"Connecting Communities for COVID19 News" 13th Apr 2020
Isolation Tips
Viral ping pong ball video 'perfect example' of why social distancing works
A public service warning that uses ping pong balls and mouse traps to visually display the importance of social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic has gone viral ... In the second half of the video, another lone ping pong ball is dropped onto a surface of mouse traps, except this time the traps are widely spaced apart, allowing the ball to bounce through without setting off the traps.
Home clear-out tips: how to declutter before downsizing
There’s more to self-isolation than Netflix. For the over-70s, who must stay at home for three months, according to the government’s advice in this pandemic, now could be the time to declutter a
Top Online Coaching Mental Health Tips To Overcome COVID19 Isolation
COVID19 has brought serious mental health challenges to many. These simple, yet highly effective tips from a top online coach can help you power through.
COVID-19: Self-Isolation Tips
If you think you may have been exposed to COVID-19 and/or have symptoms, contact your health care provider or the Florid Department of Health in Orange County immediately. If it is determined you do not need to go to the hospital and can stay at home to recover, the Florida Department of Health recommends the following self-isolation tips to help prevent the disease from spreading to people in your home and community:
Easy tips to manage weight gain during self-isolation
With the COVID-19 measures making our lives more sedentary, plus the tricky task of having to adapt our food shopping habits, it’s inevitable that we might gain a bit of weight and start to feel less healthy. Worry not for Devinder Bains, personal trainer and nutrition coach at Fit Squad DXB, has six simple tips to get you back on track.
Roz Purcell shares her routine, recipes and tips for staying positive during Covid-19 isolation
Mastering our inner thoughts through this is probably the greatest challenge. I am using distraction as a tool to protect my mind. By that, I mean I am trying my best to be 100 % present in whatever is happening right now, aiming to be totally and utterly ‘forcibly’ present. It helps that so many of the daily tasks I’ve set help me be present like baking, cooking, and training. Maybe yours is meditating, playing music. Whatever it is, do it as much as you need to right now.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson: World heptathlon champion shares isolation tips
World heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson shares her tips on how to maintain motivation while in lockdown with help from her two workout buddies.
DIY Hair Color, Skin Care and More: Top Salon Beauty Hacks While Isolated at Home
With shops shut, hair, face and brow gurus share their top tips for keeping up appearances, while some deliver personalized touch-up packages to clients: "We have been leaving them in driveways."
Hygiene Helpers
Coronavirus: Nike repurposes footwear to create face shields for frontline healthcare workers
Nike has announced it is repurposing elements of its footwear and clothing to create personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, ensuring that healthcare workers on the frontline have access to protective equipment has been a cause of concern echoed around the world.
Are You Keeping Up With Your Hygiene While Working Remotely? Study Shows Many Are Not
Working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic may be impacting your hygiene.
Researchers at Advanced Dermatology, in the northern suburbs, surveyed nearly 1,500 employees who are working from home and they reported changes in beauty and hygiene habits are changing. “One in five admit to brushing their teeth less than normal while one in three say they’re showering and doing laundry less often,” the study revealed. Among the employees’ concerns was weight gain. Advanced Dermatology said 54% of employees reported concerns about potential weight gain. Researchers said the factors include a decrease in physical activity and a 37% increase in access to food. Anxiety was another factor leading to potential weight loss.
Community Activities
Attention hospitals: CS Dominguez Hills students have created 1,500 face shields to protect against coronavirus
“I kept hearing there was a huge need for face shields,” he said Saturday, April 11. “So I thought, ‘We have a great workforce in our students, and we have the best technology. Why can’t we repurpose that?’” So, for the past two weeks, Hamdan and about 25 students have been at work — first to create face shield prototypes, then to produce as many as possible. Using the equipment in the university’s Fabrication Lab, which includes 3D printers and lasers, the team has so far been able to make 1,500 face shields.
Health care workers are dancing on social media to cheer up the quarantined and relieve stress
When the beat drops, these health care workers know it's all about the footwork.
Medical professionals across the country are participating in dance challenges on social media. It's helping them share smiles and blow off steam during the demanding coronavirus pandemic. In scrubs and swag, nurse Kala Baker lip-syncs and dances in TikTok challenges to hits like "Savage" by Meg Thee Stallion at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri.
A Spanish doctor asked for people to write letters to COVID-19 patients in hospital, telling them something about themselves, encouraging them to keep on fighting and how people loved them and were wanting them to recover - it went viral
A Spanish doctor asked for people to write letters to COVID-19 patients in hospital, telling them something about themselves, encouraging them to keep on fighting and how people loved them and were wanting them to recover - it went viral
Sikh volunteers prepare 1,000 home-cooked meals and deliver them to Australians self-isolating during coronavirus crisis for FREE
A group of Sikh volunteers have started a free home delivery service and will soon deliver 1,000 home-cooked meals to Australians in coronavirus self-isolation. Sikh Volunteers Australia announced it would be delivering free food to COVID-19 affected people in Melbourne's south-east for the next two weeks. The group's Vice President, Manpreet Singh, told Daily Mail Australia volunteers sprung into action when the pandemic crisis deepened in Australia in the past few weeks.
Belly dancers to florists flower bombing a care home - Six African coronavirus heroes
People in Africa are doing exceptional and surprising things to help others during the coronavirus pandemic. Here are just six uplifting stories of everyday heroes.
Choir puts coronavirus spin on Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in viral video
A Canadian choir has released a coronavirus-themed version of the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody. Seven members of the Phoenix Chamber Choir, based in Vancouver, adapted lyrics written by comedian Dana Jay Bein and recorded the song remotely. Lyrics include: "Is this a sore throat? Is this just allergies? Caught in a lockdown, no escape from reality." The accompanying video makes it seem as if the choir are singing together on a video call - but this would have been too difficult and lowered sound quality.
Tips for starting your own online book club
Self-isolation does not mean you have to be alone. Forming a book club is a way of staying connected with family and friends as well as reaching out to those we do not know but share a love of reading. Here are a few tips on how to get started on setting up an internet book club, writes Sue Wilkinson. Nominate one person to choose a book each ...
In the town of Zermatt Switzerland they have been displaying national flags on the Matterhorn to show support during these trying times. Today they did one for the United Kingdom. Previously they've done France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
In the town of Zermatt Switzerland they have been displaying national flags on the Matterhorn to show support during these trying times. Today they did one for the United Kingdom. Previously they've done France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Coronavirus: Teenagers create video time capsule to fight lockdown angst
Company Three has launched "the Coronavirus Time Capsule" - an initiative aimed at giving "teenagers space to express themselves, to feel they are being heard and to express what life under lockdown looks like". Glasier and his team will be holding weekly virtual meetings with the young people they routinely work with (around 75 who usually meet in person). They will be encouraged to produce pieces of art - whether its poetry, song or rap, anything to encapsulate their feelings - the result being a cumulative video time capsule they will contribute to until the crisis is over.
Working Remotely
Working remotely means we can’t be remote
While working from home is something many of the team does at some time or another, the fact that everyone is now operating from their place of residence is obviously out of the ordinary. It’s extremely impressive that there has been no drop in productivity whatsoever – everyone is giving 100% to ensure the business runs as normally as possible…even if some may be doing so in pyjamas from a coffee table in their living room!
How to Keep Your Team Motivated, Remotely
Many leaders have crossed the first hurdles of moving their teams remote: ensuring colleagues have set up their tech tools, defined their processes, and permanently logged into their video conference accounts. But this is just the first step towards creating an effective work environment for remote employees. The next critical question we must ask is: How do you motivate people who work from home?
CNN International launches new show about the ups and downs of WFH
For the first time, we are trying to keep the economy going by having such a large number of people working from their living rooms. CNN anchors - broadcasting from their homes - are exploring this uncharted territory
9 Productivity Tips for Working at Home Under Quarantine
How to boost concentration and curb procrastination and social isolation.
Working from home proving to be viable
The pandemic has put the spotlight on working from home, and while it is not possible for many jobs, the experience may prompt an examination of more flexible work arrangements in the future
Virtual Classrooms
Harvard graduate Schools transition to online – Harvard
“There is more participation online,” said Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei, who co-teaches “Leading Difference” with Francesca Gino to sizable class of 120 students. In a post on LinkedIn, she wrote, “I’m not sure if the technology spurs it or if I was unintentionally stifling it in person, but it was very different. And awesome. And I commit to figuring out how to bring that back to the physical classroom.”
The Chicago Teacher Residency to Provide Intensive Virtual Teaching Training to Resident Teachers Amid COVID-19 Outbreak
In response to the state-wide remote learning requirements prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago's Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) will begin providing intensive virtual teacher training to residents in its Chicago Teacher Residency (CTR) program. Residents in the Chicago Teacher Residency (CTR) are career changers training to teach in Chicago Public Schools.CTR will prepare residents to deliver remote teaching in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. On completion of the program, teacher residents will receive Google Educator Certification, meaning they will be well-equipped to provide remote learning options to students.
Coronavirus: Students 'staying put' during pandemic
Prof Julie Lydon of Universities Wales said: "That's obviously a considerable community and keeping them safe, while they continue to study with us through our remote mechanisms, is one of our highest priorities." Across Wales, universities are offering support in a variety of ways, such as catering and shopping, mental health services and teaching.
How COVID-19 has helped advance telemedicine
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how doctors provide health care. This public health crisis has shifted the paradigm on how Canadians access medical care and has ushered in the new era of telemedicine. Almost overnight, patients have stopped walking into their doctors’ offices and are instead receiving medical care through online platforms.
Keep Your People Learning When You Go Virtual
At INSEAD, the business school where we work, we’ve been expanding virtual meetings, ramping up virtual classes and coaching, and introducing digital tools to enhance face-to-face work. Then, in the past few weeks, everything else moved online, too. As in many organizations, the transition happened almost overnight in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis that has disrupted everyone’s private as well as working lives.
COVID-19 pushes trades trainer to virtual classrooms
As health experts urge people to refrain from gathering in large numbers, digital alternatives to meeting are in the spotlight. And while many institutions and companies are scrambling to come up with solutions, Pacific Vocational College (PVC) in Burnaby, B.C. seamlessly switched all its trades apprentice training over to virtual classrooms in less than 48 hours. Sandor Rethy, director of strategic initiatives at PVC, explained that the school has been exploring and building its digital learning system since early 2015.
Public Policies
Pentagon awarding contract to boost N95 mask production capacity by 39 million
The Pentagon said Saturday it is using its authority under the Defense Production Act to boost the supply of N95 masks, which are essential for protecting healthcare professionals from the coronavirus and are in short supply in many places. The Pentagon in coming days will identify the companies involved when the contract is awarded.
London bus workers to receive sick pay from day one amid coronavirus outbreak
Bus workers in London will receive sick pay from the first day of being off work, under a deal announced by the Unite union. Unite said the deal follows pressure from the union on bus operators, Transport for London (TfL), London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and the government, for better protection for bus workers during the coronavirus outbreak. A total of 14 London transport workers have died after contracting the virus , nine of them bus workers, said the union.
Jacinda Ardern talks isolation parenting tips with psychologist Nigel Latta
Stop worrying about screen time and use it as a tool if you can to get through self isolation with kids, a well-known New Zealand psychologist has told Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a live Facebook conversation. The psychologist, author and television host Nigel Latta, appeared on Ardern’s lockdown series, ‘Conversations on COVID-19’ to share with the PM “tips and tricks for looking after yourself while staying home to save lives.”
Maintaining Services
NHS coronavirus app could lift UK lockdown by tracing those in contact with infected
A new mobile phone app could be central to ending the UK's coronavirus lockdown.
The Government has ordered NHSX, the health service's technology arm, to create an app which would trace those who have been in contact with infected people and alert them to get tested. Google and Apple have been helping the NHS to develop the system at "breakneck speed", the Sunday Times reports. The app would use Bluetooth to tell its users if they have been near someone who has tested positive for the deadly bug, helping to bring any new chains of infection under control.
Massachusetts grocery store workers can now get free coronavirus testing
Massachusetts grocery store and supermarket workers can now get free coronavirus testing as the state ramps up preparations and activates more National Guard personnel ahead of the “very difficult month of April,” Gov. Charlie Baker said Saturday. Food store employees will now have access to the priority COVID-19 testing sites for first responders at Patriot Place in Foxboro and at the Big E Fairgrounds in West Springfield. Baker’s announcement comes days after Vitalina Williams, a part-time cashier at the Salem Market Basket, died of the virus, and it follows the state’s new guidance for residents to wear masks or face coverings in public, particularly to grocery stores.
Circuit breaker classes: Yoga, tuition and gyms move online as Singapore gets used to operating in virtual worlds
Armed with a large iPad, a laptop and a large monitor screen, over 40 tuition teachers with Raymond’s Maths & Science Studio press on with their regular lessons amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Although the lessons are held at the same time on the same day as before, all of the teachers now tutor remotely from their homes over video conferencing application Zoom. Managing director Raymond Loh told CNA that training teachers to use Zoom and trying to bring the classroom onto a digital platform is “not an easy task”.
Healthcare Innovations
New process can detect COVID-19 in five minutes
A process being used at a testing facility in the Detroit Health Center can detect if someone is positive for coronavirus in five minutes. The testing procedure takes about 15 minutes and consists of a technician taking a nasal swab, which is then examined. The test delivers positive results in about five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes. Medical technicians from the Henry Ford Health System and medical students from Wayne State University in Detroit have been operating the testing facility.
How Frontline Doctors Are Saving Coronavirus Patients with Innovative New Techniques, Sharing Advice
Luis Angel, one of Cerfolio's colleagues, invented a new self-contained method for tracheostomies that can sometimes keep doctors from putting critically-ill patients on ventilators, which requires them to be put in a medically induced coma. The procedure, which requires incisions into the lower neck, is known to place health care providers at risk, but if safely performed allows doctors to use a bigger tube than is used for ventilation, one that is easier to clean.
'India using innovation as arsenal to fight coronavirus'
The Covid-19 crisis has compelled countrymen to think about innovation, and early news in this direction came at the end of last month when Pune-based MyLab Discovery Solutions announced that it has got the clearance for indigenously manufacturing Covid-19 test kits. The company claimed that the kit manufactured by them will reduce the country’s import dependence for test kits and enable low-cost, real-time testing. Deepak Kumar, official spokesperson of MyLab Discovery Solutions, told The Sunday Guardian: “We have already supplied the first batch of MyLab Covid-19 Qualitative PCR kits that screen and detect the infection within 2.5 hours, compared to more than seven hours taken by existing protocols.”
OSU Medical Center shares coronavirus innovations
Recognizing the threat, a rapidly assembled team of Ohio State researchers worked overnight and, within 24 hours, created an in house “recipe” to make the crucial VTM. Essentially, it’s a salt solution buffered in the way necessary to stabilize the virus. In addition, the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, working with faculty and staff in the university’s colleges of Engineering and Dentistry, have created and 3-D printed more than 50,000 new swabs for COVID-19 test kits will be shared with hospitals across Ohio, which will allow more people to be tested.
Hyderabad innovators turning crisis into opportunity
While one entrepreneur has developed a full-coverage mask some others are making 3D printed ventilators, another innovator has developed sanitation tents and another startup is setting medical kiosks to detect symptoms among patients
