Today’s update includes:
- Requests and Offers from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team and beyond
- Summary of local news
- Key national and international news
Requests and Offers from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team and beyond
- We asked our members to print posters, share photos of posters with us, and/or to help us identify printers who could help us print more posters and flyers.
- We shared a piece by Mary Omnes – Stroud and Ireland: two homes, two different responses to the virus, to our personal experiences section. If you are a Stroud-resident who experienced the reaction to the virus in a different country and would like to write something similar, please get in touch.
- We shared an update with information for parents, from Dr Laura Hole, Children’s Medicine Consultant at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The video explains how to access services for children at this time, and contains information about the symptoms parents should worry about, and when to take children to hospital.
- Alice Lowrie posted about mindfulness for children in Stroud on Tuesday afternoons via Zoom.
- Sasha Evans reported that the BrandZero fundraiser (see yesterday’s update) has now raised in total almost £460 and just needs a bit more to reach their target of £500, to be used to produce 500 pots of hand balm for NHS and care workers
- Sarah Grainger from Stroud Employment Law posted an update on Furlough.
- We are still adding local groups to our list and map at: https://neighbournetworks.uk/neighbourhoods. Please let us know if your group is not listed, and please help us map which streets your group covers/has leafletted.
- We now have over 4,175 members in our Facebook group. However, only 497 are following our Stroud Coronavirus Updates page. Please like our page as well as joining the group – and select to receive notification from it so you receive our most important updates.
- Please use our OFFER/REQUEST/IMPORTANT UPDATE/QUESTION system when submitting posts to our Facebook Group. We’re dealing with around 80 posts in the past week, and it makes moderating much easier if people use this system
Local updates:
- 166 more cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Gloucestershire between Thursday and today, while six more people have died from coronavirus in the county in past 24 hours. The total number of confirmed cases in Gloucestershire now stands at 934, and 136 people have sadly died.
- Patients who need urgent medical treatment have been told it is still safe to visit accident and emergency departments during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of people going into A&E at the county’s two main hospitals, Gloucestershire Royal and Cheltenham General, has reduced by half since the coronavirus restrictions were introduced. Emergency care consultant at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Rob Stacey, said:
“It’s important that people do not delay seeking help with serious time critical conditions, as this could result in poorer outcomes for their health further down the road. People should continue to call 999 and attend the A&E Departments if they believe their health is at risk, for example if they or a loved one see the signs of stroke, severe chest pain or worsening asthma.”
National news:
- “As of 9am 20 April, 501,379 tests have concluded, with 19,316 tests on 19 April. 386,044 people have been tested of which 124,743 tested positive. As of 5pm on 19 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 16,509 have sadly died.” (Department of Health and Social Care pinned tweet)
- That means 449 people have died in the last 24 hour period, with 4,676 new positive tests.
- Chris Hopson, Chief Executive of NHS Providers, published a piece arguing “Trusts need certainty on gowns delivery and focussing on individual consignments is unhelpful”. He says:
“Everyone is keen to move to a sustainable supply of gowns as soon as possible but NHS trusts need certainty. Given the current uncertainties over gown manufacture and supply, due to global shortages, we suggest that any future announcements on what gowns might be available for delivery, when, just focus on what we can be certain of.”
- “More than 140,000 firms have applied for help to pay their wage bill through the government’s job retention scheme, which went live on Monday… The Treasury said the system can process up to 450,000 applications an hour. Employers should receive the money within six working days of making an application, it said. (BBC News)
- In the UK, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has said he hopes parliament will resume virtually this week and that in future votes may even be held remotely, while the Guardian reports on the split within the cabinet about plans to end lockdown, with government scientific advisers warning ministers that any relaxation of lockdown measures could trigger a return to exponential growth in coronavirus cases.
International developments:
- There are now over 2.4 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 globally (2,447,920). There are over 750,000 – three-quarters of a million – confirmed cases in the USA alone (776,513).
- Over 160,000 people have died after testing positive in the 185 countries/regions where it is present (168,500).
- Over 640,000 people have recovered after testing positive (643,918)
- There are now 27 countries with over 10,000 confirmed cases (two more since yesterday), 16 countries with over 20,000 confirmed cases (same as yesterday), and seven countries where over 5,000 people have died after testing positive for the virus (same as yesterday, above all from Johns Hopkins University tracker).
- Some European countries have today entered a new stage in re-opening some shops and public services (below all from this Guardian article)
- Germany: bookshops, florists, fashion stores, bike and car outlets and other shops smaller than 800 sq m were permitted to reopen today. Angela Merkel, however, warned of a possible second wave of coronavirus infection if lockdown measures were abandoned too rapidly.
- Czech Republic: a “five-stage plan” started today with open-air markets and workshops; Czechs may now also travel abroad providing they undergo two-week quarantine on return.
- Norway: kindergartens and some health specialists re-opened today (following Denmark last week), and high schools and universities, hair, massage and beauty salons are “planned to partially reopen from next Monday”.
- Italy: shops have reopened in some regions and full lockdown is set to end on 4th May.
- Spain: some factory and construction workers are back at work but most shops and services remain closed, and office staff are still working from home. Lockdown there is set to be extended until 3rd May.
Notes
Please remember we have a (growing) list of resources to support your emotional and mental health during this time on our website.
Thanks to everyone who helped create this update through our Facebook group. 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 follow the information. Please continue to submit posts to admins for this purpose with a flag REQUEST / OFFER / UPDATE / QUESTION