Pandemic pinging = panic buying
23 Jul 2021
Iceland said photographs of empty shelves in supermarkets, signs of panic buying, were isolated incidents. While there were ‘some availability issues’, they said their supply chains are resilient. M&S and other businesses said growing numbers of staff have been ‘pinged’ by the NHS Covid-19 app and they must self-isolate for 10 days. Businesses want people who have been double-vaccinated or have daily tests to be able to return to work. The British Retail Consortium said shops were facing increasing pressure as they try to keep shelves stocked with rising numbers of staff self-isolating. It said ministers needed to ‘act fast’ and allow fully-vaccinated retail workers or those who had tested negative for Covid to go to work. The Road Haulage Association said a shortage of 100,000 HGV drivers is disrupting supply chains as workers return to Europe following Brexit.
Out of lockdown
23 Jul 2021
From 19 July England’s church congregations can be free from face masks and allowed to sing. Congregational singing and other in-person interaction is important for Christians. May churches be gracious and wise as they use their freedoms as scientists warn ‘lifting of almost all restrictions is a mistake as not enough people have been vaccinated’. Prof Robert West said government predictions of 100,000 cases a day over the summer are optimistic: ‘We could be seeing even double that.' The test and trace system remains the only way the Government can contain the virus to an acceptable level. So the message on how closely people should follow the advice to isolate if ‘pinged’ by the app is crucial. Although it's not a legal requirement to do so, any suggestion that ‘it's up to you, optional, or a judgment call’ risks undermining the Government's entire approach. Pray for everyone to navigate wisely the tricky issue of keeping everyone safe as they use their new freedoms.
NHS praise without a raise means little
23 Jul 2021
Health workers protested in July against a 1% pay rise which the Government insisted was all it could afford. 1% was rejected by unions representing the 1.2m NHS English personnel. Conservative MPs are worried that it made the government look ungrateful for frontline workers’ herculean efforts during the pandemic. Opinion polls suggested the public agreed, and health leaders warned that it would only increase the NHS’s debilitating problems in recruiting and retaining staff. The prime minister has now offered 3%. But unions called the offer an insult and are prepared to force an increase. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, GMB and Unite are seriously considering taking action (work to rule or strike) by medics, including nurses and junior doctors, and are canvassing their members’ views on the offer.
Smuggling migrants
23 Jul 2021
Five Albanians who smuggled migrants through the Channel Tunnel were arrested and held in London; two more arrests were in Surrey and Oxfordshire. Migrants are concealed behind furniture in vehicles hired specially for illegal smuggling, using a network of connections across Europe. Migrants paid as much as £25,000, believing they will go on to work in the illegal economy once in Britain. Commander Richard Harrison said the gang had risked the safety of the migrants and threatened the security of the UK border. Pray for these arrests to lead to further dismantling of criminal tunnel networking. Recently 430 migrants crossed the English Channel in one day. The Home Office has said it was taking substantial steps to tackle the unacceptable problem of illegal migration. A bill is currently being considered by MPs which would mean that migrants entering without permission could face up to four years in prison.
UK’s Olympians
23 Jul 2021
Team GB will be represented by its largest-ever delegation for an Olympic Games on foreign soil, with 376 athletes and 22 reserves competing across 26 sports in Tokyo’s 2020 Games. Also, for the first time, Team GB will have more women than men. Since 16 July six athletes and two staff members from the athletics team have become self-isolating after having close contact with an individual, not from Team GB, who tested positive after arriving in Tokyo. Pray that they will be able to resume training again soon. Taylor Campbell, who will compete in the hammer throw, said cases like this would be unavoidable. GB team members flying to Tokyo had seats mixed with the public instead of sitting together at the back of the flight.
The death toll from flooding in Western Europe keeps climbing as rescue workers dig deeper into debris left by receding waters. Germany’s finance minister has proposed a package of immediate aid, of more than 300 million euros. Pray for the government also to dig deeper into available funds so that suitable rebuilding programs can be set up speedily. From experience with previous flooding, costs will be in the billions of euros. Police fear the number of dead may still rise in many areas. Pope Francis offered a prayer for the flood victims and for the efforts of all to help those who suffered great damage: ‘I express my closeness to the populations of Germany, Belgium and Holland, hit by catastrophic flooding.’ German officials have asked people not to make any more donations, as their generosity has left storage facilities for clothes and food full.
Alarm over migrants’ hunger strike in Brussels
23 Jul 2021
The Belgian government is under pressure to offer residence permits to hundreds of undocumented migrants who have been on hunger strike in Brussel’s Béguinage church and university buildings for sixty days and are in a life and death situation. Alarm grows because some are now refusing water. Four men stitched their lips together last month to press their case for legal access to the jobs market and social services. Two UN officials urged the government to offer temporary residence permits to the 476 hunger strikers. 150,000 sans papiers live in Belgium, according to the campaign group ‘We Are Belgium Too’, which is calling for the regularisation of undocumented migrants. Many have been in Belgium for five or ten years. Belgium’s minister for asylum and migration refused a blanket amnesty to undocumented workers. The deputy prime minister and other Socialist ministers threatened to quit the government if any hunger strikers died. It is becoming a political snowball.
Canada: 45 churches set on fire
23 Jul 2021
An ongoing anti-Christian campaign in Canada has resulted in churches being attacked and burnt down. Those responsible include far-left terrorists with a Marxist ideology whose sole purpose is to strike fear in Canadians for practising their faith. Most of the churches burnt and defaced serve indigenous Christians. ‘Burning down churches is not in solidarity with us indigenous people. We do not destroy people's places of worship,’ said Jenn Allan-Riley, assistant Pentecostal minister at Living Waters Church. Seventeen of the 45 buildings, across six provinces and the Northwest Territories, have suffered fire damage or been completely burned to the ground. The terrorism began following discoveries of unmarked graves of indigenous children on the sites of Catholic boarding schools. Terrorists also targeted non-Catholic churches. Calgary’s House of Prayer Alliance Church was torched, leaving 230 Vietnamese refugees with nowhere to meet. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating the terrorism.