Categories
Updates

Wednesday May 13th 2020

Key Item:

The Covid-19 Mutual Aid – UK group (“volunteers supporting local community groups organising mutual aid throughout the Covid-19 outbreak in the UK” – see https://covidmutualaid.org/) has released a short statement in response to the recent new government advice. In summary:

“We’re encouraging all groups to carry on your mutual aid activities with the same precautions and continue to observe lockdown and social distancing measures.”

The full statement is available via our Facebook post.

Today’s update includes:

  • Requests & Offers from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team & beyond
  • Summary of key local, national and international news
  • New weekly summary of local, national and international statistics

Requests, Offers and Updates posted in the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response Facebook group

Summary of key national and international news

  • A coronavirus antibody test kit has reportedly been approved by Public Health England (PHE). The Daily Telegraph [subscription required to access full article] says “the accuracy of the test was given approval by experts at PHE’s Porton Down facility last week.”
  • “Authorities in Turkey allowed those aged 14 and under to leave their homes for the first time in 40 days, The country’s children were allowed to venture out for four hours between 11am and 3pm.”
  • Every country in Africa is now affected by the virus: “Lesotho, the last country in Africa left unaffected by the pandemic, has just announced its first case.”
  • “Chile is to implement a general quarantine across Santiago, the national capital, and a nationwide quarantine for all people over 75, after a surge in coronavirus infections… The measures were announced after 2,660 new cases of the virus were recorded in the country overnight, up 60% from the previous day.”
  • “Nightly curfew hours in Tunisia are to be relaxed after the country recorded three consecutive days without detecting any new coronavirus infections. The president, Kais Saied, has cut the curfew hours to 11pm to 5am, instead of 8pm to 6am, 10 days after the start of a gradual reopening of the bureaucracy and economy.”
  • (international updates above all from the Guardian daily news feed and summary)

A reminder that we will now be providing our summary of local, national and international statistical data on a weekly basis (on Tuesdays) rather than daily. You can read this week’s summary of statistical data in Tuesday’s update.

Notes

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