Coronavirus: nearly half of all Brits have had Covid-19; government to attack fat people
The news on Coronavirus is positive. More than 19 million Britons may already have been infected with the virus, say researchers at Manchester University. It’s the lead story in the Mirror. Better news is that 1,000 people have been injected with a vaccine and it’s “so far so good” (Metro). We could have a vaccine this summer (Express). Oh – and get this – new antibody test are found to be 100% accurate in stating if someone has already had the virus (i). And in London, signs are that the virus is dying out. Fewer than 24 people are catching coronavirus each day in London (Telegraph). Analysis by Cambridge University estimates the R reproduction rate of the virus to have fallen to 0.4 in London, with the number of new cases halving every 3.5 days. If you don’t know what the R number means, this should help:
Most newspaper leads with the positive news. But the Guardian talks of “chaos”, leading with allegations that a private firm contracted to run the government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment was hit by “chaos” at its warehouse.
And as for the risk of dying from Covid-19, the Sun leads with news that a quarter of those killed by the bug have diabetes. A double-whammy for them. Overweight and obese people are at increased risk of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
So the Times leads with news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is readying a “much more interventionist” approach to tackle obesity as part of the fight against coronavirus. Can the Government make Covid-19 part of the decades long drive to turn the fat social pariahs? Of course they can. They always do. But people do have the right to be fat.
And do medical practitioners want to tell people they are too fat? And what is ‘too fat’? At least one medic finds it easy to tell:
