Wednesday 8 April 2020

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 8th April 2020.

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 8th April 2020.

The UK added 5,491 cases today and now has reported a total of 60,733 positive cases of COVID-19. We had in total tested 282,074 people as of 9am this morning.

As of 5pm yesterday, of those hospitalised in the UK, we have lost another 938 people to COVID-19. We now sadly have a total of 7,097 losses of life.

Total cases and losses reported are:
England 50,756 / 6,483
Scotland 4,565 / 296
Wales 4,073 / 245
Northern Ireland 1,339 / 73
(The government haven't been reporting how many of the UK's positive testing cases have recovered.)

Rep. Of Ireland have 6,074 cases and 235 losses of life.

There have now been 1,485,535 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is now 87,292. Already 318,876 people have recovered.

Boris Johnson "remains clinically stable and is responding to treatment" in Intensive Care. He's also described as "in good spirits".

"Tomorrow marks 100 days since WHO was notified of the first cases of “pneumonia with unknown cause” in China. It’s incredible to reflect on how dramatically the world has changed, in such a short period of time"
Dr Tedros, Head of the World Health Organisation.

COVID is a world problem WHO


At today's UK press conference, Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, told us Boris has been sitting up and talking, and his situation is improving. Good news. Rishi went on to say we have to work together and support each other. We all depend on each other to get through this.
He explained the Government can't replace every single penny that charities will lose out on this year, but some charities are doing essential work during the coronavirus crisis, and rightly need to be supported. £750m will be given to UK charities.
£370m will be donated to small, local charities supporting vulnerable people.
£360m will be given directly to charities, with up to £200m to hospices and the rest split among groups supporting vulnerable children, victims of domestic abuse and others.
The BBC have announced a 'Big Night In' on April 23rd - the Government will match whatever is raised, with a minimum of £20m to the national charities appeal. (See below).


Prof Angela McLean, Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser showed the slides. Footfall in railway stations is massively down. New cases are rising, but not accelerating out of control. Patients in hospital are still rising, but again, it's not massively out of control.
Numbers of patients in critical care beds have only risen by 4% in the last 24 hours, the figure in London has almost stayed the same. Always good news.

Press asked the usual questions yet again. They're like kids who can't understand when they aren't given an exact answer. Stephen Powis of NHS England answered mainly:
Testing - we are working towards targets and increasing it as quickly as we can.
Lockdowns - follow the advice and we will only know what's going to happen as it happens. We will use the number of cases and spare hospital beds as a guide.
Basically if people begin dying for lack of a bed and oxygen, we weren't strict enough 2 to 3 weeks ago. This is a one time event and many thousands of incredibly knowledgeable people around the world are trying to 'guess' exactly what will happen, but even they can only guess, because every single one of us has the ability to make a difference. So far we seem to have done pretty darn well, but don't stop yet, those numbers will keep going up for a while, lets not make them any bigger.

The NHS Nightingale Temporary Hospital in London has taken it's first patients.

Welsh first minister has Mark Drakeford has said Wales must "not throw away gains" and the lockdown will not be lifted next week.

At today's WHO Press Conference Dr Tedros announced that 90 countries are working together on the SOLIDARITY trials towards finding an effective therapeutic (drug).
This isn't a time for internal politics, national unity is important, work across party unity, beliefs, any differences. "When national unity succeeds, global solidarity will be easier to perform."
When asked about pets and covid19 Dr Mike Ryan replied that it "seems like they are infected from their owners” and emphasised that animals "deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. They are victims like the rest of us”.

If you hear a voice message saying it is from Public Health England and referring to ambulance response, it's a hoax. Ignore, delete.

080420 UK Government Fake News voice message

Today, for the first time in 11 weeks, the people of Wuhan can leave their homes and for some of them, their city. 11m people have been locked down since January. Travellers will be checked, but roadblocks have come down and non-essential businesses, buses and metro services are reopening. The world will be watching carefully. Best of luck to everyone there.

The BBC has announced a coronavirus telethon on April 23. The 3 hour live BBC One event will, for the first time, bring together its two big charities - Comic Relief and Children In Need. The show will be very different to anything we are used to seeing, as it'll obviously all be filmed under social distancing rules.
The BBC say the show "will offer some light relief and entertainment, whilst celebrating and rewarding those going the extra mile to support their communities in these troubled times."
"It will include big surprises, ‘money can’t buy’ prizes, live music performances (from the artists’ homes) and many of your favourite faces coming together (whilst safely apart) to do what they can for those that deserve something special."

The MG France generalists' union have released the results of a survey of 2,000 city doctors, who said they had treated 56,000 patients with symptoms of covid-19 between March 17th and April 3rd. If the same is true across France, then as many as 1.6 million French people may have contracted coronavirus AND been ill enough to contact their doctor.

Spain is to start mass testing to find out exactly the size of their epidemic, after estimates from the Spanish Health Ministry suggest more than 90% of COVID-19 patients haven't been registered.

Justin Trudeau is increasing his supply of ventilators “We’re working with Thornhill Medical, CAE, Ventilators for Canadians, and a group led by StarFish Medical to produce up to 30,000 made-in-Canada ventilators,”
“These purchases will help us increase our capacity to make sure these lifesaving machines will be made at home.”

More people in New York have now died from COVID-19 than were killed at the World Trade Centre on 9/11.

Danish PM Mette Frederiksen has announced that Denmark's youngest children will go back to nurseries and schools after Easter, in a phased re-opening, as long as social distancing measures are adhered to and numbers are okay over Easter.
Crikey. It's a bold step. Best of luck with that one guys.

Donald Trump has called the World Health Organisation "China-centric" and says he will withhold funding while he looks into it.
“They missed the call. They could have called it months earlier ... they should have known. And they probably did know.” Donald Trump.

I've been watching the WHO press conferences for a few months now. They were ridiculously slow to call a Pandemic, when it was clearly a pandemic, but they held press conferences regularly from January, and never pretended COVID-19 wasn't a global threat.
Dr Tedros, 30th January 2020 - "For all of these reasons, I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of 2019nCoV."
Donald Trump, March 9 2020 - "The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.”"
They called it Donald, you weren't listening.

Look after your neighbours WHO

Very few places have managed to escape COVID-19 now (and at least 1 of these is probably just not reporting it). The only countries in the entire world with no reported cases of Coronavirus are: Comoros, Kiribati, Lesotho, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Korea, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Yemen

Lost Their Fight:
NHS Nurse Rebecca Mack
Grammy-winning singer and songwriter John Prine
Film and TV music producer Hal Willner

Indonesia (the world's 4th most populous country with 264 m people), has ordered citizens to wear face masks when they leave the house.

Masks are a legal requirement in Vietnam.

Ethiopia has declared a State of Emergency

Singapore issued more than 7,000 written warnings to people on the first day of stricter measures about social distancing. No gatherings at all are allowed, aside from household members.
First-time offenders can be fined S$10,000 (£5,676), 6 months jail, or both.

In Canada, Toys R Us has donated baby monitors to hospitals for better communication between sick COVID-19 patients in quarantine and medical  staff.

For a lot of children in the UK, Boris Johnson is someone they feel they know, and that person is very poorly. It may make them sad, and it could make coronavirus very real to them. It may make them more worried about the people they love. Your job is to give them a big hug and let them cry if they need to. Remind them it is very rare to become so ill, and even rarer to die from COVID-19, and staying home saves hundreds of thousands of lives. They're not even adults and they're already being life-saving heroes.

WHO children emulate stress be calm

President Bolsonaro of Brazil has a chequered history with COVID-19, he previously said that only people over 60 were at risk, but not him because he is "an athlete". Now he has sent an incredibly poetic letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to thank him for changing his mind and allowing exports of drugs, including Hydroxychloroquine.
"Just as Lord Hanuman brought the holy medicine from the Himalayas to save the life of Lord Rama’s brother Lakshmana, and Jesus healed those who were sick and restored the sight to Bartimeau, India and Brazil will overcome this global crisis by joining forces and sharing blessings for the sake of people."

Thankfully France have had a far better day, and it is the UK who are beginning to really suffer our peak arriving.

 Some numbers. Each number was once a wink and a grin from their Mum:

Countries / Cases / Losses of life:

USA 410,843 (+10,508) 14,210 (+1,369)
Spain 146,690 (+4,748) 14,673 (+628)
Italy 139,422 (+3,836) 17,669 (+542)
Germany 109,702 (+2,039) 2,105 (+89)
France 112,950 (+3,881) 10,869 (+541)
China 81,802 (+62) 3,333 (+2)
Iran 64,586 (+1,997) 3,993 (+121)
UK 60,733 (+5,491) 7,097 (+938)
Turkey 38,226 (+4,117) 812 (+87)
Belgium 23,403 (+1,209) 2,240 (+205)
Switzerland 23,248 (+995) 895 (+74)
Netherlands 20,549 (+969) 2,248 (+147)
Canada 18,479 (+582) 402 (+21)
Pakistan 4,196 (+161) 60 (+3)
Malaysia 4,119 (+156) 65 (+2)
Dominican Republic 2,111 (+155) 108 (+10)
Greece 1,884 (+52) 83 (+2)
Bosnia and Herzegovina 803 (+39) 34 (+1)
Kazakhstan 718 (+21) 7 (+1)




https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/the-big-night-in
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-covid19-statements/?collection-id=242252
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52215421
 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-china-stop-wuhan-lockdown-world-pandemic-end-over-a9453731.html
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1247225819237437440
https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1247647587492073474?s=19
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-07/wuhan-reopens-u-k-new-york-have-deadliest-days-virus-update?__twitter_impression=true
https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/social/un-million-et-demi-de-francais-pourraient-avoir-contracte-le-coronavirus-1192999#xtor=CS1-3046
https://twitter.com/TondaMacC/status/1247544703765172225?s=19
https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-04-08/spain-to-test-30000-families-for-the-coronavirus.html
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/victoria-company-helps-lead-production-of-ventilators-trudeau-1.4886526
https://twitter.com/CanadianPM/status/1245137227111424002
https://deadline.com/2020/04/the-big-night-in-bbc-coronavirus-telethon-1202902343/

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