On this day in 2020...29th June

Extract from the upcoming book; 

‘Coronavirus – 2020 Vision

A complete diary and events of the COVID-19 pandemic.’

- Keith Wright.

©KeithWright2021

MONDAY 29TH JUNE 2020

Facts and figures.

43,575 deaths overall in the UK.

25 deaths overnight.

815 new cases overnight.

Ten million.

According to John Hopkins University, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world has passed the 10 million milestone.

Half the world’s cases have been in Europe and the USA so far, but COVID-19 continues to rage in the Americas. The virus in South Asia and Africa is growing and not expected to peak until the end of July 2020. There have been an incredible 1 million cases around the world in the last 6 days alone.

The USA has reported a total of 2.5 million cases and 125,000 deaths, more than any other country to date. They have 38.5 deaths per 100,000 population. There are signs that it is still growing with many states having to pull back lockdown easing measures. The south, notably Florida has seen cases rocket in recent days.

Brazil has the second-highest number of cases with 1.3 million, and their deaths exceed 57,000. They have 27.5 deaths per 100,000 population.

The countries following on from USA and Brazil are as follows in descending order per total deaths:

UK - 312,653 cases. 43,634 deaths. 65.6 infections per 100,000 population.

Italy - 240,319. 34,738. 57.5

France - 199,476. 29,781. 44.5

Spain - 248,770. 28,343. 60.7

Mexico -216,852. 26,648. 21.1

India -548,318. 16,475. 1.2

Iran - 225,205. 10,670. 13.0

Peru - 279,419. 9,317. 29.1

Russia - 640,246. 9,152. 6.3

 Notable from the current data is that the UK has such a high rate of deaths per 100k of population.

We should remember that these figures relate to reported deaths and the final excess death figures will be much higher.

The worst is yet to come.

The World Health Organisation say around 80% of those who have signs of COVID-19 show mild symptoms. 20% who have it are seriously or critically affected and around 3.4% die. The reported death rate varies massively between countries.

Today Director General of The World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an address that,

 ‘The worst is yet to come, we fear the worst, and that is why we have to bring our acts together. This is not even close to being over.’

Governing.

Support for the UK government’s handling of the pandemic is up and down, mainly down. A Sky/YouGov poll of 1,663 adults online between 24th and 25th June 2020 gave the following results when they asked how well the government has done in the particular areas cited:

Protecting Jobs 65%

Protecting Economy 54%

Minimising Deaths 30%

Lockdown Rules 43%

Testing and Tracing 23%

Distributing PPE 28%

Daily news.

LEICESTER TO BE PUT INTO LOCKDOWN

We haven’t even reached 4th July 2020 when the easing of restrictions come into place, yet we have to put Leicester and surrounding areas into a lockdown situation.

Leicester has suffered 658 new cases in the two weeks to 16th June 2020. There have been 50 cases reported in the city in the 10 days to 26th June 2020 which makes the total 3,000 since the start of the pandemic.

Leicester accounts for 10% of all positive coronavirus cases reported across the country over the past week, with 135 per 100,000 people. The number of positive cases in Leicester was ‘three times higher than the next highest city,’ according to Matt Hancock. Interestingly he said that ‘children had been particularly impacted’ by the local outbreak.

Whack-a-mole.

The reaction to the outbreak is something that was expected but not necessarily so soon. The regional lockdown is part of the ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy as Prime Minister Johnson called it.

It has been decided that from Thursday 2nd July 2020 Leicester will remain in the previous phase of lockdown. Non-essential shops will not be allowed to open on 4th July 2020 unlike the rest of the country. Schools will close as before. This will continue initially for 2 weeks and be reviewed.

Leicester worry about.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced to the Commons that people in and around Leicester should ‘stay at home as much as they can.’ Travel in and out of the city should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Plans to ease shielding will not go ahead.

The Health Secretary said,

 ‘Having taken clinical advice on the actions necessary and discussed them with the local team in Leicester and Leicestershire, we have made some difficult but important decisions. We recommend to people in Leicester, stay at home as much as you can, and we recommend against all but essential travel to, from and within Leicester.’

He said they would closely monitor proceedings and take further steps if necessary.

Ministers will change the law in order to enforce the lockdown in Leicester, as some of the measures taken will ‘require a legal underpinning.’

Matt Hancock has said to Sky News and BBC that some measures will have to be enforced by the police, notably around non-essential retail. He said that he hoped people would abide by the rules, but the government will take further action if necessary.

Tentacles.

Globally there is no sense that the virus is calming down. It is essential we acknowledge this because, aside from the latest outburst in Leicester, there is a feeling that it has eased. It has not of course, it is us hiding from it that has limited the new cases.

There is a dual threat, one being the uptake re-emerging in the UK and then there are the swirling epicentres in different parts of the globe whose tentacles can find their way back to these isles.

The government has issued post Lockdown wedding guidance. In England, weddings and civil partnerships are told:

• No more than 30 persons must attend the ceremony and social distance.
• There should be no party or reception after the wedding.
• Wash their hands before and after exchanging rings.
• No food or drink should be consumed as part of the event unless needed for solemnisation.
• People should avoid singing, shouting or playing music at a volume that makes conversation difficult and people to raise voices.
• If needed, one person can sing or chant, but this must be behind a plexiglass screen.
• Spoken responses should not be done in a raised voice.
• Blown instruments such as trumpets are not allowed.
• Avoid face-to-face seating, reduced numbers in closed spaces, improvised ventilation, protective screens, face coverings and closing off non-essential public spaces.
• Children should be held by a parent or a member of their household.
• People are encouraged to bring in their own prayer mat and service sheets.
• Venues should take steps to prevent attendees from touching or kissing devotional objects that are handled communally.
• Any rituals which require full immersion in water should be avoided, although small amounts of water can be splashed on to the body.
• Any washing or ablution rituals should not be done at the venue and should instead take place before arrival.

Chanting, shouting and wind.

General communal worship is restarting and has the following guidelines:

• Can hold services for more than 30 people as long as they social distance.
• Hymnbooks should be quarantined 48 hours before use.
• Donation should be made by contactless payments or online not using money.
• People should avoid singing, sharing food, chanting, shouting and playing wind instruments.

Disbarred.

The government has given guidance to pubs and restaurants ahead of the re-opening on 4th July, which the police have said they will treat as they would a New Year’s Eve. The government guidance for pubs and restaurant includes:

• Most pubs will switch to table service with drinks orders done via an app with some pub and restaurant chains.
• Drinking at the bar is banned.
• Measures must be in place to ensure that people can stand 1 metre apart with added mitigation such as a face mask or Perspex screen, with gloves or visors for staff.
• Pub visitors will be asked to give their name to the pub landlord at the door.
• The temporary record will now be kept by pubs for 21 days so those who visit can be contracted if there is a breakout of localise Coronavirus.
• Contactless ordering and payment methods will be encouraged.
• One-way systems inside pubs and ventilation with doors to be left open where appropriate which will also help avoid touchpoints. Windows should be open where possible.
• One in – one out system with toilets to minimise customer interaction.
• Live performances are not permitted, including music, drama and comedy.
• Customers should speak at a normal volume and not raise their voices.

Quote of the day:

‘True, it’s not over till it’s over. And even when it’s over, it just begins again.’ – Kate McGahan

©KeithWright2021

 ‘Coronavirus – 2020 Vision

A complete diary and events of the COVID-19 pandemic.’

- Keith Wright.

 This day-by-day factual and complete account of events throughout the coronavirus pandemic, written as it happened, gives incredible insight into what life was like during this tragic and historic pandemic in the United Kingdom and worldwide.

It includes facts and figures, government initiatives, news events, moving individual accounts, and the horrific consequences, as they happened each day.

There is also a daily, personal slant on what life was like for the author and his family during what threatened to be an apocalyptic event.

It reveals all humanity in its idiocy, compassion and brilliance; the key elements, significant dates, statistics, human stories, tragedies, government strategies, the twists and turns, the humour and the obtuse.

The coronavirus will define this generation and identify these times, like other rare global historical events such as the bubonic plague and the World Wars.

This book is something to show your children and grandchildren when they ask you what it was like during such a frightening time. It can also be used as a point of reference for historians, commentators, and educators. It is also merely for posterity.

Were you alive? Do you recall it? Do you remember our Prime Minister almost died with Covid-19? Remember, the Queen saying ‘we’ll meet again’ during lockdown? Surely you recollect the EU conducting ‘an act of hostility’ towards the UK to get their hands on our vaccines? The thirty police officers fined for having a haircut, or the first man in the world to be vaccinated being called William Shakespeare from Stratford Upon Avon!

The whole world was plunged into chaos, with death, suffering and economic disaster. How did we cope? How did all of this happen? According to Keith’s wife, Jackie, it was ‘all because a man ate a bat.’

 Keith Wright previously worked leading Corporate Investigations for a global pharmacy retailer. He has worked on major Crisis Management Incidents alongside senior executives impacting across the world of pharmaceutical product management.

Critically acclaimed crime novelist, and former CID detective, Wright moves from fiction to a factual account of arguably the most historic natural event to blight humanity in modern times.

He has four children and lives in Nottingham, England, with his wife, Jackie.

 All rights reserved ©Keith Wright 2021

Copyright©KeithWright 2021

 If you are affected by any issues raised in the book contact:

The Samaritans or check local charities.

 All information believed correct at the time of writing.

 Diary entries gathered from an array of publicly available visual, audio and written sources and merged to give a holistic and creative editorial view.

 Glossary and source lists are available at the end of the book.

This book is dedicated to those who have lost their lives and the extraordinary bravery of front-line NHS staff, key workers, carers, and everyone who, in their own way, have contributed to help others. We are grateful, and we thank you, wholeheartedly.

 Author’s note.

My mother's first husband was killed in World War 2. His name was Arthur Smith. When I spoke with her about it, which, with hindsight, was too infrequently, she said he wasn't a fighter; he was a gentle, kind man, thrown into a hell with which he would struggle to adapt. He was an infantryman who died doing his duty for others, near Geel in Belgium, pushing through from the D-Day landings in 1944.

I use this as a loose analogy for our NHS heroes in the front line. These people are not emergency workers such as the police who are used to conflict and danger, nor are they like firefighters physically battling a fire and saving lives. These are people who have a caring disposition. (Not that the police and firefighters, don't care, bearing in mind that they risk their lives on a daily basis, but you see the point I am making).

 NHS front-line workers are sensitive to the human condition and understand the nuances of helping another human being survive illness and injury. They are also people who have now seen the effects of COVID-19 and the nightmare conditions it engenders. Every fibre of their being is focussed on kindness and caring. Yet they have to find peculiar courage. The courage to risk their own lives and possibly even their families lives to treat others every day. Not only do they have to wear a surgical mask, but they have to display the mask of quiet reassurance, professionalism, and positivity, despite their fears. They have to fight with decisions like holding a hand of an infected dying patient when your COVID instinct dictates you surely must not do this.

Dear reader, this is real courage. I hope they are well looked after once this is all resolved, and they receive counselling to help them recover from this incredibly traumatic time.

BEFORE WE START THE DIARY. WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

 As I commence this diary, at the beginning of March 2020, this is what is known; our knowledge will grow over the months and years.

 Coronavirus is a respiratory virus discovered in 2019. In lay-person terms, it causes the lungs to clog up, inhibiting the oxygen supply to the blood, and eventually causing organ failure. Its potency is in how virulently contagious it is. Coronavirus is the virus that leads to the disease COVID-19.

It is believed to be a zoonotic illness, meaning it jumped species to infect humans. Researchers believe the most likely source is the Rhinolophus sinicus, otherwise known as the horseshoe bat which was consumed having been purchased from a ‘wet market’ in Hubei Province, China.

COVID-19 was originally known as 2019-nCoV. It stood for the year of its discovery - 2019, the fact that it was a new (novel) virus (n), and it came from the Corona Virus family (CoV).

 The name was changed to COVID-19 when it became a pandemic. The World Health Organisation had to allocate a name for the disease that did not relate to a person; a group of persons, an animal, a geographic location, was pronounceable, and relatable. Beyond this, the formal name for the virus given by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses called it the 'severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2' or SARS-CoV-2, because it is related to the virus that caused the outbreak of SARS in 2003. For the avoidance of doubt, it will be referred to by the name everyone uses; COVID-19 or ‘Covid.’

Early analysis of the virus suggests that two main strains exist, designated L and S. The L strain appears to be more prevalent (70% of cases); however, it is the S strain that is the ancestral version. L strain appears to be the most aggressive and spreads quickly. It should be noted that this is a new virus to humanity, and we are starting from absolute scratch in our understanding of it. Even as knowledge grows, the chances of mutation are possible, if not probable, and suddenly all bets can be off.

 The coronavirus is transferable by hand to mouth from surfaces or contact and close proximity with someone affected. As with all such viruses, it is also spread by droplets, contact, or airborne particles. It causes a continual dry cough, breathing difficulties, and some aches and pains. Latterly we discovered a loss of taste and smell was also a major symptom. It is a mild to moderate condition for 80 per cent of those who catch it. However, older people and those with underlying illnesses are at a much higher risk of death. As the disease progresses, we see more and more younger able-bodied people in intensive care and dying because of the virus. The World Health Organisation state that 3% of those contracting it will die. There is no cure and no vaccine.

The virus uses its outer prongs to lock on to a living cell. It then inserts its genetic material (RNA – Ribonucleicacid) into the cell. Once inside, it hijacks the machinery of the nucleus of the cell to make numerous copies of itself. It then destroys the cell, and the copies burst out and spread, to do the same thing to multiple other living cells and so the cycle continues, with the virus growing and multiplying exponentially.

The incubation period in a human can be anything from 0-15 days. Some people are asymptomatic and are oblivious to having caught it. Most people's immune system mounts an appropriate response, and they begin to feel better after around 5-7 days after a debilitating flu-like illness. In some people, the immune system goes into overdrive and starts attacking the lungs and other organs and the coronavirus. Infection can cause pneumonia, breathing difficulties, and further organ damage. In others, the immune system cannot cope, and they die. Some can appear to have overcome it and then deteriorate rapidly and die in a day, often with hypoxia – lack of oxygen. Some have been in a coma for 60 plus days, yet still, survive, but forever scarred and impaired.

It is reported that the first case of the disease was presented by a 55-year-old man in Hubei Province, China, on 17th November 2019. It spread and was located in Wuhan Province, China, a month later, in December 2019.

Other theories have emerged around the virus' origins:

• The eating of a diseased bat (or Pangolin) at a wet market. (This seems initially to be the most likely. ‘Pangolin and chips please, no vinegar.’).
• A leak or intentional dispersal from the biological warfare lab situated in Wuhan, China.
• It began in a region south of Wuhan as early as September 2019. Cambridge scientists are exploring the September theory by tracing pathogens. This earlier outbreak could have been carried by humans well before it mutated into a more lethal form.
• Others suggest that traces of faeces in Italy’s sewerage show the virus earlier than it began in China in the summer of 2019. This was later corroborated by research into blood samples of cancer patients taken in early October 2019 which had COVID-19 antibodies present, which means they would have had the disease in September 2019.

Regardless of the exact trigger point, the coronavirus was initially thought to have arrived in the United Kingdom on 28th February 2020, and the first confirmed case being on 31st February 2020. In August 2020, samples by the University of Nottingham discovered that the earliest person to contract and then die with the virus was a 75-year-old woman from Nottinghamshire who tested positive on 21st February 2020.

It is now understood that a traveller returning from South Korea on 28th February 2020 most likely caught the virus in Nottingham rather than Korea as first assumed. Professor John Ball, one of the authors of the study, said ‘there was widespread community transmission of coronavirus’ in Nottingham in early February 2020.

In the UK, we have the National Health Service (NHS). This means that medical care is free at the point of need for all its citizens. The working population pay for this service through their taxes. Each country around the world has different healthcare systems, some insurance based. The NHS does not have any added complications around whether someone can afford to pay for their care through insurance coverage or otherwise.

Key players in the management of this crisis in the United Kingdom are:

Boris Johnson; Prime Minister,

Matt Hancock; the Health Secretary of State,

Dominic Raab; the Foreign & Commonwealth Secretary of State (deputising for the P.M.),

Rishi Sunak; The Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Professor Sir Patrick Vallance; the Chief Scientific Advisor and chair of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies),

Professor Chris Whitty; the Chief Medical officer for Public Health England,

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam; Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Public Health England.

The virus has caused tens of millions of infections and millions of deaths worldwide, creating a global lock-down and an almost dystopian planet, of death and deserted streets, never before experienced in modern history. Some describe it as an apocalyptic disease. The fabric of society is changed with people told not to socialise and to stay at home. These changes have a massive effect on our way of life, the economy, and family interaction. What will life be like when we come blinking out of our homes in months or years ahead, assuming we survive, into a new world that is changed forever?

Our hope is for a vaccine, yet this is impossible for many months, probably years, if at all. Sadly, the world has been unable to develop a vaccine for any of the previous coronavirus such as SARS, (or even the common cold, which is part of the coronavirus family), so it would be remarkable if they manage to do so with this one.

Immunity after the disease is unclear. There is nothing to suggest that previous sufferers have immunity, nor for how long it will last if they do. There is even the danger of those recovering from COVID-19 gaining, something known as 'enhanced immunity.' This relatively unknown syndrome happens with Dengue fever, which means you get the disease far worse the second time.

I start this diary uncertain whether I will be alive to finish it or sustain it if I become one of the coronavirus victims. Will I be too ill to continue? Will I die? Things change day-to-day, and suddenly the future is more uncertain than ever before in my lifetime.

No one would have believed, a matter of a few short weeks ago, the changes that this vicious, dangerous pandemic would bring to our lives: the deaths, the uncertainty, the trauma, the separation, and the loss.

This book is intended to bear witness, record statistics, collate news articles, personal stories, front-line accounts, precis government briefings, and offer an intimate view of family life during this historic and tragic period in the year 2020 and beyond.

 Anticipated release date July/August 2021.

©KeithWright2021