Covid has left a toxic legacy for the UK's NHS, with hospitals facing a huge backlog, putting lives at risk, patient groups and staff have warned.

 

Elaine Walsh was diagnosed with womb cancer in January.

 The 61-year-old, from Essex, was immediately classed as an urgent case - and should have been operated on within weeks.But her operation was canceled - because of the pandemic and the backlog it had caused.

 It was the most horrendous day", she says. Every day that I'm not on a surgical operating table, it is more of a risk." Elaine is now due to have surgery on Friday - but the wait has taken its toll.She has been seeing a psychologist to help her emotionally, while physically she has started to deteriorate.

I have got weaker," she says. I'm in more pain. Things I could do then, I can't now.Elaine's story is not unique.  Analysis by BBC News shows the numbers starting treatment within the target time have fallen during the pandemic.

And some trusts are struggling to start treatment for even half of patients in the recommended timeframe two months following an urgent referral from their GP For University Hospitals Birmingham, that proportion is well under a half. It has seen performance deteriorate despite sending patients to be treated in local private hospitals.The trust has treated more Covid patients than any other in the country - more than 14,000 have been admitted since the start of the pandemic, leading to the redeployment of 1,500 staff locally.

 Like others, it says the disruption has been unavoidable - and it is now "working hard" to have patients diagnosed and treated.

 But it has found not all the delays are caused by the disruption to services.About one in every four of the patients waiting the longest has postponed treatment themselves - and nurses at the trust have been phoning and pleading with them to have treatment.This reluctance to come forward coupled with problems accessing GP and screening services at points in the pandemic is the reason why the number of patients coming forward for checks and being diagnosed has dropped - although there are now signs the numbers are rising.Nonetheless, analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support suggests across the UK there are 45,000 "missing" cancer patients. And the charity fears this will lead to more later-stage diagnoses, which reduce the chances of survival.

After an Israeli air strike destroyed a tower block in the Gaza Strip.The 13-storey building was attacked an hour and a half after residents and local people were warned to evacuate, according to reports.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinian civilians on Sunday to leave immediately any site where militants are operating, one day after Israel took the Gaza war to a new level by flattening a 13-storey apartment tower.

 Israeli aircraft first fired a non-explosive rocket at the building, a sign to residents to get out, before attacking it on Saturday.  Seventeen people were wounded in the strike on the structure, which Israel said had housed a Hamas command center.

I call on the inhabitants of Gaza to evacuate immediately from every site from which Hamas is carrying out terrorist activity.  Every one of these places is a target for us, ”Netanyahu said in public remarks at a cabinet meeting.

 With no end in sight to fighting now in its seventh week, Netanyahu’s tough talk could indicate a move towards bolder strikes in densely populated neighborhoods, even at the risk of raising more international alarm.

 Thousands of homes have been destroyed or damaged in the conflict.  Nearly 500,000 people have been displaced in the territory of 1.8 million where Palestinians, citing Israeli attacks that have hit schools and mosques, say no place is safe.

Israel has said Hamas bears responsibility for civilian casualties because it operates among non-combatants.  The group, it said, uses schools and mosques to store weapons and as launching sites for cross-border rocket attacks.

 Palestinian health officials say 2,108 people, most of them civilians and more than 400 of them children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since July 8, when Israel launched an offensive with the declared aim of ending Palestinian rocket fire into its territory.

 Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and four civilians in Israel have been killed.

It looks like a Facebook group promoting anti-vaccine disinformation. But Richard says it is a decoy, aimed at helping people attracted to conspiracy theories.

 

In a policy shift, Facebook is now removing groups and pages that discourage people from getting vaccines.  As social media giants grapple with the anti-vaccine movement, Specialist disinformation reporter Marianna Spring meets the everyday citizens battling conspiracy theories in their spare time.

 The banner image shows a Photoshopped picture of Bill Gates with a crazed expression holding a needle decorated with a skull and crossbones.  It looks like a Facebook group promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

 But this group actually has very different intentions.

 Richard is a builder, a trainee psychologist - and one half of the duo behind the decoy group.  He says he aims not to spread bad information but rather to help people attracted to conspiracy theories.  His friend Dave (not his real name; we've agreed to give him a pseudonym because he fears abuse from anti-vaccine activists) believed in conspiracy theories for the best part of 20 years.

If I was to actually create a group saying, 'I'm going to re-educate you then I'm not going to get any takers," he says.So I have to do it in a stealth way, which is a bit underhanded, I suppose. But the intentions are good. The group's name references Bill Gates and completely unfounded conspiracy theories that the Microsoft founder is plotting to kill millions of people and control them with implanted microchips.  And once people are drawn in, the two moderators try to reason with them, to bring them back to reality.

Pelosi accuses U.S. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of ‘verbal assault’

 

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green committed "verbal assault and abuse against a Democrat who may have violated the code of ethics of the US House of Representatives.  The Washington Post reported that two of its reporters witnessed Green - confronting Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the House vote on Wednesday.Green has already been sanctioned by the House of Representatives for making sensational remarks involving violence against Democrats.The newspaper reported that Green followed Ocasio Cortez and shouted at her and falsely accused her of supporting "terroristsI think what our office reported about what happened as the members were leaving the room yesterday was the verbal abuse and abuse of our fellow Congressman AOC," Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference.With tensions already running high on the US Capitol building following the deadly attack on January 6 by supporters of former President Donald Trump, Pelosi said Green's behavior was "less than the dignity of anyone serving in the United States Congress and is a cause of shock and fear among the members.In response to a request for comment on the incident, a Green Reuters spokeswoman referred to a tweet to Greene in which she wrote that the House Ethics Committee should investigate Ocasio Cortez for putting Trump administration officials "on lists to destroy their lives and prevent future employment In early February, the House of Representatives voted to remove Green from two high-profile committees over remarks she made that included her support for violence against Democrats.

While running for Congress in 2020, the Green campaign released an image showing her with an assault rifle alongside three liberal Democrats - Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

  Greene voiced support for unfounded conspiracy theories including "QAnon" that argues that the Democratic elite is part of a gang of devil worshipers and cannibals.

She has since distanced herself from some of her observations.

  Wednesday's incident came the same day that House Republicans sacked Representative Liz Cheney from her leadership post for criticizing Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will effectively end its mask mandate next month when the state plans to fully reopen after more than a year of Covid-19 restrictions.

 

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert said Wednesday that it's OK to give the coronavirus vaccine alongside other vaccinations, a major boon for children and teenagers behind on their regular inoculations.

 Doctors and other clinicians had previously been advised to avoid giving coronavirus vaccine within two weeks of any other vaccine.  But Dr.  Kate Woodworth of the CDC's birth defects division said Wednesday that advice has changed now, saying there is substantial data on the safety of the vaccines.

 "Extensive experience with non-Covid-19 vaccines has demonstrated that immunogenicity," or the ability of a vaccine to provoke an immune response, "and adverse event profiles are generally similar when vaccines are administered simultaneously as when they are administered alone," Woodworth  told a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

 She said the clinical considerations are being updated to say that Covid-19 and other vaccines can be administered "without regard to timing," including on the same day.

 The change is important because many children remain behind on their regular vaccinations, as the pandemic shut down many non-emergency medical checkups.  The two-week delay threatened to add another hurdle to getting people protected against Covid-19 as well as other diseases like influenza, tetanus and HPV.

 The American Academy of Pediatrics also said Wednesday it supports giving routine childhood vaccines together with coronavirus vaccines.

 After some discussion among ACIP members concerned people might not fully understand the advice, the CDC added some language to its guidance to make it clear that the agency doesn't know if people will be more likely to have a reaction if they get a Covid-  19 vaccine close in time to other vaccines.

 The announcement came shortly before the vaccine advisers voted unanimously to recommend use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in youths age 12 to 15. They voted 14-0 to recommend use of the vaccine, with one recusal.

This is one more step to gaining immunity and bringing the pandemic closer to an end," said Dr.  José Romero, who chairs ACIP and who is also the Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health.  "We still need to vaccinate the rest of the world, but we have made significant steps and are on the road."

 The recommendation comes a day after the US Food and Drug Administration decided to expand the emergency use authorization (EUA) of the Pfizer vaccine to people as young as 12. ACIP's advice now goes to CDC director Dr.  Rochelle Walensky, who is very likely to give the go-ahead within hours.

 Though young people are less likely to be seriously affected by Covid-19, they can still be infected and spread it to others.  The CDC estimates more than 22 million children age 5 to 17 have been infected with coronavirus, CDC's Dr.  Sara Oliver said Wednesday.

With so many older people vaccinated, children and teens are starting to make up a larger proportion of coronavirus cases now than earlier in the epidemic.In April, 9% of Covid-19 cases were aged 12-17 years, which actually represents a larger proportion of cases than adults 65 and older," Oliver told the ACIP meeting.