The UK added 4,913 cases today and now has reported a total of 148,377 positive cases of COVID-19. We had all together tested 517,836 people as of 9am this morning.
As of 5pm yesterday, of those hospitalised in the UK, we have lost another 813 people to COVID-19. We now sadly have a total of 20,319 losses of life in hospitals. Losses of life in the community are reported by ONS with a 2 week delay.
Total cases and losses reported are:
England 108,051 / 18,083
Northern Ireland 3,226 / 278
Scotland 10,051 / 1,184
Wales 8,900 / 774
(The government haven't been reporting how many of the UK's positive testing cases have recovered.)
Rep. Of Ireland have 18,561 cases and 1,063 losses of life.
There have now been 2,873,629 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is now 200,719. Already 823,306 people have recovered.
"As I've said before, this is not a sprint, this will be a marathon."
Stephen Powis, NHS England
Today's UK briefing was with Priti Patel, the Home Secretary. None of them fit their clothes any more, they've all lost weight.
16,411 people are in hospital, that's almost 1,000 less than yesterday and really positive news. Sadly we have now officially gone above the 20,000 losses which the Government had aimed for - it was always hopeful.
She talked about domestic violence and reminded us it's not being tolerated.
Police data shows a drop in overall crime. We are cracking down on coronavirus related crime, including cyber crime against children, fake PPE, phishing scams, people driving at 150mph on empty roads etc. Police are still there for any crime, as well as supporting vulnerable people.
Lynne Owens of the National Crime Agency talked about changes to policing in order to adapt to changes in crime, but existing investigations haven't stopped - drugs and firearms are still being seized for example. People with online fake shops, sales of PPE and bogus home made testing kits have all been arrested.
Check out the cyberaware website to update yourself on your own protection, and the scams being run right now. If you believe you are a victim of any crime online, report it to the police immediately.
Professor Stephen Powis of NHS England was very clear - GO TO HOSPITAL if you are really poorly. Don't be so afraid of coronavirus that you don't call 999 if you need it. The NHS is still open for everyone, and we want to save lives.
Steve went through the slides - driving is up. We've all noticed people are out more, it's showing in the data. As much as it's tempting, don't ruin it now. If we go out too early, we'll have loads of infectious people still, and be back to the start again.
Hospital bed use is down everywhere except N. Ireland, which had a rise, and Wales, which is flat. Compared to other countries, our total reported hospital loss of life is a little more than Italy or France at this stage.
Press asked a few "when will the peak..?" "when will we reach...?" questions. Sadly Nostradamus wasn't available for today's conference, so we didn't get a precise date.
An update and reminder from the WHO:
"There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection."
Yesterday the World Health Organisation launched the Access to COVID19 Tools Accelerator (the ACT Accelerator).
"This is a landmark collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics for COVID19"
"Each of us are doing great work, but we cannot work alone. We’re coming together to work in new ways to identify challenges and solutions together" DrTedros, WHO.
6.45pm Breaking news reports claim that North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has died, or is on his death bed with no hope for recuperation. There have been rumours of failed heart surgery for a few days. If true this could cause a lot of ripples. North Korea has reported no cases of COVID-19 officially, but rumours have been rife for a while that they are struggling. His sister is next in line to take over the dictatorship.
Donald Trump's disaster management social media crew spent most of yesterday trying to convince everyone that when he said "disinfectant" he wasn't referring to 'household disinfectant', he was speaking in more technical terms and referring to 'use of UV light as a disinfectant' - including in injections - erm yeah.
Sadly for them, when he woke up, Trump still had the power of speech and ruined all their hard work by saying it had all been sarcasm:
"I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen."
When the reporter pointed out he was asking his medical experts to look into it:
"No, no, no. To look at whether or not sun and disinfectant on the hands, but whether or not sun can help us."
Ah, glad that's cleared that one up.
Next week Donald suggests we inject rainbows into people, so they can cover for medics who are isolating (this is actual sarcasm).
Sri Lanka has reinstated a national 24-hour curfew, after 46 new cases in 1 day. 30 of whom had been employed searching for people breaking quarantine.
At least 138 inmates at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado have tested positive for COVID-19
23 year old Italian Bianca Dobroiu still tests positive almost 60 days after her first admission to hospital on February 28.
Infectious disease specialist Luciano Attard said: "As far as we know, no one else in Italy has remained positive for swabs for so long. Usually the positivity does not exceed four weeks".
She reports no symptoms since early March.
India are allowing small shops to open - sales of alcohol are still barred.
A reminder from Domestos:
"NEVER INGEST BLEACH
NEVER INHALE BLEACH
ALWAYS USE BLEACH SAFELY WHEN DISINFECTING
Always follow On Pack instructions."
(I think that's suitably clear.)
The Italian region of Lombardy has already extended their quarantine (isolation) to 28 days, after discovering a substantial number of people still test positive after 14 days.
Lost Their Fight:
Award-winning LGBT photographer and released political prisoner Shahin Shahablou
If it's all a bit much right now, BBC have got The Joy Of Painting on demand. Bob Ross makes everything seem better - and painting for pleasure is excellent for your mental health.
Data from Italy's Institiuto Superiore De Sanita until 24th April shows that, of those people who have tested positive:
13.4% have no symptoms
14.5% have non-specific symptoms
17.3% have small symptoms
35% have mild symptoms
17.8% have severe symptoms
2% of patients became critically ill
Kenya's national curfew is being extended for another 21 days. Cessation of movement orders within Nairobi metropolitan area, Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale are also extended. They have reported 343 cases and lost 14 people.
Ex Mayor Giuliani has said mass contact tracing in New York is ridiculous, and suggested if we are going to do it for coronavirus "Then we should trace everybody for cancer, and heart disease, and obesity".
Last time I looked, they weren't actually things you could catch.
Pakistan has extended their lockdown until May 9th.
According to an IPSOS poll for ABC News, 20% of Americans would go to church, sports, cinema etc if restrictions were lifted.
The holy month of Ramadan has begun for Muslims, and for the first time in 1400 years, the holiest sites are all closed to worshippers. This really must be a hard blow, but shows a compassion for all human life that I massively respect.
Places of religious worship have proven ideal spreading places for COVID-19, with all of that belting out songs and talking loudly to crowds in confined spaces. At least a staggering 4,297 cases were linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the city of Daegu, South Korea.
If you, or someone you know is self-isolating at home because of coronavirus, you can get support with things like:
- medicine and grocery deliveries
- lifts to appointments
- check in and chat telephone support
Call 0808 1963646 to ask for help.
With most of the world's sports cancelled, Taiwan's 4 team baseball league is getting millions of viewers - as are the football (soccer) teams in Tajikistan (no confirmed cases) and Belarus (President Lukashenko isn't giving up to a virus, he's no wuss).
Despite being one of the poorer nations financially, Vietnam has done an excellent job of catching, contact tracing, containing and quarantining. They have a no-messing approach, and experience from dealing with SARS. After reporting only 2 new cases for a full week, they are intending to begin lifting restrictions on movement. At the time of typing, they have the highest number of tests compared to cases. They've tested 206,253 people and have reported 270 cases and no losses of life so far.
COVID-19 hasn't quite reached everywhere - 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 and Vanuatu. May it stay that way for all of them.
Some numbers. Every one of them was once a glint in their father's eye:
Countries / Cases / Losses of life (some states have not yet reported today):
USA 930,951 (+5,719) 52,914 (+721)
Spain 223,759 (+3,995) 22,902 (+378)
Italy 195,351 (+2,357) 26,384 (+415)
France 161,488 (+1,660) 22,614 (+369)
Germany 155,418 (+419) 5,805 (+45)
UK 148,377 (+4,913) 20,319 (+813)
Turkey 107,773 (+2,861) 2,706 (+106)
Iran 89,328 (+1,134) 5,650 (+76)
Canada 44,364 (+476) 2,350 (+48)
Sweden 18,177 (+610) 2,192 (+40)
Saudi Arabia 16,299 (+1,197) 136 (+9)
Austria 15,148 (+77) 536 (+6)
Israel 15,148 (+90) 198 (+4)
Mexico 12,872 (+1,239) 1,221 (+152)
Chile 12,858 (+552) 181 (+7)
Japan 12,829 (+117) 345
Singapore 12,693 (+618) 12
Pakistan 12,227 (+287) 256 (+3)
Poland 11,067 (+175) 499 (+5)
S. Korea 10,718 (+10) 240
Romania 10,635 (+218) 579 (+12)
Belarus 9,590 (+817) 67 (+4)
Greece 2,506 (+16) 130
Oman 1,905 (+115) 10
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https://www.tmz.com/2020/04/25/north-korea-dictator-kim-jong-un-dead-dies-heart-surgery-reports/
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1618078
https://twitter.com/samirasawlani/status/1254019349859442689
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1254009762359853057?s=19
https://twitter.com/gulf_news/status/1253694755399237635?s=19
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1253812754256986121?s=19
https://apnews.com/67f320e4e58112675f4880e979a35a2b
https://twitter.com/DomestosUK/status/1253718111792115712?s=19
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1253748936491372544?s=19
https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/south-koreas-coronavirus-cases-rise-to-6767-with-most-cases-traced-to-church/articleshow/74524331.cms
https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030&act=view&list_no=366485&tag=&nPage=1
https://qz.com/1842138/baseball-fans-turn-to-taiwan-pro-league-for-entertainment/amp/
https://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKCN2241LD
https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19
https://www.iss.it/rapporti-covid-19
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1253516500209741825?s=09
https://tg24.sky.it/cronaca/2020/04/24/coronavirus-bianca-dobroiu-modella-positiva.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-do-italians-test-positive-after-symptoms-are-long-gone
https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-135-inmates-test-positive-covid/story?id=70343518&cid=social_twitter_abcn
I spent a lot of time reading through different articles and other countries policies and I spoke to my Uncle in England and other in California. I have told them all to read your roundups as you cover it all and it is the best xxx
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