We Must Keep Our Heads And Accept COVID Is Here For The Long Term

The Keep Calm and Carry On catchphrase on your coffee cup seems quaintly entertaining in better times, but as the second wave of coronavirus sweeps Europe, perhaps we should be clinging to its wartime message.

We’re now nine months into this fight against the pandemic, but we need to quit treating COVID 19 as a crisis and we need to stop panicking over every new statistic and start preparing for the long haul.

In the early days, we were faced with a new and deadly disease and harsh measures made sense.

The first lockdowns sought to buy us time, to quell the virus and protect hospitals until a vaccine arrived, but despite gallant progress, it’s evident that no vaccine will be widely available until spring at the earliest, and possibly never.

There’s still no vaccine for SARS and there are reports that the coronavirus is mutating.

Even if there was a vaccine, the UK’s chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance said recently that it was unlikely to eradicate COVID 19 entirely, which means we must learn to live with this thing.

And in the United Kingdom, the hysteria mindset of the emergency phase had some terrible consequences.

Patients have been forced to decide which of their children to see before they die and they’re frightened lonely people who have been forced to stay at home, have put on weight, while obesity is a considerable risk factor for the virus.

Curfews have replaced unruly drinkers from pubs to car parks, with devastating takings at the till.

In Wales, which has been a one-party state since devolution, the first minister has imposed a Soviet-style prohibition on supermarkets, selling anything but essential goods, in case customers might contaminate someone while skimming for a T-shirt.

The challenge ahead is to look coolly at what works and to examine all possibilities.

Closing down swaths of the economy indefinitely will have enormous consequences for jobs, livelihood and mental health.

The UK Treasury has already expended billions to keep the economy in suspended animation and now we’re at a cliff edge with the furlough scheme for jobs about to expire and the Government must extend a more generous alternate safety net than it’s fashioned so far or they must reduce the lockdowns.

The Prime Minister can only feel his way through the difficult trade-offs between lives, livelihoods and hospital capacity and he’s repeatedly shown every jump in the R numbers of infections.

But there are no R numbers for jobs, no equivalent stream showing when a business owner will lose their life’s savings and life’s work and there’s no Downing Street unit scrutinising worst-case health scenarios and modelling families queueing at food banks, corporations planning mass redundancies and people contemplating suicide.

There, of course, have been numerous pandemics throughout history, which usually last about 1-3 years but took many lives and then ended and I don’t see any reason why this relatively mild one should be any worse, especially given that we at least learned to wash our hands and wear masks.

But what we do need to learn is to adapt to this virus and to condition our lifestyles and hygienic behaviours accordingly and you can thank the media, public health officials and most politicians for acting as though everyone is 80+ years old with comorbidities and at increased risk of dying, which has led to the panic.

Although I don’t know anyone who is panicking per se, but I do know many people who are simply fed up with the crisis and believe that it’s time to move on and get back to normal because really, there’s nothing we can do about it.

The Social Dilemma

Never before have a handful of tech designers had such power over the way billions of us think, act, and live their lives.

These are the voices of technologists, researchers and activists working to align technology with the interests of humankind.

But do you know what’s hiding on the other side of your screen?

We tweet, we like, and we share, but what are the consequences of our growing dependence on social media?

Well, it demonstrates how social media is reprogramming society with tech professionals sounding the alarm on their own creations and a 5,000 person investigation found that higher social media use correlated with self-reported declines in mental and physical health and life fulfilment.

With compelling design methods like push notifications and the infinite scroll of your newsfeed have created a feedback loop that keeps us glued to our devices and countries with political disinformation campaigns on social media has doubled in past years.

Social media advertisement allows anyone to reach enormous numbers of people with remarkable ease, giving bad actors the instruments to instil unrest and fuel political divisions.

And sixty-four per cent of the people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because the algorithms steered them there because the algorithms facilitate content that sparks fury, hate and intensifies biases within the information that they provide.

And we’re now hearing from tech insiders about how their creations are generating unintended harm to people and society and now we’re inviting others into the dialogue, amplifying those helping us better understand the impact of the dilemma and those working on solutions to correct it.

And 2020 has highlighted just how much we depend on technology to connect, learn, organise, and live our lives, but the business model of big tech poses an unparalleled threat to our human rights, harvesting and monetising the data of a third of the world’s population, ensnaring us in a system where we’re compelled to either submit to pervasive tracking or forego this vital lifeline.

If you’ve logged onto social media recently, you might have noticed the odd clue that all is not right in the world. What with credulous corona conspiracists spoiling for punch ups with 5G masts and honking clowns of Governments who rule by fomenting voter conflict, and the persistent feeling that you’re being boiled alive in a cauldron of hatred, extremism, fake news and the mental health crisis.

But of course, the central issue is the fact that you logged into social media in the first place.

Where the brilliance lies is in laying bare a vast range of complicated issues with compelling transparency and its masterstroke is in recruiting the very Silicon Valley insiders that created these platforms and to get them to explain their horrifying pitfalls, which they’ve realised perhaps far too late.

And you don’t get a much clearer statement of social media’s dangers than an ex-Facebook executive’s claims that “In the shortest time horizon I’m worried about civil war”.

The generally held idea that social media companies peddle user’s data was quickly tossed aside – the information is actually utilised to create a sophisticated psychological profile of you and what they’re peddling is their ability to control you, or as one interviewee put it, it’s the gradual, subtle, invisible change in your own behaviour and perception and it’s the only thing for them to make money from changing what you do, how you think and who you are.

Tech can be used to reprogramme the way your brain works until addiction results and it’s even more harmful to teens because social media starts to dig deep and deeper down into the brain stem and takes over your child’s sense of self-worth and individuality, explains ex-Google employee Tristan Harris as one of the outstanding dramatic sequences, as you see a pouting preteen pose for selfies overlaid with filters that warp her features until she looks like a cartoon character.

And then there are the graphs illustrating spiralling teen suicide rates, with students that constantly desire ‘likes’ on Facebook he’s created and that leaves you more vacant and empty.

AI and the algorithms behind social media are also flagged as a terrifying potential destroyer of social cohesion and their unpredictability sees a former operations manager of Facebook lament that they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them, meaning that it’s extremely difficult for social media companies to stop them circulating fake news and thus eroding the concept of truth.

Then there’s the rise of the Flat Earth movement, that’s all thanks to a Youtube algorithm that recommended the conspiracy videos to viewers hundreds of millions of times.

Pizzagate went underground when Facebook’s algorithm promoted their groups to users it had identified as being susceptible to conspiracy theories, leading a man to turn up at a restaurant with a machine gun to free non-existent child hostages from an imaginary basement.

And it’s easy to think that it was just a few foolish people who got convinced, warns the engineer who created the rogue Youtube algorithm, but the algorithm is getting smarter and smarter every day.

Today they’re convincing people that the Earth is flat, but tomorrow they will be convincing you of something else.

We might live in a post-Cambridge Analytica world, but despite it being public knowledge that Vote Leave and Trump’s 2016 election campaign harvested voter’s Facebook data on a massive scale, The Social Dilemma still manages to uncover new and vital whispers of how these platforms destabilise modern politics.

A Harvard Business School professor dismissed the idea that we can sidestep their political influence by revealing Facebook’s massive scale contagion experiments which made users vote in the US midterm elections, without them even realising they’d been motivated to do so.

Then there was the Russian Facebook hack to influence the 2016 US election. The Russians didn’t hack Facebook, they just used the instruments that Facebook made for legitimate advertisers, gripes one of the company’s ex investors.

And Harris demonstrates that there’s now a market where state actors pay to destabilise democracies across the globe, which now represents an existential threat to the survival of nations.

And now, it’s so utterly necessary that regulation is a must, and now there’s a website, thesocialdilemma.com, offering help for parents, actions to help fight disinformation and ways to sign up to Harris’s Centre for Humane Technology which strives to transform the culture in the tech industry as well as encouraging politicians to legislate.

Harris said that we can demand that these products be designed humanely – we built these things and we have a responsibility to change them, and the first step is to watch this outstanding documentary, and encourage others to do so.

Berlin’s Madame Tussauds Wax Museum Dumps Trump

The waxwork museum Madame Tussauds in Berlin loaded its effigy of TV star turned Republican President Donald Trump into a dumpster on Friday, a move intended to reflect its expectations of next Tuesday’s presidential election.

In what appeared a further calculated insult, the statue of his predecessor and nemesis Barack Obama, who counted Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel among his closest allies, stayed in place, beaming and besuited.

The museum’s marketing manager Orkide Yalcindag said that today’s activity is somewhat symbolic ahead of the elections in the United States and that there at Madame Tussauds Berlin they removed Donald Trump’s waxwork as a preliminary measure.

Donald Trump has trailed his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in national opinion polls for months, partly because of overall dislike of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping Europe and the United States, though current polls have shown him gaining ground in a handful of key states.

Madame Tussaud’s display also includes ex-US presidents, regardless of the outcome, Donald Trump and his dumpster are likely to be wheeled back before long. However, this is precisely where he belongs and hopefully, this is a prediction of what the American people are going to do.

But get your Kleenex ready because Donald Trump is probably going to crush Joe Biden on Tuesday and the only thing missing from this dumpster to define 2020 is for it to be on fire, although I wouldn’t expect it to burn like a candle unless they handily put a wick in it.

And the National Weather Service should have an alert to take shelter because a Tsunami is heading your way.

It’s particularly amusing that in Germany they chose to rest his effigy in the garbage and now even the maggots and roaches that usually inhabit the trash can have a nibble on his godly flesh, but then wouldn’t that be animal cruelty?

In his mind, nobody is more respected than he is. However, he’s still the President, but just because he’s the President, that doesn’t mean the remainder of the world has to respect him and the majority of Americans don’t respect him and smart Americans want him gone, the swamp needs to be cleansed.

He’s only President in name and he’s made his contempt for the people extremely clear in thought, word and deed.

He couldn’t even acknowledge the heartbreak of millions who have suffered and are still suffering through this pandemic and when has he ever offered condolences to the families who have lost loved ones?

He’s never respected his title, so why should the people? And he’s bad for the whole world and hopefully, Joe Biden will be broadcasting a clip saying ‘you’re fired’ aka The Apprentice.

And he runs the country like he runs his businesses, haphazard, free-spending, debt-heavy and bankrupt and also when Donald Trump is dumped into the trash, we should also take his phone away so that the world can also be finally free of his daily dumb tweets and if his phone was taken away from him and he was barred from Twitter he would likely fade away into dust – sounds like an extremely attractive proposition!

Sean Connery, Scottish Actor Who Played James Bond In Seven Movies Has Died

Sean Connery, the highly decorated actor who rocketed to stardom for his iconic role as James Bond, has reportedly passed away, he was 90 years old.

The BBC reported that the Scottish actor’s demise was confirmed by his family.

The report states he died overnight in his sleep while in the Bahamas, where he was known to be living in his final years.

Sean Connery was an international superstar, having earned an Academy Award, multiple Golden Globes, including the Cecil B DeMille and Henrietta Awards, as well as two British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA).

One of his most memorable roles was as the first actor to tackle the character of James Bond, beginning with 1962’s ‘Dr No’. His other memorable movies include ‘The Untouchables’, ‘The Rock’ and ‘Murder on the Orient Express’.

In total, Sean Connery appeared in seven Bond films, ‘Dr No’, ‘From Russia with Love’, ‘Goldfinger’, ‘Thunderball’, ‘You Only Live Twice’, ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and ‘Never Say Never Again’.

James Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have released a statement via the James Bond official Twitter account, saying that they were devastated by the news of the passing of Sir Sean Connery.

They said that he was and shall always be remembered as the original James Bond whose memorable entrance into cinema history began when he announced those unforgettable words – “The name’s Bond… James Bond”.

He revolutionised the world with his gritty and witty portrayal of the seductive and charismatic secret agent and he was indeed largely responsible for the success of the film series and they said that they shall be eternally grateful to him.

Sean Connery’s other movies included ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, ‘The Hunt for Red October’, ‘The Wind and the Lion’ and ‘The Man Who Would Be King’, and while he was considered by many as one of the best to have ever portrayed the British secret spy, Sean Connery’s other roles added to his list of awards, and his part in Brian de Palma’s ‘The Untouchables’ in 1987 earned him a supporting actor Oscar.

In 1999, Sean Connery was picked as People magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Century, and one year later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Born Thomas Sean Connery in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 15, 1930, he was the son of a factory worker and a domestic cleaner and according to the BBC, he was born in humble upbringings, in a one-room residence with a shared toilet and no hot water.

But this amazing actor will always be James Bond and he was loved by millions around the world and in my book, he will be the only James Bond regardless of who else plays the role.

And if there’s anything that Sean Connery has taught us, it’s that our honourable, loving and peaceful actions will save and heal the world, not our bitterness, weapons or worth and this is a devastating loss to all of us.

Entertainment will just not be the same without him and he will be missed very much and it’s a sad day for the arts because he was a true performer and it’s very sad to let him go, but he had an amazing and wonderful journey.

I Fled New York City Amid COVID

They took off in haste, but these New Yorkers are on the express line back to the metropolis.

When the pandemic hit in March, Zachary Thacher packed his bags and joined the record-breaking exodus of city dwellers leaving town.

Zachary Thacher said that he was feeling cooped up and felt that he wanted to have a more rustic life that was more in tune with nature, but it turns out that not all New Yorkers are cut out for country life.

Zachary Thacher said that he wasn’t in farm shape when he got there when he volunteered at a friend’s organic farmstead for four and a half months. And so after testing out life in Massachusettes, Vermont and Beacon, New York, Zachary Thacher settle on, well, Brooklyn.

Zachary Thacher, who runs a digital marketing company said he missed the diversity of his Jewish flock, and he said that it’s so easy to stroll to places without having to plan things out – that you can stumble upon bars and cafes and not be on a script there in New York.

And it’s not only the boonies that are turning off city slickers. New Yorkers have been snatching up real estate in the suburbs, as well as smaller provincial municipalities, where they can get newly coveted luxuries like outdoor space.

Maureen Cross, an accountant who gave up her rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side said that she’s now got a driveway, a yard, a washing machine and an eat-in kitchen.

On June 1, she signed a lease on a much larger three-bedroom flat in Burlington, Vermont, where she moved with her two Siberian huskies, and she said that after two weeks, she was like, “Is this all there is? Where’s everybody?”

Maureen Cross was soon skimming StreetEasy to move back to the West 80s from her new digs in the sticks and eventually scored a duplex with a backyard, and she was delighted to return to the churn of fast-paced city life and soon found herself back in her old routine of visiting museums, strolling through Riverside Park and volunteering with the Wild Bird Fund.

Maureen Cross said that she moved back right in time for the Met reopening and when she strode into the room with the Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko paintings, her cells fell back into place.

The burbs are brilliant if you’re cut out for it but when you’re having withdrawal symptoms because you have to go three days without seeing a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk on your way to the deli, that’s when you know you’re not cut out for the burbs.

Some people are bored in suburbia, let alone rural. If you want a tranquil life, then the burbs are ideal, but if you’re like me and like doing something different every day, then it’s super convenient on transit and there’s something to do every day – never a moment to get bored.

But of course, we’re all different with different needs to keep our minds sane, but it’s all about choices and whatever brings a person peace of mind in this crazy world that we live in, and it’s about whatever floats your boat.

And New York has gone through so many formidable years, but it always bounces back, but you also have to remember that in most big cities people would step over you if you collapsed in the street – they have no time for anyone or anything but themselves, but such is the pace of life.

Letting Agents Turn Away Tenants On Housing Benefits

Shelter and the National Housing Federation found one in 10 agents in England refused to let to those on benefit.

The covert investigation discovered the policy was implemented even if tenants could afford the rent.

Stephen Tyler told the BBC that housing benefit discrimination had forced him to sleep in his car.

The wheelchair user told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme that they’d endeavoured to find accommodation since they were ousted from their last property when they asked for adaptions to be made for wheelchair access.

He said that he called anything up to 20 landlords, estate agents, a day and none of them would accept DSS, tenants on Department of Social Security housing benefits.

The Birmingham resident said he’d approached his council as well as housing associations, but no one wanted to help at all.

A spokesman for Mr Tyler’s local council, Birmingham City, stated it had offered him suitable alternative accommodation, and it added that while this was far from an ideal situation, and that it was no doubt distressing for Mr Tyler and his family, unfortunately, they were faced with a national housing crisis which was affecting an unprecedented number of families across the region.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said that this ugly undercurrent of discrimination was wreaking devastation on hundreds of thousands of people’s lives and that DSS was an obsolete and outrageous illustration of heinous discrimination.

The investigation into 149 regional letting agent branches discovered five of England’s leading letting agents were discriminating against tenants on housing benefit and Haart was the worst culprit.

Mystery shoppers, deployed by the charities, had encountered a prohibition on housing benefit tenants in eight out of 25 Haart branches and a spokesman for Haart said that it wasn’t their policy to prohibit housing benefit tenants and that anyone who passes referencing checks can rent properties listed with their branches.

They continued that they regularly arrange tenancies for those claiming housing benefits and presently have 112 tenancies where this is the case, but this research had brought to light that some of their branches had been misinformed and were working to ensure that this policy was being followed across their network and that they were sorry for any occasion where this had not been the case.

Others named as having individual branch guidelines not to accept people on housing benefit were Bridgfords (two out of 25 branches visited), Dexters (two out of 25), Fox & Sons (two out of 24) and Your Move (one out of 25).

The report said that nearly half of all branches contacted during the investigation said they had no suitable homes or landlords would not let to someone on housing benefit.

The report claims that a shortfall in social housing meant that an estimated 1.64 million adults depend on housing benefit to help cover private rents and it was said the preponderance were women, especially single mothers with childcare responsibilities, while people who received disability benefits were three times more likely to need a housing benefit top-up.

David Cox, chief executive of letting agents body Arla Propertymark said that rents are paid in advance, whereas housing benefit is paid in arrears, and thus with such a shortage of rental accommodation, landlords and agents will naturally pick a tenant who can pay the rent when it’s due, rather than a tenant who is always a month in arrears.

He said that they’ve called on the Government time and time again to fix this issue, but that their calls have fallen on deaf ears.

A Ministry of Housing spokesman said those on housing benefit who felt discriminated against could complain to redress schemes, which all letting and managing agents must be part of by law.

He added that they were determined to tackle stigma in social housing and the private rented sector and that they had published their Social Housing Green Paper setting out their strategies to rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords.

Unfortunately, for the time being, disabled people and single mothers are still being discriminated against because of housing benefit discrimination and the Government and wider society do not care.

And the entire idea of letting agents is evil because they’re completely driven by money and can push rents up as much as possible because they get a percentage and this is making people homeless as the cost of renting gets higher and higher, and this is a more short-sighted governance – rents should be lowered then capped and capitalism sucks.

Margaret Thatcher came up with the concept of ‘Right To Buy’ and then Tony Blair became her poodle. And Right To Buy was fantastic for those who could afford it, but for others, it wasn’t such a good idea and it also the scheme meant they ceased building enough social housing.

The point is that council houses have not been built under any Government for many years – Conservative, Labour, whichever party you support, neither have bothered to think logically and now we have more people needing affordable rental properties and there’s not enough to go round, or they simply can’t afford them.

And what is going on is shameful and yet we call ourselves civilised, yet our Government are allowing this to happen and our Government are treating people like they’re not even human beings.

Olivia Newton-John Strikes Back As Woke Brigade Label Grease SEXIST – Danny Changed For Sandy

The hit musical Grease is one of the highest-grossing film musicals of all time, taking in over $400 million at the box office back in 1978. But since then, some movie buffs have felt the film’s account of Sandy’s raunchy transformation was sexist – after all, this is what it took for John Travolta’s Danny to be won over by her Grease’s end.

However, Sandy star Olivia Newton-John reacted to the claims that Grease is sexist in a new interview.

The 72-year-old said that it was a movie and that it was a story from the fifties and things were different then.

She said that everyone forgets, that at the end, he changes for her, too and there was nothing deep in there about the #MeToo movement.

It’s just a girl who loves a guy, and she believes if she does that, he’ll like her and she said that she believed that was pretty real – people do that for each other and it was a fun love story.

Meanwhile, her Frenchie co-star Didi Conn has also shot down the claims that Grease was sexist.

The 69-year-old felt that Sandy’s makeover was more about her being true to herself than attempting to win over Danny and Didi told GMB that it’s like the first makeover show and it was just about becoming more of herself to come through.

And that it wasn’t so much about getting her man, it was to be who she was 100 per cent because she ran away from the dance because he was dancing with Cha-Cha and she couldn’t face him because there was this part of her that wanted to come out.

Also, some movie buffs have pointed out that the James Bond franchise has been sexist in the past and needs to revamp in light of the MeToo movement, which No Time To Die appears to be doing.

This includes the idea of updating the Bond girl or Bond woman as is the wording preference on the 007 set nowadays and back in the summer, The Man With The Golden Gun star Britt Ekland told a news outlet that she was the proudest Bond girl there because there wasn’t a lot of them left and that there wouldn’t be any in future – the Bond girl has to look good in a bikini.

And while appearing on GMB, she shared her views on what James Bond should be like and the 78-year old told Piers Morgan that she felt that Bond should probably be a little bit more untouchable.

At the end of the day, boy meets girl, they fall in love, it’s the oldest story in the world and some people have very twisted minds. The movie is iconic!

It’s just like any other love story – one character ultimately changes for another, which can be exampled in numerous counts in real-life love stories, and if people don’t like it, they don’t have to watch it – why do people these days believe that just because they don’t like it, no one else should be able to watch it?

I can’t believe that this is being debated on TV – it just seems that some people need to whine about something and I’m just laughing because, after all these years, I still haven’t figured out how Olivia Newton-John managed to pull herself into those leather pants.

Come on folks, just take it for what it is, entertainment.

Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer Slams Into An Electric Bike While Endeavouring To Complete A U-turn

Eyewitnesses told a news outlet that Sir Keir Starmer slammed into a cyclist while endeavouring to execute a U-turn close to a busy intersection with traffic lights.

The Labour leader, 58, was involved in a collision near his home on Grafton Road, Kentish Town, North London on Sunday on his way to his tailor.

It took place between The Grafton pub and the adjacent OYO Camden hotel with two eyewitnesses claiming that Sir Keir Starmer was driving on the opposite side of the road.

They maintain that he slowed down outside the Kentish Town Sports Centre, which is on the opposite side of the road to the pub and the hotel and was endeavouring to turn his automobile around when he struck the cyclist.

Eyewitnesses claimed that the cyclist was a Deliveroo rider who was using a black and white electric bike. A passer-by called for an ambulance soon after 12.08 pm on Sunday.

Sir Keir’s office told a news outlet that he was attempting to park and was not performing a U-turn and that he left the scene only after an ambulance arrived.

Darryl, 31, who lives only yards from the scene of the accident told the news outlet that he was taking his shopping in and heard a loud racket. So, he went to see what had happened and saw an SUV across the middle of the road.

He said it appeared as if it was trying to do a U-turn and struck the cyclist who was coming in the opposite direction.

Electrician Darryl added that there were a few scuff marks on the driver side door and at first the cyclist was on the ground but then he was helped up and sat outside the OYO hotel holding his left arm and crying in pain.

He said that he didn’t know who the driver was at the time, but he went over to the cyclist who was yelling, “How did you not see me?”

After the ambulance took the gentleman away, somebody padlocked his bike to a lamppost and it remained there until Monday night when it was collected.

Both sides of the road are marked with double yellow lines close to what is one of the busiest intersections in the area and a spokesman revealed that Sir Keir Starmer had been in touch with the cyclist on Monday night to apologise and check up on his condition.

I’m guessing Sir Keir Starmer’s feeling a bit of a fool now because you don’t do U-turns on busy intersections, but then I guess he’s used to that, seeing as he does them in parliament – the real tragedy here is he missed his appointment at his tailor!

And why wasn’t he breathalysed? Isn’t that the policy after an accident, or is that just for ordinary folks? Next week he’ll be cycling to work to show how sorry he is and how much he supports cyclists.

First Trial At Train Station For Dogs That Can Smell COVID-19 In Humans

The dogs which are being taught to sniff out coronavirus have had their first experience of a busy train station as they train to do it for real as soon as early 2021.

The dog and their handlers from the charity Medical Detection Dogs spent the morning training at London’s Paddington Station before showing the Duchess of Cornwall and the health secretary what they can do.

The animals can sniff out the virus in humans in less than a second, even those who have it asymptomatically and aren’t displaying any signs of coronavirus.

Health Secretary, Matt Hancock said on Tuesday that you could immediately think of several uses they could put this to, and find people who don’t know they have COVID 19.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall who’s the Patron of the dog’s charity, said that she was optimistic that the Government would take note of the dog’s progress.

She said after watching the demonstration with the Secretary of State. “How could you not be impressed by them?”

The dogs have learned how to detect the virus in laboratory conditions but this was the first time they’ve been taken to a location where they might soon be detecting COVID 19 in a trainload or a planeload of passengers.

COVID like numerous diseases has an odour, and the Medical Detection Dogs also trains dogs to detect cancer, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

This scientific trial, with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is progressing well but they only have half the number of positive samples they need.

Professor James Logan from LSHTM urged anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus to contact them to get a sample pack which the dogs will then sniff.

The pack contains a mask, a t-shirt and socks which anyone with a recent positive test are asked to wear for a few hours before sending them back.

The trial is also working with airports to see how the dogs might be used there to open up travel once again.

Claire Guest, the co-founder of Medical Detection Dogs, said the animals could be a gamechanger for passengers travelling under COVID conditions and it was a wonderful chance to illustrate to the Secretary of State how fast these dogs can work.

There have been in-depth studies that have found that people emit a smell when unwell and the results strongly support that humans emit a chemical cue during a generalised sickness response that can be sensed by others.

However, because the new study was performed in a laboratory, it’s not evident whether the same results would be seen outside the lab in people who have other infections, and perhaps this is the same for the doggies.

However, dogs can pick up on their owner’s body giving out different smells than what would be normal, and dogs have been known to detect seizures minutes or even hours before they’ve occurred – this is because their owner’s body gives out different scents and signals and the dog can detect the dissimilarity.

Damilola Taylor’s Tragic Final Words

Damilola Taylor was only ten years old when he died alone, attacked and left to bleed to death in agony in a south London stairwell.

His killers, Ricky Preddie was only 13 and his brother Danny only 12, when they committed the crime that shocked the nation.

Damilola Taylor had only been in the United Kingdom for a few months when his life was tragically cut short.

His family had moved from Nigeria to Britain in August 2000, the 10-year-old was killed on November 27 the same year.

It happened as Damilola Taylor was strolling home from the library that the child, who dreamed of becoming a lawyer, was stabbed in the thigh with a broken bottle after he was approached by a group of youths.

Damilola was found bleeding to death in a stairwell near his home in Peckham, south London, where local workmen tried to save his life.

He had desperately tried to crawl to safety and a 30 trail of blood was left on the street after the horrifying attack, but it was six years before the killers were brought to justice.

Ricky and Danny Preddie were convicted of manslaughter and were sentenced to eight years in youth custody, but Damilola Taylor’s parents, Richard and Gloria, were determined their son’s death would not be in vain and set up the Damilola Taylor Trust, which strives to support young people in deprived and inner-city areas.

Yinka Bokinni, radio presenter hosted a documentary with the youngster’s friend, the documentary was called The Boy Next Door on Channel 4.

The Capital XTRA presenter explained that the kid that she knew was shouting and running and jumping and screaming and laughing. He was so easygoing and courageous.

She said it’s a tribute to our friend and it’s also a film of hope and the hope that it humanises Damilola, and gives you more than what that now-iconic picture of him symbolises.

She said that she felt that when people see him in his school uniform and that when people see him with his half-smile, they only see the victim.

Popular schoolboy Damilola Taylor was also close friends with Star Wars actor John Boyega and his sister, Grace.

Richard Taylor, Damilola’s father, explained that Damilola, John and Grace were so close and they looked after him when he came to the United Kingdom because they went to school together.

John and Grace, who Richard said was like a girlfriend to Damilola, where the last two people to see the schoolboy alive.

As he left the library Damilola was caught on CCTV getting into a lift with two friends, who were not identified at the time, but were John and his sister.

Richard said they were the last to see him. They wanted to accompany him home, but he said he was going to be okay.

They left him by the junction then he went around the corner and the gang were waiting for him.

John has never forgotten his childhood pal and nominated the Trust set up in Damilola’s name to receive a donation from the Star Wars launch.

Richard, who attended the premiere, said that he was overwhelmed and that it filled him with happiness.

However, John’s success, along with Damilola’s other close friend Yinka has made his father consider what his young son could have accomplished if his life hadn’t been cut short in such a harrowing way.

Richard said that he thought that Damilola could have been working with him as an actor.

Damilola Taylor was acting in primary school, in Christmas plays, school plays, reciting poems and all that sort of stuff, but there’s good coming out of the place because John’s promoting Peckham, not renouncing his roots and Damilola would have been doing the same thing.

And he can see through those friends the life Damilola might have lived because many of those who grew up in scandalous housing in North Peckham still made a name for themselves. Some became GPs, accountants, footballers or are in the media.

He said that he was so proud that they lived under those excruciating circumstances, they struggled through life but have done extremely well like Yinka Bokinni and John Boyega.

This was heartbreaking because the poor boy was so full of life and an unforgettable and painful loss, that his parents will never forget and may his memory go on.

We must educate our children early and have more understanding of child violence and more resources are needed.

We would like to have more peace in the world but unfortunately for generations to come there will always be destruction and unfortunately we choose to destroy – it all goes together, power, money, religion, greed and awareness is needed because so many young people are struggling in life with many falling victim to criminality or being killed.

One of the killers Ricky Preddie didn’t learn his lesson and since being released has been in and out of prison numerous times for loads of different offences and gang association.

Ricky Preddie ended up back in prison for driving into a female police officer.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment and banned from driving for 12 years, which will start when he’s released from prison.

After serving his sentence for Damilola Taylor’s death, Ricky Preddie was paroled in September 2010. His brother Danny followed the next year after being given early release.

Ricky Preddie was sent back to prison in March 2011 after breaching his licence conditions.

He was released in January 2012, but just 16 days later he was imprisoned again for violating his parole when he visited places he was banned from and seeing friends from his old gang.

Sadly, some people can’t be helped and they just need locking up for good, and you just have to watch the very tragic loss of a lovely young boy to realise that, and what a pitiful sentence those boys got, regardless if they were kids, they should have got much longer.

I remember this like it was yesterday – ten years old, truly heartbreaking, he was just a baby.

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