentality

Inquisitive, passionate and enthusiastic about getting things done

Creative and thorough, with high attention to detail

Positive, can do, go-getting energy

Ability to take direction but also be a self-start and come with solutions

My position would be reviewed after 6 months. If it is going well, I could be able to stay on as a full time paid employee.

[thestartuplabofficial]

Top 5 Business Startup Ideas During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Coronavirus has not only affected our lives but has also shaken up the global economy. All the small businesses have collapsed, and companies have fired their employees. This pandemic has taught everyone of us to be self-sufficient and to explore the new dimension in their careers.

The preceding time will witness heavy traffic on the online platforms. This a golden opportunity for those who always wanted to start something of their own as many people are going for online businesses. If you start your online business now, you will land up in a win-win situation. Surprisingly there has been an 80% increase in the independent Business Compliance Services For Startups.

If you have a skill and passion for working, you will be able to be to build your empire successfully. You can earn good money if you work with consistency and hardwork.

Here we have mentioned all the ideas you need to know about starting your startup.

TUTORING CLASSES: Do you have a good knowledge of the subjects and can teach them? Then this is the Best Startup IT Services in Delhi you can follow, according to experts, 1.716 billion students and learners have been affected due to the outbreak of COVID-19. We guess figures are enough to tell you how badly the situation needs online tutoring classes. If you belong to the education department or have a professional knowledge of a particular subject, you are ready to kick start your career.

Parents and students are already stressed up with the situation, and the impact it has left on the education to start your career in it all you need is to advertise your services on social media and then begin your classes on the video-conferencing apps.

FREELANCING NEVER GOES OUT OF FASHION: Multiple freelancing platforms help you to connect with the recruiters who are looking for freelancers. If you are a content writer, social media marketer, digital marketer, website developer, or trainer, you can quickly get projects on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, etc.

ON DEMAND CARETAKERS: According to reports in Manchester,there was a 70% hike in the platforms providing caretakers. People are going the extra mile to take care of themselves and people in many states where cases are increasing; people are taking care of the COVID-19 patients at home during the initial stages.

FITNESS AND WELLNESS CLASSES: After gyms and health centers being closed, you can use the digital platforms to hold Healthcare Startups in Delhi and One Stop Solutions For Start-Ups sessions. Various gyms are increasing their online classes and are organizing digital workout programs to maintain the health of their customers. This sector is seeing tremendous growth.

GROCERY AND MEDICINE DELIVERY: The fear of catching the virus is keeping people inside their house as people are feeling scared to step out of the house, you can take your business online and would deliver grocery items or medicines at their doorstep.

The unpredictable times have befallen everybody, including the business world. The above-listed ideas are the best Startup Accounting And Compliance ideas to emerge your business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[bactechnews-blog]

Top Web Development Companies In Ahemdabad, Gujrat

Gujrat, the fifth largest state economy in India, has an excellent record in terms of GDP and the Human Development Index. For this reason, Gujrat and its largest city, Ahmedabad, gained themselves a place in Forbes list of the fastest-growing cities in 2010. Therefore, it is no doubt that it is an industrial hub with a flourishing Software and Web Development Industry. The world is growing at a fast pace and so, is the technology. Consequently, the number of web development companies in Gujarat is rapidly increasing as a tool for business development. Meanwhile, Gujarat and its various cities like Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, and Ahmedabad are striving hard to establish themselves as a significant IT hub.  The growing number of web development companies in Gujarat

Gujarat has undoubtedly grown in terms of IT expertise in the past decade. It has proven its worth when looking for the best web development companies in gujarat. Accordingly, 37% of small businesses plan to increase their spend on digital marketing in the next year. And why not? Subsequently, Experts in digital marketing cover almost everything for you. Although Gujarat is famous for its art, culture and heritage. But besides all these, nowadays, it is emerging as an important center for the Web development Industry. Thus, thousand of MNC's and Corporate industrial companies are setting up their base here. As a matter of fact, in 2020, there are over 3400 companies of variable sizes in Gujarat.  Accordingly, a significant location for these web development companies in Gujarat is the smart city Ahmedabad. Despite being the Manchester City of India, it has now become an IT Hub. There are over 2500 small startups, and more than 1700 big companies. Small startups are most likely to fail because they don't have proper Web Development Services. Web Development Companies provide these Web Development Service. Hence, Web Development Services help companies in every aspect of their digital marketing. Also, they help companies to flourish by bringing them more clients. Role of Websites for a company! To begin with, they are the first and foremost way of communication between companies and their customers.Secondly, the web development companies help in increasing the customers as customers can visit them from any part of the world at any time.Subsequently, these companies provide customers with all sorts of information, even at odd hours.Also, they somehow become the face of your company.Hence, it helps companies to maintain an active online presence. As a result, there is an instant increase in the number of Web Development Companies in Gujrat. Let’s get on to what you are here for, after all.

Below are the 10 best website designing and mobile app development companies

A Deeper Look Into the Gujrat's IT world #1. Business Alphabets Corporation

Verified 98.2% 2009 Affordable Business Alphabets Corporation is a reputed Web Development Company is Gujarat. Subsequently, over the years it has gained several satisfied clients. As a result, they have some of the best reviews on the Google. Accordingly, Business Alphabets Corporation was founded in 2009.Moreover, it is an extensively accessible Web Design and Mobile App Development Company.Also, they provide solutions to all your business needs.In addition, they offer WordPress, e-commerce, and Mobile App development service at an affordable price. Call: +91-9681-998877 Get a Quote Visit Website #2. Techuz Verified 88.2% 2014 Very Costly Techuz is a renowned Software company located in Ahmedabad. As a mater of fact, it has a team of extremely skilled professionals providing wide range of IT services. Accordingly, it was incorporated in 2013.Moreover, it is a team of more than 200 intelligent minds delivering successful projects every day.Also, it is a private Website development Company.However, it has delivered over 150 hugely successful projects all over the world.In addition, they offer services that include web development, mobile app development, web design, software development, and eCommerce development. Consequently, they provide interactive solutions, consulting, successful plans to their customers Call:  95125 59090 Get a Quote Visit Website #3. BACPOST Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Verified 86.6% 2014 Very Costly BACPOST Technologies Pvt Ltd , also known as BAC-Think Creative is one of the best Web Development Company in Gujrat. Above all they provide world class services. Whereas, from crafting compelling brand stories to keywords enriched marketing, it has won 59+ awards for their expertise at work. Also, HCL, TATA Consultancy services, O2 SPA, IHG group are some of the major companies they have worked with. Accordingly, it is an IT Service Provider company incorporated in 2018.It is a leading Digital Marketing & Web Development Company in India and is also known as BAC- Think Creative.Hence, they provide their customers with a wide range of services like IOS Applications, e-commerce, and Mobile App development.It also operates from Kolkata, Pune, and Jaipur. Get a Quote #4. Simform Verified 82.9% 2008 High Cost Simform is team of hardworking IT professionals,, working day and night to provide their clients with best services. Accordingly, it is a top-notch custom IT and software development company with a team of over 300 IT Professionals.However, they are determined to help companies expand their tech capacity.Since 2010, they have Business both small and large to flourish.Also, they provide efficient and pocket-friendly services.Additionally, they are a team of highly skilled hardworking and dedicated developers, designers, and testers who deliver their best in each project provided by them. Call: 7940070170 Get a Quote Address: 312-B Dev Arc Complex, Above Woodland Showroom, Iscon Cross Road, Sarkhej - Gandhinagar Hwy, Ramdev Nagar, Ahmedabad #5. Rplanex Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Verified 78.7% 2012 High Cost Rplanex Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is an Web Design and Development Company in Gujrat with massive popularity. Therefore, they have the reputation of delivering the best IT servies in the town. Subsequently, it is a creative, result-oriented Website Development Company with massive popularity in Ahemdabad.It was incorporated in 2016.However, they have their expertise in Blockchain Development, ICO Development, Cryptocurrency Development, Crypto Exchange Development, Smart Contract, Private blockchain, Decentralized applications, White Paper, ICO Marketing,Also, it is an extremely efficient and reliable company.It is undoubtedly one of the best website designing companies in Gujrat. Get a Quote Address: Gujrat #6. OpenXcell Verified 76.4% 2012 High Cost OpenXcell is a Mobile App Development Company in Ahemdabad providing high quality Business solutions since 2009. Accordingly, it is a Mobile App Development Company providing Web solutions since 2009.However, they have a reputation for delivering the best projects in the field of Web Design and development and Mobile Application development.Additionally, they ensure quality standards and flawless results.Also, they have around 500 professionals who are highly skilled and give their best for any project. Get a Quote Address: 202-203, Baleshwar Avenue, Opposite Rajpath Club, SG Highway, Ahmedabad #7. Icecube Digital Verified 72.1% 2012 High Cost Icecube Digital is a significant IT service provider company in Gujrat. It is helping companies expanding their businesses since 2008. They are a team of about 50 highly skilled designers and developers operating since 2008.Moreover, it has emerged as a prominent inventor, innovator, and developer in Ahemdabad in recent times.Hence, they provide robust business solutions to companies irrespective of their sizes and brand.Thus, they deliver high-quality projects, including subcategories like E-commerce, Wordpress, Responsive web design, Magento Development, WordPress Development, Mobile App Development, Typo3 Development, PHP Development, and SEO. Get a Quote Address: 310, Sharthik-2, opposite Rajpath Club, SG Highway, Ahmedabad #8. IndiaNIC Verified 68.9% 2012 Medium Everlasting SEO is a well known SEO service IndiaNIC, a team of around 1000 IT Professional thriving endlessly to provide best Business solutions in Gujrat. Subsequently, it was established in 1997.Additionally, it is a team of 1000 professionals with several years of work experience.Therefore, they provide efficient and pocket-friendly services.However, they are a team of highly skilled hardworking and dedicated developers, designers, and testers who deliver their best in each project provided by them.Also, they offer services like Mobile Development, Web Development, Mobile Game, UI / UX, Wearable, Internet of Things, Cloud Consulting, E-Commerce, Offshore Development Center, and Digital Marketing. Call: +91 79 6191 6000 Get a Quote Address: 201, Dev Arc, SG Road, Ahmedabad 380015, Gujarat #9. KrishaWeb Verified 67.7% 2012 Low Krishna Web aims at implementing strategies that engage and convert potential customers into leads. Therefore, from the basics of marketing to high ranking solutions by skilled professionals, it strives to help clients face any challenges. Accordingly, it is a top-rated Web Developer in Ahemdabad started in 2008.Additionally, they use the latest technology and provide their customers with cost-efficient solutions for their businesses.They are a team of more than 150 professionals with various skills.Hence, they offer solutions and services with proven efficiency and profitability for their clients. Moreover, they have their expertise in Web & Graphic Design, Web Development, Search Engine Optimization, Mobile Application Development, Social Media Optimization, and Online Marketing. Call: +91-93705-73598 Get a Quote Address: B/1, Nikumbh Complex Opp. Tomato's Restaurant, Navrangpura Ahmedabad, Gujarat #10. Innovify Verified 61.8% 2012 Low Innovify is a prominent Web Design and Development company offering efficient and pocket friendly Web Services to the customers since 2011. Subsequently, it is a digital transformation, consultancy, and the best IT Solutions provider having its roo in London.Also, it was established in 2011.Additionally, it is a team of 250 professionals with several years of work experience.Also, they provide efficient and pocket-friendly services.Moreover, they are a team of highly skilled hardworking and dedicated developers, designers, and testers who deliver their best in each project provided by them.In addtion, they make use of newly introduced technologies like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Big Data, and VR. Call: +91-7948000038 Get a Quote Address: 105-108, Shivalik Abaise, Opp. Anand Nagar Flats, Prahlad Nagar, Ahmedabad, Gujarat  Some questions to guide you on your hunt for Most Frequently Asked Questions about Web Development Companies in Gujrat, Ahemdabad! Which are the top software companies in Ahmedabad for PHP developers? There are thousands of companies, both small and large scale in Gujrat. With so many options, it becomes incredibly challenging to choose the best one among them. You must hire a company that is both reliable and credible. Therefore, do a proper Google research about any company that you are going to approach. Also, do read the reviews by the customers. They help you a lot to understand the efficiency of the company.Moreover, a company that fits all your requirements will be best for you. Hence, you must not make any sort of compromise in this decision. Also, if you want some suggestions, you can refer to the article above Who is best for Mobile App Development? Mobile App Development is of the service that is provided by almost all the top Web Development Industries. Google about the Web Development COmpany in your area and then do a little research before considering any company. Additionally, Google reviews will help you know about the company's working structure. So, do hire the best one for you. Moreover, for knowing about the best Web Development Companies in Gujarat, Ahemdabad, you can read the above article. How to find the best website designing company in Gujrat? As a matter of fact, Gujarat is a vast place to make a selection for the best web development. In consequence, Google the companies in and around Ahmedabad. Also, compare the companies with each other and select the one which offers you maximum benefits. Do Like & Share if you found this information helpful. “Need help and expert’s advice. Please leave your comment in box below” Read the full article

[professional-developmentl6]

App Design Company Research

When i leave university I hope to get a job based in UX/UI. I really enjoy app design.

Tec Mark

This app development company is based in Manchester and has worked with really big brands such as SONY, B&M, BUPA etc.

M14 Industries

This app development brand takes the coding and software engineering out of app development. They created a platform where business can focus on branding and marketing— and M14 Industries does the rest. Also they went on BBC’s dragons den and pitched a very impressive dating app.

The Developer 

This is a Web/App development company based in Warrington local to me and specialise in Web & App Design in which I would be very excited to go into. 

Drumbeat 

Drumbeat is a digital brand design company based in Manchester. They work on brands and also social media etc.

Design by Day

[secretbarbariancollector]

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DxMinds is one of the best Mobile Application Development Company in Manchester,   with its first-class team of mobile app developers and mobile app designers. We develop highly polished the apps from start-ups to enterprise solutions for our clients with a 360-degree approach to digital marketing, inclusive of Search, reputation, social media, user acquisition, downloads, and revenue. https://dxminds.com/top-7-mobile-app-development-companies-in-manchester-cambridge-uk/

[un-enfant-immature]

Amazon launches physical kiosks in UK train stations, a local extension of its Treasure Trucks

After announcing a year-long pilot of pop-up shops in the UK earlier this week to sell items from smaller marketplace merchants, Amazon has added another development to its brick-and-mortar efforts in the country. Starting today, the company is setting up physical kiosks, initially in train stations, to sell passers-by a rotating range of items at discounted prices.

The first of these will be in London, where Amazon is situating them in rail stations — Charing Cross, King’s Cross, Paddington, Liverpool Street and my local station London Bridge — and will start off by selling Boodles Mulberry Gin for £14.99 a bottle (a 40% discount on the normal price, Amazon notes).

The kiosks, Amazon says, are an extension of the company’s Treasure Truck concept, which sees a large vehicle doing the rounds across various towns — currently London, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Birmingham, Coventry, Portsmouth, Southampton, Nottingham, Leicester, Windsor, Maidenhead, Reading and Slough (for US readers: the original site of The Office) — offering a rotating selection of items at discounted prices. These have been operating in the UK for a couple of years now.

With Treasure Truck in the UK, you sign up for the service (by texting “truck” to 87377) and Amazon texts you to let you know when the truck is coming your way. Users can pre-order and pay for items to collect them from the truck. It looks like the same format will apply to the kiosks, which will also become pick-up points. To incentivise more signups, Amazon said that new users will get an additional introductory discount of £5 per bottle.

Kiosks are a practical adaptation of the Treasure Truck concept for Amazon: as with other cities in Europe, the locations Amazon visits in the UK have narrow streets sometimes clogged with traffic and generally not designed for speedy arrivals of giant vehicles, and the population is more dense.

Also, situating kiosks in rail stations to catch people during their commutes means more may buy knowing they are on their way home or to an office so will not have to carry items around all day.

“Kiosks are a natural extension of the exciting shopping experience of Amazon’s Treasure Truck. Whether you’re on the way to work or heading home for the day, Amazon customers and passersby will have a fun and convenient way to shop for an amazing deal, get their hands on a trending product or take part in a fun event. Kiosks will help turn an ordinary day into something a bit more special,” said Suruchi Saxena Bansal, Country Leader, Amazon Treasure Truck, in a statement.

More generally, Amazon has been slowly increasing the different channels that it uses to connect with potential customers beyond its basic website and mobile app.

This is because “omnichannel” is the order of the day in commerce: in markets that are especially competitive and mature, we’ve seen a big shift among retailers to cater to a wider variety of audiences and sell to them in whichever channel where they are spending time and discovering things.

That’s included selling on social media (Instagram for one is making a big push with this), through email (see: Mailchimp’s efforts here), and of course doing things the old-fashioned way, by selling in person (something that efforts from the likes of Square and PayPal have also helped to grow).

That in-person experience is something that Amazon — born in the virtual world of cyberspace — has been doubling down on for years to reach a wider set of shoppers.

Its efforts have included bookstores near college campuses, cashier-free Amazon Go stores, the whopping acquisition of Whole Foods, and — as of earlier this week — setting up pop-up shops.

The latter are particularly ironic, given that the Amazon name is regularly invoked when people discuss how brick-and-mortar shops — and in the UK, “high street” shopping precincts — have died a death.

A year ago, there was a rumor that Amazon was negotiating in the UK to acquire a selection of large retail locations that were being vacated by the bankrupt hardware and DIY chain Homebase.

These sprawling locations, situated often in town outskirts among other large stores with huge parking lots, are a far cry from little kiosks in crowded train stations. And indeed, the Homebase deal, if it was every really on the cards, never came to pass.

But the report and Amazon’s wider track record are sure signs that the commerce is only going to get more physical, not less. It’s not a question of “if”, but rather of how and when.

[marketinghero]

Apple to close iTunes

Apple is closing its iTunes service, replacing it with Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV as it looks to better compete in the streaming market against competitors such as Netflix, Amazon and Spotify.

The move is part of a raft of announcements from Apple at its annual developers’ conference. It also revealed a number of new privacy measures, including a sign-in service that aims to act as an alternative to logging in using social media accounts and hides a user’s email address and data.

Other privacy updates include the option for apps that request location information to have to ask every time they want to use it, and blocking apps from using other location identifies such as WiFi or Bluetooh signals.

“Privacy is a fundamental human right,” said Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi, speaking at the conference last night.

There were also updates to the iPhone’s iOS operating system including improved search and language keyboards, a virtual tour experience in Apple Maps and a ‘dark mode’ that lets apps be viewed with a black background. Plus the Apple Watch and Macs were updated.

READ MORE: Apple dissolves iTunes into new apps

BT signs ‘groundbreaking’ five-year deal with The FA to sponsor all 28 England teams

BT has signed a five-year deal with the Football Association that will see it become the exclusive lead partner for all England teams – including the men’s, women’s, futsal and disability teams – as well as for Wembley Stadium.

The renewed deal kicks off with a new BT branded training kit that will be worn by the England women’s team ahead of the World Cup, which starts on Friday (7 June) and the men’s team as they prepare for the Nations League Finals. It will also be seen at the national football centre and St George’s Park and Wembley, although details are currently under wraps.

The deal marks the start of a broader sponsorship strategy by BT with the aim of making it a “national champion”.

Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s consumer division, says: “We’re committed to making BT a national champion, and what better way than backing the national game and the national teams. This partnership will reach all areas of football, including grassroots football and communities up and down the country. We look forward to revealing our plans in the coming months and we can’t wait to get started.”

Retail sales show ‘biggest decline on record’

Retail sales decreased by 2.7% year on year in May, the worst monthly decline since this record began in January 1995 if Easter distortions are excluded, according to data from the British Retail Consortium.

On a like-for-like basis, sales were down 3%, the steepest decline since December 2008 as the market struggled against comparisons to last year, when the World Cup, Royal Wedding and hot weather boosted sales. While both measures were impacted by strong sales growth in May 2018, the declines drag down the three- and 12-month averages to just 0.2% and 0.9% respectively.

For the three-months to the end of May, food sales increased by 0.8% on a like-for-like basis and 1.9% on a total basis. However, non-food sales were down 2.7% year on year. Online sales growth in non-food slowed to just 11.5%.

Paul Martin, UK head of retail at KPMG, which carries out the study, says: “April may have provided retailers with some light reprieve thanks to Easter, but May’s staggering fall of 3% like-for-like is a stark reminder of the industry’s ongoing issues, which for many require urgent attention.

“The extremely low growth online is real cause for concern, especially with almost a third of all non-food sales today being made online. This trend has continued to manifest itself over the last year and requires real focus from the retail community.”

WWF to work with Coca-Cola and P&G to tackle plastic waste

Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble are among the companies partnering with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to come up with solutions to the issue of plastic waste.

A new platform, called ReSource: Plastic, will provide guidance, best practices and tools – including a measurement framework to help quantify reductions in plastic waste. The hope is the hub will inspire companies to act to reduce plastic consumption and improve recycling.

Other companies involved include McDonald’s, Starbucks and Tetra Park, while the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Ocean Conservancy are acting as thought partners.

The move comes as companies respond to growing political and consumer pressure to reduce plastic waste and combatting its impacts. That includes bans on plastic straws, reducing use of plastic packaging and pledging to recycle more.

“While ambitious commitments are the jumping off point for any successful venture, we know that no single individual, organisation, company or government can tackle the root causes of plastic waste on their own,” says Sheila Bonini, senior vice-president of private sector engagement at WWF.

“When it comes to the private sector, commitments move companies in the right direction, but to actually fulfil those commitments, companies need a roadmap for navigating the broken plastics system, a collaborative environment that fosters innovation and aggressive goal-setting, and the right tools to make their bold visions a reality.”

Diageo partners with MTV on responsible drinking campaign

Diageo is partnering with MTV to launch a responsible drinking campaign aimed at its core audience of 18- to 24-year-olds.

The three-part series, called ‘Weekend not wasted’ features MTV presenters and will air on MTV’s website, YouTube and social channels. It will also be promoted on local TV channels in the UK, Spain, Germany and Denmark with an “aspirational” message around what becomes possible if people drink responsibly and seize the day.

Commenting on the launch of the campaign, John Kennedy, president of Europe, Turkey and India at Diageo, says: “It’s really important to us that young adults in Europe are informed and empowered to enjoy alcohol in a moderate and sensible way.

“In creating this campaign, we have married our unique marketing insight with the reach and influence of MTV to land the message that excessive consumption of alcohol can prevent you from achieving the most out of your day. This is a really exciting collaboration and we cannot wait to see the response.”

Monday, 3 June

UK ad spend accelerates but slowdown predicted

Despite uncertainties, UK ad spend was up 7.8% year on year in 2018 and is predicted to hold steady with a rise of 6.1% this year. However, growth will slow into 2020, with an increase of 4.6% forecast, according to Group M’s ‘This Year, Next Year’ ad forecast report.

Currently, digital remains dominate and is responsible for more than 60% of total advertising, of which more than half is search. It is still growing at double-digit pace – 11% is forecast for 2019.

TV ad spend is expected to remain stable at around £4.5bn through 2019 and 2020, still accounting for around 20% of media investment. Meanwhile, outdoor spend is expected to see growth of around 3% in 2019 and 2020 as digital formats drive up spend.

Radio also appears set to hold on to its revenue base this year, followed by a predicted 2% growth next year. However, newspapers and magazines now account for less than 10% of media investment on a combined basis in 2019 and beyond, down from more than 50% as recently as 2004.

Amazon to open pop-up stores on UK high street

Amazon will open a number of pop-up stores across the UK, giving more than 100 small online businesses the chance to sell their products on the high street.

The programme, called ‘Clicks and Mortar, will see 10 shops opened as part of a year-long pilot programme. They will items including homeware, health and beauty, food and drink and electronics, with thefirst set to open in Manchester today.

Amazon is working alongside small business support group Enterprise Nation and has promised to offer research into the success of the pilots stores in a bid to help grow the government’s Future High Street strategy.

“Small businesses are one of our most important customer groups, and we’re thrilled to work with Enterprise Nation to design a comprehensive package to help entrepreneurs across the UK grow their businesses, both in-store and online,” Doug Gurr, UK country manager at Amazon says.

The online retail giant is also pledging £1m to train more than 150 full-time apprentices to help small businesses increase their productivity and lift online sales.

Fate of Philip Green’s Arcadia to be sealed this week

The fate of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia group will be sealed on Wednesday with creditors set to vote on his proposed restructuring plans, but if the Pensions Regulator and landlords don’t back his plans the retail giant could go into administration.

If supported, Green’s rescue plan would see a number of Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge and Burton stores close, while rents will be cut across another 194 stores at the Arcadia group. However, MPs want him to use his own wealth to fund the firm’s pension scheme, the BBC reports.

Originally, Arcadia confirmed 23 stores would close as part of the rescue deal, known as a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) but it was later revealed that another 25 stores would shut, under separate liquidation procedures.

Sir Philip’s wife, Lady Tina Green, who is Arcadia’s main shareholder, offered to inject £100m into the scheme during the next three years to bridge a shortfall in pension contributions. But the pensions regulator has doubts the plans will “adequately protect” the pensions of employees.

Arcadia has more than 566 locations in the UK and Ireland, employing 18,000 people.

READ MORE: Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia facing crucial week

Budweiser launches new campaign supporting LGBT+ community

Budweiser is launching its new ‘Fly the Flag’ campaign to support Pride’s mission on championing each group within the LGBT+ community.

The campaign is designed to celebrate diversity within the LGBT+ community, and to support the diverse groups under the LGBT+ banner, such as the asexual and pansexual communities.

The beer brand acknowledges there is great awareness of the rainbow flag – a universal symbol of Pride – but flags of other communities under the Pride umbrella don’t generally have the same recognition.

As part of the campaign, Budweiser has created a collection of limited-edition cups that feature designs of flags from nine individual communities, giving people within those groups the chance to celebrate at Pride during its 50th anniversary.

Budweiser will be handing out 200,000 of these cups for free along the Pride parade route in London on 6 July.

Martina Isella, senior brand manager at Budweiser, says: “Pride is a time for people to be proud and have freedom of expression, and this is what Budweiser as a brand is all about. We wanted to create a campaign in partnership with all the people that make up the wider LGBT+ community in mind, and we worked closely with our friends at Pride in London to ensure that this campaign was as relevant to as many as possible.”

ITV’s Love Island partners with Swizzles for season five

ITV’s Love Island has partnered with sweets brand Swizzles to create bespoke love hearts with recognisable sayings from the television programme such as ‘crack on’, ‘hun’ and ‘pied’, marking the first time Swizzels changed the messages on its love hearts.

More than 90,000 exclusive love hearts will be distributed to the public at key stations across London, Manchester and Cardiff today.

“Love Island is focused on finding love with someone special, as are our Love Hearts so it’s the perfect partnership. We’ve been making Love Hearts for over 60 years and this is the first time we’ve changed the messaging on our traditional Love Hearts to introduce well-loved phrases from a TV show,” says Sarah-Louise Heslop, marketing manager at Swizzels.

Echoing Heslop’s message is Paul Ridsdale, director of viewer marketing at ITV who says the broadcaster is always looking for innovative ways to help promote its key shows, “particularly when targeting younger audiences”.

“Partnering with Swizzels and their iconic Love Hearts sweets by adding our own distinctive Love Island phrases, was simply too good an opportunity to turn down,” he adds.

The post Coca-Cola, Apple, BT: Everything that matters this morning appeared first on Marketing Week.

[stoweboyd]

Tumblr is no longer flying under the radar at Mayer’s Yahoo. Now, the company’s part of Verizon, and things have gone sideways:

On the day Verizon’s Yahoo acquisition was completed, Tumblr was hit by a wave of layoffs. A number of current and former employees shared a post by social media industry commentator Andréa López entitled “Layoffs and Tumblr the Centipede.” In it, López theorizes, “In addition to the real life talented human beings impacted by these layoffs, the move is a warning and reminder — Tumblr is no longer in the protective purgatory of pre-Verizon Yahoo.” If Mayer’s Yahoo didn’t really know what it was doing with Tumblr, that meant Tumblr was free to do what it wanted. That extended to politics: Yahoo didn’t give Tumblr any official blessing or encouragement when it decided to become the tech industry’s fiercest net neutrality defender three years ago. Now things are a little bit stickier.

Bryan Irace, an engineering manager who worked at Tumblr from March 2012 to November 2015, explained Tumblr’s culture to The Verge in an email, writing, “We all [participated]. As with many other causes (e.g. SOPA/PIPA), [net neutrality] was a huge part of the company culture. A free and open Internet was a prerequisite for Tumblr to grow from an idea in David’s head into the platform that it is today... During my tenure there, Tumblr never shied away from speaking out about causes that the team collectively believed in.”

But a former employee who recently left Tumblr told The Verge that some employees who wanted to work there because of its culture of community and activism have been feeling uneasy for at least the last several weeks because of what they feel is a shift in Tumblr’s priorities.

“Some of our previous stances on issues that are really important to Tumblr employees and its community are being silenced,” said the former employee. “We've been really noisy about things like net neutrality in the past. We asked the new Head, Simon Khalaf, about it in an all-hands a few weeks ago and he said it was ‘not his problem’ and ‘above his pay grade.’” A current employee and another former employee corroborated this account.

Simon Khalaf is the former CEO of Flurry, an analytics app that was acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Under Yahoo, Khalaf was given a myriad of responsibilities related mostly to mobile app development and publishing partners — including Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, and Tumblr. He was promoted to senior VP in April 2015, then tapped by Oath CEO Tim Armstrong to head Media Brands and Products. Karp now reports directly to Khalaf.

The Verge spoke to two former employees and one current employee about net neutrality advocacy at the company. One former employee said that the “whole org” is still aggressive on net neutrality and other progressive causes — but that aggression “stops at leadership.”

In addition, at the all-hands meeting at Tumblr last month, all three sources say Khalaf gave a speech that shocked much of the staff. One source described the talk as “a whole bunch of terrible, shitty corporate speak,” in which Khalaf used military metaphors to explain how Tumblr could use content as “a weapon” to beat out its competition.

Two former Tumblr employees said they were alarmed when Khalaf chose Black Lives Matter as an example of a community that the company should focus on converting into Yahoo media consumers. One told The Verge, “Simon explicitly said that Black Lives Matter was an opportunity to [make] a ton of money.” The same person also recalled: “Tumblr employees totally freaked, but couldn't really be vocal about it because we were in [New York City] watching over video cast.” The other said that the meeting was “extremely uncomfortable” and “a lot of people were really upset,” leading to a heated conversation in Tumblr’s Slack, which is separate from Yahoo’s.

One Tumblr engineer did not recall the statement about Black Lives Matter, but remembered staffers discussing the generally “eyebrow-raising” all-hands in Slack, as well as the conversation turning into “a huge mess.” That conversation got back to Khalaf, and it fell to Karp to discipline the Tumblr staff in a weekly meeting. Khalaf did not respond to a request for comment, but a source close to him wanted it noted that Black Lives Matter was only one “community” that Khalaf referenced: he also discussed Game of Thrones and Manchester United fans.

Asked whether progressive politics were still a powerful force at Tumblr, Ari Levine, who worked as Tumblr’s brand strategist from July 2012 to November 2014, told The Verge in a phone call, “I imagine that remains innate on some level. But without question the people that saw their role at Tumblr as being able to empower change and be a voice and motivate the community to be a voice in a meaningful way, those people are gone.”

So now, along with the astonishing lack of innovation at Tumblr, those advocating net neutrality are leaving or already gone. I wonder if Karp will leave? Maybe then he can take another pass at building a better Tumblr.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

With AI and DNA, Massive Attack are hacking a new kind of music | WIRED UK

On a warm July evening in 2013, an excited crowd gathered in the derelict Mayfield train depot in Manchester, surrounded on three sides of the vast Edwardian station by huge translucent screens flickering with images of Helmand, teenage Siberian gangs, bleak 70s New York, Putin, Bambi and Jane Fonda. As the images strobed then slowed, bass-shaking cover versions of Barbra Streisand songs, bubblegum pop, Nirvana and Russian punk classics rumbled through the speakers.

The show – a chopped up riff on a post 9/11 world – was a joint venture between Bristol-based band Massive Attack and Adam Curtis, the film-maker behind provocative documentary series like the Power of Nightmares and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.

“It was a strange gig to play live – we were working to a timecode set by the video and because the audience were surrounded by screens they often had their backs to us,” Massive Attack’s co-founder Robert Del Naja – aka 3D – recalls. “I’m not sure we got it right until the end.”

When the gig finished, Del Naja headed for his dressing room, where he bumped into an old friend waiting backstage – Ray Cooper, who had signed Massive Attack to their first label in 1988.

Cooper had brought along a colleague, Andrew Melchior. Melchior had been one of the first in the music industry to recognise how technology could help artists. Working at EMI and Virgin in the late 90s, he set up the equivalent of an in-house startup which developed artists’ digital streaming, blogging, ringtones and artwork. In 1998 he helped David Bowie set up a fully-fledged e-commerce driven ISP, BowieNet, and a website, davidbowie.com - a precursor to virtual worlds like Second Life. Users would sign in, chose from a range of avatars and join text-based chatrooms. Bowie himself often assumed a rabbit avatar and joined in the conversations.

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“He understood how music was going to become like water – available everywhere for free,” Melchior explains. “He created and sold Bowie bonds – securitised rights to future royalties based on past sales. He was cashing out for tens of millions before everyone caught on – he knew the music would be worth less over time. Davidbowie.com became Ultrastar – the first artist-owned online merchandising company creating T-shirts and posters for acts like U2, the Rolling Stones and Sting. It was like an Amazon for artists well before Radiohead and it meant when people bought Rolling Stones merchandise, Bowie also got a royalty.”

Melchior and Cooper were advising US-based augmented reality startup Magic Leap. Watching Massive Attack’s show, Melchior sensed an opportunity. “The creative energy and innovation of that show was perfectly suited to the brave new world of mixed reality spectacle,” Melchior explains.

The three men chatted for hours. For Massive Attack’s recent tours, Del Naja had been trying to include locally sampled headlines, images and stories in the band’s newsfeed style light show, flashing text across screens dotted around the stage. He wondered how he could adapt the onscreen narrative each night based on audience reaction.

Melchior and Del Naja also found out they shared an obsession with The Sims computer game. Melchior knew its creator, the legendary game designer Will Wright. He suggested Del Naja take a trip to California, first to see how Magic Leap was using music in its AR headset, and then to talk to Wright.

In September 2013, they met him at the HQ of his startup, Stupid Fun Club. For the past few years Wright had been working on social media app Thread, which combined Instagram, Spotify and Draw Something – allowing users to use sound, music, images and text in their posts – and on ways to tag and share music to generate the audio in games, creating musical mind maps for computers to compose on the fly.

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By Katia Moskvitch

“They were taking the AI tools of the utopian tech companies and using them to make art,” Del Naja explains. “He had these mind maps on the wall – some were diagrams of the human brain labelled with the brain parts we use to tag smells or process emotion and retrieve things. Some were metabrains – maps of the way people connected. He was using them to see how content and understanding worked in the human brain – we access data, click on anything we have then rearrange it and change it into another idea.

“For me, everything was in a box before that – your phone and your internet had their limits set. I could see everything spread out in front of me and saw there wasn’t anything we couldn’t organise then reorganise then rediscover and redistribute.

“Anyone in the creative industry who didn’t do that would lose control to labels and tech giants who were stitching things up.”

Massive Attack’s music has always relied on collaborators – while tracks were built entirely from samples, the musicians always inspired different things for the band. Tracey Thorn’s haunting vocals added a mournful longing to “Protection”; Shara Nelson’s deep warm range made “Unfinished Sympathy” feel like an old soul tune over the top of grinding samples.

“Each time you find the muse you see things in a new way,” Del Naja explains. “If you don’t keep changing that muse you end up doing things again and again – building comfortable routines where there’s no tension and everyone knows how to behave. When you get to that point of comfort there’s not a lot more to explore.”

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Now, as Wright demoed his software, Del Naja found himself becoming fascinated by the AI’s relentless attempts to generate or perfect images, responses or behaviours – trying, failing and repeating without any flashes of temper or sullen degrading of performance.

“I thought the tension between competing AIs or the tension between human and AI could be equally creative,” he says. “To work in a world where movie trailers are created by AI we needed to be creating the algorithms ourselves - employing technology rather than have it make us unemployed.” The question was – could AI help him create something entirely new? Could AI become his collaborator and muse?

Pindar Van Amen / Robert Del Naja / Antony Micallef

Massive Attack’s studio stretches across two floors of a building on an industrial unit estate near Bristol Temple Meads station. The ground floor has music studios and a virtual reality studio equipped with motion capture cameras. The upper floor has an assembly line robotic arms alongside old Wurlitzer organs.

Del Naja is slim, unshaven, with a loose mass of hair that looks like he’s growing out a crop. Languid and mellow, he smiles a lot, especially when talking about robots and AI. He says it feels like a natural extension to the way he’s been creating art ever since he was a teenage graffiti artist working with spray cans and chopped up stencils on the streets of Bristol back in the 80s.

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Del Naja was born in St Andrews, a Victorian suburb nestling next to Bristol’s cultural melting pot district St Pauls. The riots of the early 80s meant that there was still a measure of tension between the police and the community. Del Naja wasn’t a troublemaker, but he wasn’t hugely academic, either. “I enjoyed art more than anything,” he remembers. “I was obsessed with comics, so I used to draw images of Spider-Man, superheroes and villains all over my exercise books.”

In the 80s he fell in love with the burgeoning street art/graffiti scene in New York. One night in 1983 – after leaving school with one art A-level – he went out with a stencil of a breakdancer and started painting walls himself. Nothing he put up survived 24 hours. “That made me think of art as ephemeral. When you’ve done something, you move on and then it’s gone,” Del Naja muses.

He started hanging round in the Dug Out, a tiny basement bar playing an eclectic mix of dub reggae, punk, soul, jazz and early hip hop, providing a magnet for the late-night party crowd. There he got to know the Wild Bunch, key players in Bristol’s lively sound system scene, where unlicensed parties were held in borrowed spaces. This renegade approach meant the systems had to be infinitely adaptable – with every member able to fulfil the roles of selecter (who picked the right records to keep everyone dancing), mixer (who put the records on and mixed the sound live), DJ (who fulfilled the role of MC, rapping or singing new lyrics over instrumentals) and box man (in charge of setting up and maintaining the huge speakers and bass bins).

The Wild Bunch recruited Del Naja to spread the outfit’s name using his graffiti skills, as well as decorating venues, selling beer out of the boot of a car, crewing the speaker stack and performing as an MC, often all on the same night.

“Everyone wanted volume turned up to the top,” Del Naja gives a quiet smile. “You had to be the loudest. Carnival day outside Grant’s house on Campbell Street, there would be a whole bunch of sound systems at the end of each road, so you had to make sure yours was the loudest. You had to push the technology to its limit.”

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In 1986 the Wild Bunch signed to a major label, releasing a few singles and an album before leading light and producer Nellee Hooper left to join rival London sound system Soul II Soul (eventually producing and remixing for artists including Madonna and Björk), and Miles Johnson – DJ Milo - moved to New York. Besides Del Naja, the two remaining members were Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles, a hip-hop fanatic with mixed Dominican-British ancestry, and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, whose love of music began with the reggae parties his parents used to throw when he was a kid. They recruited local rapper Adrian “Tricky” Thaws and founded Massive Attack.

Robert Del Naja in his studio, wearing his paint spray respirator

Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones

When recording with the Wild Bunch they’d been inspired by their encounters in the studio with cheap, easy-to-understand samplers like the Akai S9000, which was mounted in an effects rack in studios, and the Akai MPC60, a compact and intuitive device that could sample and playback using a series of buttons arranged in a telephone-style keypad. The MPC60 allowed kids from Bristol to create tracks on a single machine without knowing how to play an instrument.

“Sampling made absolute sense to us,” Del Naja explains. “It was collage, segments joined together. You could tap out beats on the MPC, then design crazy pitch and duration. You’d use and abuse that technology, but what makes the album interesting is that the music written on top of those samples had merit as really nice songs.”

The band recorded their debut album in 1991 using just the Akai S9000 and the MPC60. Called Blue Lines, its fusion of electronica, dub reggae, soul and hip hop spawned a new genre – trip hop. The band pulled together a collective of guest singers including Shara Nelson, reggae legend Horace Andy, French funk performer Wally Badarou and pop star Neneh Cherry. The album’s lush, melancholy single “Unfinished Sympathy” was described in 2012 by The Guardian as “the greatest British soul record ever made”.

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The group used the same technology for its 1994 follow-up, Protection, although the sprawling mass of collaborators was in constant flux. Nelson left, to be replaced by Everything but the Girl’s Tracey Thorn, Nellee Hooper returned to produce and Scottish classical pianist Craig Armstrong played keyboards.

For 1998’s Mezzanine, things became complicated. Del Naja – who hated critics calling Protection “dinner party music” – wanted a harder sound and started using live guitars and drums, sampling post-punk and new wave tracks. Hip-hop loving Vowles was pushing in the opposite direction – bringing in clattering drums and deep bass loops. At one point, Vowles thought of offering “Teardrop”, the strongest single on the album, to Madonna, while Del Naja pushed for Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. The tensions sometimes spilled out in public. During one press interview, Vowles and Del Naja had a stand-up row about the merits of Puff Daddy in front of a stunned journalist.

From then on, the two were never in the studio at the same time, avoiding each other entirely with Del Naja spending hours alone with producer Neil Davidge. Davidge would find himself working on four different tracks in a single day, swapping between samples from Isaac Hayes, The Cure and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – a process he describes as “messy”.

This adversarial environment proved astonishingly fruitful musically – Mezzanine sold four million copies and remains the band’s most successful album – but it was disastrous for the band. Shortly after its release the group split. Del Naja and Davidge produced a fourth, less successful album called 100th Window in 2003, the year coalition forces invaded Iraq – a war Del Naja to which was passionately opposed.

As Massive Attack were preparing to tour, he started collaborating on visuals with United Visual Artists, a London-based collective comprising artist Matt Clark, director Chris Bird and developer Ash Nehru. Nehru developed software that could sample data and headlines lifted from local and international media then play them in the local language across a giant video screen – from the Iraq war, through socio-political crises and on to trashy headlines from celebrity gossip magazines. The visuals impressed Alex Poots, head of the Manchester International Festival, who invited the band to create a show. Del Naja, of course, asked for a collaborator and chose Adam Curtis.

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“The contradictions and manipulation of information leading up to the war was the first moment in my life I felt convinced that power and news sources had to be questioned,” he recalls. “I wanted our stage show to harvest information from the web, chop it up and translate it into local language mixing political and tabloid news from international and local sources.” His problem was that he had always drawn energy from creative tension and, at that point he had no musical collaborators.

Del Naja and ABB IRB1200, a robot arm. It has used convolutional neural networks to draw its own interpretation of the Blue Lines album art

Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones

Shortly after their trip to Silicon Valley in 2013, Del Naja appointed Andrew Melchior as the band’s chief technical officer. His job would be to discover, and introduce Del Naja to, new forms of technology, in the process turning Massive Attack into the first band to collaborate with AI.

Del Naja wanted to create and play music that changed as the listener moved through space – the way he’d heard it while moving through Magic Leap’s augmented rooms, and the sharing and machine remixing he’d seen in Will Wright’s work. “If artists didn’t take control of this future of music, we’d be powerless again,” says Del Naja.

Wright introduced Melchior and Del Naja to producer and composer Robert Thomas, chief creative officer at music app company RjDj. Thomas had just created an iOS app for the movie Inception, which mimicked the film’s surreal dream worlds. Thomas had adapted the widely used open source software Pure Data – which can take any kind of input and use it to control any kind of output, generating 3D graphics and video from music or even controlling external hardware like stage lighting or robotics. In the Inception app, Pure Data took inputs from the iPhone’s mic, camera and global position and used them to modify the movie’s soundtrack.

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With Thomas, Massive Attack launched its first platform in 2016. Christened Fantom, it uses Pure Data live mix patches – algorithms that sample changes in time of day, speed of movement, social media notifications, how the phone is carried and GPS position, and use them to effectively remix the track in real time. The platform came with an EP of new material called Ritual Spirit.

“Instead of going to the Mad Professor to make a dub version we could put this app in someone’s pocket and create mixes using the sensors on the phone,” Del Naja explains. “I’ve had years of procrastination, never being able to decide on the finished product. Suddenly that was no longer a problem. Ironically by using tightly programmed algorithms we were breaking patterns, creating the most flexible, constantly changing music.”

The problem the band faced was copyright. Massive Attack relied heavily on samples, which meant ensuring hundreds of publishers, labels and artists got a credit and a share of royalties for songs their tunes were sampled to. The band secured a special agreement from all of them to allow Ritual Spirit to be released for free, thus earning them no money. But for Fantom to work, Del Naja realised he needed to ensure the original artists were recognised.

“YouTube’s protection software doesn’t recognise the source of a piece of music if it’s changed – heavily distorted or played backways,” Melchior explains. “The risk with Fantom was tracks stitched together from different bits of music needed to provide proper rights attribution.”

Melchior approached London-based startup Blokur to guarantee that Massive Attack’s sample-heavy music could be remixed and distorted beyond recognition by algorithms in Fantom, but ensure the original copyright holders could get paid.

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Spray and play: the can containing the "DNA" of album Mezzanine

Hingston Studio

Blokur had been founded in 2017 by music industry veterans Andrés Martin-Lopez and Phil Barry, who lead the team that released Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s 2014 solo album on BitTorrent. The app used technology that samples audio signatures by identifying the unique blend of pitch, tone, volume, tune, voice, instruments and all the other elements that make up a song’s fingerprint. It then leaves a copy of the fingerprint, along with the names of the rights holders from the performer to the songwriter, the publishing company and the record label, on the Ethereum blockchain. The blockchain is like a vast irrevocable ledger, a record of ownership that can’t be altered. Algorithms can use this fingerprint to automatically reconcile rights. If there’s any dispute, the fingerprint is there – proof of who should get paid.

“We’ve been working with music companies and musicians to ensure rights information is as accurate as possible, but Massive Attack wanted something slightly different,” explains Barry. “The point about Fantom is that it remixes songs largely based on samples. Before the rights holders of the sample allowed the band to use their material on an app that remixes, distorts and even adds elements, they needed to be sure each time their sample was played they’d get paid.”

Blokur devised a system that assigns a signature to a track’s stems – the individual channels such as vocal or bassline – tagging every sample and recording it on the blockchain. This stem signature means that no matter what effects have been applied – no matter how distorted, or mashed up it becomes as the AI remixes it – the stem can be identified.

With this resolved, the band hoped to store the song stems in the cloud – to be played by the Fantom app in real time. Melchior recruited Mick Grierson, a computer scientist at Goldsmiths College in London. Grierson specialises in neural networks, which attempt to mimic the human brain. Neural networks solve problems in a similar way to the human brain. They process inputs (“that’s a lion”); examine them against patterns we already know (“lions are creatures that kill”); and generate outputs (“run away”). Like human beings, they can recognise patterns – but only from the data sets they are trained on.

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Intrigued by the remixing possibilities of neural nets, Grierson’s team developed one in Massive Attack’s Bristol studio to build a generative synthesiser: a neural network with AIs that have only been trained on Mezzanine. The networks can take any input and process it as some version of some part of the album. This synthesiser allows anyone to modify any part of the album but can also be left on its own to remix and adapt the songs in real time.

“The most interesting parts were the mistakes the AI made,” Del Naja explains. “You don’t want a perfect version of the original audio to come out the other end. You want it to combine the bass and the harpsichord somehow, or the drums and the vocal, to become one new sound, and that’s all about the mistakes.”

Del Naja's studio setup, includes (l-r) a Moog System 55, a DAW/Ableton Live (plus cup of tea), and a Neve Genesys

Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones

In 2018, Mezzanine was 20 years old. Now the band – Daddy G, Del Naja and various collaborators – are heading out on an anniversary tour with some of the original singers, including Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and stalwart Horace Andy. “It’s mainly because we messed up the anniversary of Blue Lines,” Del Naja explains. “We didn’t engage, refused to get behind promoting, didn’t do any live dates. That was 2011 and the world was very different then. We’d lost all control of our back catalogue in deals by labels with streaming services – we’d all been sold off. So what do we do now? How do we keep control?”

He decided to take a different approach to Mezzanine – he would repurpose the band’s own material, altering the catalogue as he went. He also started to think of new ways of sampling and recording – including the use of synthetic DNA. “Repurpose your own material into DNA and putting that into a spray paint can – that’s making it into something new then distributing in a whole new way,” Del Naja explains. “If you store something on a different medium you change it. You’re resampling on a molecular level, and repurposing into something different.”

Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones

To achieve this, Melchior contacted Swiss scientist Robert Grass, professor at Zurich’s Functional Materials Laboratory, who had been working on a technique for coding books and music using strands of DNA. Grass took the four building blocks of DNA - adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine – and converted binary digital signals into a quaternary code, using adenine as 00, cytosine as 01, guanine as 10 and thymine as 11 and coding the whole album into strands of DNA.

Towards the end of 2018, the band used this process to synthesise and store thousands of copies of Mezzanine, encoding them in tiny silicon beads, which were then inserted into a limited-edition spray paint can. The beads are strong enough to survive for thousands of years, meaning graffiti artists could create street art with paint that contains millions of DNA versions of Mezzanine. Currently, it would take a portable real-time genetic sequencer roughly a week to play the album.

“One could imagine that you could use a sequencer to read the information in real-time and generate a code that automatically reverts to music,” says Grass. “That would also mean we didn’t need to use huge server farms to store and share music. We could use much less energy to store information.”

Melchior expects a future synthetic DNA culture bank along the lines of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. “The advantage with DNA is that our civilisation could crash into dust and rebuild itself using entirely different technology, meaning they couldn’t access our computers or disks,” Melchior explains. “Since every human has DNA, any future civilisation will probably try to work out how to sequence DNA. If they can sequence DNA, they can listen to Mezzanine. The first thing a future civilisation would learn about us might be Massive Attack.”

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[calacuspr]

Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Calm & England Football Fans

Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.

HIT – CALM APP

We’ve have talked a lot recently about the importance of sports stars opening up about their struggles with mental health.

In May, we praised rugby union for standing in solidarity with its players highlighting the need to discuss mental health during Mental Health Awareness Week 2021.

But while sport seems to be doing more to support mental health issues, it’s safe to say Naomi Osaka’s decision to boycott press conferences at the French Open in June, citing the detrimental impact that they’ve had on her own mental health in the past, has caused substantial controversy in the media.

In a statement on Twitter, the world number two said: “I’m not going to do any press during Roland Garros. I’ve often felt that people have regard for athlete’s mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one.

“We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions bring doubt into our minds and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me.”

That statement wasn’t perfectly positioned nor was it well-managed, especially as it seemed to show a lack of understanding or appreciation for the role of the press.

Dismissing the role of the media in such a clumsy manner prompted a mixed response with some journalists referring to her as being a “princess” and “immature”, which have not helped her frame of mind.

THREATEN WITH EXPULSION FROM ORGANISERS

SECOND STATEMENT and quote/link relating to MH struggles

And despite admitting “timing was not ideal” when she announced her withdrawal from the French Open just days later,

One organisation who used the debate to their advantage and brought a key topic to light, recognising the pressures on the wellbeing on sports stars, was the meditation app Calm.

After Osaka was fined $15,000 for refusing to honour her contractual media obligation, Calm, the number one app for meditation and sleep, stepped in and pledged its support for Osaka’s decision to prioritise her mental health.

Calm announced on social media that they will not only be paying her fine but also matching it with a donation of $15,000 to Laureus Sport for Good, a world-leader in the sport for development sector in helping bring positive change to young people’s lives.

This was an ace of a PR masterclass from Calm, who have not only gained considerable coverage from the move but stepped up to promote an important message of protecting the mental health and wellbeing of young stars and ensuring they are resonated well within the media.

But the whole affair has highlighted that sport still needs to do a lot more to show that it can protect young stars from the mental challenges that they face, which had been Osaka’s intention from the start.

With the donation, Calm have managed to take control and achieved a moral high ground of the debate, brining the conversation back to emphasising the need to support young people with mental health issues and other disadvantages that they face on a daily basis.

Other organisations, which include some of Osaka’s sponsors like Nike, TAG Heuer and Mastercard, have also shown solidarity with her decision.

So, as much as Osaka has been criticised for failing to “do her job” as a professional athlete in the media, she has been able to bring an important topic to the forefront of people’s attention and standing up for her own wellbeing over the expectations of others.

With that, Calm seized an opportunity to bring a topic that deserves the greatest amount of attention into the spotlight, emphasising their own key messages and raising awareness for mental health support within sport.

MISS – ENGLAND FOOTBALL FANS

Since football resumed last year, most players in the Premier League have been taking the knee to highlight social inequality and racism.

Going back to the 1980s, winger John Barnes was told after scoring a superb goal against Brazil that “a ******’s goal doesn’t count” as the far right National Front were on the same flight as the England team.

Sports activism is nothing new, as we have discussed before on these pages many times, while Sky Sports has partnered with Kick It Out as well as supporting its #takeastand campaign to encourage “people across the football community to take an action or make a pledge, in the fight against discrimination.”

From the first top-flight game after the initial lockdown, Aston Villa and Sheffield United players and the match officials knelt down before kick-off.

With no fans in the stands, that tradition could take place without incident, but since fans have slowly been permitted back into stadia, murmurs of discord have occurred, with Millwall fans most vocal in their opposition to the tradition.

There was a social media blackout in May to address the trolling and abuse suffered by sports people, with Thierry Henry also deleting his profiles as a protest against the social media companies that do little to address the issues.

That discontent has turned into vociferous booing, most notably during England’s games ahead of EURO 2020, starting with the victory over Austria at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough.

“We are collectively really disappointed that it happened. You have to put yourself in the shoes of a young England player about to represent his country. We are all trying to support equality and some of our team-mates and some of the experiences they have been through in their lives,

“We are totally united on it and committed to supporting each other. We feel that more than ever that we are determined to take the knee throughout this tournament.

“The players voices have been heard loud and clear and are taking their stand. Some people decide to boo and I think those people should put themselves in the shoes of those young players and how that must feel”

The booing continued as England beat Romania, also in Middlesbrough, prompting Southgate to add: “If you don't agree with the situation then you don't have to applaud or you don't have to do anything.

“But to boo your own team is a very strange response in my mind. There is an acceptance that this gesture is waning in its impact because we have been going now for a season but I think ahead of a European Championship where the games are going around the world, that moment just before the kick-off which will be shown everywhere, will have a significant impact.

“If we can affect only a handful of people then we will have made the world better for others. I think we'll affect more than a handful of people and for that reason it is worth us continuing.”

Needless to say, politicians such as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson MP have criticised the moves, suggesting the England squad are out of touch with their own fans by supporting ‘Black Lives Matter’ which they consider to be a Marxist organisation intent on “undermining our way of life.”

Perhaps tellingly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson refused to condemn those who boo the England team despite Kick It Out confirming that that the gesture is not aligned to any political organisation.

Clearly, there is significant prejudice that needs to be addressed in society – with football a microcosm of that. Look at the proportion of black players throughout the leagues and the lack of black managers, coaches and administrators throughout the game.

What irony that some England fans will chant “Two world wars and one World Cup” in relation to Germany and anti-IRA chanting, which is clearly political, but a number of them seem to object to actions taken by the players they support to address discrimination even though it is a cause, a movement, rather than a political affiliation.

Remember, many if not all of the black players in the England squad have experienced racism and the inability of fans to empathise with those whose shoes they have never walked in is quite staggering.

Some have mentioned that the England team are earning huge sums and so need to have a thick skin, but being a highly paid or high-profile footballer does not insulate you from racist abuse – just ask Raheem Sterling.

What irony that Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford, who captained England and scored the winning goal in their win over Romania, was prompted to comment to those who continued to boo: “"It's something that we can't control, and for us we believe its the right thing to do so we're going to continue to do it.”

It will be fascinating to see how the England fans conduct themselves during EURO 2020 given their somewhat chequered reputation during past tournaments – and how will other nations’ fans behave if their players do the same?