How did Britain get its coronavirus response so wrong?

ANOTHER RIGHT WING GOVERNMENT BLOWS IT

As the warnings grew louder, Boris Johnson’s government was distracted by Brexit. On testing, contact tracing and equipment supply, there was a failure to prepare

 Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, speaks via video link during the official opening of the NHS Nightingale hospital in Birmingham. Photograph: Jacob King/AFP via Getty Images
LOOKING LIKE BIG BROTHER AS ORWELL IMAGINED AS WELL AS MICHAEL MOORE V FOR VENDETTA AND APPLE 1984

by Toby Helm, Emma Graham-Harrison & Robin McKie Sun 19 Apr 2020

By late December last year, doctors in the central Chinese city of Wuhan were starting to worry about patients quarantined in their hospitals suffering from an unusual type of pneumonia.

As the mystery illness spread in one of China’s major industrial hubs, some tried to warn their colleagues to take extra care at work, because the disease resembled Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the deadly respiratory disease that had killed hundreds of people across the region in 2002-03 after a government cover-up.

One of those who tried to raise the alarm, though only among a few medical school classmates, was a 33-year-old Chinese ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang. Seven people were in isolation at his hospital, he said, and the disease appeared to be a coronavirus, from the same family as Sars.

In early January he was called in by police, reprimanded for “spreading rumours online”, and forced to sign a paper acknowledging his “misdemeanour” and promising not to repeat it.

Many early cases were linked to the city’s Huanan seafood and fresh produce market, which also sold wildlife, suggesting that the first cases were contracted there.
The Wuhan hygiene emergency response team leave the closed Huanan seafood wholesale market on 11 January. Photograph: Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Scientists would discover the disease had probably originated in bats and had then passed through a second species – in all likelihood, but not certainly, pangolins, a type of scaly anteater – before infecting humans.

But the infections were soon spreading directly between patients, so fast that on 23 January the government announced an unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan city and the surrounding Hubei province.

Two weeks later, on 7 February, Li, who had contracted coronavirus himself, died in hospital from the condition about which he had tried to raise the alarm. He had no known underlying conditions and left behind a wife and young child.


Li became the face of the mysterious new disease. The story of his death and pictures of him in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask made media headlines across the globe, including in the UK.

The world, it seemed, was slowly becoming more aware of how lethal coronavirus could be, that it was not just another form of flu with fairly mild symptoms.

But while UK scientists and medical researchers were becoming more concerned, and studying the evidence from China, those among them who were most worried were not getting their messages through to high places.

Distracted by Brexit and reshuffles

The Conservative government of Boris Johnson had other more immediate preoccupations at the start of this year.

Johnson was still basking in his general election success last December. After he returned from a celebratory Caribbean holiday with his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, the political weather for the prime minister seemed to be set fair. It was honeymoon time.

Three and a half years on from the Brexit referendum, the UK was finally about to leave the EU on 31 January. The fireworks and parties for the big night were being planned, the celebratory 50p coins minted.

Minds were certainly not on a developing health emergency far away, as Johnson prepared to exploit the moment of the UK’s departure from the European Union for all it was worth. “I think there was some over-confidence,” admitted one very senior Tory last week.

The prime minister and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, wanted to make an early impression at home in other ways too, as domestic reformers. Cummings was waging a war on civil servants in Whitehall, throwing his weight around and deliberately upsetting the Westminster applecart.

While he made the headlines, briefing about his iconoclastic ambitions, Johnson was preparing a big Cabinet reshuffle to assert his own authority in other areas now Brexit was done and dusted.

With Labour effectively leaderless after its fourth consecutive election defeat, there was little opposition to trouble Johnson on any front at all – and certainly no-one of note asking tough questions about coronavirus.

The prime minister duly recast his cabinet team on 13 February – five days after Li’s death in Wuhan. He made big changes but unsurprisingly retained the hitherto safe pair of hands of Matt Hancock as his health secretary.

Boris Johnson speaking about the EU on 3 February. Photograph: Reuters

In a sign of where priorities lay – and the lack of concern that a potential crisis might be heading our way from the east – Hancock wasted no time recording a video of himself grinning with delight on reshuffle day.

He smacked his right fist into his left palm saying he could not wait to “get cracking” and that he relished the chance to deliver the Tories’ manifesto promises, reform social care and improve life sciences. And lastly, in a more sombre voice, he spoke of “dealing with coronavirus and keeping the public safe” before adding, as the grin returned: “Now let’s get back to work!”

It is perhaps too early to conclude for sure that Johnson, Hancock and the government’s entire team of scientific and medical advisers were caught asleep at the wheel. But the fact that Johnson and Hancock themselves, in common with much of the Downing Street staff, would go on to contract the virus or suffer symptoms, further suggests that people at the top had not been sufficiently on their guard.

Now, 11 weeks on from the first cases being confirmed in the UK on 31 January – a period during which more than 14,000 people (and probably several thousands more once care home fatalities are counted) in the UK have died from Covid-19 – and with the country in lockdown, the economy facing prolonged recession as a result, schools closed, and no sign of an end in sight – hard questions have to be asked.

We already know with some certainty that other countries, such as Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand, will emerge from this crisis having performed far better than the UK. A few weeks ago the government’s advisers crassly said that fewer than 20,000 deaths would be “a very good result” for the UK.

Boris Johnson missed five coronavirus Cobra meetings, Michael Gove says 

As we fast approach that grim tally, many experts now believe the UK may come out of this crisis, whenever that may be, with one of the worst records on fighting coronavirus of any European nation. Once the full tally is counted, few expect the number of deaths to be below 20,000.

By contrast, on Friday, Germany was saying it thought it had brought coronavirus largely under control. It had had 3,868 deaths, less a third of the total in the UK (and Germany’s population, at 83 million, is far higher), having conducted widespread testing for Covid-19 from early on, precisely as the UK has failed to do.

How, then, did it come to this? How did coronavirus spread across the globe, prompting different responses in different countries? Did the UK simply fail to heed the warnings? Or did it just decide to take different decisions, while others settled on alternative actions to save lives?
The warnings grow louder

David Nabarro, professor of global health at Imperial College, London, and an envoy for the World Health Organization on Covid-19, says one thing is for sure. All governments were warned how serious the situation was likely to become as early as the end of January. Ignorance of the danger that was coming can be no excuse. Yet it would not be until late March – later than many other countries – that Johnson would announce a complete lockdown.

“WHO had been following the outbreak since the end of December and within a few weeks it called a meeting of its emergency committee to decide if this outbreak was a ‘public health emergency of international concern’,” said Nabarro.


WHO made it very clear – to every country in the world – that we were facing something very serious indeedProf David Nabarro, Imperial College, London

“That is the highest level of alert that WHO can issue, and it issued it on January 30. It made it very clear then – to every country in the world – that we were facing something very serious indeed.”

Well before the end of January, the WHO had been tracking the growing threat minutely: 14 January was a key day in the spread of the disease that would become known as Covid-19. The first case was confirmed outside China, with a woman hospitalised in Thailand.

A WHO official warned then that it was possible that human-to-human transmission had occurred in families of victims – a sign that the disease had potential to spread far and fast – and, inside China, officials were quietly told to prepare for a pandemic.

There was little international attention on the day, though, because Beijing’s dire warnings about a pandemic were made in secret, and a WHO spokesman rowed back from his colleague’s claim.

Officially, China had not seen a new case of the coronavirus for over a week; the outbreak appeared to be fading. It took another six days for China to publicly acknowledge the gravity of the threat, time that scientists believed meant a further 3,000 people were infected.

But on 20 January, officials announced more than 100 new cases and admitted the virus was spreading between humans, a red flag for concern to anyone who works on infectious diseases. The virus could no longer be contained by finding the animal source of the infection and destroying it.

Two days later, the scale of the challenge was made clear to the general public when Beijing locked down millions of people. All transport into and out of the metropolis of Wuhan was cut off, an unprecedented modern quarantine that would come at huge human and economic cost.

On 29 January, the UK would have its first two confirmed cases of the disease. There was little sense that China’s dilemma and its approach – shut down life as we know it or watch the death toll spiral out of control – might have to be our nightmare within weeks.

In early February, Donald Trump announced a ban on travellers who had passed through China in the previous 14 days. Europe began focused testing of people with symptoms and travel histories that linked them to the disease, but little else.

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Don’t bet on vaccine to protect us from Covid-19, says world health expert

THE ONLY PEOPLE BETTING ON VACCINES ARE WALL ST INVESTORS

Professor of global health at Imperial College, London warns we ‘may have to adapt’ to virus


Robin McKie, Toby Helm and Michael Savage THE OBSERVER Sat 18 Apr 2020
 

Coronavirus tests at a facility in Lincoln. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

Humanity will have to live with the threat of coronavirus “for the foreseeable future” and adapt accordingly because there is no guarantee that a vaccine can be successfully developed, one of the world’s leading experts on the disease has warned.

The stark message was delivered by David Nabarro, professor of global health at Imperial College, London, and an envoy for the World Health Organisation on Covid-19, as the number of UK hospital deaths from the virus passed 15,000.

BIG BROTHER ANNOUNCES SOCIAL DISTANCING

A further 888 people were reported on Saturday to have lost their lives – a figure described by communities secretary Robert Jenrick as “extremely sobering” – while the total number who have been infected increased by 5,525 to 114,217.

The latest figures, which do not include deaths in care homes and in the community, put further pressure on the government amid continuing anger among NHS workers and unions over the lack personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital and care home staff on the front line.


In late March the government’s health advisers said that if UK deaths from Coronavirus could be kept below 20,000 by the end of the pandemic, it would be a “good result” for country. But with an estimated 6,000 people having already died in care homes from Covid-19 – a figure not included in Saturday’s official tally – the 20,000 figure is likely already to have been exceeded.

In an interview with The Observer Nabarro said the public should not assume that a vaccine would definitely be developed soon – and would have to adapt to the ongoing threat.

“You don’t necessarily develop a vaccine that is safe and effective against every virus. Some viruses are very, very difficult when it comes to vaccine development - so for the foreseeable future, we are going to have to find ways to go about our lives with this virus as a constant threat.

“That means isolating those who show signs of the disease and also their contacts. Older people will have to be protected. In addition hospital capacity for dealing with cases will have to be ensured. That is going to be the new normal for us all.”

The comments came as the former UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the only way forward was for nations to support a new global health system that would mean far more international cooperation between governments on health issues. It would also require richer nations doing more to support the health systems of the world’s poorest countries.

“I think global health security is going to be on that small but critical list of topics like climate change that we can only solve in partnership with other countries,” Hunt told The Observer.

In a clear criticism of US President Donald Trump who announced last week he was putting on hold funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Hunt added: “Surely the lesson of coronavirus is cure not kill…It certainly does not mean cutting their funding (to the WHO).

“One of the big lessons from this will be that when it comes to health systems across the world, we are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain.

“Although China has rightly been criticised for covering up the virus in the early stages the situation would have been whole lot worse if this had started in Africa. International cooperation and supporting health care systems of the poorest countries has to be a top priority in terms of the lessons we need to learn.”

Nabarro’s message is the second grim warning to come from senior ranks of the WHO in the last three days. On Friday, Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, warned that there was no evidence that antibody tests now being developed would show if a person has immunity or is no longer at risk of becoming reinfected by the Covid-19 virus.

On Saturday it emerged that doctors and nurses treating Covid-19 face shortages of protective full-length gowns for weeks to come, as anger mounts over failures to stockpile them. Gowns were not included in a stockpile list prepared for a potential flu pandemic.

After The Guardian revealed new guidance from Public Health England which instructs healthcare workers to re-use disposable equipment, the GMB, which represents NHS and ambulance staff, said support was “draining away” from Health Secretary, Matt Hancock.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers which represents many trusts, told the Observer: “We are in a situation where we think this [issue] will last a couple of weeks, which probably does just take us to May. There is a shortage of gowns which is affecting some trusts, but not all. Some have none, and are using the alternatives.”

The government will attempt to gain control of the mounting PPE concerns by appointing Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London Olympics organising committee, to lead efforts to produce equipment in Britain.

Ministers also announced another £1.6bn cash injection to local councils as they attempt to stem a spiralling crisis in social care that is pushing some care providers into the red. Some have been paying inflated prices for commercial protective equipment.

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Groggy grizzly bear caught emerging from hibernation in viral video

Ranger in Canadian Rockies says video she captured was ‘something everybody needed’ in a time of isolation


Leyland Cecco in Toronto Tue 7 Apr 2020 17.30


Ranger captures moment grizzly bear emerges from hibernation in Canada – video


On a bright spring day, a hulking grizzly bear named Boo emerged from his winter den, shaking a dusting of snow from his thick coat as he looked around groggily.

The moment was filmed in a remarkable viral video – which also captures the elated reaction of one of the bear’s closest humans, the manager of grizzly refuge in the Canadian Rockies.

“Mama’s so proud of you! You are such a good sight,” exclaims Nicole Gangnon, in a clip filmed on her mobile phone which has racked up more 100,000 views on Twitter – many by people desperate for distraction from the coronavirus pandemic.

Gangnon had her own reason to be cheerful, she later explained: she had tried unsuccessfully for eight years to document the bear’s emergence from hibernation.

“We’ve always set up trail cameras and our surveillance cameras,” Gangnon told the Guardian. “And it just seems like every time he decides to dig out, our technology fails us and we can never capture that moment.”

Born in the wild, Boo now lives alone at the Grizzly Bear Refuge, a 20-acre enclosure on the property of the Kicking Horse ski resort in near the town of Golden.

After his mother was killed by poachers nearly in 2002, Boo arrived at the refuge with his brother Cari (the pair were named after the Cariboo Mountains where they were found).

Gangnon knows the playful 18-year old bear well. For nearly a decade, she’s helped care for him at the Grizzly Bear Refuge, working as a manager at the custom-built facility for the lone bear.

Cari died from a twisted intestine during the pair’s first winter in the refuge, but Boo has thrived over the years, drawing thousands of tourists to his enclosure.

The log cabin den where Boo sleeps every winter – buried under two meters of snow – also doubles as makeshift laboratory and is designed to allow researchers to study bear hibernation.

On 17 March, Gangnon heard movement from the den and waited anxiously as Boo dug himself out.

“It’s just beautiful to see him face-to-face rather than on a camera. He’s so happy and that just makes your heart sing,” she said. “Once he gets up, you can see he’s got a grin on his face. He’s like: ‘Hello, world, here I am again.’”

“I was moved to tears that day. With the world so uncertain, it was something I needed. I think it was something everybody needed, to be honest,” said Gangnon. “It’s brought a lot of happiness into people’s world’s right now, when people are isolated. It’s really just helped people to see that the world will still go on.”

• This article was amended on 7 April 2020 to add some clarifying text about how long Nicole Gagnon has cared for Boo the bear.

Indigenous input helps save wayward grizzly bear from summary killing

When a bear starts feeding off garbage and loses its fear of humans it is quickly shot but an unlikely conservation partnership may be setting a different path

Leyland Cecco in Toronto THE GUARDIAN Sun 19 Apr 2020 
 

The presence of grizzly bears, like Mali pictured here, along the scattering of islands in British Columbia’s Broughton archipelago has become a cause of concern for locals and conservation officers. Photograph: Suzie Hall

In early April, a young grizzly bear swam through the chilly waters off the western coast of Canada in search of food.

He came ashore on Hanson Island, one of more than 200 rocky outcrops in British Columbia’s Broughton archipelago, and quickly started eating garbage from a cabin.

It was a dangerous move: bears that get too comfortable eating food waste and start to lose their fear of humans are quickly shot.

But this bear’s death was averted through an unlikely partnership between local Indigenous groups and conservation officers, raising hopes of a more holistic approach to wildlife management with greater Indigenous input.


In recent years, the presence of bears along the scattering of islands has become a cause of concern for locals and conservation officers.

Typically, after months of hibernation, grizzlies in the region will hunt for clams and mussels. But this bear smelled something better and easier: garbage.

Locals named it Mali, in honour of the Mamalilikulla First Nation whose traditional territory encompasses the collection of islands.

And as Mali continued to forage for food scraps, conservation officials took notice.

The province has a long and often fraught relationship with grizzly bears. Until 2017, trophy hunting was permitted in the province – a deeply divisive practice that had lost public support in previous years. As many as 250 bears, from a population of 15,000, were killed annually.

The practice has also divided First Nations: many had provided guiding services for hunters and benefited from the hunt, but other Indigenous communities have grown frustrated with the speed with which conservation officers shoot problem bears.

Mali is airlifted to an undisclosed location on the province’s mainland. Photograph: Suzie Hall

In January, a male grizzly named Gatu appeared in a neighbouring community on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. He became too comfortable around humans. First Nations pleaded with conservation officers to come up with a proactive approach.

But their request “just fell on deaf ears” and the bear was shot and killed, said Mike Willie, a wildlife guide and hereditary chief of the Kwikwasut’inuxw Nation.

As elsewhere, conservation officers in British Columbia have long taken the view that a habituated bear – one that has lost its fear of humans and is comfortable rummaging for food in urban areas – is effectively a dead bear walking.

But when a local guide showed him footage of the new grizzly, Willie hoped this time might be different. Working together and with the non-profit Grizzly Bear Foundation, local First Nations hatched a plan to trap the bear and transport him by helicopter.

“We don’t want our bears killed any more. We have the right to govern within our own traditional territories and we have inherent rights and we have title,” said Willie.

Conservation officers were initially set on killing the bear, leading to a brief standoff between the two groups. Soon, the province’s environment minister was weighing in, asking all involved to consider a different, non-lethal approach.

“Once everything settled down, the conservation officers switched from a kill plan to a relocation plan. And it was amazing really to see them in action,” said Nicholas Scapillati, head of the foundation. “They became very caring about how they could trap this bear and relocate him safely.”

On 13 April, Mali was successfully captured alive and moved to an undisclosed location on the province’s mainland.

“Within minutes of waking up, he wasn’t eating garbage. Now he’s in a remote, beautiful estuary, eating sage grass, which is what he should have been doing,” said Scapillati.

The province’s minister of environment, George Heyman, praised the result, saying the “desire for reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples helped guide the process.

While the bear’s life was saved, locals worry that diminishing food sources, including a decline in salmon, could prompt more bears to make the journey.

But for Willie, the success with Mali marks a critical first step in changing what he sees as outdated views of conservation.

“It feels that this could be a blueprint to move forward – for us and for other First Nations on the coast,” he said. “It was a really good ending.”

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The age of extinction
Canada mourns Takaya – the lone sea wolf whose spirit captured the world Takaya on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 

Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake Images

The life – and this week’s sudden death – of the legendary wolf shone a light on the often-strained bond between humans and wild animals

by Leyland Cecco
The age of extinction is supported byAbout this content

Fri 27 Mar 2020

When Doug Paton burst from his trailer on a warm spring afternoon, he expected to confront yet another stray dog agitating the livestock on his sister’s farm outside Victoria, a city on Canada’s west coast. Instead, standing barefoot in the grass, he found himself face to face with a wolf.

“It stopped dead in its tracks and it stared me down,” he says. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the wolf trotted away, pausing once to stare back at Paton before clearing a five-foot metal gate and vanishing.

“Just like a person, you might not remember a name, but you never forget a face,” he says. “I’ll never forget that face as long as I live. I just close my eyes and see it.”
Doug Paton got a Lone Wolf tattoo to mark his encounter with Takaya. Photograph: Leyland Cecco

After leaving a breathless Paton back in 2012, the young wolf traversed nearly 25 miles of urban sprawl, taking shelter in the backyards and parks of British Columbia’s capital, until he reached the south-east tip of Vancouver Island. From there, the wolf swam nearly two miles towards a scattering of tiny islands within sight of the city.

In the eight years that followed, the wolf – named Takaya (the Lekwungen word for wolf) by the Songhees, a local First Nation whose territory encompasses the islands – quickly became a legendary figure, drawing fans from around the world captivated by stories of the resilience – and tenderness – of the young predator.

But his life ended in tragedy on Tuesday, in a series of events that laid bare both the cold uncertainties of life in the wild and the limits of an often-strained bond between humans and wild animals.

Tayaka was a rare species of canine known as the coastal or sea wolf. These predators thrive in marine environments and have become adept at living off a diet of salmon, shellfish and seals instead of deer. Fifty years ago, there were few coastal wolves in the region, victims of overhunting and habitat degradation. Today an estimated 250 of them roam the 12,000 sq miles of Vancouver Island, a remarkable turnaround for the embattled predators.

Two years after Paton’s experience, Cheryl Alexander got her first glimpse of Takaya, in May 2014. Like many of the 370,000 residents of greater Victoria, the environmental consultant and photographer was curious about how the wolf could survive among the wind-battered trees of the tiny islands. 

Takaya swam two miles to a scattering of tiny islands. Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake ImagesShe saw Takaya emerge from the ocean briefly and slip into the trees. The piercing howls that followed were a chilling and powerful experience. “It had emotions associated with it that were very melodic,” she says. “Everyone was almost moved to tears.”

Much of the excitement surrounding Takaya came from the unlikeliness of his journey. Few wolves have ever traversed the heart of Victoria, and the islands Takaya took up residence on were tiny, 10 times smaller than the narrowest known range for a wolf pack in the wild.

Most notably, he arrived alone. Wolves almost always live in nuclear families; two parents and their pups. Occasionally, one will break away to form a new group. But the dangers of hunting – the sharp antlers and stomping hoofs of panicking animals – are often fatal for a lone predator. That Takaya travelled solo – and seemed content to remain alone – added to the myth and excitement.

In recent years, new housing developments have marched steadily outwards from Victoria, swapping land that was once forested and wild for cul-de-sacs and two-car garages.

But the chain of islands close to the city is a rare enclave of untamed nature. Pine and fir, punctuated by the rich amber hues of arbutus trees, create thick inland forests. Seals haul themselves on to the shores and small mammals – mink and otter – scurry among the rocks.

Takaya quickly got to work, feasting on the seals and otters and sharpening his ability to catch fast-moving fish. But with no permanent streams on the island, he also had to use his ingenuity to survive. Drizzly winters created temporary wetlands, but summers in the region are dry. In a move that astounded biologists, he began digging wells on the island.

“He really pushed the envelope of what’s possible ecologically, both in terms of how he made his living, and the small amount of space that he actually required to do so,” says Chris Darimont, a wolf expert at the University of Victoria and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. Takaya was an “extreme data point” on the spectrum of anything researchers had previously encountered. 

Takaya was known to dig wells to find drinking water in the dry summers. Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake Images


People began paddling out to the islands, hoping to catch a glimpse of this miraculous wolf thriving in the ever-vanishing wild around them.

But as his popularity grew, fed by a steady flow of stories in the local media, government authorities feared a dangerous encounter with humans had become inevitable and in the summer of 2012 and winter of 2013, conservation officers set up a series of traps. But Takaya seemed untrappable, ignoring the bait laid out for him.

Plans to capture Takaya put the province at odds with the Songhees First Nations, who vigorously protested the idea of removing the wolf. Long a symbol of the Lekwungen people, there was an excitement among the community that a wolf had finally returned.

Resistance to capturing the wolf also unearthed longstanding grievances over control of the islands. Known as Ti’ches in Lekwungen, the archipelago has long been a source of natural medicines found in the woods and fish in the surrounding waters. When the colonial government enacted a ban on traditional indigenous ceremonies in the 1800s, the Songhees would travel to Ti’ches to practise in secret.

Archival photographs show large wooden structures along the shore, all of which have long disappeared; dismantled, destroyed or stolen over the years. Today the Songhees own all of Chatham Islands and share a portion of Discovery Island with the province of British Columbia. But even the name of the area – Oak Bay Islands Ecological Reserve – remains a vestige of colonialism.

“There’s a huge piece of culture that’s not known or appreciated,” says Mark Salter, the former tourism manager for the Songhees Nation, who has worked to educate the public about the history of the islands. On numerous occasions, he has had to put out fires left by campers and pick up garbage left on the shore. “People invite themselves out here, not knowing this is reserve land. But they’re not welcome.”

In 2016, a group ignored a ban on bringing pets to the islands, travelling with their two dogs. As they walked through the forest, they soon realised they had acquired a third canine in their group. The group panicked and scrambled on to the roof of a nearby lighthouse building, where they called coastguard rescue. Armed conservation officers also arrived, prepared to deliver a fatal shot if needed. Takaya was spared, but the encounter chilled Salter, who worried the wolf’s fame, which only increased over time, could be his undoing.

Howls still echoing in her mind, Alexander began boating around the islands, eager to repeat her first encounter. This time she came prepared with telephoto lenses. Her early sightings of Takaya were rare and infrequent. He was ghostlike, quickly vanishing from view.

“There was something very captivating about him,” she says. “For whatever reason, I felt a really intense connection. I just wanted to learn about his life.” She returned to the islands week after week. With permission from the Songhees Nation, Alexander was able to set foot in the forests where Takaya often hid. Walking gingerly among the pine and fir, she could sense his presence, even as he remained camouflaged among the trees and tall grass.
Photographer Cheryl Alexander, centre, with biologists Thomas Riemchen and Sheila Douglas. Photograph: Leyland Cecco

He began appearing – and vanishing – more frequently. In their hundreds of encounters – including one in which he sat just three feet from her – Alexander felt drawn to his tenderness. “Wolves want what we want,” she says. “They play. They touch. They care deeply about other members of their family.” It was these human-like characteristics that moved people the most. His lonely howls could often be heard from the city during calm weather. Wolves, like humans, crave companionship in some form. As Takaya aged, outliving most wild wolves, he did so alone.

No wolf had ever been recorded living alone for so long, says Darimont. And lone wolves typically avoid howling, so as not to draw the attention of nearby packs. Nearly everything about Takaya, it seemed, was exceptional.

In 2019, a documentary featuring Takaya that Alexander helped produce aired in Canada and on the BBC, further cementing his fame.

Then, in February 2019, a lone female was spotted on the rocky shores of the mainland, across from where Takaya made his swim. Experts doubt she swam the channel – but her presence ignited hope that Takaya might soon be reunited with one of his own.

“There was something about his aloneness … his alienation from his own kind … that spoke to people’s own feelings of alienation and aloneness in the world,” says Alexander. “Plus, we’re all hopeless romantics.”

 

Takaya’s howls could be heard in the city on calm days. Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake ImagesOthers found strength in the wolf’s solitude. Paton, whose spring encounter in 2012 was likely the first recorded sighting of Takaya, was locked in a bitter custody battle and divorce when the two crossed paths.

“I didn’t want to fight any more. And then I saw this lone wolf and thought, ‘If he’s healthy – if he’s doing fine by himself, then so can I,’” he says. “From that day forward, I just changed my attitude towards things. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I felt more invigorated than ever to get things right in my life. And I never looked back.”

Soon after, Paton had the words “Lone Wolf” tattooed on his forearms in permanent tribute.

With all the success Takaya had enjoyed on the islands, no one is sure why, on 25 January this year, he dipped his 10-year-old body into the swirling emerald waters one last time and swam towards the city.

Emerging from the ocean on the opposite shore, he was greeted by a scene of parks and forest, interrupted by condominiums and family homes. Darimont believes the most likely reason, despite the popular conception of Takaya as a lonely figure, was that he was overcome by the annual hormonal urge to mate, which occurs in January.

“I suspect he gave up tranquil retirement on the islands to go find a mate,” he says. Conservation officers have their own theories. They believe a string of intense storms in the winter months, which had blown fierce winds across the islands, might have disrupted Takaya’s access to food. The greenery of city parks across the water and the potential of a new source of food might have been enough to lure a hungry wolf.
Takaya was spotted in Beacon Hill park, a sprawling green space in downtown Victoria. Photograph: Leyland Cecco

Alexander, however, rejects mating and food loss as likely explanations for Takaya’s journey. In the days leading up to his departure, trail camera images showed a healthy, robust wolf. And if the previous nine years of hormones hadn’t been enough to move him from the island in search of a mate, she wondered why – at nearly 11 years old – he suddenly felt the urge to leave. Instead, she feared he might have misjudged the swift ocean currents and been swept towards the mainland. Or that the sound of poachers on the island – hunting ducks in the winter – might have prompted the skittish wolf to seek refuge in the water.

“I doubt that he was intending to leave permanently. I just can’t see it. It was his territory. It was really the only thing he knew. He’d been there all of his life,” she says.

For nearly 48 hours, Takaya, briskly trotting through parks and along sidewalks, led police on a wild chase through the city.

The city remained transfixed as police posted the wolf’s progress on social media. Alexander remembers a night riddled with anxiety as she received constant updates on the chase. Eventually police tracked Takaya to a house, finding him wedged between a garage and a fence. Alexander pleaded with officials to let her see Takaya, but was held back. “I was nearby and I believe that he could smell me,” she says.

Takaya was sedated and carried upside down, his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth, and placed into a metal barrel.

After snapping photos of his limp body being carried away, Alexander returned home to celebrate her husband’s birthday and then went to bed. “The next morning, I just woke up, and cried,” she says.

Two days later Takaya was released back into the wild, emerging from the stupor of drugs on a gravel logging road. Conservation officers decided to relocate him more than 100 miles from the islands. He was moved inland, where the forest is thick and impenetrable, along the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island.

Away from the familiarity and comforts of his small islands, Takaya faced a daunting list of new threats. Packs of wolves in the area might kill him if their paths crossed. Leg-hold traps, laden with bait, might prove too tempting to a starving wolf. Even the new prey – elk and deer – were unfamiliar. “There was tons of stuff that he hadn’t had to deal with in his life,” says Alexander. “I was very worried.”

Takaya on Vancouver Island. Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake Images“Nature is nature and you can’t predict what’s going to happen,” said conservation officer Mark Kissinger, who tranquillised Takaya and set him free, at the time. “But hopefully things go well for him.”

Each time she visited the islands in the weeks that followed, Alexander was struck by an overwhelming sense of emptiness. “There’s an absence now of energy. There’s an absence of possibility,” she said, steering her boat through a narrow channel one sunny February afternoon.

“He gave us a portal into the wild and into nature – and into something that we often don’t get to see. And if we do, it’s only just a glimpse.”

Then, at the end of February, Alexander received an email from a woman who had spotted a wolf while out walking near the fishing community of Port Renfrew. It had peered at her from the forest and showed no signs of aggression when her dog approached it.

Alexander travelled to meet the woman but returned home without any sightings. Then, that night, she was sent a photograph from a man who had a series of trail cameras in the area. Alexander took one look at the picture, and recognised Takaya. A bright yellow tag was pinned in his ear – a souvenir from his experience with conservation officers.

Alexander travelled back to Port Renfrew, this time bringing her own trail camera. Checking it a few days later, the video showed Takaya walking past. The sighting, so close to a populated area, immediately concerned Alexander. 

Takaya’s adventures ended when he was shot by hunters. Photograph: Cheryl Alexander/Wild Awake Images

“He doesn’t have that fear instilled in him that humans are bad. He’s trusting. It worries me he may find himself in a situation where humans are not all good and don’t have his interests at heart. It really scares me; it worries me,” said Alexander following the sightings.

Her instincts proved right.

On 24 March, Takaya was shot and killed, nearly 30 miles from where he was released. In the weeks before his death he had been spotted with increasing frequency, raising fears an encounter might prove fatal.

On his final day he came too close to a hunter’s dogs. In the end, it was his curiosity, built up from years of protection offered by the islands, that was his undoing.

British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service told Canada’s CTV news: “We understand many British Columbians and people around the world shared care and concern for the wellbeing of this wolf and this update will affect many people.”

None more so than Alexander, who said simply: “It’s heartbreaking.”

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Migrant workers bear brunt of coronavirus pandemic in Gulf

Rights groups say host countries should offer foreign workers same protections as citizens


Martin Chulov Middle East correspondent Sun 19 Apr 2020
 

A migrant labour camp in Qatar in 2018. Migrant workforces have been building football stadiums across Qatar to be used in the 2022 World Cup. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Crammed into work camps, stood down from their jobs, facing high rates of infection and with no way home, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, migrant advocates and diplomats say.

Migrant workers’ risk of exposure to Covid-19 is so high, rights groups say, that host countries need to offer the same protections granted to their citizens or face the threat of a rampant outbreak that proves ever more difficult to contain.

Concern is focused on the wealthy Gulf states, where migrant labour makes up half or more of the population. Gas- and oil-fuelled economies have lured millions of low-skilled workers from south and south-east Asia and Africa over recent decades.

Construction workers are now mostly confined to dormitories, far from the skylines and stadiums they had been building, and stripped of their incomes. The same applies in the retail and energy sectors, staffed almost exclusively by foreign labour.

“The problem is in the dormitories, as social distancing can be organised in the dining areas,” said Ryszard Cholewinski, a senior migration specialist with the International Labour Organisation. “There have been attempts by a number of companies to sort out sleeping arrangements, but even on a good day in some of these facilities, people are four to a room.”

Across the Gulf states, migrant workers account for high proportions of Covid-19 infections. In Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain, official figures suggest nearly all contractions have been among foreigners, many of whom live in labour camps.

A report released by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre this month noted that migrant workers in the Gulf “live in tightly packed labour camps, often in unsanitary conditions, some without access to running water.”

“These conditions provide the perfect conditions for the spread of Covid-19. Quarantines and other movement and travel restrictions … may inadvertently raise the risk to workers, as well as result in workers suffering severe economic consequences from being unable to work,” the report said.

The rate of infection among migrants has shaken Gulf states, which – mindful of the reaction of their citizens – have stepped up efforts to repatriate large numbers of workers, often meeting little response from home countries.

While Gulf states have offered healthcare to migrants who have tested positive for the virus, there are concerns among migrant communities that state authorities are reluctant to comprehensively treat the large numbers of carriers in camps.

“They have been here three times and done testing and some of my friends have been taken away,” said Iqbal Rashid, a construction worker from Pakistan in a camp in Qatar. “But there are many others here who are sick. And even if I wanted to go home, who is going to help me? My government? Their government? We are stuck and helpless.”

Regional states have acknowledged that the camps are ideal incubators for the disease, but they appear to be balancing the risk to workers against a threat to the broader community.

The spectre of migrants being disproportionately affected by the virus while citizens are largely spared has cast fresh light on the near total dependency of some of the world’s richest countries on migrant labour to power their economies.

Migrant workforces are building football stadiums across Qatar to be used in the 2022 World Cup, the Expo 2020 facilities in Dubai and much of the infrastructure for the G20 summit due in Riyadh in November. The high rate of deaths among Nepalese construction workers in Qatar has been frequently condemned by labour groups. Qatar has railed at the comparison and claims to have improved workplace conditions.

Upwards of 40,000 Pakistanis in the UAE have registered for repatriation, and Abu Dhabi has threatened to revisit labour relations with India if it does not cooperate with efforts to return its expatriates.

Despite hardships, workers have continued to flock to the Gulf, sending billions of dollars in remittances home, where employment opportunities are often fewer and not as well paid.

“There are many workers in the GCC (Gulf cooperation countries) who don’t want to go back and are keen to stay to try to find work,” said Cholewinski. “There are huge numbers of job losses and not much enthusiasm from some home countries in getting many of these workers back given the challenges associated in managing large returns at this time and the increasing scarcity of job opportunities back home.”

Cholewinski said some states had been more proactive than others. Kuwait had offered amnesties and flights home to migrants who are in the country without valid papers. Undocumented workers are seen as one of the biggest risks of transmission, making tracking them a public health priority.

Qatar, meanwhile, had been among the first to lock down some camps, while offering some workers flexibility in employment conditions, which could lead to them taking any available new jobs.

UK
NHS staff told 'wear aprons' as protective gowns run out
THIS IS WHAT AUSTERITY LOOKS LIKE
Exclusive: U-turn on original guidelines of full-length waterproof gear for high-risk procedures

Denis Campbell Health policy editor Fri 17 Apr 2020
 

Clinicians in PPE. The guidance will be a reversal of Public Health England (PHE) guidelines. Photograph: Joel Goodman/LNP


NHS bosses have asked doctors and nurses to work without protective full-length gowns when treating Covid-19 patients, as hospitals came within hours of running out of supplies.

The guidance is a reversal of Public Health England (PHE) guidelines stipulating that full-length waterproof surgical gowns, designed to stop coronavirus droplets getting into someone’s mouth or nose, should be worn for all high-risk hospital procedures.

In a significant U-turn, PHE advised frontline staff to wear a flimsy plastic apron with coveralls when gowns ran out, in a move that doctors and nurses fear may lead to more of them contracting the virus and ultimately putting lives at risk. The PHE announcement on Friday evening came shortly after the planned move was revealed by the Guardian. 

Meanwhile:

Nearly 15,000 people were confirmed to have died from coronavirus in UK hospitals, with the total rising by 847 on Friday to 14,576. After a peak of 980, fewer than 900 deaths have been recorded in hospitals for six days in a row.

Only 21,000 tests were carried out – some of them duplicates – putting the government far short of its goal of 100,000 a day by the end of the month.

The health secretary said Britain would restart tracing the contacts of people with coronavirus symptoms, having stopped in early March.

The government set up a vaccines taskforce to help the development, rapid production and introduction of a vaccine.

The government confirmed that 1bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) were to have been delivered across the UK by this weekend – but hospitals and care homes continued to suffer shortages, in particular of gowns. More than 50 frontline healthcare workers have died amid fears a lack of PPE is leaving them exposed.

Doctors, nurses, porters, volunteers: the UK health workers who have died from Covid-19

Prof Keith Willett, who has been leading NHS England’s response to the coronavirus crisis, helped formulate the new PHE guidance, which is being sent to all 217 trusts in England.

It sets out options for what frontline staff should do when they cannot access gowns. They include hospitals that still have gowns lending each other batches of them, wearing coveralls – one-piece items of personal protective equipment (PPE) that cover the whole body – and using plastic aprons as alternatives.

It confirms that wearing “disposable, non-fluid-repellent gowns/coveralls with a disposable plastic apron for high-risk settings and aerosol-generating procedures [such as intubation] with forearm washing once gown/coverall is removed” is one of the alternatives staff should deploy once gowns run out.

In total, PHE set out three alternatives to using the high-spec fluid-repellent gowns that are now in short supply.

The second of those also involves staff using “reusable (washable) surgical gowns/coveralls or similar suitable clothing (e.g. long-sleeved laboratory coat, long-sleeved patient gown, industrial coverall) with a disposable plastic apron for aerosol-generating procedures and high-risk settings with forearm washing once gown/coverall is removed”.

Under the third option, hospitals should conserve supplies of fluid-repellent gowns by using them only during aerosol-generating procedures and surgery.

A source had told the Guardian: “The new guidance will say ‘this is what you do if you don’t have any gowns’. Wear an apron instead – that will be the new policy for the foreseeable future, though the medical organisations will go mad about that.”

Gowns are vital for frontline staff dealing with Covid-positive patients because, alongside an FFP3 face mask, visor or goggles and two pairs of gloves, they make up the full PPE which PHE says is necessary to minimise the risk of infection from intubating patients being put on a ventilator.

Advising staff to use aprons instead of gowns carries the risk of a major confrontation with staff groups. The Royal College of Nursing last week made clear that nurses should refuse to treat patients if they were not happy that the level of PPE available would protect them properly. The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, has also warned that doctors’ lives are being put at risk by stocks of PPE having reached “dangerously low levels”.

Shortages of gowns in hospitals in England are far worse than Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has admitted, hospital bosses claim. “We are tight on gowns. That is the pressure point at the moment,” Hancock told MPs on the Commons health and social care select committee in an evidence session on Friday morning.


He said: “We have another 55,000 gowns arriving today and we’re working on the acquisition internationally of more gowns, but it is a challenge. This follows changing the guidance 10 days ago which increased the advice on the use of gowns but also said that they should be used for sessional use rather than for individual patient use ... And it is a big challenge delivering against that new guidance and we’re doing everything we possibly can.”

He could not guarantee that every hospital would have the supplies needed to tide it over this weekend.

Hancock had sought to reassure MPs by stressing that 55,000 more gowns were due to arrive on Friday. However, those equate to about eight hours’ supply because the NHS is currently using 150,000 gowns a day.

There were only “several tens of thousands” left in the NHS’s reserve stockpile, sources said on Friday. “Gowns have in effect already run out,” one said. “The situation is so serious that some trusts will run out today and others over the weekend.”

Ed Davey, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, warned that PHE’s downgrading of the advice on PPE could result in more lives lost. “Changing official guidance on protective equipment from gowns to aprons translates to increased risk to frontline staff, at a time when the death toll from Covid-19 is already rising for frontline workers. This is intolerable,” he said.

“The health secretary’s repeated reassurances the supply of protective kit for staff was under control now look totally threadbare. Matt Hancock should have been completely candid about the level of personal protective equipment but is now fast losing the public’s confidence as the reality of severe shortages becomes clear.”

At least 50 doctors, nurses, midwives, porters and other NHS staff have died from the coronavirus so far, the Guardian has established.

PHE is braced for a backlash from medical and nursing organisations. However, some senior figures in NHS England were “exasperated” about PHE’s earlier stipulation that staff in high-risk Covid-19 environments should wear full PPE, including a gown, and regarded that as “excessive”.

NHS leaders and Hancock have been desperately trying to find a solution to the lack of gowns since the Guardian first highlighted last week an internal memo from NHS bosses warning hospital chiefs that “there are no immediate stocks of gowns due in the national supply chain over the next few days and we are unsighted on when further deliveries will be made”.

More than a week later, they have been forced to draw up the controversial new guidance, which is a tacit admission that shortages are set to continue.

NHS Providers, which represents trusts, said hospitals would implement the new guidance. “The supply of clinical gowns is now critical, and it is now clear that some trusts will run out of fully fluid-repellent gowns,” it said.

Saffron Cordery, the organisation’s deputy chief executive, said: “Trusts and the National Strategic Reserve have very carefully managed the last remaining stock and trusts have helped each other wherever possible. They have used the remaining stock of coveralls as alternatives to gowns and have been deploying their gown stock very carefully.

“We understand the new recommendations … are aligned with World Health Organization guidance on the use of PPE when it is in short supply.

“Trust leaders will now implement this plan wherever needed and will therefore use the highest possible level of alternative protection equipment such as a fluid-retardant, as opposed to fluid-repellent, gown combined with an apron.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) said using aprons instead of gowns would increase the risks run by frontline staff. Dr Rob Harwood, chair of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: “The health and social care secretary admitted he couldn’t guarantee that supplies of gowns wouldn’t run out this weekend, and now this illustrates the dire situation that some doctors and healthcare workers are finding themselves in.

“If staff are now told to use aprons in the place of gowns, this directly contravenes the evidence and guidance from both Public Health England and the World Health Organization. Guidance that’s there to help keep healthcare workers and their patients out of harm’s way.

“Too many healthcare workers have already died. More doctors and their colleagues cannot be expected to put their own lives on the line in a bid to save others, and this new advice means they could be doing just that. It’s not a decision they should have to make.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social care said: “New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, frontline staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk. This has been reviewed by the Health and Safety Executive, and is in line with WHO and CDC guidance on PPE use in exceptional circumstances.”

Dr Susan Hopkins, the Covid-19 incident director for PHE, said: “The UK PPE guidance continues to recommend the highest level of protection for health and social care teams treating Covid-19 patients. PPE is currently a precious resource and it is crucial that everyone that needs it has access to the right protective equipment. That is why we have worked with the NHS and [Health and Safety Executive] to suggest ways that they can maximise the resources they have available.” 

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UK Medical staff face weeks without protective gowns
LIKE THE USA 

Anger grows over government failure to stockpile essential PPE for hospital and social care workers
AUSTERITY KILLS
Michael Savage Sun 19 Apr 2020

As supplies of gowns dwindle, health workers are being told to wear a plastic apron with coveralls. Photograph: Paul Ellis/Getty

Doctors and nurses treating Covid-19 patients face shortages of protective full-length gowns for weeks to come, it has emerged, as anger builds over the failure to stockpile the garments.

Critical shortages of the gowns have meant that some trusts have already had to make do with the best available alternatives as a result of the shortages, which forced a sudden change in Public Health England (PHE) guidelines on the use of gowns on Friday. Concerns are being raised within the NHS over why the gowns did not form part of the government’s pandemic stockpile.

NHS staff told 'wear aprons' as protective gowns run out

It is understood shortages are already forcing some NHS workers to use the controversial new guidelines, which tell them to wear a plastic apron with coveralls should the specialist fluid-repellent gowns run out. Workers are also advised to reuse washed aprons.

Meanwhile, surgeons are being told by senior colleagues not to put themselves at risk should they be unable to wear a protective gown. Professor Neil Mortensen, from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said surgeons should not risk their health if fluid-repellent gowns or coveralls could not be used. “We are deeply disturbed by this latest change to personal protective equipment (PPE) guidance, which was issued without consulting expert medical bodies,” he said. “After weeks of working with PHE and our sister medical royal colleges to get PPE guidance right, this risks confusion and variation in practice across the country.”

Health unions warned that staff could begin to refuse to work if they felt the new guidelines put them at serious risk of contracting the coronavirus. Sara Gorton, Unison’s head of health, said: “Managers must be truly honest with health workers and their union reps over the weekend. If gowns run out, staff in high-risk areas may well decide that it’s no longer safe for them to work.”

Last night, the British Medical Association (BMA) also warned that it would support doctors who refused to work with inadequate PPE.

“There are limits to the level of risk staff can be expected to expose themselves and their patients to,” said Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair. “In the most extreme circumstances, if adequate protective measures are not in place, doctors can refuse to put themselves at risk of becoming infected, and inform their management to make alternative arrangements, and the BMA will robustly support its members who have to make this weighty decision.”

GMB union says trust in Matt Hancock is ‘draining away’. 

Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents various service providers within the NHS, said: “Once the weekend is over, you still have the same problem. It is not just hand to mouth in the hospitals. It is hand to mouth at the national level. Although we may get through this weekend, there may well be problems over the next few weeks.”

The anger over the revised safety advice comes after weeks of wrangling and delays over PPE for both NHS and care workers. Ministers have repeatedly attempted to grip the issue, but have been hampered by a global shortage and bottlenecks, with equipment ordered weeks ago still not arriving in full.

The government will attempt to gain control of the mounting PPE concerns by appointing Paul Deighton, the former chief executive of the London Olympics organising committee, to lead efforts to produce PPE for frontline health and social care staff in Britain. A military flight was also understood to be bringing in 84 tonnes of PPE equipment from Turkey, though it was unclear what the shipment contained.

UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE
LIKE THE USA CONSERVATIVE HUBRIS
The GMB union, which represents some NHS and ambulance staff, said trust in health secretary Matt Hancock was “draining away” after the decision to change official guidance. It also questioned the government’s assertion that the guidance was in line with the World Health Organization’s recommendations.

Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals trusts, said the situation was now “critical and this is an extremely worrying situation”. She added: “We all hope that this temporary disruption to supply will be short-lived and that the gowns that were ordered a long time ago, and should have already arrived, start arriving consistently and reliably rather than in the current fits and starts.”

Government sources said that everything was being done to ensure PPE supplies were flowing, adding that there is huge global demand. They added that the government’s stockpiles were designed to tackle a flu pandemic and that the specific requirements of treating Covid-19 – a new virus – could not have been predicted. A spokesperson said the new guidance had been reviewed by the Health and Safety Executive and was in line with the WHO. They said the guidelines would only be needed “in exceptional circumstances”.

PPE issues also persist in the social care sector. Ministers have now put in place new plans to boost testing and PPE for care workers, but some care providers said their staff had been told to make trips of up to 90 miles to the nearest testing centre – practically impossible for those without a car. Some workers in Workington were directed to Gateshead, some in Scarborough to Leeds, and some in Bath to Worcester.

Meanwhile, some care home providers have already had to pay five times the normal costs for crucial PPE after being forced to seek private supplies. Sam Monaghan, chief executive of care provider MHA, said concerns were raised more than a month ago. “I’ve got a team dedicated to sourcing PPE, because the government stockpile has not been sufficient or consistent. This week, I had to make a decision on masks. They should’ve been 20p each. They were £1 each.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said that new plans were in place for supplying social care providers with PPE, managed through local groups. They said: “Every death from this virus is a tragedy and that is why we are working around the clock to give the social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this global pandemic.”

© 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Mediterranean shipwrecks reveal 'birth of globalisation' in trade

Preserved cargoes of vessels linking eastern cultures with western Europe show ‘the barbarian Orient’ was a trendsetter


Dalya Alberge Sat 18 Apr 2020

Chinese Ming porcelain from the Ottoman ‘colossus’ merchant ship, lost around 1630 in the Mediterranean. Photograph: © Enigma Recoveries

For almost seven decades archaeologists have searched the eastern Mediterranean in vain for wrecks that sank along antiquity’s mighty shipping lanes.

Now, though, a British-led team can reveal a spectacular discovery – a fleet of Hellenistic, Roman, early Islamic and Ottoman wrecks that were lost some two kilometres below the waves of the Levantine Basin between the 3rd century BC and the 19th century.

Sean Kingsley, director of the Centre for East-West Maritime Exploration and archaeologist for the Enigma Shipwrecks Project (ESP), told the Observer: “This is truly ground-breaking, one the most incredible discoveries under the Mediterranean.”

The ESP’s ambitious underwater exploration used cutting-edge remote and robotic technology to research and record the finds, some of which could rewrite history, according to the experts involved.

One of the wrecks is a 17th-century Ottoman merchant ship, described as “an absolute colossus”, which was so big two normal-sized ships could have fitted on its deck. Its vast cargo has hundreds of artefacts from 14 cultures and civilisations, including the earliest Chinese porcelain retrieved from a Mediterranean wreck, painted jugs from Italy and peppercorns from India. ESP say the ship reveals a previously unknown maritime silk and spice route running from China to Persia, the Red Sea and into the eastern Mediterranean.

The ship, which is thought to have sunk around 1630, while sailing between Egypt and Istanbul, is a time-capsule that tells the story of the beginning of the globalised world, Kingsley said: “The goods and belongings of the 14 cultures and civilisations discovered, spanning on one side of the globe China, India, the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and to the west North Africa, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium, are remarkably cosmopolitan for pre-modern shipping of any era.”

He added: “At 43 metres long and with a 1,000-ton burden, it is one of the most spectacular examples of maritime technology and trade in any ocean. Its size is matched by the breadth of its cargoes.”

A copper coffee pot from the 1630 shipwreck. Photograph: © Enigma Recoveries.

The Chinese porcelain includes 360 decorated cups, dishes and a bottle made in the kilns of Jingdezhen during the reign of Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor that were designed for sipping tea, but the Ottomans adapted them for the craze then spreading across the East – coffee drinking. Hidden deep in the hold were the earliest Ottoman clay tobacco pipes found on land or sea. They were probably illicit because there were severe prohibitions then against tobacco smoking.

Kingsley said: “Through tobacco smoking and coffee drinking in Ottoman cafes, the idea of recreation and polite society – hallmarks of modern culture – came to life. Europe may think it invented notions of civility, but the wrecked coffee cups and pots prove the ‘barbarian Orient’ was a trailblazer rather than a backwater. The first London coffeehouse only opened its doors in 1652, a century after the Levant.”

Steven Vallery, co-director of Enigma, said: “In the Levantine Basin, the Enigma wrecks lie beyond any country’s territory. All the remains were carefully recorded using a suite of digital photography, HD video, photomosaics and multibeams. For science and underwater exploration, these finds are a giant leap forward.”

The last phase of Enigma’s fieldwork was carried out at the end of 2015, with the post-excavation process continuing for years after and remaining unpublicised until now. Some of the recovered artefacts are being held in Cyprus, from where the archaeologists worked. Initial concerns that the site was in Cypriot waters have been disproved, Kingsley said, and the Enigma team now hopes the entire collection will go on permanent exhibition in a major public museum.

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Deepwater Horizon

‘We’ve been abandoned’: a decade later, Deepwater Horizon still haunts Mexico 

A merchant weighs shrimp while fishermen talk and arrive to sell product by the edge of a lagoon in Tamiahua, Veracruz, on 27 February. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian

BP denied the oil reached Mexico, but fisherman and scientists knew it wasn’t true. Ten years on, Mexican communities haven’t received a cent in compensation‘I pray to God it never happens again’: US gulf coast bears scars of historic oil spill 10 years on

by Nina Lakhani in Saladero, Veracruz Sun 19 Apr 2020

Erica Ríos Martínez grew-up in a riverside community filled with food and fiestas thanks to a booming fishing industry which supported tens of thousands of families across the Gulf of Mexico.

After high school, Ríos Martínez moved to a nearby town for college which she financed by selling blue crabs, shrimp and tilapia fished by her father in the Tamiahua lagoon – an elongated coastal inlet famed for its abundant shellfish.

Deepwater Horizon disaster had much worse impact than believed, study finds

But fish stocks began to decline in 2011 across the Gulf – the year after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded 200 miles north of Mexican territory. The offshore rig sank and released almost 5m barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days. Oil plumes coated hundreds of miles of shoreline, causing catastrophic damage to marine life, coral reefs and birds.

Amid public and political outrage in the US, BP took full responsibility for the worst oil spill of the 20th century, which killed 11 crew members and injured 17 others. The company has paid out $69bn, including more than $10bn to affected fishermen and businesses.

But BP denied the oil reached Mexico, claiming the ocean current propelled the huge spill in the opposite direction. However, fishermen and Mexican scientists knew this wasn’t true. 

Francisco Blanco Arango untangles a fishing with the help of her granddaughter Ada Guadalupe Blanco while Kevin Blanco Flores plays with a dog at their backyard. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian

“Before the spill we had freezers full of fish. Afterwards, my father couldn’t catch enough to support me, no matter how many hours he spent fishing. It was the same for the whole community, and it has just got worse and worse,” said Ríos Martínez, 31, who was forced to drop out of university and move away.

Ten years later, Mexican communities have not received a single cent in compensation.

“To claim the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem has borders is absurd, discriminatory and defies scientific knowledge,” said Eduardo Rubio, an expert in soil and water pollution at the College of Biologists.

Saladero is a picturesque sleepy village situated on the bank of the Papaloapan River which snakes into the south-westerly edge of the lagoon.

To claim the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem has borders is absurd, discriminatory and defies scientific knowledge Eduardo Rubio

Before the BP disaster, 95% of the village made a living – directly or indirectly – from fishing in the lagoon which stretches 65 miles from Tampico, Tamaulipas to Tuxpan, Veracruz.

The lagoon was famous for prawns and oysters fishermen recall giving away because stocks were so abundant.

Now, youngsters are forced to migrate to find factory work in maquilas in faraway cities.

“The village is full of us old people, there’s nothing for the young here any more,” said Juan Mar Aran, 78, a fisherman for 60 years. “Before, we worked hard and had money in our pockets, now we depend on our children, even the dogs are skinny. It’s very unjust, we’ve been completely abandoned.” 

 

A monument to the fishermen stands in the front of a gasoline station from Pemex, the Mexican state-owned petroleum company, in Tuxpan, Veracruz. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian
In 2010, the Saladero fishing cooperative registered 11,663kg of shrimp, 36kg of bass and 281,125kg of oysters. The decline has not been linear and publicly available official data is inconclusive, but in 2019, the co-op registered only 1,000kg of shrimp, 20kg of bass, and no oysters.

“The American fishermen supported by President Obama were properly compensated whereas we’ve been mocked, humiliated and discriminated against by British [Petroleum] … and let down by our own government. Ten years of struggle and nothing,” said Enrique Aran, 62, president of the cooperative.

In Tamiahua, a small town across the lagoon, Eduviges Mendoza lit a cigarette on his small fishing boat, parked beside a row of wooden poles waiting for shrimp to fill his small net.

It’s dusk, and chilly as Mendoza, 53, settled in for a second consecutive night on the lagoon with only a ratty blanket and a waterproof onesie for warmth. “There’s less fish, nobody can deny that. I’m lucky if I make enough to cover the petrol.” 

Enrique Aran Blanco, president for more than 20 years of the fishing cooperative of Saladero, sits in his office in front of a sword that was given symbolically by a lawyer working along them against BP, and beside skulls of a dolphin and a tortoise found dead at the beach about five years after the oil spill. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian

Despite such sentiments BP has claimed that aerial images prove the oil spill’s impact was contained in US waters.

Yet back in 2011, Sergio Jiménez, a leading government oceanographer in Tamaulipas state, discovered the BP oil fingerprint more than 200 metres below sea level. Hydrocarbon fingerprints, like human ones, are unique.

The oil from Deepwater Horizon was propelled south by the deep underwater current – distinct from the surface current, according to Jiménez, who in 2013 testified in a Louisiana court tasked with managing hundreds of claims against BP.

But the case was dismissed after the court ruled that Mexico’s lawsuit, filed by the then president, Enrique Peña Nieto, just days before the deadline, superseded individual state claims.

The case trundled along until in 2018, the Mexican government withdrew the lawsuit and settled the case for $25.5m – absolving BP from responsibility for polluting Mexican waters. The secret deal, exposed in a joint investigation by BuzzFeed and the transparency group Poder, means the company no longer faces claims by any Mexican government entity.

Around the same time, the outgoing President Peña Nieto made several multimillion-dollar deals with BP. Hundreds of the company’s petrol stations have opened across the country. 
 

Norberto Hernández Cruz, centre, representative of fishermen who do not belong to cooperatives, speaks with Carlos Zárate Noguera, left, and Hermilo Martínez Durán, right, after a meeting with other representatives of fishing communities from the Gulf of Mexico in Tuxpan, Veracruz. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian

Jiménez stands by his findings and a recent study by the University of Miami backed his research, concluding that the spread of oil was far greater and more catastrophic than previously thought, as satellites and aerial images failed to detect oil at lower concentrations below the surface.

This “invisible oil” was substantial enough and toxic enough to destroy 50% of the marine life it encountered, according to Science.

It could take at least 20 to 25 years for the ecosystem to recover because of the deepwater contamination.Luis Soto

In part, this is probably due to the unprecedented quantities of toxic chemicals (dispersants) BP applied in order to stop visible oil plumes making landfall.

As a result, up to 40% of the leaked oil could still remain on the seabed. These “invisible oil” blocks will eventually break down and spread gradually over years – possibly decades – to come.

“It could take at least 20 to 25 years for the ecosystem to recover because of the deepwater contamination,” said the investigative oceanographer Luis Soto.

But scientific study, like compensation, has been massively skewed.A man weighs shrimp brought from a nearby community at a local fishermen cooperative while women wait in line to buy some for their own business. Photographs by Luis Antonio Rojas/ The Guardian


In Mexico no long-term studies monitoring the impact of the spill and the dispersants have been conducted.

By contrast in the US, a research working group created by BP conducted more than 240 studies, which cost $1.3bn in less than five years after the spill. BP also set up a $500m, 10-year program to monitor US waters just over a month after the spill and aid to restore the ecosystem.

BP has not directly funded any studies or working groups in Mexico, but the battle for justice goes on.

In Mexico, a class-action lawsuit was launched against four BP subsidiaries – two headquartered in Texas, two in Mexico – in December 2015, by an NGO working with pro bono lawyers specialising in environmental disasters.

It took two years and several court orders to track down the correct addresses of the Mexican subsidiaries in order to kickstart proceedings. Finally, in September 2019, the lawsuit was authorised to proceed despite BP’s efforts to have it dismissed, but is currently on hold since BP appealed. 

 

Eduviges Mendoza smokes a cigarette while fishing shrimp on his motorless boat, where he slept for a second night in a row, at the lagoon of Tamiahua, Veracruz. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian
“BP’s pattern has been to deny everything, and claim the class action no merit, meanwhile settling many cases worth billions of dollars in the US. The position of BP is sad, but so is the position of the Mexican government which has ignored the plight of its own people,” said lawyer Karla Borja.

In 2019, Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Amlo), promised the fishermen a fair deal. “Amlo promised to make the company pay. But so far we’ve seen nothing but nice words and meetings,” said Aran, the co-op president.

In Louisiana, more than 110 cases involving thousands of Mexicans remain open, but have yet to be heard. Scores more have been dismissed.

In March, the fishermen leading 41 of those cases wrote to the new CEO of BP, Bernard Looney, requesting he do the right thing and compensate the Mexicans affected by the oil spill.

In a statement BP said: “All available evidence confirms that oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident did not reach Mexican waters or shorelines … We value the opportunity to do business in Mexico, and we are committed to the highest standards of conduct and full compliance with the laws.”

 

A young mangrove stands in a lagoon near empty charangas, traps for shrimps made out of wood and fishing nets, in Saladero, Veracruz. Photograph: Luis Antonio Rojas/The Guardian
In Saladero, shortly before the 10th anniversary of the disaster, about 150 people turned out for the town hall-style meeting, to share stories of hardship resulting from the demise of the lagoon which has divided families and crushed educational and career ambitions.

The primary school has fewer than 30 enrolled pupils, compared with more than a hundred before the spill. The only gas station shut down and abandoned boats dot the riverbank.


Numerous parents said they were forced to pull their children out of college so they could start work and send home remittances to support the family.

“There’s no money because there’s no fish, that’s why all our young people leave,” said Juana Constantino, 59, who cares for her grandson while her daughter works in a maquila in Reynosa, one of Mexico’s most dangerous border towns. “We need compensation, we want justice.”

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SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/wildlife-group-gulf-oil-spill-still.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/survey-shows-pollution-in-gulf-10-years.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/10-years-after-bp-spill-oil-drilled.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=DEEPWATER+HORIZON