COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 7th April 2020

COVID-19 Coronavirus UK and World News update 7th April 2020.

The UK added 3,634 cases today and now has reported a total of 55,242 positive cases of COVID-19. We had in total tested 213,181 people as of 9am this morning.

As of 5pm yesterday, of those hospitalised in the UK, we have lost another 786 people to COVID-19. We now sadly have a total of 6,159 losses of life.

Total cases are: England 45,968, Scotland 4,229, Wales 3,790 and Northern Ireland 1,255. Already (many more than) 135 of the UK's positive testing cases have recovered.

Rep. Of Ireland have 5,709 cases and 210 losses of life.

There have now been 1,408,490 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is now 80,945. Already 298,514 people have recovered.

Boris Johnson is stable and we were told he is in good spirits and breathing for himself, "hasn't required ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support" and hasn't been diagnosed with pneumonia, but is receiving standard oxygen.

Today's UK briefing was led by Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary, who talked about what it's like to have a colleague and friend ill. He reassured the public that the team will however not lose focus.
18,589 people are currently in hospital with coronavirus in the UK
Sir Patrick Vallance, UK science chief went through the slides. The numbers are showing signs of slowing. They aren't growing as quickly as they were, but it'll be about a week before we know if we have already hit our peak.
Prof Chris Whitty, CMO_England, was asked about what Germany had done to have such a low number of deaths. Testing. It was testing.
Mr Whitty was also asked how it was that the Prime Minister, Chief Medical Officer and Health Minister all managed to catch the virus, when they were the people telling us how not to catch it. Dominic Raab answered - "This is an indiscriminate virus" and we are learning all the time. I'd have said irony, but he's also right. Remember they will have caught COVID-19 around 2-3 weeks ago.
There were questions about deaths in the community and care homes. It is usual for countries to not include these in official death reporting (yep, everyone wants those figures low). The UK will include every community death which mentions coronavirus on the death certificate in Office Of National Statistics reports. In the week up until March 27th there were 539 community deaths from COVID-19.

Many press questions were about who will make decisions in Boris' absence. The line of succession now means that while Boris is incapacitated, Dominic Raab will deputise and take over in the event of a security issue, and if he becomes unable to work, Chancellor Rishi Sunak will take over from him.

Michael Gove is now self-isolating as a family member has shown symptoms of COVID-19.

The US has prevented almost 3 million urgently needed masks being sent to Ontario. The order was completed by US company 3M and Donald Trump said  (I kid you not):
“We need the masks. We don’t want other people getting it,”
“That’s why we’re instituting [the] defence production act. You could call it retaliation because that’s what it is: it’s a retaliation. If people don’t give us what we need for our people, we’re going to be very tough.”
Justin Trudeau says he will not retaliate and that there are "productive conversations ongoing". Justin Trudeau is very diplomatic.

Today is World Health Day. Yeeeay. Erm...

Japan have declared a State Of Emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and 5 other prefectures.

Cesar Award-winning French film director Thomas Lilti has re-registered as a doctor and returned to work in the hospital he left in 2014.

YouTube has banned all conspiracy theory videos falsely linking coronavirus symptoms to 5G networks.
(It's the network UK and other emergency services use - and absolutely vital to save lives.)

Donald Trump is convinced Hydroxychloroquine is a miracle cure, so what is it?
Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug which has some anti-inflammatory properties and is also used for patients with lupus and some rheumatoid arthritis patients.
There is now a massive shortage of Hydroxychloroquine, so some patients who have relied on it for years are currently completely unable to get it.
It has a high risk of side effects and some are nasty. Death for example.
COVID-19 trials on mice went so badly that they'd have ordinarily ceased trials at that point.
A French study of 11 patients showed 1 died and 2 were admitted to ICU. Of the 10 surviving patients, 8 were still positive 5/6 days after treatment. 1 patient had to cease trials due to side effects.
All positive evidence for Hydroxychloroquine so far is anecdotal, and large clinical trials are necessary to find out whether it is actually helpful or not.

There is NO proven therapeutic drug yet available to treat COVID-19.  The UK have the world's largest random drug trial with our Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial. Among the drugs to be randomly given to patients participating are:
- Hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria
- Lopinavir-Ritonavir, commonly used to treat HIV
- Dexamethasone, a type of steroid use in a range of conditions to reduce inflammation

10 passengers from a single flight back from New York to Taiwan on March 30th have already tested positive for coronavirus.

The World Health Organisation have updated their advice on face coverings and masks. They still explain that it is COVID-19 patients who should be wearing a mask to prevent droplets escaping.
Wearing a mask to prevent you catching COVID-19 isn't reliable, it can give false security and untrained members of the public can infect themselves when they remove or reuse it.
If you live with a COVID-19 patient or attend a mass gathering, there is only limited evidence a mask will help you to avoid catching COVID-19.

Lost Their Fight:
NHS Consultant Geriatrician Dr Anton Sebastianpillai

For the first day since the outbreak began, China has reported no new losses of life. I'm not even going to pretend that I believe any country has entirely precise numbers, but reporting no new loss of life is flipping fantastic.

As if the world couldn't be any more crazy, Donald Trump has apparently sent Boris Johnson's doctors some drugs - he isn't saying exactly what they are. The odds on them being helpful are, erm.
Genuine useful therapeutic 500-1
Hair Oil 250-1
Calpol 25 -1
Snake Oil 5-1
Quinine based anti-malarial with dangerous side effects and less than promising results with Coronavirus 1-2

South Korea have reported less than 50 cases for 2 days running. They have tested extensively to try and capture every person involved in any outbreak.

Noisy Crow Children's Book Publishers have made a FREE information book explaining the coronavirus to children, illustrated by the fabulous, and very familiar and comforting, Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler, with expert input from Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Download the book for free - https://nosycrow.com/blog/released-today-free-information-book-explaining-coronavirus-children-illustrated-gruffalo-illustrator-axel-scheffler/

New Zealand's health minister David Clark has been demoted, after driving his family 20km to the beach on the first weekend of the national stay-at-home measures.

The UK is under a lockdown. If a crowd is spotted by police it will be dispersed and if you have no reason to be out then you'll either be told to go home or taken home, or in extreme cases arrested. Parents are responsible for their children's behaviour.
You may also be fined:
First offence fixed penalty £60
Second offence fixed penalty £120
Fines double with each extra offence and are halved if paid within 14 days. Persistent offenders will end up in court, where fines are unlimited.

The cat population of Wuhan do appear to have many among them with antibodies to COVID-19, so they were infected with COVID-19 during the outbreak, according to a preprint study which is yet to be peer-reviewed.

When a scientist publishes a new study, it's called a pre-print. Other scientists  and experts in the same field (peers) can then comment on the way it was performed and if they see any flaws or errors. Because COVID-19 is so new, and we are trying to learn about it as quickly as possible, studies often haven't yet had time to be checked over by peers (peer-reviewed), and we should always bear this in mind - or we can end up getting excited or worried about something when we didn't need to.

India have been forced to lift restrictions on the export of Hydroxychloroquine, after being threatened with retaliation by Donald Trump.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has a message:
"Peace is not just the absence of war. Many women under lockdown for COVID19 face violence where they should be safest: in their own homes.
Today I appeal for peace in homes around the world.
I urge all governments to put women’s safety first as they respond to the pandemic."
(I know the majority of people in danger at home are women, but lets just change that to 'people'. Don't suffer in silence.)

Denmark has reported a fall in numbers of COVID-19 cases for 3 days running. This is fantastic news and could be a sign that they have reached their peak.

The UK's trajectory is looking like we will have a worse outbreak than France, and today's modelling by University of Washington’s School of Medicine has predicted by July the UK will have suffered around 66,000 losses of life, with our peak number of people infected at the same time arriving mid April (next week). They also predict Italy's total losses may be 20,000, Spain 19,000 and France 15,000 people.
If social distancing measures alter, so will the predictions - they aren't definite numbers, they're very educated guesses based on nothing changing. Stay home when you can, stay 6ft from people you don't live with. Don't let this get any bigger.

Some numbers. Every single one represents a human like you: Heartbreaking news from France with the loss of 1,417 souls just today.

Countries / Cases / Losses of life

USA 380,918 (+13,914) 11,910 (+1,039)
Spain 140,511 (+3,836) 13,897 (+556)
Italy 135,586 (+3,039) 17,127 (+604)
Germany 105,604 (+2,229) 1,905 (+95)
France 109,069 (+11,059) 10,328 (+1,417)
China 81,740 (+32) 3,331
Iran 62,589 (+2,089) 3,872 (+133)
UK 55,242 (+3,634) 6,159 (+786)
Turkey 34,109 (+3,892) 725 (+76)
Switzerland 22,242 (+585) 821 (+56)
Belgium 22,194 (+1,380) 2,035 (+403)
Netherlands 19,580 (+777) 2,101 (+234)
Israel 9,006 (+102) 61 (+4)
Sweden 7,693 (+487) 591 (+114)
Poland 4,666 (+253) 129 (+22)
Romania 4,417 (+360) 197 (+21)
Pakistan 4,009 (+243) 56 (+3)
Malaysia 3,963 (+170) 63 (+1)
Japan 3,906 (Not yet reported today) 92
Serbia 2,447 (+247) 61 (+3)
Mexico 2,439 (+296) 125 (+31)
Finland 2,308 (+132) 34 (+7)
Cuba 396 (+46) 11 (+2)
Albania 383 (+6) 22 (+1)





Coronavirus for Children, written by experts and with illustrations by the fabulous, and very familiar and comforting, Axel Scheffler - illustrator of The Gruffalo. FREE to download here: https://nosycrow.com/blog/released-today-free-information-book-explaining-coronavirus-children-illustrated-gruffalo-illustrator-axel-scheffler/

Sources:

https://twitter.com/WilliamYang120/status/1247482334250766336
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e4.htm
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/07/uk-set-66000-coronavirus-deaths-becoming-worst-hit-europe-12521377/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/us-blocks-face-masks-canada-n95-protection-equipment
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/06/hydroxychloroquine-update-for-april-6
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/new-zealand-health-minister-demoted-after-beach-visit-broke-lockdown-rules
https://twitter.com/Dereklowe/status/1247190231503310848?s=19
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/04/06/hydroxychlorine-covid-19-study-did-not-meet-publishing-societys-expected-standard/
https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1247490924462170112
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.021196v1
Worlds largest random drug trial
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/worlds-largest-trial-of-potential-coronavirus-treatments-rolled-out-across-the-uk
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/new-zealand-health-minister-demoted-after-beach-visit-broke-lockdown-rules
https://www.who.int/publications-detail/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak
https://t.co/PjDUTrMb9v

COVID-19 in animals:
https://t.co/Gndbtb5Si0 https://t.co/rCWb01J2MF, https://t.co/xIMpgtrbCe