COVID-19 deaths in Hospital compared with all UK COVID-19 deaths up until 17th April 2020. Image: COBR

Care home death figures continue to rise

Following the outbreak of coronavirus, deaths continue to reach record high numbers in UK Care Homes.

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The Office of National Statistics and The Care Quality Commission has been collecting data since the pandemic began.

This has followed concerns about the virus affecting the most vulnerable.

The latest @ONS and @CareQualityComm figures show that 4,343 people died from COVID-19 in care homes, up until 24 April.

These are shocking figures. It is clear that social care is now the frontline in the fight against coronavirus. https://t.co/tp6DnEeTyj

— Local Government Association (@LGAcomms) April 28, 2020

This is double the number of deaths you would normally expect at this time of year.

Care Quality Commission statement on care home deaths. 28th April 2020.

By the 17th of April, care home deaths were accounting for a third of all Coronavirus deaths.

The NHS has received a surge in applications during the pandemic

During the coronavirus pandemic, there continues to be a surge in people signing up to work for the NHS.

Last month alone, there were 407,000 applications submitted – an increase of 13,500 on the same month last year.

In March alone, there were 27,700 jobs advertised on the NHS website.

NHS England has commented, that the jump was another demonstration of the public’s support for frontline workers.

The weekly Clap for Carers and the NHS Volunteer Army were clearly just the start of public support. This follows after more than 25,000 retired Doctors and Nurses have volunteered to return to the NHS.

Virgin Broadband customers lose connection during the lockdown- blamed on a technical fault

One of the biggest UK broadband providers has gone offline for thousands of users.

The outages began yesterday just after 5pm.

However, Virgin quickly revealed that the issue was not related to too many users on their network.

Several users reported problems of their broadband dropping in and out for a minute or so every hour or two.

The issue is causing broadband connectivity to drop for a few minutes before returning again. We know that this is not being caused by increased usage or a lack of capacity – it is a network technical fault. Our teams are currently working on a fix.

— Virgin Media (@virginmedia) April 27, 2020

In particular, customer service chats and online video games suffered in the early hours of the morning as they require a constant connection.

The problem is now believed to be fixed with Virgin Media releasing a follow-up tweet.

The issue was fixed in the early hours of this morning. It was not caused by a spike in usage or a lack of network capacity. We know how frustrating this was for everyone and we’re really sorry for the disruption caused.

— Virgin Media (@virginmedia) April 28, 2020

A London Bus Stop has been transformed into a children’s art gallery

A bus stop in West London has been altered into a fantastic children’s art gallery, aiming to brighten up lockdown.

Sarah Lamarr, who is a part-time teacher and mother of four-year-old Rosie, created the colourful escape.

Her main goal was to help ease the anxiety and isolation caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.

The wall of a London bus-stop is covered in a series of drawings depicting everything from a unicorn to flowers and rainbows, have come to symbolize solidarity with Britain’s health workers during the coronavirus outbreak https://t.co/TW0DSUAtzO pic.twitter.com/7EQWJThqGR

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 28, 2020

If you have a bus stop near you I would really encourage anyone to do the same because it’s just a really lovely thing to have in your community. If you are stuck in a first floor, second floor flat with no garden with kids, it’s just a great thing to watch out the window.