Tuesday 14 April 2020

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 14th April 2020.

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 14th April 2020.

The UK added 5,914 cases today and now has reported a total of 93,873 positive cases of COVID-19. We had all together tested 302,599 people as of 9am this morning.

As of 5pm yesterday, of those hospitalised in the UK, we have lost another 778 people to COVID-19. We now sadly have a total of 12,107 losses of life in hospitals. Losses of life in the community are reported by ONS with a 2 week delay - see below.

Total cases and losses reported are:
England 73,183 / 11,005
Northern Ireland 1,967 / 124
Scotland 6,358 / 575
Wales 5,848 / 403
(The government haven't been reporting how many of the UK's positive testing cases have recovered.)

Rep. Of Ireland have 11,479 cases and 406 losses of life.

There have now been 1,968,893 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is now 123,783. Already 464,456 people have recovered.

NHS Information for parents

Today's press conference was with Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Earlier today the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated that the UK economy will shrink by 35% if the lockdown lasts 3 months and no other changes are made. He stressed that the OBR expect the economy to bounce back pretty well, it would be temporary.
Rishi explained that the scale of what we are facing will have consequences. The Government can't protect every business and household, but our planned economic response is protecting most people while restrictions are in place, and will help ensure most business can re-open and people can go back to work.
Right now to protect the health of the economy, we need to protect the health of our people, it isn't an either/or option.
Public services have been given £14.5b in recent weeks. Business grants are with local authorities, loans are going out, and the furlough scheme is still intended to be up and paying out before the end of April - employers should be able to claim by around 20th April.


Prof Stephen Powis of NHS England went through the slides. We have 19,706 COVID-19 patients in hospital - down from yesterday when it was over 20,000. That is really, really excellent. No area of the UK is showing the massive rises we were seeing over the weekend - however I am just a little iffy because we just had a 4 day weekend, and we may find some figures added on later. Fingers crossed not.

Dr Yvonne Doyle, Director for Health Protection and Medical Director of PHE talked about care homes. It's impossible to quickly pick up data from 55,000 different locations who aren't used to supplying it like that, so it would be impossible to add it to daily figures.
Reports that Public Health England was sending PPE to NHS England as a priority over Scotland were dismissed as simply not true.
We are speaking to our European neighbours to find out best practices. It is impossible to compare like for like, because our populations are different. Comparisons can only be made as a guide, but don't tell the full story.

Stephen Powis said hospital acquired infections are happening, it's not unexpected, and we are doing the best we can to investigate, separate and isolate. They are taken very seriously and we are adapting practices as we find out more about COVID-19, and learn what is best. Yvonne Doyle reported that the same is happening in care homes.
Worldwide we know many thousands of medical staff have become infected. This is a hard virus to contain.
There are 19 patients currently in the NHS Nightingale Hospital in London. Press asked why all of the patients dying in care homes aren't in hospital? A lot of people in care homes have a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order, or have made end of life choices which must be respected. Hospital beds are available for anyone who needs one. 

Rishi Sunak was asked if he felt Universal Basic Income would be a good idea, he said he didn't, he felt Universal Credit is going to be a solution.
He was also asked if we were still going ahead with Brexit - we are. The original timetable currently still stands.

Today the Office for National Statistics released mortality data for England and Wales for the week ending 3rd April 2020.
Total deaths registered for the week was 16,387.
Total deaths were 6,082 more than the 5 year same week average.
3,475 deaths mentioned COVID-19.
In London 46.6% of registered deaths mentioned COVID-19.
33.8% of all COVID deaths occurred in London.
The total number of people who had lost their lives in 2020 up until 3rd April, with COVID-19 listed as a cause, was 4,122 (2.5% of all deaths).
With COVID-19 listed as a cause, the number of female deaths, across all age groups, is significantly lower than for men. 2523 men and 1599 women in total.
“The 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005.” Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the ONS.


At the WHO briefing yesterday, Dr Tedros warned:
"...while COVID-19 accelerates very fast, it decelerates much more slowly.
In other words, the way down is much slower than the way up.
That means control measures must be lifted slowly, and with control. It cannot happen all at once.
Control measures can only be lifted if the right public health measures are in place, including significant capacity for contact tracing."

Trump completely lost his shizz last night at a reporter who asked why he didn't use his advantage through the whole month of February to fight coronavirus. He repeatedly told her he did (he did not), he called her and her network fakes, and told her she had a low approval rating x 3. He was quite angry (x3) and said:
"I could have done what some countries are doing, they're getting beat up pretty badly.
I could have kept it open. I thought of keeping it open because nobody's ever heard of closing down a country, let alone the United States of America. But if I would have done that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead. We've done this right."
America at this moment has 598,737 confirmed cases of coronavirus and has lost 24,770 people.

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has extended the order on cessation of movement until May 5th.

The Indian state of Kerala has begun to flatten their curve.

Famous people with COVID-19:
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald

The first WHO UN “Solidarity Flight” is scheduled to leave Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today - from there, the aircraft will transport the vital medical cargo to all countries in Africa, where supplies are desperately needed to contain the spread of COVID.

Union Jack sky lanterns are being sold alongside suggestions we light them as support for the NHS. How about we don't, and don't risk setting fire to anything just now. If you aren't convinced, the RSPCA remind us about the Smethwick recycling plant fire in 2013 - started by a Chinese lantern and causing over £6m of damage before it was extinguished. Nobody is walking about, nobody is going to spot a fire starting. Be sensible.

Italy, Denmark and Spain are all beginning to loosen some restrictions slightly today - the world is watching closely. Best of luck.

Emmanuel Macron has announced the French lockdown will begin to be relaxed on May 11th, after which point everyone with  COVID-19 symptoms will be tested, and cases will all be isolated.  No relaxation can yet take place. Hospitals are struggling and running out of ICU beds.

China are starting clinical trials of 2 inactivated COVID19 vaccines.

Female leaders are swiftly being recognised as some of the very best and most decisive responders to coronavirus. It's something you guys have spotted before, but now it's becoming so patently obvious that I can even add it to this post without fear of being called a screaming feminist.
It's not hard to see what happened. They accepted and reacted to the threat very swiftly, closing borders and imposing quarantines, while other leaders were still muttering about implied threat, hoaxes and free movement.
If you were going to end up with restrictions anyway, why not just start there, build testing capability and spend your money on contact tracing and eradication? Because it takes balls and you need to convince your public it's the right thing to do.
Taiwan, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Germany are all reaping those benefits.

New Zealand has extended its state of emergency for another 7 days. They have 1,366 coronavirus cases and 9 losses of life, 14 people in ICU.

India have extended the nationwide lockdown until May 3rd.


There's so much more about Trump. Aside from the history-rewriting quote above, just last night, he:
Played a video explaining why the press are wrong during the White House coronavirus briefing.
Told reporters he had total authority and could make governors do whatever he wanted, including lift restrictions and re-open the economy.
In next week's episode: Donald declares himself He-Man, master of the universe.

Tom Moore, an army veteran from Keighley, wanted to raise £1,000 for the NHS by walking 100 laps round his garden before his 100th birthday at the end of the month. He's already raised more than £2m and he hopes to finish by Thursday. This week.

A Taiwanese journalist asked, 'what should a boy do if he doesn't want to wear a pink mask for school, in case people laugh at him?' So the next day, the male commanders of pandemic control all wore pink masks for the press conference.

Some people. They all had plans this Summer.

Countries / Cases / Losses of life:

USA 598,737 (+11,796) 24,770 (+1,130)
Spain 172,541 (+2,442) 18,056 (+300)
Italy 162,488 (+2,972) 21,067 (+602)
France 143,303 (+6,524) 15,729 (+762)
Germany 131,100 (+1,028) 3,261 (+67)
UK 93,873 (+5,252) 12,107 (+778)
China 82,249 (+89) 3,341
Iran 74,877 (+1,574) 4,683 (+98)
Turkey 65,111 (+4,062) 1,403 (+107)
Belgium 31,119 (+530) 4,157 (+254)
Netherlands 27,419 (+868) 2,945 (+122)
Canada 26,163 (+483) 823 (+43)
Switzerland 25,936 (+248) 1,174 (+36)
Brazil 24,169 (+739) 1,378 (+50)
Russia 21,102 (+2,774) 170 (+22)
Portugal 17,448 (+514) 567 (+32)
Austria 14,197 (+156) 384 (+16)
Israel 11,868 (+282) 117 (+1)
Sweden 11,445 (+497) 1,033 (+114)
India 10,941 (+488) 368 (+10)
S. Korea 10,564 (+27) 222 (+5)
Norway 6,623 (+20) 139 (+5)
Denmark 6,496 (+178) 299 (+14)
Belarus 3,281 (+362) 33 (+4)
Singapore 3,252 (+334) 10 (+1)
Finland 3,161 (+97) 64 (+5)
Iceland 1,720 (+9) 8
New Zealand 1,366 (+17) 9 (+4)
Bulgaria 713 (+28) 35 (+3)
Taiwan 393 / 6
Uganda 54


Sources:

NHS letter to parents in the UK is available as a high resolution PDF here:
https://t.co/m4vzfGrVH6?amp=1
The UK have moved our Government coronavirus tracker:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Mortality data until 3rd April England and Wales
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020
https://bit.ly/3a7OP0a
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52269398
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tomswalkforthenhs
https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/litter/chineselanterns
https://t.co/cMNpqtLDPC
https://twitter.com/BreakingNewsKE/status/1250036476995407873?s=19
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1249874682221932550?s=19
https://twitter.com/jenlutaiwan/status/1249594796877856768?s=19
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1250005355117109248?s=19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52279871
"PM Modi extends nationwide lockdown until May 3" https://twitter.com/i/events/1249920996175273985

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