This daily summary includes:
- Information about updates we’ve made to our website and group
- Summary of local news
- Key national/international points
The big news today is SCHOOL CLOSURES and NO EVICTIONS POLICY
- “Schools, colleges and nurseries in England are to join those in the rest of the UK in closing on Friday “until further notice” to try to curb the spread of coronavirus, the government has announced, with the only exception being made for children of key workers and for vulnerable children”. This follows the earlier announcement that “Schools in Scotland and Wales are to close from Friday in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
- “Private tenants will not be evicted from their homes for at least three months even if struggling with their rent under emergency coronavirus legislation announced by the housing secretary.”
- The policy for private tenants follows the announcement mortgages will be on on hold for 3 months for those in financial difficulty
- All non-urgent operations in England will be postponed from 15 April to free up beds for coronavirus patients. Cancer operations will go ahead.
- The chief medical advisor has advised over 70’s to avoid having Sunday lunch with families on Mother’s Day this Sunday.
- Tesco and Asda announcement “To help our customers get the things they need, we are introducing a purchase limit of 3 items on all our products.”
- “the National Trust’s Director-General Hilary McGrady said that our pay-for-entry sites including houses, cafés and shops, will close by this Friday 20 March.”
They add: “We’ll work, where possible, to keep as many of our gardens and parklands open, free of charge, alongside coast and countryside, to encourage the nation to enjoy open space, while observing social distancing measures.”
Team updates:
- We tidied the resources we have on mental health into a new unit. This covers information about mental health during the pandemic, tips to help you manage your mental health or support others, and a summary of local support initiatives that are available. We welcome suggestions for content, and offers of help moderating this section of our group.
- The local group in Rodborough have a website page that covers how they are responding – and how we hope all local areas can – please take a look, wherever you are in Stroud district.
- Dursley also have a really well developed Facebook group, and a document on their plans, which we have uploaded to the “Files” section of the group (where you can also find posters).
- We added a short poem to the updated “Personal Experiences and Creative Contributions” unit. If this is a way for you to engage with the group, please do submit content – we can’t promise to publish everything though.
- We shared an update on Ibruprofen and a reminder about NHS Stay at Home advice, following a day of rumours and low-quality information.
- Facebook suppressed some Coronavirus posts, “due to a “bug in an anti-spam system””. This included some of our own posts. We have contested this and the company is fixing this. We pride ourselves on sharing verifiable, trustworthy information – please continue to help us in this task.
Call out from the Team:
We’re working on documents that cover the ways we’ve been running – and working out how to – run a group like this. Once we have these guideline and protocol documents ready we will be appealing for more people to step forward and join our team of admins, moderators, coordinators, and web/graphic designers.
Local updates:
- Neat article in the Stroud News and Journal about the work we and others are doing locally: “Stroud community rallies round to help others in coronavirus crisis”
- “Another case of Covid-19 has been confirmed in Gloucestershire, bringing the total figure to 12.”
- “This includes three cases in the Cotswolds, one in Gloucester, one in Stroud, two in Tewkesbury district and three in Cheltenham, and the final two currently at an unknown location”, above both from this Gloucestershire Live report.
- It is important to say that these are cases confirmed by testing only, and that since testing has been suspended for all cases but those needing hospitalisation, we do not have an accurate number of cases in the community.
International:
- “The coronavirus death toll in Italy has increased by 475, the highest number so far recorded any country in a single day, according to the latest figures from the Civil Protection Agency.”
- “In total the death toll from the virus in the country, the worst affected in Europe by the outbreak, has now reached 2,978 – an increase of 19%, Reuters reported.”
- “The total number of cases in Italy, the European country hardest hit by the virus, rose to 35,713 from a previous 31,506, up 13.35%”
- “Of those originally infected, 4,025 had fully recovered compared to 2,941 the day before. Some 2,257 people were in intensive care against a previous 2,060.”
- Above via this Guardian report on deaths in Italy.
- A journalist at the Financial Times talked on twitter about a graphic they have published showing deaths from Covid-19 are increasing at a faster rate in Italy and Spain than they did in China. The UK is so far following a similar track. To answer why this is, the short answers are: delay in applying strict measures (for all countries) and health services being overwhelmed (for Italy in particular, but not for the UK as yet – although testing capacity, 111, and Protective Equipment have been overwhelmed to some extent – we will write more about this tomorrow)
[Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this update through our Facebook post submission system. Apologies if we missed something you submitted and please do comment with items for tomorrow’s update]