Categories
Updates

Friday May 15th, 2020

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 local, national and international news

  • Our local mobile Coronavirus testing unit, at Oxstalls Tennis Centre, in Longlevens, will remain in place for a further week.
  • Transmission rates remain close to the levels that could cause the epidemic in the UK to start to grow again, according to the government’s latest estimates, raising questions about the extent to which restrictions can be safely eased in the coming weeks.The latest official estimate places the national R value – the rate at which people are passing on infections to others – at between 0.7 and 1.
  • Dozens of people in the UK were wrongly charged by police under new coronavirus laws, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says. All 44 charges brought under the Coronavirus Act since it was introduced on 27 March were incorrect.
  • European countries face a deadly second wave of infections in the winter, according to Dr Hans Kluge, the director for the WHO European region. Dr Kluge said countries should use the current period to build capacity in hospitals and strengthen public health systems. (Daily Telegraph).
  • Denmark reports zero deaths on Friday – the first time it has seen none in a 24-hour period since 13 March.
  • Italy reported 242 more fatalities, bringing the number of people who have died there to 31,610. Restaurants, bars, hairdressers and beauty salons are due to reopen on Monday, while the ban on inter-regional travel might be lifted from 3 June.
  • Brazil’s health minister, Nelson Teich, has handed in his resignation after less than a month on the job. Brazil has now surpassed Germany and France in terms of infections and had more than 200,000 confirmed cases as of Thursday.
  • (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 our first weekly summary of local, national and international statistics in next 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