New advice from UK government: "we are approaching the fast growth part of upward curve. Cases could double every 5-6 days". If you have symptoms stay at home for 14 days. Do not go out. Ideally ask others for help #coronavirus
Boris Johnson: "Everyone now must stop all non-essential contact. Everyone must now work at home if they can. Especially over-70s, pregnant women and those with underlying conditions"
"In a few days we will go further. The vulnerable will be shielded from others for 12 weeks".
London is further ahead than the rest of the country. Londoners must work from home if they can and avoid pubs, restaurants, etc.
#coronavirusuk
#coronavirusuk
Chief scientific advisor: "Latest numbers suggest we are entering a fast growth period or we are on the cusp of doing so and London is ahead of other areas"
UK is now doing whole household isolation. If one person gets it then whole family should be in lockdown for 14 days.
Unnecessary travel should be reduced and stopped. Reduce your social contacts. For the vulnerable, measures will have to go on for 12 weeks or longer.
"This is not easy but these measures will ha move an effect if we all do it"
Schools not being closed as we are not yet at the right stage/time
Whitty: "this is now accelerating and will accelerate really quite rapidly"
"This is going to go on for some time. This is going to have to be a prolonged period".
"The good news is the chances of dying are very low. Of those who have symptoms majority will have mild or moderate disease and will not need the NHS. Overall mortality rate a bit less than 1%"
"Three groups of deaths. The direct deaths caused by #COVIDー19. There are other deaths which if NHS is overwhelmed then ppl die from indirect deaths. We are trying to reduce those indirect deaths. Third, some of our measures could negatively impact on health of people"
People over 70, pregnant women and those who have significant underlying condition (I.e. must need winter flu jab) must take additional care so they do not need to go to hospital and risk catching it. "This is absolutely critical".
Whitty underlines - if ONE person in your household is infected the ENTIRE household must go into lockdown for 14 days as there is a reasonably high chance others will catch it.
"The next few weeks and months are going to be enormously difficult for the NHS"
"People should avoid unnecessary visits to care homes" -Johnson
UK government will be scaling up testing in coming weeks. A test is being developed that will be able to see if somebody has had #COVIDー19 but shown no symptoms. That will be "transformational" says Whitty
Boris Johnson says it is "perfectly obvious" that this is going to be a serious blow to the economy. "If we work together then we can keep it a short term problem. This is not 2008. There is no systemic problem with the economy" #COVIDー19
When asked how long we will be socially isolating Whitty says: "People should be thinking of weeks and months but it might be longer. This is a marathon not a sprint".
Pregnant women - "we are very early in what we know about this. Early evidence suggests that in most cases no complications at giving birth if mother infected. There might be a small risk, as with all infections, we do not know for sure at the moment. This is a new virus."
People with underlying illnesses who then died from #COVID19 had underlying cardiovascular or respiratory diseases
