Categories
Updates

Monday 18th May 2020

Today’s update includes:

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

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

Summary of key local, national and international news

  • Stroud District Council reminds groups to apply for extra funding during these times
  • Stroud News and Journal are looking to speak with teachers about the reopening of schools next month. If you would like to discuss the matter, please send them a private message. 
  • “Everyone aged five and over in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced. He was speaking in Parliament after the loss of taste or smell was added to the list of Covid-19 symptoms, alongside a fever and a new persistent cough.” (BBC News)
  • “Coronavirus lockdown measures in Scotland could begin to be lifted from 28 May, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced. She said this would mean people could meet someone from another household as long as social distancing is maintained. And ministers in Northern Ireland have agreed to ease more lockdown restrictions, including allowing groups of up to six people who do not share a household to meet outdoors from Tuesday.” (BBC News)
  • “It is 10 days since all Isle of Wight residents were invited to test the NHS app at the heart of the government’s test, track and trace strategy. So how’s it going? Mixed would probably be a fair verdict, according to BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. One concern is that the app does not yet let users know if the person they have had contact with ends up testing positive. Instead, it has only let them know if the contact has developed symptoms. However, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defended the government’s record on the app, telling the No 10 briefing “good progress” was being made.” (BBC News)
  • The below international updates are all from the Guardian daily news feed and summary:
  • “The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, are to present a joint plan to spur EU recovery after weeks of debate over how to deploy billions of euros needed to quickly end a painful recession. Continental European nations are just beginning to emerge from lockdowns that have taken a huge bite out of their economies and raised the prospects of recessions that could last for months.”
  • “The European Union may give an initial approval for sale of the drug remdesivir as a Covid-19 treatment, the head of its medicines agency says, fast-tracking the drug to market amid tight global competition for resources”
  • “Italy registers 99 more deaths on Monday, the lowest daily rate since early March, and 451 new infections, down by more than 200 since Sunday.  There is also a significant fall in new infections in Lombardy, the region worst affected by the virus, from 326 on Sunday to 175 on Monday.”
  • “Belgium suffers deadliest April since Second World War A total of 14,790 people died in April in Belgium – the worst toll since the country was under Nazi occupation in the 1940s, according to a study. The total is substantially higher than the normal April death toll, which is usually fewer than 9,000 people, researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) find.”
  • “Monday’s overnight death toll in Spain is 59, the lowest figure in two months, the country’s government says. The cumulative death toll rises to 27,709, while the number of confirmed cases increases to 231,606 from 231,350 the previous day, according to health ministry figures.”

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