Author: Andrew Hillman

Credit: SeppH/Pixabay Birmingham City Council has launched a taskforce aimed at reducing the city’s infant mortality rate, which is the highest in England and nearly twice the national average.Between 2016 and 2019, 472 babies died in Birmingham before their first birthday, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. In comparison, in Merseyside, which has a similar number of annual births, there were only 282 infant deaths. During a city council meeting, Councillor Paulette Hamilton said the figures were “shocking”. “We need to do more to prevent the loss of life. The loss of a baby is the most…

Photo Credit: mel_88/Pixabay When Gavin Williamson announced in January that summer exams would once again be cancelled, Uwais, an A Level student from Yorkshire, feared the worst. One year earlier, Uwais had been studying independently in preparation to resit his A Level exams. When exams were replaced by teacher assessments and Ofqual’s algorithm, he was among the thousands of students studying independently who were dropped by exam centres, leaving them without grades. Other private entrants, including home-schooled and resitting students, scrambled to find an exam centre or school willing to assess them at the eleventh hour, often paying inflated fees…

Walk-in lateral flow tests are being provided at the Utilita Arena (formerly the NIA). Photo credit: Elliot Brown Fewer lateral flow tests were conducted in the last seven days in Birmingham than in almost all surrounding areas, according to the latest data from Public Health England. In Wolverhampton, 2.7 tests were conducted using lateral flow devices (LFDs) for every 100 residents. In comparison, only 1.1 per 100 residents were conducted in Birmingham – 29% lower than the national average. Dr Justin Varney, Birmingham City Council’s Director of Public Health, said the council was expanding lateral flow testing across the city…

Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash Over 9,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Birmingham in the first full week of the new year, representing a 140% increase since Christmas. The latest figures published by Public Health England suggest that the virus is spreading quicker in Birmingham than most other major cities in the UK, including London. Speaking to BBC Midlands Today on Monday evening, Birmingham City Council’s Director of Public Health, Dr Justin Varney, said that rising infection levels were due to a combination of social mixing over Christmas and more people leaving their homes for work than…

“It’s been really difficult being a city centre restaurant right in the heart of the financial district because there’s no one working here. It’s scary.” For Ann Tonks, the managing director of Opus, the business impacts of Covid-19 have, like the pandemic itself, come in two waves. In July, Opus announced that its bar, located within One Snowhill in Birmingham’s business district, would close permanently. “It’s a site that is completely dependent on the businesses on the estate. No one’s working there at the moment, so it was not going to be able to reopen without some support on rent…

The winner of the election may not be known for days after Trump defies polls to win the key state of Florida. The US presidential election hangs in the balance, with results from Florida suggesting a close race nationally, and tight contests in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. Votes are still being counted across the country and so far, only 41 of the USA’s 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) have been declared by ABC News. During a speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning, President Trump falsely claimed that ballot counting was subject to “major fraud”. He also…