Of global coronavirus infections, and nowhere has been hit harder than america. The countrys Top Health Official for infectious diseases, now says some us states, should delay ending their lockdowns. Arizona reported 65,000 coronavirus cases in a single day. As Face Coverings become mandatory in shops in scotland, borisjohnson hints that england could face similar measures. At the moment, theyre only mandatory on Public Transport, but the british Prime Minister says the scientific advice on masks has shifted. Unesco says it deeply regrets a decision by turkey to turn one of the worlds most famous buildings hagia sophia in istanbul back into a mosque. Now on bbc news, its time
for the coronavirus newscast. 0utdoor Live Performances can start again in england from monday. This is very exciting. What kinds . I dont think there is a limit on the genre. So it can be anything and it could in theory be an outdoor comedy gig. Do you know anyone who does them . Perhaps, i know russell kane. Hi, russell. Can you picture yourself doing an outdoor gig . I have done loads of gigs at festivals, and it depends on how you are defining outdoors. Would it be a loose marquee with the signs, and ive done completely outdoors but you are at the mercy of the weather there. What is the first gag you will tell when you can go and do a gig, whether it is outdoors or indoors, again . Probably will be a spray about borisjohnson and his handling of covid 19, but for the purposes of this soundbite i will probably go,
why did the comedian walk into the bar . He did not, there was someone playing a trumpet inside and the place was evacuated. That is not a joke, but a true piece of guidance from the government website, actually. Myjokes go like that with a trombone which i legally now cannot do. And if you were asking can we check about covid 19, that is the very point of getting comedy back on its feet because i am lucky to have very old relatives and those who are not very well and people seen in all types of situations they have made it through and let me tell you one of the last things to give out is not cutting political insight or intelligent conversation, it is a sense of humour, laughter. Once that goes, everything goes. Plenty more from russell and from the government guidance on the website in this edition of the coronavirus newscast. The coronavirus newscast from the bbc. Hello. It is adam in the studio. And laura in the same studio two metres apart. And fergus. I wish i had written the dates of all the things opening up, but there are now so many that i cannot remember them so we shall stumble our way through that with your help. Lets first of all bring in simonjack, our business editor. Hello. And hello, fergus. He is sitting next to me, so i did not feel the need to do that. You two are in the ether out there. Good news if you run a nail bar or a gym or an outdoor theatre but terrible news if you work at boots orjohn lewis for example. 24 hours after the chancellor announced his great pitch to try and save as manyjobs as he could,
it appears he cannot stem the tide of these job losses. Boots with 4,000 job losses at 48 of their opticians and hundreds of managers in their high street stores, but mainly at their headquarters in nottingham, where it is a massively important local employer. Also john lewis with 1,300, the great survivor if you recall from the crisis in 2008 09, showing they are not immune. 1,300 jobs to go there. What is interesting is they said last year 40 of their sales were online. This year and next, they think that will be 70 . That is an astonishing statistic. I wanted to ask you about that. John lewis is the first place the chancellor went to go and do a photo op when shops were just opening, and he was pictured injohn lewis helping put up the screens and the new signs. But in your mind from talking to businesses all the time,
how much of these job losses are about trends that were coming anyway and how much is it about the fall off a cliff from covid . I think there are two things going on. Trends that were already happening which have been accelerated, and lets face it, all of us have bought more online than we did before. And were all buying more online than a couple of years ago. That trend has been accelerated so that kind of retail space we dont need and there isnt the demand for it. There is a different dimension which is the hospitality and Retail Sector and we are ordering more takeaways. But they are the ones who are hit in the short term and this has hit them almost overnight. And they are finding it very difficult to bounce back because even if you give this two for one special which the chancellor announced yesterday. The rishi meal deal. £10 per diner or whatever. Demand might not be the problem, the problem might be supply. People are not going into a pizza place or restaurant because there is not a vat cut, they arent going in there because they dont feel comfortable or the capacity for those that do feel comfortable of the actual venue is constrained by the new rules. So, 75 of all hospitality venues are expected to not break even this year. So, expecting to bring all their staff back, no matter what the incentives are, seems to be a little fanciful and you will start to see that and people ive been speaking to all say i cant afford with very little or constrained income to hang onto staff for six months from now in order to collect £1000 bonus per employee i keep on for the next six months. Others will say i was going to bring back all my employees anyway so well see this
as a massive windfall. A well known hamburger joint, for example, employs around 20,000 people in this country. They furloughed at least 90 of their staff at one point, and that puts them in line potentially for a £100 million plus pay out from the chancellor, whereas others will not be able to survive at all. I was thinking that would be a whopper pay out, but it is a different burger chain. The bbc is getting its moneys worth from you today so we will let you go off and do the many millions of other things you have to do but thank you very much for bringing us up to date with that. So, they mentioned one of the initiatives that was announced yesterday and the chancellor got a lot of praise for it, which was the bonus scheme of the idea of the people who bring back furloughed employees and keep them on their books until at least january of next year will get a £1000 bonus for doing that. Now the chancellor is now being accused by some of for being too generous rather than being too stingy, which is often not
what chancellors get. And its not necessarily too generous, but not focused enough. And what happened today at westminster, which is not completely off the wall and is not completely unprecedented but is certainly unusual, is it emerged that the boss at the hmrc, the tax man, had put on the record a ministerial direction and that is basically when a senior Civil Servant goes on the record with the fact that they have doubts about a policy the government wants to pursue. And his point was on the government spreading this money around, he could not be sure the taxpayer basically was going to get their money back. Now, it is unusual for this to happen and there is no question about that. But it is very clear the treasury thinks the best thing to do is to act big and to act fast, but labour, in a sort of strange kind of political cross dressing moment, had this to say about it. 0ur concern is that the action they have taken is not focused on the right places, so the jobs Retention Bonus is a bonus for alljobs and many of those jobs and many other people would be pulled back in any event. Some are really at risk of losing theirjobs, and we say it should be targeted in the areas that are most needed. Not across the piece. And the word everyone is using today is dead weight, which is a real treasury word that people never really say. This idea that you spend lots of money on something and quite a large chunk of that goes to people who dont need it or dont deserve it or should not be getting it. From the governments point of view, the priority is it is an emergency and they are trying to find ways of preventing mass unemployment. That spend fast, get the cash out the door and find ways of solving something that would be much worse, and some of that money is not wasted but is spent purposely in the process according to the chancellor. Lets have a listen to him. In an ideal world, you are right, you dont want dead weight and youd do everything in a targeted fashion, but the problem is the severity of what is happening to our economy, the scale of what is happening and indeed to stop it happening has demanded a different response. So, some money will be wasted. Without question, there will be dead weight and there has been dead weight in all of the interventions we have put in place. That was the chancellor chatting to martha today on bbc radio 4 on thursday morning. Now a lot more staff is open. It is really obvious and you can see it feels almost like normal sometimes walking on the street. What effect has that had on the spread of the virus . The infection rate is now low. Far lower than it was, and it seems to be kind of plateauing. But as the economy is opening,
those figures go up, too. Just as the pubs and restaurants started to open so we will have to wait and see what the effect is. But generally speaking, looking at all the data and looking at Hospital Data and infection data, it does look like the epidemic is still shrinking. Broadly the disease is going in the right direction, but one of the things that is causing consternation is whether or not people should be Wearing Masks and the government has to;d people they should wear them in enclosed spaces if it is hard to keep two metres apart. We have seen that government branding everywhere, all over the place that its mandatory on Public Transport, but the chancellor yesterday when he was doing his cheesy photo op and serving people in a noodle restaurant across the thames, he raised some eyebrows for not wearing a mask. And politicians in other parts of the world have been. Macron has been in this very chic mask, looks like its made of bechamel, and Angela Merkel has
been wearing a mask. What do you think is going on here . Is it because originally british scientists said it might not be any benefit, but what is happening . I was very surprised that the chancellor did not wear a mask because the messaging has changed completely on masks in the last couple of months. Who and the government originally said no benefit really so keep them for hospitals, but now we switch to Face Coverings and they are now mandatory on Public Transport in england and scotland. From tomorrow, they will be mandatory in scotland in shops and will become mandatory in shops because people in the uk have not been wearing them. And one could say that politicians and scientists and suchlike should perhaps be setting an example that in indoor settings they should be wearing Face Coverings. We should say there was a split with the government to workers that wearing a Face Covering is optional and is not required by law including in the workplace. So, the chancellor was not breaking any rules. He may have missed a teaching moment if he wanted to teach people to wear a mask more often, but he has not broken the government rules. But it was interesting to see after a few eyebrows were raised that the culture secretary was wearing a mask when he went on a visit to a gallery today that is reopening. He was not wearing a mask when he did the press conference at downing street, which we were told are not going to be daily conferences, but there have been quite a lot. But he had quite a lot to announce. As of this weekend, our artists, musicians and dancers can Start Performing live outside to outdoor audiences. We will also have the resumption of recreational sport followed later by the reopening of our gyms, swimming pools and leisure centres. Normal life is slowly returning. Yes, swimming pools, i have to say that the 25th is a day in my diary. I am desperate to get back to the pool and there has been huge anger from swim england and swimming enthusiasts in the country as to why we have opened pubs and restaurants, but not pools. There is very good evidence that coronavirus is neutralised, killed in chlorine and the only real concern is changing areas. And you can set up one way systems and effective controls which gyms and consumers will have to do. If you are brave enough to swim outdoors, you can go from the 11th so get yourself booked in. Just toughen up and go on saturday. I have been swimming in the river, so i have been doing that. There we go i would like to see a picture of that. No, you would not. 0k. Also nail bars, beauticians, tattoo artists can open in england from monday. They cannot do all the things they might want to do, especially treatments involving faces. And Nicola Sturgeon said that will happen there from wednesday the 22nd. So let us know what you think about the fact you can go and get some things done, but not your face. Lets go back to gyms because that is something people have been clamouring for. We will talk tojoan murphy, the chief executive of a gym. Hello, joan. Hi. Pages of guidance about how you can open in a secure way. Talk about some of the things that will be different as a result of that. Of course. With the guidance here and theres a lot the key things for our studio so we are not a gym, we have only classes
so multiple studios within it. For us, we can do all the track and trace scenarios because everything is booked by class and by hour. We have cleaning procedures, but the biggest thing in the guidance really for us is the capacity. We are similar to the hospitality industry, where our numbers are going to be quite restricted, but cleaning procedures, we are a really safe environment and we have had 16 weeks to prepare for this. Hand sanitising stations, cleaning procedures before and after classes, knowing exactly who has been in and out of the building the whole time. So i think this industry is really ready to open and we are an essential sector so i am very disappointed that we kind of in the last tranch of businesses to get off the rank but lets celebrate that we have got a green light. Will you be able to get enough people into each class to make it worthwhile opening the doors that day . No is the short answer. The viability of the studio sector is in the balance at the moment and as you mentioned earlier in the show, 75 of the hospitality businesses are not to break even this year. It will cost us more money to open the doors than to actually stay closed. We are an essential sector so we have already got people just directly messaging us, clients are so excited about reopening. We have to weigh up the losses that we are going to make. Is it worth it . It is worth it because we are in a Global Health pandemic and the chief medical officer said this morning we need to be healthy and need to get fit. Our sector is there ready to go. I think people started with great gusto when they were at home and people have been waiting and we have got people like you who did not want to feel
confident enough to go into a studio but people have been starting that way. But opening the doors is going to cost us more money. How long can you operate before you need the guidance to change so you can have the doors open not just this month but next month and six months and the next year and the year after . I think right now it is about keeping the doors open as long as we can. The next six to 12 months is going to be very challenging for our sector. Because of localised lockdowns and no footfall so we predominantly are in zone one and two of london. The big thing is not going back into the city or around the west end and footfall is a massive part of our business and we are pay as you go so people are not here and we are not getting paid. So viability is one of the key things we are looking at and were looking at not opening all of our sites because we wont
have the footfall and we will lose so much more money by opening the doors and keeping them closed in the interim. Why has it been fitness last rather than fitness first, if you pardon the pun . I can understand with gyms and with equipment and dumbbells and all the rest of it that there is concern there about people touching and potentially then passing on the virus that way. But in well ventilated dance classes, in pools and such like, there are many people in those industries and im sure joan included, who were frankly amazed that pubs were allowed to open on the 4th ofjuly and they are now going to have to wait until nearly the end of the month. But we had the government saying that it is a stepwise approach going very carefully
and they are prepared to rollback, so the government would say that they are being cautious because we still have the virus out there and we have to be careful. But the culture secretary today said we had to get match fit and that involves places like joans opening and getting people on their bikes doing their exercises. Very quickly, reading the guidance, it says no loud music and no shouting. Does that mean it is the end of the spin class . I hope not. We dont do spin, but one of the key motivators that everyone knows is music. We work out. We are a very creative brand and we have done a lot of agile things through lockdown and over 11 years of business, so we think about ways around this. Instructors use microphones so that things that they dont shout and we will think about ways
that we can bring the motivation without having to kill the vibe. You cannot do a rihanna street dance class without loud music. And someone shouting at you to make you do it. Recreational sport, number one, where is the common sense in a pub opening before fitness and Leisure Facilities or recreational sport . I dont see the common sense in that. Thank you very much and no comment on people who might have started off lockdown being quite enthusiastic about running and by the end of it are maybe less so. I dont know anybody like that. As promised, we are going to talk to russell kane because in theory he could do a stand up gig with a Live Audience from monday as announced by the culture secretary. Hello, russell. Hello. Can you picture yourself
doing one on monday . They are more common than you would think. There are lots of festivals that happen in the summer and it remains to be seen how we define outdoor. A loose marquee covering with no walls around it, were it high enough, it would not count as a space or would it have to be completely exposed to the elements, which also does exist. But we are in the uk, in the rainy windswept corner of europe. So you really are rolling the dice and eating a pack of imodium before you go on. I would be there in my galoshes if need be spitting out banter into a microphone. It is dearly needed. Lots of people and not just artists but those who work in the industry are on their knees, 70 of comedy clubs and venues may close the next year. 70 . 60 of those working in my industry think they may not make it to february before they leave
because lots are self employed and lots of us fall through the nets. We either cannot furlough for technical reasons or we did not furlough or wed be a daily mail story if we did. So we are sort of trapped in stasis. Im not moaning about me, im ok butjust looking for all the otherjesters, actors and others who put their life into what they do. People go, excuse me, we need to get the country moving first and what about travel and infrastructure, and what do you think we have been doing for the last four months when you switch on that tv, laughing, crying and having emotions that have gotten you through and have been the stand ups and the actors and the drama and streaming from the National Theatre and hamilton being streamed and things like this. They have got people who are in a dire state with Mental Health through. Artistic experience can lift you, particularly laughter and ill be biased, obviously, but for me humour is the most important thing. And a big part for our culture as well as a big industry, but im interested do you think that comedy has been treated less seriously by the government than other bits of the arts . If you went out to the average person in the street, i dont mean to sound ungrateful but it is funny speaking to the comics and everyone else in my industry because we all were in the air when this £1. 5 billion package went to the theatres. We were like thank goodness and we realised they had to stay closed for ages so good for the theatres, but what are we going to do . Its a rescue package for people that keeps me out of work. Im cheering for my own turkey christmas. If you went out to the average person on the street and went 1. 5 billion for the theatres, were the last things they would think of, me jumping on a microphone, its opera and macbeth and proper theatre and there is as weve seen so much about culture and elitism and a snobbery about anything that feels a bit more mainstream or a dare to even be working class entertainment, gasp. It has to go to the bottom of the food chain. Satire at the darkest of times plays a very strong role. I think it does. Humour can be really powerful. It is not a coincidence if you go to totalitarian countries that you will not find a stand up club. There is no one knocking out a kim jong un set in pyongyang, believe me. Not that we would know about. We would not know. He would not even get to the punchline, and then literally a punchline if he concluded it. I am just wondering because it has been quite depressing for everybody in terms of what has done to the economy, the lives being in intensive care, but we are all desperate. On the front line when you talk to health care workers, they need some kind of comedy and they need a dark humour and i wonder for you what have been the sort of comedic themes that have kept you going . Like i said, i kept working. The day after i heard that all of my work was cancelled for a year and a half, i still cannot say it, i threw my calculator in the bin when i got to a certain number and you dont want to know what it added up to, and i went straight on and satnav stuck on the window and an iphone and started creating a pseudo stand up content rant which i have been dropping on the internet which has done fantastic numbers. The day after Boris Johnson did his da vinci code, impossible to decipher stay in, go out, go out, stay in speech, and two Million People watched me make fun of that, but im not mentioning that because im a big head and want people to think im funny. I mention it because of how important it is that people have their neck going to the phones, we are looking for things to laugh at. When the laughter is Holding Power to account, it can be really powerful. It is like a limb and if britain is a person, it is like a limb isjust dead and we are getting
through it with the others to feed ourselves of our remaining limbs and walk to work with our legs and this other artistic limb must spring back to life and i mean it. Holding a microphone. Is it worth it coming back in the next few months in a very small tentative way or is it actuallyjust no point and we should wait until youve got a whole hog and can go back to a big gig like the old days . Its a good question but a bit academic in that it is not really worth the venue opening if its below 80 capacity. So the first part of your question although interesting thinking about how it might work with the space but most could not afford to do it. As you go past 80 capacity, how do you maintain one metre distance . How do you maintain it in a pub . My pub was built in 1580 so one metre and you are in the dog and duck if you move one metre away from someone. Not the black death, then. What i mean is where possible
and if possible especially in purpose built been easier with the chairs out and put tables into family since its together, yes, most stand ups and particularly ones with 3 5 years of experience can handle a more slightly populated audience. But im worried about looking out to a seat of the menacing masks laughing at me withjust eyes, but im up for it. And vastly spread out as well. I suspect people will come. You never know. If you dont face up to that, you can file yourself up in the air conditioned tube or an aeroplane and breathe everyone elses covid 19 for two hours because thats safe. If you get back to one of those gigs, come back on to tell us how it went. I will do one in my garden. No trombones no brass instruments in front of others or woodwinds. Thank you very much, russell. Thank you. A quick team meeting before we go. 0ur listeners and viewers have noticed it because the story has been evolving we have talked more and more other subjects because there have been lots of other major news in the few weeks. So very soon we will be back as newscast but we will of course to be talking about coronavirus as it is still, as you often cite, part of our lives and will be for a long time to come. And another episode of newscast very soon. Thanks, everyone. Bye. The coronavirus newscast from the bbc