Coronavirus news - live: Review finds death rate higher among ethnic minorities as MPs queue up to vote for 'insane' return to Westminster
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Your support makes all the difference.Health secretary Matt Hancock has vowed to “get to the bottom” of the reason BAME people are disproportionately likely to die as a result of Covid-19 following the release of a report which showed high ethnic minority deaths from the virus in the UK.
It comes as the official UK death toll rose by 324 to almost 40,000 in the latest set of figures from the Department of Health and Social Care – with the total fatality figure likely to exceed 40,000 in the coming days.
Elsewhere, lockdown measures are being lifted in many countries, with restaurants and bars able to open today in France for the first time since March, while Nigeria is to reopen places of worship and Slovakia is to open indoor sports centres and pools. Around the world, there have been more than 6.3m known cases and more than 377,000 deaths as a result of the virus – according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
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Johnson to take 'direct control' over virus response - report
Boris Johnson is aiming to take "direct control" of the government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak in a Downing Street shake-up, the Telegraph has reported.
The move will see two centrally run committees, covering strategy and operational delivery, shaping the British government's approach to the outbreak, the newspaper added.
The committees will substitute four ministerial implementation groups, which were formed at the start of the coronavirus crisis and covered health, foreign affairs, economy and business and public services.
Mr Johnson will chair the strategy committee while Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove will chair the new operations committee, according to the report.
Brazil registers record number of deaths
Brazil registered another new record number of new coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said as the pandemic in Latin America's largest country shows no signs of slowing down.
The country registered 28,936 additional cases of the novel coronavirus, the ministry said, and 1,262 deaths.
There are now 555,383 total confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil and 31,199 coronavirus deaths.
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