Today’s update includes:
- Grim milestones as UK – and Gloucestershire – see highest number of people die in 24-hour period
- Updates, Requests and Offers from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team and beyond
- Summary of local news
Key national/international points
UK figure is now 78,991 cases with 9,875 deaths and 5234 new cases.
- England – 62,658
- Scotland – 5,590
- Wales – 4,930
- NI – 1,717
Updates from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team and the local community
- It’s one month since we launched this group publicly (one month and one day since March 10th, we didn’t manage to post this yesterday). We now have 4,100 members – and there have been over 16,000 posts, comments and reactions in the last 4 weeks! Thanks to everyone for participating and helping us build our website of resources at neighbournetworks.uk
- Potentially useful to keep paper-buying family members from leaving the house to do so. Also a great service for blind people and others of us with visual impairments. www.facebook.com/5valleysounds
- Stroud lockdown listening… a Good on Paper guide to radio stations, broadcasts, YouTube channels, Zoom parties and more coming out of the five valleys … www.goodonpaper.info/…/4/…/stroud-lockdown-listening
- On Wednesday 15th there is a public zoom online meeting with the Leader of the council and a professor of global public health. If you’d like to join in facebook.com/events/s/stroud-and-district-zoom-call-/3145568755462168/
- Proud to Care Gloucestershire “have developed a fast track recruitment programme to help care providers fill a number of flexible, temporary and permanent paid roles. Proud to Care are conducting virtual interviews and will support you in your new role using a nationally accredited virtual induction
- “Do you have experience of Arizona flatbed printers or Zund cutting tables? We’re in need of volunteer operators to help us support our county health services. We’re running a not for profit community project to make and supply visors to Gloucestershire NHS. They’ve asked us to produce 42,000+ units over the next 6-8 weeks. Although we’ve got plenty of community support for assembly, we don’t have many machine operators which is limiting the speed we can get the visors to our hospitals, doctors and community teams.” (see the link to get in touch with Adam Soble if you can help)
Local news from the papers:
- The number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Gloucestershire has risen to 496 – an increase of 67 people – in the last 24 hours with four more people dying taking the total number of deaths in Gloucestershire to 73.” (Gloucestershire Live)
- A message on the Cotswold tourism website reads: “While the Cotswolds normally warmly welcomes visitors, unfortunately these are far from normal times. Sadly we must ask would-be visitors to stay away from the Cotswolds for the foreseeable future and instead ask you to play your part in limiting and slowing the spread of the virus. The Cotswolds will still be here, waiting to welcome you. Stay safe and stay at home.”
National:
- The UK has recorded 917 new coronavirus deaths, taking the total number of people who have died in hospital with the virus to 9,875.For the second day in a row, the UK’s daily death toll exceeded 900. On Friday there were a record 980 deaths (BBC website)
- The latest deaths include an 11-year-old and a 102-year-old, both in England. The Government has also announced that 19 NHS workers have died so far – although four more fatalities have since been reported by hospitals. Two hospital porters have also died from the virus (the Telegraph) 20101 people are in hospital with the cornoavirus
- In Scotland 47 more deaths were reported on Saturday, while 36 were reported in Wales and 15 in Northern Ireland.
- UK government pledges £2m to domestic abuse charities after charities worldwide reported an increase in domestic abuse during coronavirus lockdown. The government also launched a national communications campaign to signpost help. (The Guardian)
- Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has ignited another row with unions over personal protective equipment (PPE) after he suggested that doctors and nurses might be wasting the equipment by using too much of it.
- The BBC drama Holby City has donated its on-set ventilators to the NHS Nightingale Hospital.
- Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, has been urged to quit after his claim a Herefordshire mansion was his family home has been dismissed as “codswallop” by his neighbours.
- Seaside resorts risk becoming permanent “ghost towns” as their economies are hit by reduced visitor numbers during the coronavirus pandemic, councils have warned.(the Telegraph)
Global Summary:
- There are more than 1.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in 185 countries and at least 103,000 people have died.
- Just under half of all the confirmed cases have been in Europe, with Spain and Italy worst affected. However, the United States now has more than twice as many confirmed cases as any other single country.
- New York victims buried in mass graves. Unclaimed victims of coronavirus are being buried in unmarked mass graves on Hart Island in New York, officials in the state have confirmed. The site has been used as a burial ground for unclaimed bodies, and in those cases where the families could not afford a private burial, for more than 150 years.
- NYC schools to remain closed for the rest of the year. Public schools in New York will remain closed for the rest of the year, mayor Bill de Blasio has said. However, state governor Andrew Cuomo said a decision on the reopening of schools across the state had not been reached.
- China cracking down on Covid-19 research. China is clamping down on academic papers examining the origins of coronavirus, documents published online by Chinese universities appear to show. Pages referencing a new policy, which requires academic papers written on Covid-19 to undergo extra vetting before publication, have been recently published and then removed on two Chinese university websites.
- Iran reopens some government offices after a national lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak. The majority of government agencies and all non-essential businesses had been ordered to close for a week after the end of Nowruz holiday on 4 April.
Please remember that we have a (growing) list of resources to support your emotional and mental health during this time on our website.
A Happy Easter, Happy Passover and Happy Ramadan to all our readers, and thanks to everyone who contributed to this Daily Update.
If you submit posts, we will often decline posting them to the discussion directly and instead hold them till the single daily summary – to try to reduce the number of posts in the feed and make it easier for people to manage the volume of information. Please continue to submit posts to admins for this purpose.
Apologies if we missed anything-please submit again or post in the comments below.