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 our Facebook group
- We posted about claims circulating about Hydroxychloroquine and other anti-malarial drugs. A recent study presents good reason to take extreme caution regarding such claims: “The death rate among all groups taking the drugs was higher than among people who were not given them.”
- Sarah Dixon shared WHO’s manifesto for a healthy recovery: “The world cannot afford repeated disasters on the scale of COVID-19, whether they are triggered by the next pandemic, or from mounting environmental damage and climate change. Going back to “normal” is not good enough. In adversity, the crisis has also brought out some of the best in our societies, from solidarity among neighbours, to the bravery of health and other key workers in facing down risks to their own health to serve their communities, to countries working together to provide emergency relief or to research treatments and vaccines.” Sarah is curious: what could we be doing across Stroud District to play our part in this?
- James Beecher shared BBC Gloucestershire’s video in collaboration with local spoken-word artist JPDL to share with you his incredible reflection on lockdown life. Hope you appreciate it as much as we do.
- Joanna asks does anyone know the quarantine rules for someone entering the UK. If a family member returns from abroad and self isolate at your house for 14 days do other members of that household have to self isolate as well? We helped her find the answers – you may be interested too?
- Steve Gower shared a post about homelessness during this time
- Tom Stickland Reminds you that our local MP is not available at the moment but you can still write a letter/email, which will be answered by her team.
- Sarah Dixon asks’What Do You Dream Of?’ The phone box art show is offically open and will display a rotating exhibition of work by Summer Street adults and children until mid-June. Come an enjoy an outdoor, covid-safe art gallery as part of a walk or cycle tour in the beautiful Slad valley!
- Oli Raeburn shared a local mum’s experience of birth – a little bit of hope for anyone pregnant during the pandemic.
- Know anyone making/supplying gowns for Suzanne, a local foot health practitioner?
- We now have 4,330 members. We welcomed 14 new members this week.
- Please invite your friends to grow this community. And please do introduce yourself and let us know anything you’d like to see in the group related to coronavirus and how we can work together to get through the pandemic and its impacts. Please take a look at the Group Purpose and Guidelines if you haven’t read them recently.
- We’d really like more moderators and admins for our Facebook group and website. Please get in touch: stroudcommunitycoronaresponse@gmail.com
Summary of key local, national and international news
We are now providing our main summary of local, national and international statistical data on a weekly basis rather than daily. We sadly were unable to do this last week but will be providing a roundup of statistics tomorrow, Tuesday 2nd June.
Local
- A new regional COVID testing centre to operate at Hempsted Meadow Gloucester from 5 June. Please share this update so that local people are aware they can get a test. Find out more about testing on the NHS website.
- Public Health England are working with researchers at the University of Cambridge to nowcast and forecast Coronavirus cases and deaths. Current estimates from the research team put the R number in the South West at 0.76. However, it could be as low as 0.72 and as high as 0.80. Click to view the R data by region.
- Police have been ticketing cars parked in Woodchester to stop swimmers going to the (closed) Woodchester lakes (Gloucestershire Live)
National
- “Head teachers are reporting “highly variable” levels of attendance, ranging from 40% to 70%, as primary schools in England bring back more pupils. Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL heads’ union, says the return has been “very mixed” – with some schools not yet open and some children staying away.” (BBC News)
- “Political leaders in the north-east of England have urged residents to disregard the government’s “reckless” relaxation of the lockdown amid concerns it will lead to a second spike of coronavirus in a region with the UK’s highest infection rate.” (The Guardian)
- “According to surveys conducted on behalf of the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute by YouGov, less than half of Britons now trust the Westminster government to provide correct information on the pandemic – down from more than two-thirds of the public in mid-April. “I have never in 10 years of research in this area seen a drop in trust like what we have seen for the UK government in the course of six weeks,” said the institute’s director, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.” (The Guardian)
- “School leaders and teachers called for the wider return of children to primary schools in England before the summer holidays to be delayed, as classrooms and nurseries partially reopened on Monday amid continued concerns over the threat from coronavirus.”(Financial Times)
- “Family doctors in England have complained they were given no warning of the government’s decision to ease the lockdown restrictions on Monday for the 2.2m people at highest risk from coronavirus. The government announced over the weekend that the so-called “shielded” group, those most vulnerable to infection owing to severe pre-existing conditions, were to be given additional freedoms for the first time since “stay at home” orders were issued in March. Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said GPs, who had been contacted by concerned patients seeking to understand the new rules, were “rather irritated” not to have been told earlier.” (Financial Times)
- “Care home operators have warned that easing Covid-19 shielding restrictions for 2.2 million vulnerable people risks a second wave of infections, as it emerged government scientific advisers who previously warned against such a move were not asked to reconsider the matter. New guidance allows the “clinically extremely vulnerable” to go outside and, if they live alone, meet one friend from Monday. They include many in long-term care facilities for elderly people as well as those with chronic illnesses living at home.” (The Guardian)
- “Matt Hancock has today described the test and trace system as “successful” but he struggled to say how many people had been contacted. The national coordinator, John Newton, said the numbers of contacts being identified were “high” but neither could give the figure” (The Mirror)
- “The UK government is pushing ahead with plans to scrap the semi-virtual proceedings adopted by the House of Commons at the height of the coronavirus crisis despite senior MPs voicing health and practical concerns.” (Financial Times)
- “Family of lifelong Liverpool fan who died of Covid-19 after ‘catching it at match against Atlético Madrid’ days before lockdown demand inquiry into why the game was allowed to go ahead” (Daily Mail)
International
- WHO warns of second wave: “There’s a certain predictability of this virus, but any time you become complacent and think you know, it will surprise you. And this virus has an opportunity, it will take an advantage, every advantage that it can to resurge, to transmit. We all want this to be over, but we have a long way to go. We’re at the beginning of this and we must continue to really stay strong.” Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, World Health Organization (WHO) Covid-19 Technical Lead
- You can watch today’s live WHO press conference
- South Africa: “Teachers and learners were expected to return to school on Monday but the authorities have pushed back the resumption to next week.” Meanwhile, at least “eight million people are estimated to have gone back to work on Monday as most sectors of the economy have resumed operations.” And “Long queues have formed outside shops selling alcohol in South Africa after restrictions on its sale.. were lifted”, two months after being imposed as part of measures to fight Covid-19. The country has reported around 32,000 cases of coronavirus, and 683 people have died. (BBC News)
- Brazil “is Latin America’s hotspot for the deadly pandemic, with more than 500,000 cases and a death toll of nearly 28,000, the world’s fourth-highest after the United States, Britain and Italy… Bolsonaro, often described as the “Trump of the Tropics”, got help from the real Donald Trump on Sunday in the form of 2 million doses of the antimalarial medicine hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to fight Covid-19. [As we reported above], “there is currently no evidence showing that HCQ can be used either to treat or prevent the novel coronavirus – and there are fears that it may worsen patient outcomes.” (France24)
- “Wuhan, the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus pandemic began in late 2019, reported no new asymptomatic cases for the first time on Sunday, Chinese health officials said. The municipal health commission said that 60,000 nucleic tests were carried out on Sunday and that there were no new confirmed or suspected cases. Chinese state media outlet Xinhua said this showed the Chinese strategy of mass testing has yielded positive results.” (The Telegraph)
- “Fears that Iran is in the grip of a second wave of coronavirus have been reinforced, with the health ministry saying 3,000 new cases were recorded in 24 hours – the highest figure for two months.” (The Guardian)
- “For the first time in two months, Spain has reported no new deaths from coronavirus in its daily update. The country recorded its first death related to coronavirus on 3 March – and a month later, on 2 April, it recorded its highest single increase with 950 deaths in 24 hours. Spain’s emergency health response chief Fernando Simon said that the latest data on those who had died after testing positive for COVID-19 was “very, very encouraging. He added that there had been just 71 new infections in the last 24-hour reporting period.” (Sky News). As we noted yesterday, the lockdown continues in Spain nonetheless
- According to the Robert Koch Institute, the reproduction number (R) rose to 1.04 in Germany on Sunday, staying above the critical threshold of one for the second day in a row
- Malaysia “no Covid-19 deaths for the 10th consecutive day, keeping the death toll at 115.” (The Star – Malaysian media)
- Netherlands: “restaurants, bars, museums, cinemas and theatres were allowed to open their doors from 1000 GMT on Monday, as long as they follow strict social distancing rules to prevent a new rise in infections. They are now allowed to receive a maximum of 30 customers at a time, who all have to make reservations in advance and need to be seated at tables with a minimum distance of 1.5 metres (5 ft) between them. Customers showing symptoms of COVID-19 are supposed to be turned away, while no more than two people from different households are allowed to share a table.” (Reuters)
- “India has loosened its strict nationwide lockdown again today, despite a record number of new coronavirus cases over the weekend. As part of a three-phase plan to kickstart its ailing economy, private businesses can now operate freely – with employees adhering to social distancing – while inter-state travel is permitted for both goods and people… More than 60 per cent of active cases are in just five cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Thane… The number of coronavirus infections is expected to cross 200,000 tomorrow, with India reporting the seventh-highest caseload in the world. And the last 24 hours saw yet another one-day record number of cases, a total of 8,392.” (The Telegraph)
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 / COMMENTARY