Easter Monday, the 13th of April, 2020

Easter Monday, the 13th of April, 2020

The evening news update was run by Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary, deputizing as Prime Minister for Boris Johnson, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Advisor, and Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer of England.  They reported that we are currently in the peak of the pandemic.  The numbers will begin to plateau and carry on, before a gradual decrease will take place.  Today begins the fourth week of lockdown.  It is reported that the social distancing measures in place will be reviewed later this week.  A total of 367,667 tests have been done, with 14,506 done yesterday.  A total of 88,621 have tested positive for the virus, and 11,329 have died in the hospital, making the UK the 5th country to pass the number of 10,000 deaths.  This is an increase of 717 deaths.  Russia saw a spike today of 2,250 new cases reported, while Spain and Italy are beginning to ease their lockdown policies.  In England, there were 667 new deaths reported, making the total number of English deaths in hospital from Covid 10,621.  In Cheshire, the number of deaths is 167 (up 15 from yesterday), with 48 of those deaths being reported at Chester's Countess of Chester Hospital, 3 being in the last 24 hours.

The Nightingale Hospital in Manchester has been completed, and is ready to take patients.

The CDC has recommended that US citizens wear face masks.  This was done last week, perhaps the week before.  President Trump says he will not wear a mask, that it is merely a recommendation, it is your choice if you wear a mask or not.  During tonight's press conference, it was noted that the efficacy of face mask usage is being tested, and the UK people will be advised accordingly to the results of the testing.  The UK has previously taken the stance that face masks are not very helpful, and so has not made it mandatory to wear face masks.

There were a number of questions posed to the specialists by the press.  One was why the death number is always calculated using the number of hospital deaths, and that surely the death toll is higher, if deaths in care homes and residences were included.  The response is that hospital deaths is the number that can be easily accessed, and is the measure that is widely used across most sectors (ie., other countries).  It is more difficult to get the numbers from all the different areas of death, which makes preparing a daily number of total number of deaths across all areas more difficult and time-consuming to determine.  Therefore, there are 2 measures of death-one that measures deaths in hospital from the covid-which are proven cases of covid from testing.  The second is the total number of deaths which lists all people who have the reason of death on their death certificate as covid-19.  There is a delay of days in this second number.

Another concern amongst the press was about the prevalence of the virus in care homes.  It was relayed that 13.5% of care homes are currently affected by covid.  They will begin to test care homes more widely for the covid virus in the future.

In other news, the Coronavirus has infected more than 1.7 million people worldwide, and greater than 100,000 deaths have been reported worldwide.  

Currently, only essential travel is permitted.  Non-essential travel is advised against, indefinitely.  I am curious if we will be able to go home for our annual summer trip to see our US family and friends.

Stay home--Protect the NHS--Save Lives