Today marks 100 days since the first cases of an unknown pneumonia were reported to the World Health Organisation, and today we have passed the milestone for one and a half million cases reported.
The UK added 4,344 cases today and now has reported a total of 65,077 positive cases of COVID-19. We had all together tested 243,421 people as of 9am this morning.
As of 5pm yesterday, of those hospitalised in the UK, we have lost another 881 people to COVID-19. We now sadly have a total of 7,978 losses of life in hospitals. Losses of life in the community are reported by ONS later.
Total cases and losses reported are:
England 54,554 / 7,163
Scotland 4,957 / 447
Wales 4,089 / 286 (have changed the time they report today)
Northern Ireland 1,477 / 82
(The government haven't been reporting how many of the UK's positive testing cases have recovered.)
Rep. Of Ireland have 6,574 cases and 263 losses of life.
There have now been 1,569,849 reported cases worldwide. The number of people who have lost their lives worldwide to COVID-19 is now 92,191. Already 345,917 people have recovered.
Tonight's government briefing was hosted by Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary. He started by telling us that Boris Johnson is still in Intensive Care, but remains in good spirits and is communicating with staff. He hasn't spoken to Boris himself, because he's in intensive care.
He thanked all of the NHS staff looking after us, and the carers out in the community. He also thanked just about everyone doing those jobs which keep our lives turning. Cleaners, delivery drivers, shop workers, technicians and everyone else, and all of you volunteers.
Mr Raab explained we must keep going, and why that was important. Early signs are that our measures are working, but we can't say any more than that until the end of next week, and "we need evidence we've moved beyond the peak" before any restrictions will be relaxed. He is sorry that none of us can see our families this weekend, but "we mustn't give the coronavirus a second chance to kill more people".
Prof Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer went through the slides. New cases are not taking off, they aren't going sky high, but they would be if we hadn't used social distancing. Hospital admissions are steady, rising slightly and obviously adding more patients in hospital each day, but also not soaring.
(It's all going as well as we could hope really, which is an awful thing to say when so many people have lost their lives, but it could be so many more.)
Sir Patrick Vallance the UK science chief said our 'doubling time' for the number of people being admitted to ICU is now 6 days. This is brilliant. Before lockdown it was every 3 days. If we had waited another 3 days before lockdown, we'd have a lot more people in ICU right now.
The number of losses of life will peak around 2 weeks after intensive care numbers plateau.
Nicola Sturgeon doesn't mess about. When asked this afternoon if Scotland would come out of lockdown at the same time as the rest of the UK, she replied: "I don't want these measures to be in place for a single minute longer than they have to be. But, equally I don't want to come out of these measures prematurely in a way that will do damage, that will see the virus spiral out of control.That could see our NHS potentially overwhelmed, and more lives lost."
"I want to clarify that there is no likelihood of these measures being lifted after the Easter weekend."
The antibody (did I have it?) tests that the UK (and many other countries) bought are still proving unreliable and just not accurate enough to pass quality control. This is a big blow to everyone, but lots of people are working on the problem. We had ordered millions, and that order is being rescinded.
A new preprint study backs up other evidence that older people and those with pre-existing conditions are far more at risk than general population as a whole. This is a pre-print and as the epidemic isn't yet over, it is using incomplete figures, so it's mainly a guide.
"Individuals with age under 65 account for 5%-9% of all COVID-19 deaths in the 8 European epicenters, and approach 30% in three US hotbed locations." (New York City, Louisiana and Michigan).
"People under 65 years old AND not having any underlying predisposing conditions accounted for only 0.3%, 0.7%, and 1.8% of all COVID-19 deaths in Netherlands, Italy, and New York City."
For younger people with no pre-existing conditions, and access to medical help and oxygen, succumbing is a rare event. Becoming ill is not.
We have another reminder to go to hospital or ring an ambulance as you would normally if you become really ill with symptoms of anything. Switzerland have even begun ringing patients who they'd expected to see, and discovered at least 1 who was struggling at home and needed emergency heart surgery, but was scared to go to hospital because of COVID-19. The whole point is to save lives.
France are extending their lockdown. It was due to end April 15th.
A study from Germany has found percentages of positive cases rising among 15-34 year olds, and especially 20-24 year olds. Showing exactly who is breaking social distancing rules...
Police in Greater Manchester broke up 660 parties last weekend - including some with DJ's, bouncy castles and fireworks. Hope it was worth it guys.
Parties, choirs and family gatherings are great ways to spread COVID-19. Shouting, belting out a song and laughing are some of the best methods to exhale lots of virus as far as possible into the air.
Another scam - this time a text message saying you need to pay a fine for breaking social distancing measures. Ask yourself, when did the UK police start texting people to give them a fine? The answer is never.
Don't click on the link and definitely don't hand over your bank details. Report it to relevant authorities.
IMF (International Monetary Fund) head Kristalina Georgieva has said that almost all 189 members will see a decline in living standards this year. The economic effect could be the worst since the 1930s.
Lost Their Fight:
NHS Nurse, Janice Graham
Care worker Catherine Sweeney .
Among the mere 16 countries which have yet to report a case of COVID-19 are lots of tiny island nations, including Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Tonga. Nature really has been brutally cruel as, along with Fiji (who only have 15 cases), they have been hit by an horrific cyclone. It's caused massive damage and made social distancing measures impossible. Isolation efforts have had to be put on hold, in efforts to survive the cyclone and receive help from others. Heartbreaking for all of them.
UK Government have a 5 pillar national testing strategy:
1. Test for clinical need - COVID (antigen) testing for patients in hospital.
2. Partnership with universities, research institutes and companies to begin rollout of new labs and testing sites across the UK and test all NHS workers firstly.
3. Antibody tests - to say who has already had COVID-19 and is now immune
4. Surveillance. By using antibody tests to work out exactly where COVID-19 has been in the community.
5. Build a large scale diagnostics industry.
In order to reach 100k tests a day by the end of April, pharmaceutical giants like AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been working together, and a 'testing task force' of over 100 companies are sourcing materials, donating lab space and working towards an accurate antibody test, as well as increasing capacity for the current PCR antigen (have I got it?) tests.
Luxury Cruise News:
There are still 8 cruise liners at sea, with over 6,300 crew and passengers on board. Only one has reported cases of COVID-19.
The residents of Jalandhar have been shown something brand new and awesome by COVID-19, the Himalayan Dhauladhar mountain range. Lack of pollution has made the entire mountain range visible for the first time in living memory.
Facebook is providing up to 2,050 of its Portal video calling devices for free to hospitals, care homes and other settings (including hospices, in-patient learning disability and autism units), so that some of the most at-risk and isolated people can have emotional support and companionship.
50 of the devices have already been deployed to pilot sites in Surrey, with Manchester, Newcastle and London and other areas to follow.
The oldest person to so far recover from COVID-19 in the UK is 99-year-old former Women’s Air Force driver and great-gran Rita.
The new oldest person to survive COVID-19 in the entire world, Cornelia Ras, fell ill on March 17, the day after her 107th birthday, and has been reported recovered today. She attended a church service and 40 people later tested positive.
In France, the number of people in ICU is slightly decreasing for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, from 7148 yesterday to 7066 today.
The people of Wuhan, where the virus first broke out, are mostly now free to leave their homes and city, although they are very nervous about COVID-19 re-emerging. After 11 weeks they are experts at living under lockdown and have some advice:
“No matter where you live, you need to remain healthy, avoid panicking and find a way to enrich yourself during this period of time when your world seems to have stopped completely.”
It's Thursday - don't forget to clap for everyone out there working so hard to keep us safe.
Heartbreaking numbers again for France. The Netherlands and Sweden both are in danger of seeing a massive outbreak, and India has really seen a rise in cases.
Some numbers. They all represent people. You may even know some of them:
Countries / Cases / Losses of life:
USA 454,615 (+19,688) 16,074 (+1,286)
Spain 152,446 (+4,226) 15,238 (+446)
Italy 143,626 (+4,204) 18,279 (+610)
Germany 114,257 (+961) 2,349
France 117,749 (+4,799) 12,210 (+1,341)
China 81,865 (+63) 3,335 (+2)
Iran 66,220 (+1,634) 4,110 (+117)
UK 65,077 (+4,344) 7,978 (881)
Turkey 42,282 (+4,056) 908 (+96)
Belgium 24,983 (+1,580) 2,523 (+283)
Switzerland 24,046 (+766) 948 (+53)
Netherlands 21,762 (+1,213) 2,396 (+148)
Canada 19,809 (+371) 462 (+35)
Brazil 16,474 (+286) 839 (+19)
Portugal 13,956 (+815) 409 (+29)
Austria 13,233 (+291) 295 (+22)
S. Korea 10,423 (+39) 204 (+4)
Russia 10,131 (+1,459) 76 (+13)
Israel 9,755 (+351) 79 (+6)
Sweden 9,141 (+722) 793 (+106)
India 6,653 (+737) 199 (+21)
Norway 6,160 (+118) 108 (+7)
.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/WilliamYang120/status/1247992529368145920?s=19
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/industry-responds-to-call-to-arms-to-build-british-diagnostics-industry-at-scale
https://reut.rs/2UUCLLG
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1
https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1248057944723329025?s=19
https://reut.rs/2y4WrTK
https://hotforsecurity.bitdefender.com/blog/scam-alert-uk-citizens-receive-fake-text-messages-amid-lockdown-if-you-plan-to-leave-the-house-you-better-pay-up-22882.html
https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.02817
https://t.co/0x4cNw6wEV
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-52229346
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-netherlands-surviv-idUSKCN21R1Q4
https://www.indiatvnews.com/trending/news-jalandhar-residents-himalayan-range-view-covid-19-lockdown-clean-air-604268
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nhs-works-with-tech-firms-to-help-care-home-residents-and-patients-connect-with-loved-ones
https://twitter.com/chrismcalees/status/1248231509057843200/photo/1
https://twitter.com/SylvieCorbet/status/1248302926264774657
I is strange how things are just now. I hope we know some dates when things will turn the tide. Good update xx
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