Calls increase in the us to take down confederate statues because of their connnections to slavery. Residents of poole vow to protect a statue of the scouts Founder Robert baden powell, whos accused of racism. Police fear it could be a target for demonstrators. Jk rowling reveals she has experienced Domestic Abuse and sexual assault, in an essay explaining her views about gender. And, one zooms the queen uses the Video Conferencing app to thank carers for their work during the coronavirus pandemic. Interesting listening to all your tales and stories, and im very impressed by what you have achieved already. Im very glad to have been able to join you today. Hello, good afternoon. In the next half hour, well bring you the daily downing street briefing, to be led today by the Health Secretary, matt hancock, who will give an update on the first weeks figures from the new nhs test and Trace Programme in england. The numbers show of the more than 8,000 people who tested positive for covid 19 between 28 may and 3june, two thirds were contacted and provided details of people with whom theyd been in close proximity. Nearly 32,000 contacts were indentified and, as a result, 84 were told to self isolate for m days. Also today, the dramatic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on cancer care has been revealed, with new figures showing a huge fall in the number of people in england being assessed by a specialist after being referred by their gp. Numbers fell by 60 in april compared with the same period last year, and the number of patients starting treatment fell by 20 in that period. Heres our Health Correspondent lauren moss. Yeah, this is the first time ive had chemotherapy. Pauline is 75 and has lung cancer. At first, she was apprehensive about having treatment during the pandemic. Ive got to take the chance, havent i . The hospital situation is far too crowded, as far as im. I mean, not in radiotherapy, its very clear there. Weve only got chemotherapy patients coming in and going out. Paulines on board the chemo bus at North Middlesex hospital. This is one of the ways the nhs is mobilising care after the initial surge of Covid Patients hit the hospital hard. It was like a tsunami. I dont think we ever thought it would hit us at the fast rate of knots that it actually did. We are definitely are at reduced capacity from what we were doing, sort of, pre covid, but weve had to do that in order to be able to treat as many people as possible. But figures released this morning have revealed for the first time just how severely Cancer Services have been affected in england. 79,500 urgent referrals were made by gps in april, 60 lower than the year before. Urgent Breast Cancer referrals had an even larger drop, down by 78 to 3700. And the number of people waiting no more than two months from gp referral to first Cancer Treatment was down to under 11,000, 20 lower. Well, i have a scan every three months, and. And it has notjust impacted new patients. 54 year old joanne addis from stockport has been taking medication for three years to stabilise her incurable cancer, but it was paused in april to minimise her risk of catching covid. Ive got a family, i got a new husband, and i didnt want to be in a situation where my life is shortened any more than it should be. I need to get on top of the pain that ive got, which i believe that if i go back on the treatment, that pain will diminish, and i willjust get my quality of life back. Remote chemo, a precise high dose form of radiotherapy, and surgical hubs are among the ways the nhs is restarting services. Consultations are done by telephone or video call. Patients have their blood taken in a separate building, and then receive chemotherapy in these mobile units here, everything taking place away from the main hospital. Coronavirus is going to be with us for months if not years to come, and so the nhs is going to need to retain the ability to surge capacity, to look after local flare ups, and throughout this staff have pulled out all the stops, but theyve also innovated in the way in which care is being provided. But theres a warning cancer must not become the forgotten c of the pandemic. I think to anybody watching this id say, if youve got any lumps or bumps, any pains that cant be explained and havent gone away, or anything at all thats worrying you, get in touch with your gp today. The rest of the uk will publish waiting times in the coming weeks. Its likely to be a long road to recovery for cancer care. Lauren moss, bbc news. 0ur Health Correspondent nick triggle is here with me now. Nick, as well as those figures about cancer ca re we nick, as well as those figures about cancer care we have also had some figures out about routine operations and emergencies. Yes, they show there have been significant disruptions to the services. If youll remember, routine operations like knee and hip replacements were cancelled en masse at the start of the pandemic so hospitals could prepare for the expected surge in coronavirus cases. Looking at a chart, it is no surprise there has been a big drop in the numbers being operated on. Normally it would be touching around 300,000 operations a month, and that dropped to 200,000 in march, then in april down to 40,000. That is unprecedented. Normally you would expect hospitals to get through that number into mac 01 to get through that number into mac or three days. Hospitals are restarting this routine work but nhs leaders are warning it could take at least a year before they get back to normal. Meanwhile, a e is a different story. That has stayed open. People appear to have stayed away. Generally, more than 2 Million People a month would come to a e, but in february that dipped below, that figure, the first as the first coronavirus cases started to emerge in march, then dropped again before sinking to under a million attendances in april. It has now gone back up to 1. 2 million in may. Doctors are seriously concerned people are missing out on the care they need and these are people who need urgent care who are seriously ill so they are urging people to come forward and start using a e as normal. Nick, we have also had to date the first figures from the governments test and tray system. What have they shown . Yes, these have been eagerly anticipated test and trace system. These are crucial for containing local outbreaks and helping us to ease out of lockdown. We have the figures for the first week in england, from the 28th of may until the 3rd ofjune. The other uk nations have their own services. It shows just over 8000 people who tested positive for coronavirus were transferred into the service to contact their close contacts, but concerning the one in three did not provide any contacts, and some gave incorrect Contact Details, some actually refused to participate in the programme. But those that did provide Contact Details, and there were nearly 32,000 contacts provided, five in six of those contacts were then reached and many were reached very quickly, in 24 hours, and many agreed to self isolate. Nhs bosses accept it is not Gold Standard yet, it is only the first week, but they say it is a good start and it is something to build on. Ok, many thanks, our Health Correspondent, nick triggle there. Concerns about the risks of deploying a uk coronavirus Contact Tracing app are causing further delays. A second version of the Smartphone Software was due to have begun testing on the isle of wight last tuesday, but the government decided to postpone the trial. Ministers are now considering switching the app over to tech developed by apple and google. Lets speak now to our technology correspondent, Rory Cellan Jones. Rory, an app was meant to be up and running on the first of this month and we were told it was vital to the whole test and tracing system. Where are we . Reeta, the whole focus of the government on this seems to have shifted. A couple of months ago this was to be the be all and end all, and we didnt hear anything about this system you just heard about now, the app was going to do the job. I think they have gradually realised this is very unproven technology. The first trial was on the isle of wight and went 0k and that plenty of people downloaded the app that plenty of people downloaded the app, but it was a very primitive version, it didnt have testing built in. Now the team behind it has updated it, have put far more symptoms in it, and it has got testing built in. They are ready to go, but they were expecting to really start the second trial in the isle of wight earlier this week, and downing street has basically put the brakes on. I think there is a iieivousiiess brakes on. I think there is a nervousness in downing street about whether this will work. They dont wa nt whether this will work. They dont want anything to go wrong. There are problems with these apps. Dont forget, this is completely untested technology. It uses bluetooth on your phone and others around the world who are developing similar apps are finding they dont necessarily work very well. There has not been a successful launch nationally of an app like this anywhere around the world, and other big debate is whether we stick with the current system, which is a centralised app where the data is collected by the nhs, fairly ce ntrally, collected by the nhs, fairly centrally, or go down the route offered by apple and google, their platform, a decentralised app. That would take more time and we would have to sort of switch out the engine, how someone put it to me, then even with that system, theres not a lot of evidence around the world that is working either. People are generally having problems with this app. I think the lesson we learning is that people are a couple of months ago thought this kind of technology would be some kind of Silver Bullet and everybody is waking up to the fact that, yes, if it works it would be brilliant because it would give you lots of early warnings of peoples contacts, but making it work is a big challenge. 0k. Many thanks. Our correspondent Rory Cellan Jones there. Keith neal is Professor Emeritus of the epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the university of nottingham. He has 30 years of experience in Contact Tracing and has previously served as a consultant for Public Health england. Good afternoon, thank you for joining. Good afternoon. What do you make of the governments difficulties with developing this app, and how important do you think it is getting on top of this epidemic . Im not an expert in developing apps and it is sort of sad and disappointing that we havent got one. There are other apps around the world but they are incredibly intrusive and go as far as tracking peoples movements directly, which i think wouldnt be a cce pta ble directly, which i think wouldnt be acceptable in the current. In our human rights situation of basically privacy data. I think it is a big help having these apps because it helps you identify who you are in close contact with, particularly when we reopen shops. Currently i seem to get. Through my local supermarket i travel, including the queueing outside, in under 20 minutes, so i dont really meet the 15 minute rule for anybody. What is the 15 minute rule, sorry . Just explain that, please. The who is looking at people who are within one metre for 15 minutes as a significant contact. As you know, people walking along the street, people walking along the street, people seem to give you a very wide berth, and really that is really not necessary to prevent any significant infections, because the speed that people walk past each other, youre not going to catch anything just like that. Just fleeting. I wonder what you think of the figures we have had today for the governments test and tray system. The third of people not providing their Contact Details, that is worrying, isnt it . Basically abject. This is a Public Health crisis and it involves the public being part of it. The government has managed to arrange testing for everybody with symptoms and it is up to the public to get tested to get tested, and for them to cooperate with the system, because at the moment we are not in a position where we send people round to shake them up and demand the contacts, and i dont think people want that. Really, we want people want that. Really, we want people to cooperate. We are not sure how many of those 32 are actually pa rt how many of those 32 are actually part of other outbreaks and have already been contact traced, and my understanding and i checked this, you need to put your mobile phone number in when you order a test yourself. I think the good news was out of the contacts who were identified, 85 were identified and these were identified very quickly, and sufficiently quickly to stop them going on to spread further infection. Hopefully, they will continue to self isolate. The system of course only identifies people who are showing symptoms of coronavirus, because they then request a test. I guess the system isnt really geared up for people who are asymptomatic . How would you find them, a good question. This is the point of Contact Tracing. It helps to find people who would go on to become a symptomatic spreaders or possibly they were the source of the infection, but they are probably no longer infectious. People who havent got symptoms, unless we test people every week, which we can only do in high risk situations, and even thenif do in high risk situations, and even then if you tested them on monday and they were negative, they could start showing the virus on tuesday 01 start showing the virus on tuesday or wednesday. A difficult situation. Listen, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much, keith neal, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the university of nottingham, thank you. The government is facing increasing pressure from within its own party to relax the two metre distancing rule in england, to help businesses and schools re open. The former conservative leader sir Iain Duncan Smith has warned that the uk faces shattering consequences if it doesnt soon change the guidance to one metre, which is recommended by the World Health Organization. Borisjohnson has previously said he hopes the distance can be reduced as virus rates go down, with ministers saying the issue is under active review. Heres our Political Correspondentjessica parker. Cheers remember this . When people could crowd into pubs and restaurants . You wont see that again anytime soon, but with more shops opening from next week, and measuring up hopes for hospitality in july, theres a question. Thats two metres. How distant does social distancing need to be . For our businesses, it is the difference between survival and failure. With a two metre social distancing rule, a third of our premises simply will not be able to reopen. Thats a million jobs at risk, and it means that businesses will be opening at an average revenue of 30 of their normal revenue, of their normal revenues, whereas at one metre, theyre opening at 70 of normal revenues. The uk has the same two metre rule as spain and canada. That drops to 1. 5 metres if you are in australia, italy or germany. And then further reduces to one metre if youre in china, france or singapore. Meanwhile, official guidance from the World Health Organization is to leave at least a metre between yourself and others to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Its all a numbers game. We know that you need to get whats called an infectious dose to pick up the virus. That infectious dose for this new coronavirus is pretty low, perhaps as low as 20 virus particles in order to guarantee that a person is going to get infected, so the further you are away from someone, or the more fleeting your contact with them, the lower the likelihood that youre going to pick up the infection. Theres the priority of bearing down on the virus, but also fears that the two metre rule could clog up efforts to get the economy going. Scientists will give their assessment of the risks, but ultimately, its a political decision. A devolved matter scotland, wales and Northern Ireland can do different things. For england, Boris Johnson said that as infection rates are driven down, itll need to be kept under constant review. Theres clearly discussions going on on this, but at the same time, theres nothing which we can say at this point which changes the advice that were offering the public. Im not seeking to evade that question, we all recognise that there is of course an important discussion to be had about it, but were not changing the advice that were offering the public. But bars and shops will need enough customers, and some tory mps are arguing for a shift in the balance. Our economy is facing a complete crash. The debts were racking up on how were supporting people, the fact that no work or very little work is taking place. If we dont get the economy moving, we will be unable to afford any of the things that we need to support public services, so getting the balance right is important. And also schooling, by the way. If we had had a one or 1. 5 metre rule for schools, it would have made it much easier for them to have opened. Two metres remains the marker for now, but its possible the rule could be rewritten. Jessica parker, bbc news. Lets speak now to our chief Political Correspondent vicki young. How much pressure as the government under over the two metre rule . How much pressure as the government under over the two metre rule . |j think they are under pressure from business, but in a sense, they want to do this themselves, it is not just about being under pressure, borisjohnson, for a few weeks now, has made it clear that it is under review, rishi sunak, the chancellor, not surprisingly, given h