Day 6

Sunday, March 8th International Women’s Day

Good morning….Its Sunday…Andrew Marr (BBC)?…whats in the news?…BBC News anyway….oh more Corona virus related news…Italian Govt has restricted movements of 16m people around the north (Venice and Parma) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51787238 …Death toll has surpassed 230 in Italy…In other news, Matt Hancock wants volunteers to be able to volunteers up to 4 weeks without losing their day jobs and retired healthcare professionals being able to help without fear of their pensions being affected https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51786936 ….Interestingly in the Times…ministers are bracing for a death toll of 100,000… https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-boris-johnson-keeps-calm-but-whitehall-plans-for-worst-2mzg9q22q The balance here is trying not to spread panic whilst educating people to take care with good and easy to find advice.…. The CDC has published a ‘Guidance for people at risk for serious illness from COVID19” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html#Have-supplies-on-hand. One of the advice given was as follows, “Be sure you have over-the-counter medicines and medical supplies (tissues, etc.) to treat fever and other symptoms. Most people will be able to recover from COVID-19 at home”. Unfortunately, some people have taken this advice to the extreme… for example, “Two women have been charged after a fight at an Australian supermarket over toilet paper amid the coronavirus outbreak.” https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-two-women-charged-after-toilet-paper-brawl-in-sydney-supermarket-11952569…. And as result of this sort of behaviour, Tescos are rationing essential shopping items. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51790375. Shoppers are limited to buying no more than five of each of the rationed goods, including antibacterial gels, wipes and sprays, dry pasta, UHT milk and some tinned vegetables. Boots and Waitrose have followed suit but not Sainsbury’s….Interestingly though…when Ann when shopping today to Tescos near where we live were not rationing any of the aforementioned items…except up to 25 budget Easter Eggs….Now considering Easter is a month away, it does surprise me how popular Easter Eggs are at this time of year and even earlier.

In my opinion, there was a good article in the Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-symptoms-covid-19-how-quickly-what-look-for/ It provides a really simple guide to coronavirus, the symptoms and what people should do. It provides links to NHS sites as well. It brings together the essential information about the issues and allows the reader to formulate their own preparations. I wish I would have read something like this. Although the gov.uk and NHS websites have been helpful, I do not think they are as well put as the article in the Telegraph. However, I do think the media are now trying not to sensationalize stories as they had been.

I did think this article was interesting, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51774777. The article asks whether Women seem less likely to die from coronavirus than men and if children appear to be less likely to die than other age groups. The data is based on a study by the Chinese Centres of Disease Control. It looked at 44,000 people and showed 2.8% of infected men died compared with 1.7% of women. Meanwhile, 0.2% of children and teenagers died compared with nearly 15% of people over the age of 80. A suggestion as to why children may not be catching the virus was provided by Dr. Nathalie MacDermott, from King’s College London. She said, “One reason we haven’t seen so many cases in children is they are protected at the beginning of outbreaks, parents keep children away from the sick.” When it came to men having a higher mortality rate than women, Dr. MacDermott suggests that this may be due to men living a poorer lifestyle to women. This data is from China where around 52% of men smoke compared to 3% of women. “Smoking damages your lungs, that’s not going to be a winner,” says Dr. MacDermott. Professor Paul Hunter, University of East Anglia commented, “Women have intrinsically different immune responses to men, women are more likely to suffer from auto-immune diseases and there is good evidence that women produce better antibodies to vaccines against flu.”

On the other hand, there has been some advice flying around Facebook etc. that should really not be taken https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51735367. Garlic, drinking water every 15 minutes, avoiding ice-cream, or using colloidal silver have not been proved to eradicate coronavirus and can in some cases cause severe adverse effects. I do think some of these organisations play on people’s fears…which is wholly unacceptable.

Dr. Margaret Harris from the WHO is on Andrew Marr show (BBC) confirming the issues currently and that the issue is intensifying…..the WHO have examined the difference between coronavirus and influenza…. They have found that unlike influenza, coronavirus takes 5-12 days to show symptoms and elderly people are hit worst…as they require O2 therapy….It is not clear why older people are more affected and those with co-morbidities…. It is also unclear what occurs immunologically where people have tested -ve then have later tested +ve…this could be related to the sensitivity of the test…Dr. Harris suggests taking extra care of Drs, nurses, cleaners, having training, how to do the swabs, tests, and back up… oh and to have enough equipment…. Dr. Harris said the aim of any program is to delay infection and care for people early. She described her experiences with Ebola and how field hospitals can be of help.
….Meanwhile, in the world of sport, tennis players will not be allowed to give towels and sweatbands to fans…additionally, players will also not accept pens, tennis balls or other items from fans for autograph signing…Whilst the ATP and WTA comment on safety being paramount, the players will be holding the balls as the balls are replaced every 7 games, touching their face and not using hand gel in between points….however, credit must be given where the ball girls and boys will wear gloves…They do however handle the sweaty towels which could spray sweat onto the individual via droplets….Are we taking things too far? I do not know…. Interestingly, my son Euan, who plays tennis to a high standard is playing a tournament next week and they have not been given such precautions or advice…the disparity between professional sport and amateur sport is there to see.

I feel like I am becoming a home-made expert on this subject…

The #SelfIsolation WhatsApp group has been quiet today…I suppose the last four days have been quite draining…. We have all come to the point of acceptance of our position and are just getting on with living….I am not sure how much will be of interest to read in the following entries for the remaining 9 days….It is basically me living my daily life…but stuck in my house…I have come to realise how much I do that is outdoor-related….I think it will make me appreciate my outdoor experiences more than I might do now. Euan (our 19 years old) is coming home today. Its Day 5 and I am ok….The median time for incubation is 5-7 days….although can be up to 14….I feel like I am safe….although I could be wrong…anyway we have suggested that Euan can come home from London today. He has a tournament next week and a training session up here so he needs to be back…I came across an interesting article describing someone’s experience of self-isolation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-51719029. The author describes her own experiences of having to self isolate, not due to coronavirus, but due to having radioiodine capsule for an overactive thyroid. Her family divided the house so that she would reside upstairs and the rest of her family would live downstairs. Those were the days before mobile phones, Skype, Facebook, Netflix and iPads. This meant that unlike today she could not see her son’s face as you can nowadays on Skype etc. She described feeling lonely…Alone meant minus all physical communication but a landline. Her husband left trays of food at her bedroom door. He bought her newspapers and a little bell to ring is she needed something urgently. She spent the time marking 500 GCSE papers. I have to admit, I could not imagine what it must be like without current technology to keep me company…

I have had another text from PHE to ask if I have had any symptoms…to which I have said…”NO”…worryingly though some people have not heard anything….Surely they have all our details…Then there is the issue of how the Lead Employer is going to manage all this….

Plans for today?….Start writing a potential article for Anaesthesia News, watch Man U v Man City…play some guitar…I am learning how to play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd….so with all this time, no excuses!!…Some home-based exercises….and then another film…hmm what to watch now…I have decided that Sunday morning TV is not that bad….I like current affairs so after Match of the Day and Andrew Marr….we have ‘The Politics Show-North West’. Topics of debate? I’m sure you can guess, Coronavirus, NHS…but mainly the budget that will be published next week…

Man U won the derby 2-0….meaning Liverpool only require 2 wins to take the title….Scotland beat France in the rugby…meaning England could win the 6-nations….meanwhile, on the group chat….another 50 texts come flying through…subjects range from horticulture, nature, Star Wars, trips to Cornwall, cooking recipes, jigsaws….what people are doing to keep themselves occupied…I will not expand here as I believe these individuals are writing their own narrative so I suppose they own that story, so I will not expand here…There is some discussion as to what we as a group should do at the end of our period in isolation. Some of us feel that we should meet up and go for a drink, a meal maybe? We feel that we should be able debrief our experiences. We are grateful for the fact that we have each other and our families as support using the technology available to us. For those interested in stats, here are some on our self-isolation WhatsApp group…2090 messages since Wednesday 3rd March!…To put this into context, our family chat has conducted 13000 texts over the last three years…It goes to show how much support we have given each other..

TWEET Message. I was asked by a journalist if I would like to do a Skype presentation on national TV to describe what I am going through currently in terms of self-isolation….however, I decided against this as I could end up in a vulnerable position depending on the questioning…and I would not wish to get into that kind of trouble when I am so close to the end of my training…I finish in August 2021.

2000Hrs. Dinner…on my own…again…fish finger sandwiches and tomato ketchup….with steamed vegetables…well I did have my greens….and with my nutribullet this morning means I have had more than my five a day….plus my regular pint of water with a whole lemon

Talking about group chat…The conversation quickly changes from the fun conversations etc to a very sombre one… someone has just posted (2140hrs) on our group chat that a 3rd person has now died as a result of coronavirus https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-man-in-his-60s-becomes-third-person-to-die-in-uk-after-testing-positive-11953382 …very sad…Turns out that the patient was >60yrs and had cardiac pathology.

Football Shirt for the day from my team member on twitter?….Hellas Verona (Serie A football team). He wore this shirt in solidarity with the news that Northern Italy was in lockdown.

Good night all