"Connecting Communities for COVID19 News" 2nd Apr 2020
Isolation Tips
Tips for maintaining your sanity during self-isolation
With all of us thrust indoors, maintaining our sanity during isolation should now be our focus. Here’s how to not go cuckoo.
Tips On How To Cope With Self-Isolation If You’re Struggling With Mental Health
Unfortunately, those activities are now exactly what we are being urged not to do. Isolation is, by definition, a lonely prospect. And while maintaining social distancing is vital to help tackle the spread of coronavirus, it can still be tough on mental health. To help address this issue, Stephen Buckley, Head of Information at mental health charity Mind, has shared with UNILAD some tips on how to maintain good mental health and stay connected while social distancing.
Turn self-isolation into family bonding time: Tips to keep kids engaged during lockdown
Presenting pitches from your sofa, collaborating on team decks remotely and bringing your laptop to the breakfast table. Working from home is an adjustment for many. But adding children to the mix brings its own complexities. How do parents keep their children entertained and engaged while they juggle team video conference calls and draft presentations? What happens to snack time, play-time and me-time? ETPanache spoke to a few pediatricians, counsellors and parenting consultants
Podcast - Tips on coping with self-isolation stress in Suffolk | Latest Suffolk and Essex News
Listen as PTSD sufferer John and Amy talk to head of news Natalie Sadler here, discussing quarantine, fitness and homeschooling, and explaining how they are keeping the dream of a gap year in South East Asia alive.
The Beat Goes On, Even During a Pandemic: Can You Add to My Family's Music Playlist?
As we head further into the unknown, the one thing in our house that remains consistent, reliable and makes us all mostly happy is music. So as homeschooling mostly wraps for the day, dinner plans are laid out and and that oh-so-welcoming adult beverage slides into our hands. Then, we play an album, record, CD (whatever you want to call it) throughout the house nightly. Recently, we’ve been reaching back a decade or two or more. Some stuff my wife grew up on, some stuff I grew up on. Some our parents played for us – maybe their parents even played for them – but nonetheless, since we have the time we thought we’d expose the kids to some of our seminal soundtracks.
Surrey County Council share tips on isolation
Surrey County Council (SCC) have shared tips with residents to help them get through the lockdown measures imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus. SCC also directed residents towards a number of services available to all residents that are easily accessible from home like mental health support services or E-books from the county's libraries.
A cabin in my living room or why do confined children build hiding places?
A hidden virus, more schooling and friends to play with, parents ... in order to cope with this new environment, some children are building inner shelters. So many ways to smooth staying at home
Confinement: an Azurean woman runs a marathon on her balcony
An Azurean woman from Saint-Jeannet has just completed a marathon ... on her 6m long balcony. Confinement needs must she launched this crazy bet and held up her end. Here is the story of this incredible positive sporting moment.
The five secrets of happy containment according to the Finns
The happiest citizens of the planet, the Finns know how to keep morale high in all circumstances. Here we have their recipe for helping you to continue bubbling with confidence
Three Useful Ways to Fight Boredom, Coronavirus During Self-Isolation
On Monday, the Science Alert website cited several options through which people can help experts in tackling COVID-19. The first option is by playing Foldit, an online game designed in 2006 by researchers at the University of Washington. It challenges players to fold proteins to better understand their structure and function. The Foldit team is now challenging citizen scientists to design antiviral proteins that can bind with the coronavirus. The second option allows people to track the influenza infection by partaking in the online surveillance project FluTracking. By completing a 10-second survey each week, participants will aid researchers in monitoring the prevalence of flu-like symptoms across Australia and New Zealand. It could also help track the spread of the coronavirus and its influenza-like symptoms.
Hygiene Helpers
WHO - Basic protective measures against the new coronavirus
Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. Most people who become infected experience mild illness and recover, but it can be more severe for others. Take care of your health and protect others by doing the following:
How to coronavirus-proof your home
Life under coronavirus means staying at home as much as possible — but you’ll likely need to make a trip to the grocery store or pharmacy at some point. Download or print this tip sheet to make sure you don’t bring the virus back home with you.
Community Activities
6 Ways You Can Help Your Community Fight The Impacts Of Coronavirus
Although no one can single-handedly obliterate the virus or halt its wide-ranging impacts, there are still plenty of ways to help. Charities, nonprofits and community aid networks across the D.C. region are mobilizing to help the most vulnerable people among us.
Museum Asks People To Recreate Paintings With Stuff They Can Find at Home, Here Are The Results
Even though most of us are stuck at home during Coronavirus quarantine and can’t go out and enjoy art in museums, that doesn’t mean that life has to be boring or uncultured. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles challenged art fans to post photos of themselves recreating their favorite works of art from the safety of their homes. People responded with a lot of enthusiasm and flooded social media with their unique artistic interpretations. Scroll down to see the best examples!
How to help others in Tampa Bay during coronavirus lockdown
Give blood, make face masks, support food banks and these and other ways to assist others while we keep our distance is recommended
Animal Crossing: Couples hold wedding ceremonies on New Horizons after coronavirus cancellations
People are throwing elaborate ceremonies on the hit Nintendo Switch game after the pandemic derailed plans worldwide
James O'Brien salutes a real hero of the fight against coronavirus
Colonel Ashleigh Boreham is not a name many people know, but James O'Brien picked him out as a hero in the fight against coronavirus - as he is the man who organised the building of the NHS Nightingale Hospital.
1.5 Million Israelis Using Voluntary Coronavirus Monitoring App
Around 1.5 million Israelis have downloaded a mobile app in the past week that alerts users who have crossed paths with a coronavirus patient, according to the Health Ministry, helping to improve tracking of the pandemic. The app "HaMagen" - Hebrew for The Shield - is sparking interest from abroad with approaches from Germany, Italy, Britain, Australia and Chile so far, ministry deputy director general Morris Dorfman said Wednesday. Under a ministry initiative, developers created the app using open-source tools so it can be quickly deployed in other countries at no cost, he told Reuters.
Coronavirus: Entire street joins together for 'socially-distant' dancing outside homes
Families in a Cheshire street have been sharing a novel form of daily exercise during the coronavirus lockdown, by assembling outside their homes each morning for some "socially-distant" dancing. Video shows people living on the road in Frodsham demonstrating their best moves after venturing out of their front doors for the bout of communal activity to music.
Wanted: Army of helpers to help vulnerable in Middlesbrough
AN army of volunteers took to the streets yesterday to spread the word of support available in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak. Officers from across Middlesbrough Council were joined by representatives from Middlesbrough Football Club Foundation, totalling 150 people, to hand deliver nearly 70,000 leaflets on the Help Boro initiative, which calls for volunteers and vulnerable people that need support to come forward.
Working Remotely
27+ Tools That Make Working Remotely a Breeze
Are you working remotely because of COVID-19? Take a look at these great tools for collaboration, safety, and task management.
The brave new world of remote work | The Hill
Laboring off-site has been a trend for the last several decades, enabled by a host of varied and ever more powerful technologies. A variant of remote work (also known as telecommuting) is distributed work in which virtual teams – many scattered across the globe – collaborate on projects under the direction of their employer.
How Managers Can Support Remote Employees
In a poll of my coaching clients last week about their biggest challenges, their key themes were about how to stay connected with each team member, help manage their own and others’ stress, maintain team morale and motivation, run engaged meetings, track and communicate progress, and help their team shed nonessential work.
Virtual Classrooms
Bringing Pandemic Lessons to the (Virtual) Classroom
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact so many aspects of people's lives, University of Arizona faculty members from a range of disciplines are finding ways to use the global health crisis as a teachable moment in their courses.
Public Policies
White House advisor Fauci says coronavirus vaccine trial is on target and will be 'ultimate game changer'
The first human trial testing a potential vaccine to prevent COVID-19 is “on track” with public distribution still projected in 12 to 18 months, which would be the “ultimate game changer” in the fight against the pandemic, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday. U.S. health officials have been fast-tracking work with biotech company Moderna to develop a vaccine to prevent COVID-19. They began their first human trials on a potential vaccine March 16.
Japan to give face masks to 50 million households to fight virus
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday the government will distribute reusable cloth face masks to roughly 50 million households as stocks of disposable masks have run out at drugstores and other shops amid the coronavirus outbreak. The government will begin distributing the masks from next week, starting in the prefectures that have the highest number of infected patients.
US firm given MILLIONS in taxpayer cash to design low-cost coronavirus ventilator has instead been selling it overseas
A US company that pocketed $14 million in tax dollars to make "game-changing" ventilators needed to fight the coronavirus has been selling versions of them overseas. There is not a single Trilogy Evo Universal machine available for Americans as the pandemic continues to take thousands of lives every week, according to ProPublica.
ARTICLE19 briefing: How to tackle misinformation about COVID-19
Professional journalism, ethical journalism, independent media, transparency from those in power, media literacy and the free flow of information are the best antidote to misinformation and conspiracy theories about the spread of COVID-19 across the globe. In that particular context, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomed the policy brief recently issued by ARTICLE19.
Coronavirus is forcing Nigeria’s leaders to confront the broken health system they rarely use
Without the option of traveling abroad this time, affected Nigerian government officials will reckon more closely with an underfunded and under-equipped healthcare system that regular Nigerians have become all too familiar with. Despite annual budgets running into hundreds of millions of dollars for public health, stories of oxygen shortages in public hospitals and surgeries being conducted without electricity remain commonplace in Nigeria. Similarly, strike actions by public healthcare workers protesting low and unpaid salaries by the government are a frequent occurrence.
Finland taps social media influencers during coronavirus crisis
The drive is a collaboration between the Finnish government, the country’s national emergency supply agency and PING Helsinki, a social media influencer consultancy. Though nobody could predict the coronavirus pandemic, Finland has been preparing for a crisis of its magnitude for decades. The country's national emergency supply agency joins forces with the public sector and industry to secure the country's key functions during a national emergency. PING Helsinki edits the government’s messages into a social media-friendly format, and sends it to its networks of some 1,500 influencers. Influencers are free to use the messages and images as they want.
Maintaining Services
Scott Morrison announces free childcare for working parents
Scott Morrison has announced anyone still working across Australia will be given free childcare during the coronavirus pandemic. “If you have a job in this economy then that is an essential job, in my view, in terms of running of the economy,” Mr Morrison said. “It is important that all of those parents who have children, that they get access to the childcare and those facilities will be there for them in the many months ahead.” He said 13,000 childcare centres would be financially supported to remain open during the outbreak after attendance numbers plummeted in recent weeks.
Occitanie: the success of candied dishes delivered to the confined
During this period of containment, Occitan companies selling cassoulets and other local candied dishes respond to a significant demand for home deliveries.
Coronavirus: WHO pays tribute to the "extraordinary" work bing carried out at the Ifema hospital
The Ifema hospital in Madrid was described as "extraordinary" by Bruce Aylward, chief Covid-19 expert from the World Health Organization (WHO). On a visit to Madrid he commented during a visit to the field hospital, which is alleviating the healthcare pressure from other Madrid hospitals facing the Covid-19 coronavirus challenge. His tour of the ICU led to him commenting the way the hospitals and the courage shown by the health professionals reminded him of how the Chinese tackled the outbreak a while back
Lack of childcare 'forcing key workers to stay home'
Schools, nurseries and childminders were told to close their doors last week to all except vulnerable children and the children of key workers, such as NHS staff and delivery drivers. But many nurseries say staying open for such small numbers of children has not been financially viable. They also say staff need better protection from the coronavirus. The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) estimates around half of nurseries have completely closed for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.
Free childcare guaranteed to all essential workers in Colorado through May 17
All essential workers will have the opportunity to get free child care through May 17, according to an announcement Monday morning by the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS). On Monday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that the state will extend a full, 100% tuition credit to anybody defined as an essential worker in the Colorado stay-at-home public health order.
Healthcare Innovations
Hull coronavirus researcher says he has developed Covid-19 test that takes five minutes and costs just £2
Professor Maneesh Singh says the coronavirus test costs just £2 and could take as little as five minutes
Coronavirus: Chinese tests suggest nearly 80 per cent of cases are without symptoms
Dr Robert Lambkin-Williams, an independent virologist, said people who are asymptomatic can still be infectious
Coronavirus: cardiac symptoms that aid in the transmission of Covid-19
Evidence so far indicates that the Covid-19 coronavirus can have fatal consequences for people with underlying cardiovascular disease. It is now also believed that it can cause heart damage, even in patients without underlying heart conditions, thanks to a study published in JAMA Cardiology by experts from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston.
Respiratory Pathogen Emission Dynamics
This newer understanding of respiratory emission dynamics has implications for mask and respiratory design, social distancing recommendations, and other public health interventions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Coronavirus in the UK: The 'flat-pack' ventilator ready for mass production that could save thousands of lives
A joint team from Oxford University and King's College London is awaiting government approval to mass produce the OxVent
