Wednesday morning, the 25th of March, 2020

Wednesday morning, the 25th of March, 2020

Last evening, Tuesday, the 24th, I tuned in to the television shortly before 5pm, anticipating the 5pm news brief.  The news brief was already underway, being run by Matt Hancock (Secretary of State for Health and Social Care).  It was an e-briefing, being conducted via Zoom.  No reporters in the room, but video-ed in.  Highlights from the briefing include:

 -   Employers have the duty to ensure that employees are 2 meters apart

 -  A new hospital will be set up (in an arena in London) with two wards of 2,000 patients each.  It will begin taking patients at the beginning of next week.

 -  They are looking for 250,000 volunteers for the NHS

 -  Student nurses and junior medics will be moving to the front lines of the NHS

 -  The tube should be running at full capacity, so that people riding it can continue social distancing

 -  Construction may carry on

 -  They may use anti-malarial medications.  The US has said it will use anti-malarial medications to fight CV-19.  The UK says they may use these meds-they are on a list of potential drugs they are considering to fight the virus.  One person in the UK is already in clinical trials for a medication to fight Covid.

 -  The UK has purchased 3.5 million antibody test kits to determine who has been exposed to the virus.  The current thought is that you can not "catch" the virus more than once.

 -  PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) has been reportedly not plentiful enough.  There has been complaints about this several times throughout the pandemic.  The news brief states that 7.5 million pieces of PPE have been sent out in the last 24 hours.

 -  The Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo in July, 2020, have been postponed to 2021, to be held no later than the summer of 2021.  Canada, Australia, UK all said they would boycott if the Olympics were not delayed.  This is the first time in the history of the games that they have been postponed.

The UK reports 8,077 total cases of the Corona Virus-19, an increase of 1,427.  The death rate is up 87, to 422.  Cheshire West and Chester reports 5 deaths.