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Sunday, March 15, 2020

We aim to share a daily summary each day – this includes:

  • Updates we’ve made to our website and group
  • Call outs for help
  • Summary of local news
  • Key national/international points

Apologies that it is quite a long one today – nonetheless we hope this is useful.

Team updates:

Call out from the Team:

Today we’re specifically asking for:

  • Offers around the mental health unit we are developing – we’re looking for someone to moderate this section and/or content for it
  • We also still need help with checking submitted posts, updating units, checking comments fit within the guidelines and signposting people to parts of the website/group they may not have seen. We have a small crew of administrators and moderators and would love some more!

Local updates:

National/International:

  • The Department of Health and Social Care announced that in total 35 patients had died from the illness. The increase of 14 on yesterday’s total is the biggest daily rise so far.
  • Officials revealed that the number of people having tested positive for the virus is 1,372 – up 232 on yesterday. It is important to say that these are cases confirmed through testing only, and that since testing has been suspended for all cases but those needing hospitalisation, we do not have an accurate number for the actual number of cases in the UK/local community.
  • A Public Health England document seen by Guardian says “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised)
  • Health Secretary Matt Hancock “told Sky News that over-70s will be asked to self-isolate “in the coming weeks” to try to protect them from coronavirus – and it could potentially last for months” (https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-over-70s-will-be-asked-to-self-isolate-potentially-for-months-11957770)
  • “Matt Hancock also told the Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that the UK was likely to need “many more times” the current 5,000 ventilators”, and the government said it will tell companies “if you produce a ventilator, we’ll buy it”
  • More than 200 scientists have written to the government urging them to introduce tougher measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19, saying UK virus strategy is ‘risking lives’ (news coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402, read the letter in full at: http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia/UK_scientists_statement_on_coronavirus_measures.pdf). The key sentences are: “By putting in place social distancing measures now, the growth can be slowed down dramatically, and thousands of lives can be spared. We consider the social distancing measures taken as of today as insufficient, and we believe that additional and more restrictive measures should be taken immediately, as it is already happening in other countries across the world.” (see our unit on social distancing: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stroudcorona/learning_content/?filter=487808575230514)

Globally:

  • “The French prime minister announced the closure of cafes, restaurants and all public places “non-essential” to public life, including cinemas and discos, from midnight on Saturday”,
  • “The Spanish government declared a state of emergency on Saturday, placing the country in lockdown and ordering people to leave their homes only if they needed to buy food, medicine, or go to work or hospital”,
  • “With 102 cases confirmed, the New Delhi government has invoked the Epidemic Act, which allows authorities to force people into isolation, and has brought in laws to prevent hoarding of hand sanitisers.” (all three above points taken from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/coronavirus-measures-india-france-spain-china where you can find further details if you wish)

Apologies if we missed anything – please post anything you feel is important others know about in the comments below