"Connecting Communities for COVID19 News" 20th Mar 2020
Isolation Tips
Please help us (#nhsworkers) to help you... by staying at home
Please help us (#nhsworkers) to help you... by staying at home and avoiding other people you are preventing spread of Covid-19, reducing #NHS work, and saving the lives of vulnerable fellow humans! @Suffolk_PC @SuffolkGPFed @WestSuffolkNHS @NHSWSCCG @IESCCG
Simple Food Swaps For When You Run Out Of Ingredients
Has a coronavirus quarantine emptied your kitchen? These are the best substitutes for butter, eggs, milk, onions, lemon, sugar, flour, broth and more.
When it’s all too much, here’s how to quell coronavirus anxiety, according to experts
There are so many sources of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic (pandemic!), it’s normal to feel some anxiety when a global infectious disease is impacts every realm of your life. Here are some ways to cope with stress and anxiety amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
I'm an Italian mom under coronavirus lockdown. Here's what I wish I had done differently before things got bad
Italy has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak that's rapidly spreading worldwide.The country is on lockdown, its 60 million citizens have been instructed to remain indoors, and all public gatherings have been canceled. Katherine Wilson, a mother of two who lives in Rome, said she wished that she and other Italians had listened to warnings about the coronavirus. She warned Americans not to make "similar misguided choices."
Coronavirus: How to help the elderly and other vulnerable people during the outbreak
‘There are some simple steps we can all take that will make a huge difference,’ says Caroline Abrahams at AGE UK...
It's Totally Normal To Feel Weird, Anxious Or Scared Right Now. We're In A Period Of Grief
Therapists explain us how we can maintain some form of control – no matter how big or small – in our lives.
Hygiene Helpers
How long can the novel coronavirus survive on surfaces and in the air?
A new study shows that SARS-CoV-2 can linger in the air for hours and on some materials for days
Covid-19: Clon Distillery to produce sanitiser – and free for local charities
CEO Mr Scully said ‘We are adhering to HSE specifications, creating sanitisers with an alcohol content of 63% ABV. Fortunately, we already have suitable 500 ml PET bottles and equipment in place, which means that we are ready to go into production immediately. We expect to have our first batch of 5,000 bottles ready within the next week.’
Denmark to send out coronavirus self-test kits to homes
Denmark will start offering take-home kits to collect samples to test for the new coronavirus, in order to get a better view of its spread, health authorities said on Wednesday.
Community Activities
Concert pays homage to health workers.
Concert pays homage to health workers. Musicians and singers living in a building in the Barbès district of Paris improvise a concert from their windows, in homage to the medical staff on the front line against the #coronavirus epidemic
Ok this was sweet - Israelis on their balconies clapping and cheering for the doctors and nurses
Ok this was sweet - Israelis on their balconies clapping and cheering for the doctors and nurses fighting the Coronavirus pandemic
Coronavirus: A million people demand NHS workers get priority testing
More than a million people have signed a petition calling for NHS staff to be prioritised for coronavirus testing so they can continue to work. NHS staff with a cough are facing the dilemma of being unable to work for a week or infecting patients with COVID-19.
Retailers who inflate prices because of Coronavirus could be prosecuted, CMA warns
The watchdog added that it would consider asking the Government to introduce price controls if needed as products, including hand sanitiser, sell out at hundreds of supermarkets nationwide
Coronavirus: Bangladesh mass prayer event prompts alarm
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Bangladesh for a mass prayer session on Wednesday, despite fears it posed a risk of spreading the new coronavirus. Local police chief Tota Miah told AFP news agency that 10,000 Muslims had gathered in Raipur town to pray "healing verses" from the Koran. But some eyewitnesses told the BBC the figure was closer to 30,000. A similar religious event in Malaysia in February has been confirmed as the source of more than 500 infections.
Facebook has a coronavirus problem. It's WhatsApp.
The platform is being used to spread messages that often contain a mixture of accurate and misleading claims that have been debunked by medical experts. The problem is now so acute that world leaders are urging people to stop sharing unverified information using the app. "I am urging everyone to please stop sharing unverified info on WhatsApp groups," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Monday on Twitter. "These messages are scaring and confusing people and causing real damage. Please get your info from official, trusted sources."
Twitter to remove harmful fake news about coronavirus
Twitter will remove tweets that run the risk of causing harm by spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19, the company has said, after weeks of criticism that its policies on misinformation were too lax.
Coronavirus: The med students who want to help
With the NHS under pressure because of coronavirus, medical students at the University of Liverpool are hoping to use their skills to volunteer at hospitals during the crisis.
Working Remotely
Virtual Classrooms
Coronavirus homeschooling? Five ways to keep your kids learning, happy and healthy
Tom Rose and Jack Pannett are qualified teachers and sports coaches and run an activity business that helps children learn. They also broadcast their own podcast. Here, they set out their five top tips on how to keep your kids engaged, learning, healthy and happy while schools are closed because of coronavirus...
Are you a parent trying to find activities for kids home from school?
Are you a parent trying to find activities for kids home from school? Or someone stuck at home looking for fun distractions? Here are some fun, free science and nature resources you can use at home. I’ll be adding to this list over time.
Public Policies
The coronavirus pandemic began in China. Today, it reported no new local infections for the first time
China has reported no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began, marking a major turning point in the global battle to contain Covid-19. At a news conference on Thursday morning, officials from China's National Health Commission announced there had been just 34 new cases in the past 24 hours -- all imported from overseas -- and eight new deaths, all in Hubei, the province where the virus was first identified. There were there no new reported cases in Hubei at all on Wednesday.
Coronavirus: "The way the epidemic was managed in South Korea should serve as an example"
In a country, where shops and transport have not been closed, the epidemic has been brought under control thanks, in particular, to the civic spirit of the population, in contrast to the atmosphere of panic in the West, observed, Christophe Gaudin, a French academic based in Seoul.
Coronavirus: NHS staff 'at risk' over lack of protective gear
NHS staff say they are being put at risk during the coronavirus outbreak because of a lack of protective gear. One doctor told the BBC that frontline healthcare workers felt like "cannon fodder" as they do not have access to equipment such as face masks. Health workers also expressed concerns that not enough of them were being tested for the virus.
Coronavirus: UK urged to pay for workers' wages
The government has been urged to step in immediately to pay firm's wage bills to prevent mass unemployment. MPs across all parties are warning that small and medium sized businesses are facing a "catastrophic" loss of revenue because of anti-virus measures.
Coronavirus: Government 'looking at' £151-a-week benefit to stop workers facing destitution
Extra support is expected to be announced for workers either on Friday or Saturday - and ministers today said the radical £151-a-week idea is one of those under consideration
Federal government wants to provide 40 billion euros in emergency aid for small businesses
The self-employed and small businesses are hard hit by the consequences of the corona crisis. According to SPIEGEL sources, the state is now putting together an aid package for them.
Ecuador Mayor orders cars to park on airport runway to stop planes arriving in panic over coronavirus
Referring to an Iberia plane which had no passengers, she said: "There were no fewer than 11 crew members arriving from Madrid, who were going to stay in a hotel in Guayaquil until they could take off on Friday. How is it possible that the plane was going to be allowed to land today so that they could stay in our city coming from theirs with a high number of coronavirus cases?"
China ramps up coronavirus help to Europe (paywall)
Brussels has thanked China for offering to provide more than 2m medical masks and 50,000 coronavirus testing kits, as Beijing escalates its help to European countries grappling with the growing pandemic.
Social distancing working in Italy but epidemic could be determined by population demographics
The effects of the lockdown in Lodi — near Milan in northern Italy — enacted in late February shows a flattening of the curve of the epidemic, says researchers at the University of Oxford. "While cases in the province of Bergamo began to increase from Feb 24th - in contrast to Lodi - no shutdowns or restrictions were imposed," the Oxford sociologists note in a study on how demographics can affect the epidemic.
The entire province of Lombardy, which includes Lodi and Bergamo, was instead shut down roughly two weeks later on March 8. Cases in Bergamo have surpassed those in Lodi.
Maintaining Services
A Superstar Epidemiologist's Plan to Fight Coronavirus
The only way we’re really going to flatten the curve is:
a) a massive at-home testing effort
b) using cell phone location data to tell people who may have been exposed to self-isolate
c) allowing people who have known immunity (from having had it) back into the workforce once we know via blood test that they can’t get it or spread it anymore. That way, they can keep everything running while others fall sick.
London paramedics rationed to one face mask between two
Paramedics attending people who could be infected with the coronavirus were told only one person in each team of two could wear a face mask, with the other instructed to stand two metres away from the patient if “clinically appropriate”.
How can we protect healthcare workers?
How can we protect healthcare workers? Evidence suggests risks of #COVID19 to providers grow when healthcare systems get overwhelmed. In Italy 9% of all infections are among medical personnel. In Lombardy alone, 20% of providers were infected.
Healthcare Innovations
King’s Critical Care –Evidence SummaryClinical Management of COVID-19
This is a summary of the evidence available internationally on the management of COVID-19 disease which clinicians may find useful.
Coronavirus: The detectives racing to contain the virus in Singapore
Contact-tracing isn't new - it's been used for decades to track patients who may have passed their illness to others during their stay. But Singapore's use of the system during this crisis was praised by Harvard epidemiologists in early February, who described it as a "gold standard of near-perfect detection". The World Health Organization has also praised Singapore for being proactive even before the first case was detected. Singapore, unlike the US and much of Europe, started contact tracing early to stay ahead of community spread.
China's coronavirus lockdown strategy: brutal but effective
Nearly two months on, Beijing’s lockdown approach for the coronavirus appears vindicated. China has reported its first day with no domestic transmissions of the disease; all newly identified cases had been imported from abroad, health authorities say. Countries with their own exponentially-growing outbreaks are imposing similar measures, from Italy and Spain to Germany and California, though none are as strict as Wuhan’s
Coronavirus looks different in kids than in adults
A paper released this week in the journal Pediatrics, based on 2,143 young people in China, provides the most extensive evidence on the spread of the virus in children, and there is bad news and good news. The study provides confirmation that coronavirus infections are in fact generally less severe in kids, with more than 90 percent having mild to moderate disease or even being asymptomatic. But it contains worrisome information about one subset — infants — and suggests that children may be a critical factor in the disease’s rapid spread.
COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin
An analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.
Chloroquine: is a 70-year-old treatment for malaria the key to beating coronavirus?
Doctors in France offer glimmer of hope as they reveal a positive result from treatment.
Yes, Young People Are Falling Seriously Ill From Covid-19
In the U.S., 705 of first 2,500 cases range in age from 20 to 44. Despite initial data from China that showed elderly people and those with other health conditions were most vulnerable, young people — from twenty-somethings to those in their early forties — are falling seriously ill. Many require intensive care, according to reports from Italy and France. The risk is particularly dire for those with ailments that haven’t yet been diagnosed.
Scots scientist says one million coronavirus vaccines will be available by end of the year
The Scottish scientist developing a lifesaving vaccine for coronavirus says one million doses will be available for distribution by the end of the year with first responders, medical staff and those with underlying medical conditions given priority.
A Potential COVID-19 Vaccine Begins Clinical Trial
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Moderna Therepeutics' Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tal Zaks about the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial, which started on Monday in Seattle.
Trials to begin on Covid-19 vaccine in UK next month
Researchers hope to conduct animal tests next week and safety trials as early as next month
Nearly 40 Percent of U.S. Hospitalized Coronavirus Patients Are Age 20 to 54
Data released Wednesday night by the CDC shows that of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized in the U.S. for COVID-19, about 20% of those were ages 20 to 44 and another 18% were between the ages of 45 and 54. However, COVID-19 is still significantly more dangerous in older patients, as 80% of deaths associated with coronavirus are adults over the age of 65.
Coronavirus: Australian scientists map how immune system fights virus
Scientists in Australia say they have identified how the body's immune system fights the Covid-19 virus. Their research, published in Nature Medicine journal on Tuesday, shows people are recovering from the new virus like they would from the flu. Determining which immune cells are appearing should also help with vaccine development, experts say.
