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Wednesday 29th April 2020

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

  • James Beecher highlighted that there is a Public Meeting on the NHS, Tuesday 5th May 7pm with:
    • Richard Horton – Editor of The Lancet
    • Professor Allyson Pollock – Consultant in public health and director of Newcastle University Centre for Excellence in Regulatory Science
    • Dr John Lister – editor of Health Campaigns Together, co-editor Lowdownnhs.info,
    • Dr Sonia Adesara – Junior Doctor, member of KONP’s NHS Staff Voices, and one of the NHS workers featured in the BBC documentary
    • Pam Kleinot – Producer of documentary film Under The Knife
  • Francis Barton and James Beecher from local charity Citizens Online have been working on a really useful map, which they hope will be useful nationally. 

In Stroud district, it highlights:

* 12 GP surgeries where less than 30% of patients were registered for online services as of February 2020 (the latest available data). Just 4 local GP surgeries had over 30% of their patients registered for online services

* Cam and Uley Family Practice, and Minchinhampton Surgery have the highest numbers of older patients registered. These are people who are not only more at risk from the virus, but as well as self-isolating, are more likely to be offline and/or lack digital skills. 

Citizens Online are providing weekly sessions to help train “Digital Champions” to be able to support people with digital skills during the pandemic – including a session tomorrow. You can find out more at https://www.citizensonline.org.uk/events

Local updates:

National news:

  • “As of 9am 29 April,there have been 818,539 tests, with 52,429 tests on 28 April. 632,794 people have been tested of which 165,221 tested positive. As of 5pm on 28 April, of those tested positive for coronavirus across all settings, 26,097 have sadly died.” (Department of Health and Social Care pinned tweet)
  • In the last 24 hour period, 765 people died, and 4,076 people tested positive. These figures are higher than in recent days but that is mainly because “daily update figures will include deaths that have occurred in all settings where there has been a positive Covid 19 test. This includes hospitals, care homes and the wider community”. You can read more about the new DHSC policy to include all deaths on gov.uk. 
  • “The total number of coronavirus deaths in the UK is 26,097, Public Health England said, including an additional 3,811 deaths in England since the start of the outbreak.”.  Dominic Raab also warned the UK was at a “dangerous moment”, saying that the peak of the virus had not passed. Care home residents and staff, people over 65 and anyone who cannot work at home are now among millions able to apply for a coronavirus test if they have symptoms, under the government’s expanded testing programme. (BBC News)
  • Prof Jonathan Van Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, warned the virus would return if lockdown measures are not eased very carefully and said it was “premature” to discuss school returns. “We have to be extremely sure-footed and extremely painstaking about this,” he said. “This is with us for quite some time, potentially for as long as until we get a vaccine.” 

The article continues: “There are essentially two separate epidemics – one in care homes that is raging and one in the general population, who end up in hospital when severely ill, which is coming under control.” (BBC News)

International developments:

  • Confirmed cases of the virus have passed 3.1 million (3,179,414), and more than 225,000 people have died (226,173), according to Johns Hopkins University tracker. (964,957 people have recovered).
  • There are seven countries with over 100,000 confirmed cases, a further fifteen with over 20,000 confirmed cases, and a further thirteen with over 10,000 confirmed cases.
  • The UK is the country where the third highest number of people have died (26,097), after only Italy (27,683), and the USA (60,207)
  • There are six other countries where over 5,000 people have died: Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Iran, and Brazil. (above all via Johns Hopkins University)

Please remember we have a (growing) list of resources to support your emotional and mental health during this time on our website. The following numbers may be useful: Samaritans: 116 123, Domestic Violence Hotline: 0808 2000 247, Mind: 0300 123 3393, Age UK: 0800 169 6565, Childline: 0800 1111.

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