Covid-19: Up to 75% of new UK cases could be Indian variant, 

Good morning welcome to breakfast with

charlie state and

naga manchester uh headlines today fears

that there could be delay in lifting

lockdown in england as cases of the

indian variant

double in a week there are calls for 40

specialist

surgical hubs to be set up to tackle a

colossal backlog

of non-urgent operations good morning

making sure that loyalty pays

should insurance firms be banned from

raising prices for existing customers

whilst luring new ones with cheaper

deals

the regulator will decide this morning

so i'll find out what could change and

what it could mean for your premiums

mark holmrod lost his arm and both legs

when he was injured in afghanistan

this morning we'll be with him as he

attempts to complete an epic swim

for charity good morning another great

friend's

reunion could be on the cards tottenham

reached out to their former manager

mauricio pochettino about returning his

boss

and he did say once it would be his

dream to come back

good morning a slightly cloudier day

today with some rain around particularly

towards the west but things turn

increasingly warm and sunny through the

bank holiday weekend

i'll have all your details here on

breakfast

[Music]

good morning it's friday the 28th of may

up to three quarters of new

covert cases could be linked to the

indian variant this according to the

health secretary matt hancock there are

concerns the increase in infections

could delay plans to lift all

restrictions in england on june the 21st

our correspondent james reynolds has the

latest

in bolton the race between the vaccine

and the variant

is fought at the pace of an average

british queue

in recent weeks up to several thousand

people a day have waited patiently

for their turn to be jabbed in this town

the indian variant

is hitting those who haven't been

vaccinated

the number of cases of the indian

variant in england has more than doubled

since last week

rising to almost seven thousand

according to the health secretary

up to three quarters of new uk covert

cases

could be linked to the variant the worst

affected areas in england

continued to be bolton bedford and

blackburn with darwin

seven other areas in england each have

more than a hundred confirmed cases of

the variant

the critical thing to watch is the link

from the number of cases

to how many people end up in hospital

the increase in cases remains focused in

hot spots

and we're doing all we can to tackle

this variant wherever it flares up

the prime minister said we may need to

wait for the lifting of all covert

restrictions

but he added that there was nothing

currently in the data from england

to suggest that the easing couldn't go

ahead as planned

the next two weeks then may be crucial a

decision

is expected in mid-june james reynolds

bbc news matt hancock is

also growing undergrowing pressure over

the deaths of thousands of care home

residents

prime minister's former advisor dominic

cummings accused him of lying

early on in the pandemic about care home

residents being tested

for coronavirus after leaving hospital

but mr hancock says

allegations are unsubstantiated and

untrue

our political correspondent damian

gramaticus has more detail

the health secretary has been under real

pressure now for two days ever since

dominic cummings is evidence

to parliament on wednesday when he

accused the health secretary of lying on

multiple occasions

particularly about that subject of care

homes

and the claim he said that matt hancock

had made that people being discharged

from hospital were

all be tested for covid before returning

to

care homes matt hancock has said that

the claims that he lied were

unsubstantiated

and untrue but what we had last

night on the question time program on

bbc

was nadra ahmed the head of the the

chair of the

national care association she said that

the

claim mr hancock had made last year that

a protective

ring had been placed around care homes

was

not true she said absolute rubbish if

there had been a protective ring

she said well then there would have been

a plan in place to protect those

vulnerable people

mr hancock was questioned about this and

what he said to journalists

yesterday uh was that there had been

a testing program was being built he

said

he admitted the capacity didn't exist at

the start of the pandemic to test

everyone

because it took time to put in place and

he said he worked hard to do that but

what all of this i think shows is the

the fallout from dominic cummings is

evidence

heaping pressure on matt hancock damien

grammaticus there

surgeons are calling for specialist hubs

to be set up in england to help tackle

what they call the colossal backlog

of non-urgent operations that have been

postponed because of the pandemic

in march around 5 million patients were

waiting for surgery that's the highest

number

since records began the government says

it is working to accelerate the recovery

of services our health correspondent

laura foster has more

when the pandemic began hospital trusts

had to cancel

non-urgent surgeries such as hip and

knee replacements

so there were enough staff and resources

to look after patients with covid19

but since then waiting times and lists

have only grown

14 months on from the first lockdown

latest figures show

almost 5 million people are on the

waiting list

more than four hundred thousand of them

have been waiting for more than a year

well these are the worst waiting time

figures ever recorded

and we all understand that stuff

uh had to be put on hold whilst there

was the pandemic

but now the pandemic is beginning to

recede we need a

serious approach to getting into this

backlog

the college says the answer is to spend

a billion pounds a year over the next

five years and to carry out operations

not at local hospitals

but at dedicated hubs that way these

hubs would still function

even if there was another wave of covid

or indeed another pandemic

the college argues people are willing to

travel further

if it means surgeries happen sooner

laura foster

bbc news residents in glasgow are

expected to find out later whether the

city will remain in level three of

scotland's coveted 19 restrictions city

has been under strict measures for 270

days

while the rest of scotland has seen

restrictions ease

in recent weeks first minister nicolas

sturgeon has said there are reasons to

be optimistic about the situation

manchester united football club says

it's disgusted by the abuse that some of

its players have received

online following their loss in the

europa league final earlier this week

one player marcus rashford said he'd

been sent at least

70 racial slurs let's go to our porter

film account who's uh outside old

trafford forest this morning phil so

this is now uh part of a police

investigation

what do we know so far

well greater manchester police charlie

have said that they are investigating

a number of racially aggravated slurs on

social media directed towards numerous

manchester united players now of course

this is

as you mentioned after the loss in the

europa league final on wednesday night

and by midnight on wednesday marcus

rashford

had tweeted that he'd received at least

70 slurs by that point just a few hours

later

on social media and yesterday he tweeted

i'm built for criticism of my

performance

but can't accept some of the racist

taunts that have been directed towards

him now the club here has said

that it has zero tolerance to any form

of racism the police are now going

through these posts to see if

any of them or some of them might

constitute a hate crime and they've also

said that

those people who've been posting them

could face long-term implications to

their personal

and professional lives and that maybe

after marcus rashford yesterday said one

of the things that disgusted him the

most

was that some of these comments seemed

to come from somebody who was a teacher

their profile on twitter made clear that

they were a teacher

now the department for education says

that it is looking into that

and facebook which also owns instagram

has said that it's removed a number of

posts but

for years now of course it's come under

mounting pressure to do more

about abuse online and this club has

also added to that pressure

this morning uh phil separately i

understand marcus rashford has been

speaking to former u.s president barack

obama tell us a bit more about that

yeah just if just in case you thought

that marcus rashford couldn't get any

more influential

here he is now talking to barack obama

this was a zoom meeting ahead of a new

book that

barack obama is bringing out it was

moderated by uh

june sarpong and a lot of this zoom

meeting involved

the former president heaping praise on

marcus rashford who is of course

at just 23 years old marcus i think is

way ahead of where i was at 23. i was

still trying to figure it out

for me being in in sports i just knew

that my life could change

very very quickly and if i wasn't like

mature enough for

you know a certain level in in my own

head then it makes

stuff like fame and bits like that even

more difficult

when you look at the history of big

social movements

and big social change it's usually young

people who initiate this

if you give someone a helping hand at a

young age they'll go on to do

things that you know even they didn't

think or believe that was

achievable to accomplish

so that was just a short clip there from

a much longer

zoom meeting and they also talked about

the similarities

that they have between them the fact

that they were both brought up by single

mums for example the fact they've both

been involved

in community work but you heard at the

beginning there barack obama saying that

marcus rashford

is way ahead of where he was at that age

that of course

from a former u.s president phil thank

you very much

measuring the amount of squashed bugs

flies on your car after a journey may be

able to help scientists better

understand

insect populations in the uk so a new

app is asking the public to gather the

information to identify where certain

species are thriving and where others

are in decline here's our chief

environment correspondent justin roloff

insecta geddon is how the global decline

in insect populations has been described

by some scientists

one case study in germany suggested that

been

a 75 percent decrease in numbers

over 27 years take the humble housefly

you may not like them but like many

insects they're one of the foundations

of the whole food chain if we lose them

we'll lose lots of other species too

but there's actually very little data

for many insect groups and species

even here in the uk which is where this

new app comes in

the hope is that in the hands of a small

army of citizen scientists

it will generate more accurate figures

for insect populations

it's simple to use you clean your number

plate before you go on a journey

then when you arrive at your destination

you use the app

to photograph the bugs squashed on a

section of it using a

splatometer grid you get when you

download the app

the results they become part of the

nationwide survey justin rolat

bbc news

[Music]

see the headlines as they happen and

watch bbc news live in the app and get

the full story with bbc dot co dot uk

forward slash news follow the story for

all the latest

with bbc news