Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 26, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC LONDON - Britain's government on Saturday defended the independence of the scientists advising it on the corona- virus after it emerged that Prime Min- ister Boris Johnson's controversial chief aide had attended meetings of the group. Criticism of Johnson's Conservative government mounted as the U.K. be- came the fifth country in the world to report 20,000 virus-related deaths and counting. The government said Saturday that 20,319 people with COVID-19 have died in British hospitals, an increase of 813 from the death toll reported the day be- fore. The figure does not include deaths in nursing homes, which are likely to number in the thousands. Scientists say the U.K. has reached the peak of the pandemic but is not yet out of danger. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is declin- ing, and the number of daily deaths peaked on April 8. As fears recede that the health sys- tem will be overwhelmed, opponents are stepping up their attacks on John- son's Conservative government over shortages of protective equipment for medical workers and a lack of testing for the virus. After a report in The Guardian, the government confirmed that Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings had at- tended several meetings of the Scien- tific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or SAGE, and listened to discussions. But it denied the Guardian's claim that Cummings - who is not a scientist - was a member of the group. Cummings is a contentious figure, a self-styled political disrupter who was appointed to a key role by Johnson after masterminding the victorious "leave" campaign during Britain's 2016 refer- endum on European Union member- ship. The government said "SAGE pro- vides independent scientific advice to the government. Political advisers have no role in this." SAGE is a usually little-known group headed by Chief Scientific Adviser Pat- rick Vallance and Chief Medical Offi- cer Chris Whitty. The government has declined to publish its full membership, saying that could leave the scientists open to lobbying or other pressure. David King, a former government chief scientific adviser, told The Guard- ian he was "shocked" to learn political advisers were involved in SAGE meet- ings. But other scientists who have ad- vised the government said it was usual for political aides to attend, though only as observers. The main opposition Labour Party said Cummings' attendance raised questions about the credibility of gov- ernment decision-making. "The best way to clear all of this up is for the government to be completely transparent with us and publish the minutes of the SAGE committee," said Labour health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth. Conservative party lawmaker David Davis backed the call for greater trans- parency. "We should publish the membership of SAGE; remove any non-scientist members; publish their advice in full; and publish dissenting opinions with the advice," he tweeted. The government says its response to the pandemic has been guided by scientific advice. That advice is under increasing scrutiny by critics who ac- cuse the government of being slow to respond to the outbreak. Britain im- posed a nationwide lockdown on March 23, later than in many other European countries. The measures - including the closure of schools, pubs and non- essential shops - have been extended until at least May 7. There are indications some people are growing impatient with the restric- tions, which have brought much of the British economy and routines of daily life to a halt. Road traffic has begun to creep up after plummeting when the lockdown first was imposed. Some businesses are making plans to reopen after implementing social-dis- tancing measures. Several automakers say they plan to restart production in May. Budget airline Wizz Air said it will resume flights May 1 between London's Luton Airport and several European destinations. Meanwhile, health authorities urged Britons not to ignore symptoms of conditions other than the coronavirus, amid fears that cancer and other ill- nesses are going untreated. Public Health England said visits to hospital emergency departments have fallen by almost 50 per cent in April from the same month last year. The charity Cancer Research UK estimat- ed that 2,250 new cases of the disease could be going undetected each week, partly because people are reluctant to go to hospitals for fear of catching the virus or overburdening the system. - The Associated Press U.K. government under fire over virus advice JILL LAWLESS OTTAWA - The European Union is planning a major pledging conference early next month to help fill the World Health Organization's funding gaps, and it expects Canada to play a key role. Brice de Schietere, the EU's acting ambassador to Canada, says the event was being planned before U.S. Presi- dent Donald Trump announced last week he would pause WHO funding be- cause of concerns that it mismanaged the early outbreak of the novel corona- virus. De Schietere told The Canadian Press that no one wants to politicize the May 4 event, but the effort to find a vaccine and fund the research needed to end the global pandemic means raising money to help the UN agency is more import- ant than ever. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau con- firmed Canada will participate in the conference on Saturday, saying the country will "always be there to sup- port science and the work that is done internationally on keeping our planet and our citizens safe." De Schietere, the charge d'affaires at the EU delegation's Ottawa office, said the Canada-EU trade deal will play a key role in helping the post-pandemic economic recovery, as well as keeping essential medical supply chains open. And he said Canada and the EU are co-operating closely to control the spread of misinformation about the pandemic, which he said has resulted in more than 120 fake news stories that are aimed at undermining the Euro- pean response to the crisis. De Schietere steered clear of men- tioning Trump directly, but he empha- sized that Canada is the EU's closest partner in the world right now, and that their transatlantic alliance is focused on bolstering the multilateral trade, health and political organizations to battle the pandemic. Trump has regularly derided or otherwise targeted a host of inter- national organizations, from the G7, NATO, the World Trade Organization to, most recently, the WHO, which he has accused of going soft on China and allowing it to cover up the early impact of the pandemic. When asked Saturday if Canada would attach conditions to any fund- ing that it might pledge to the WHO at this conference in light of concerns that have been raised about the or- ganization's handling of the novel coronavirus, Trudeau did not directly answer, saying only that Canada is among many countries with unan- swered questions. "I think, like many countries, there are questions around how to ensure that we learn from this situation and we get better at dealing with these things with a level of transparency and rigor that I think citizens expect," Trudeau said. The pledging conference will also in- clude the Bill and Melinda Gates Foun- dation, the Coalition for Epidemic Pre- paredness Innovations, the Wellcome Trust, the World Bank, Unitaid - a Swiss-based non-profit health organiza- tion - and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. "It is precisely in times like these that we need to have more solidarity. Global co-operation is more critical than ever - and the responses we have had, nota- bly from Canada, have always been very positive in this direction," said de Schietere. "At the present time, we are not in that state of mind of making any kind of finger-pointing or politicization of the issue. We have regretted, and this has been expressed on several occasions by EU leaders, the decision coming from the United States to suspend the fund- ing to the WHO," he added. "For us, what's important is to have global co-operation and solidarity and we need the multilateral institutions to do it. It is the only effective and viable option we can take to win this battle." European Commission President Ur- sula von der Leyen said in a video an- nouncement on Friday that she hoped world leaders would come together to take part in the effort to raise the equivalent of C$11.4 billion. International Development Minister Karina Gould said in a statement that Canada would continue to work with international partners, including the WHO. "Global health is the largest area of investment for Canada's aid program. We are one of the recognized leaders in this space," she said. "Canada is part of the global response to tackle COVID 19." On Thursday, European leaders re- vised their long-term budget to pay for the continent's massive post-pandemic recovery, which could cost upwards of $C1.5 trillion, making it the most ambi- tious financial assistance package since the 1948 Marshall Plan to rebuild the continent after the Second World War. As the world battles the economic devastation caused by the pandemic, de Schietere said the Comprehensive Eco- nomic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has left Canada and Europe well-pos- itioned to weather the current down- town and navigate a recovery. "We are very much relying on such agreements and open trade to guar- antee the future of supply chains. It is particularly important that as we want to strengthen the global re- sponse, we keep all those chains open, and have them open to the best extent possible." He said there is lots of co-ordination between Canada and Europe on keep- ing ship traffic and allowing supplies to reach harbour so "we don't have admin- istrative measures that would impede the correct flow of goods." Canada and the EU are also active in their joint NATO partnership in the Helsinki-based European Centre of Ex- cellence for Countering Hybrid Threats and co-operate closely in the G7's rapid- response mechanism to counter online threats, he said. "This level of exchange is very in- tense, and so it's very positive. It's only together we can be effective in fighting such threats." - The Canadian Press MIKE BLANCHFIELD ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES International Development Minister Karina Gould says Canada is part of the global response to COVID-19. EU asks Canada to help WHO after U.S. pullout L ONDON - During a pandemic, heroes wear scrubs.Amged El-Hawrani was one of them, a doctor who went to work every day as the coronavirus took hold even though he might be exposed, risking his own life to treat patients at a hospital in central England. The 55-year-old died on March 28, be- coming one of the first doctors in Brit- ain's National Health Service to suc- cumb to COVID-19 and a symbol of the acute danger all health workers brave. Yet in life, he shunned attention, and would have been embarrassed to be described as a hero, according to his youngest brother, Amal. "He would kind of nervously laugh or brush it off as people over-exaggerat- ing,'' Amal said. "He would say to you, 'I'm just doing my job." Amged El-Hawrani never saw him- self as extraordinary. Born in Sudan as the second of six brothers, he told friends about a care- free childhood in Africa, memories of playing soccer in the family's yard be- fore his father, a radiologist, sought a new life for his family in the U.K. It was before the era of mass immi- gration to Britain, and the El-Hawrani brothers found they often were the only non-white children starting out in their new neighbourhood in Taunton, a large town in western England, and other places they moved. That didn't trouble Amged, who was 11 when they arrived. He considered himself as British as tea and crumpets. "I don't think he looked at himself and said that I'm different than every- one else,? his brother Amal said. "He was just a kid in a school, and he was very, very strong, very confident, and never let anything worry him or make him doubt himself. He just always persevered.'' El-Hawrani's self-assurance took him to what is now known as London Metro- politan University, where he studied science and embraced the capital's multiculturalism at a time of dramatic change in British society. Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher had begun transforming - and dividing - the nation by selling off state-owned industries, cutting taxes and reducing spending on social ser- vices. In 1981, complaints about police discrimination against minorities and rising unemployment fueled riots in London and other cities. El-Hawrani responded by making friends from all over the world. Greeks. Zimbabweans. People from all corners of Asia. He enjoyed his youth, revelling in the music of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, and the comedy of Richard Pryor and Robin Williams together with his brother Ashraf, just 11 months older. They both liked cars, too. El-Hawrani zipped around in an Alfa Romeo GTV6. Years later, he would recall how the sports car smelled - something like Paco Rabanne cologne mixed with the wood of the steering wheel. The brothers also shared a vision of medicine as a cool and noble profession. They went off together to study at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Life in Dublin brought events of life- altering joy and sorrow. While driving around looking for frogs to dissect, El-Hawrani and a fellow student offered a ride to two Irish sisters who had missed the last bus into town. Amged's classmate tried to strike up a conversation with Pamela Foley, but she was more intrigued by the quiet one. They eventually married and had a son. Tragedy intervened in 1992. El- Hawrani went to check on his brother at their mother's urging when she couldn't reach her eldest son. He banged on the door of Ashraf's apartment and finally forced his way in. He found his 29-year- old brother dead from a severe asthma attack. That left El-Hawrani as the eldest, with all the responsibility that came with it. Yet Amal can't recall ever hear- ing him complain about a problem or issue. "The opposite was true, in that we would all lean on him very heavily," he said. Outside his family, work was El- Hawrani's life. He clawed his way up in a system that didn't always support people of colour. He sought post-medical school training in London or another big city in England but ended up in Wales, where he would jokingly tell his brothers that he could see "sheep outside of my front window and cows outside my back window." He worked in Ireland and Canada, and became an ear, nose and throat specialist. Eventually, he found recognition. He was a physician, a trainer and an asso- ciate clinical director. NHS officials credited El-Hawrani with playing a key role in the merger of two hospitals that had struggled with low staff morale and retention. He brought the teams together, said Gavin Boyle, chief executive of University Hospitals of Derby and Burton. El-Hawrani loved to travel when he wasn't caring for patients or teach- ing future doctors at Queen's Hospital Burton, an acute care facility in a town known for beer brewing. He made sev- eral visits to Disney World in Florida with Pamela, and their son, Ashraf, who is named after his late uncle and is now 18. On one visit, the family saw a sign with the words "A hero is.'' on it and a spot to take a picture. His wife and son tried to get El-Hawrani to pose beneath it. He resisted. So typical. "He did not seek the praise and ap- proval of others. He was satisfied by viewing the positive effects of his ac- tions and the well-being of his family,'' Ashraf said in a statement. "I am in- credibly proud to say that for 18 years of my life, Amged El-Hawrani was my father." - The Associated Press Sudan-born doctor one of first U.K. doctors to die from coronavirus Pandemic's heroes wear scrubs DANICA KIRKA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Dr. Amged El-Hawrani, a 55-year-old father of one died March 28 at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. A_04_Apr-26-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-04-25 10:24 PM ;