April 25, 2020 Glastonbury Community Uncategorized 0

Glastonbury

A number of people gathered at Market Place at noon today where Piers Corbyn spoke against the lockdown. This follows on from a smaller gathering on Monday when Free Rob Cannabis reportedly gave a speech. Police did attend but not in sufficient numbers to safely break up the gathering. More Info

The Silence Of Glastonbury is a drone video by Speranza showing an almost totally deserted town. See the video on YouTube

 

National

  • More than 20,000 people have now died in UK hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus, making the country the fifth in the world to pass that grim milestone. Following a rise of 813 deaths since the number announced on Friday, the total now stands at 20,319, almost six weeks after the chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said on 17 March that keeping the toll under 20,000 would be “a good outcome in terms of where we would hope to get”.
  • The government is not going to give a date for schools reopening or more general relaxing of lockdown rules until the five tests are met, Priti Patel said. The home secretary said it would be “irresponsible” to get people’s hopes up as this is still a dangerous time for the country, and tests including a decline in the death rate and not risking a second surge in infections.
  • Test slots and testing kits for key workers and their households ran out for a second day in a row in England and Wales. The BBC reported that home testing kits ran out within 15 minutes and test slots were fully booked by 10am. A spokesman for DHSC said more would be available by 8am on Sunday.
  • A campaign was launched in England to urge people seriously ill with non-coronavirus conditions to seek medical help if they need it. Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, stressed that the health service is still there for patients without coronavirus who needed urgent and emergency services for stroke, heart attack, and other often fatal conditions. The campaign urges people to contact their GP or NHS 111 as they normally would, or to dial 999 in an emergency.

National updates from https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-uk-calls-for-transparency-over-scientific-advice-to-ministers-latest-updates

 

International

  • Global confirmed death toll nears 200,000. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, at least 199,874 people are confirmed to have died worldwide, while at least 2.84 million are known to have been infected. The figures for infections are likely to underestimate the true scale of the pandemic due to suspected under-reporting and differing testing regimes. Death toll figures are also controversial, with some countries reporting deaths as confirmed Covid-19 cases on the basis of symptoms and in the absence of a positive test, while others are not including them.
  • South Africans must wear face masks after lockdown eases. The South African government has ordered citizens to wear face masks from 1 May when coronavirus lockdown restrictions will begin to be eased. “It is going to be mandatory to use a cloth mask as you step out of your home,” the traditional affairs minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told a press conference in Pretoria. She added that people could use a scarf or T-shirt if they do not have a mask. South Africa has been on lockdown since 27 March.
  • Far right hijack coronavirus crisis to push agenda and boost support. Far-right groups in the UK, US and EU are exploiting the coronavirus crisis to push their anti-minority agendas and win new support, Jamie Doward reports. A report by the Zinc Network, a communications agency that tracks disinformation and propaganda, suggests there has been a clear pivot among far-right movements to “utilise the pandemic to bring new relevancy, attention and support for their key grievances”.
  • Doctors and nurses in Pakistan launch hunger strike over lack of PPE. Dozens of doctors and nurses in Pakistan have launched a hunger strike over a lack of protective masks and other equipment for treating patients with Covid-19. More than 150 doctors in Pakistan have tested positive for coronavirus and several have died, according to the Young Doctors Association in Punjab, the country’s worst-hit province.
  • Pandemic could ‘turn back the clock’ 20 years on malaria deaths – WHO. The World Health Organization has warned that deaths from malaria could double this year as a result of the disruption caused by Covid-19. The UN’s global health agency said that if countries failed to maintain delivery of insecticide-treated nets and access to antimalarial medicines, up to 769,000 people could die of malaria this year.

International updates from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-latest-at-a-glance-25-april-afternoon