Dear parents and members of the school community,
I would like to share with you the most relevant news on Covid-19 around the world. Also, you can find these messages on our website under ‘Health News and more’, our one source for all the information and reports we are sharing with the community.
There are so many articles being written and I thank those who share links for me to include… I promise I do read most of them and try to include them in this report for everyone to read too! As a learning community it is great to see so many sharing what we are all learning at the moment. Thank you for your support.
Please remember that I have no formal professional background to judge the relative value of these articles! I try to stick to main-stream media reports to avoid conspiracy theories and to offer something of interest to share while we are all at home.
Mexico:
warnings about dropping social distancing measures for our economy:
Mexico:
latest update on numbers and cases around our country. We now have more than 10,000 cases but this report is from Monday:
Click here
Is COVID-19 Losing Its Potency?
Coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday. “In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. “The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” (Reuters)
Russia:
Russia will start administering its first antiviral drug to treat coronavirus next week. Russian hospitals can begin giving the drug and have enough to treat around 60,000 people per month. (Reuters)
Russia
: Russia claims to have been more successful than other countries in fighting the virus due to excellent public health and superior leadership. They claim a fatality rate below 1% officially, but health officials who are keeping their own records are claiming the rate is really about 16 times higher than most other countries. (The Economist)
Demand for University Education:
Last year, 419 colleges in the US were still accepting applications after the May 1 deadline. This year, the number is 754. This suggests a major drop in demand. If campuses can’t open this fall, or students don’t return, the private higher education sector faces a financial crisis. (The New York Times)
Brazil:
Brazil has seen 956 new deaths in the last 24 hours.This puts it above France's total of 28,774. This shows that the trends in deaths in Brazil are on a far steeper upward trend than elsewhere. Brazil now has 498,440 confirmed cases. Only the US has more, with 1.77 million. Experts have warned that the real figure may be far higher due to a lack of testing. (BBC)
Latin America:
In Colombia, part of the capital Bogotá is facing an extra-strict lockdown after it became a hotspot for infections. No-one in the neighborhood of Kennedy will be allowed to leave their homes, except for medical reasons or to buy food. The measure applies to almost 1.5 million residents. Restrictions are being loosened in Bolivia from Monday, but many regions say they will not end their lockdowns until the number of infections falls considerably. In Chile, the number of cases is almost 10 times that of Bolivia. With the country at almost 100,000 cases, (BBC)
South Africa:
South
A
frica is now struggling with its testing. It has built up a huge backlog at its laboratories, which is now reduces the validity of the testing process. Doctors insist that testing is no use unless the results can be produced within 24 hours. Much longer than that and an infected person will either have spread the virus to too many others to trace properly, or they will already be in hospital, or they will have passed the point of serious risk for infecting others. Currently the turnaround time for tests is around 14 days. (BBC)
How to recover from Covid-19 at Home
: I am not a doctor, but this may be interesting for you
Click here
Do Runners Need to Wear Masks?
Maybe its easier to just not go running!
Click here
Covid-19 Is Hitting the Middle Aged Harder Than We Think:
For those of you who like me are not quite so young anymore, we really do need to be careful:
Finally, some alternatives to distract you for a moment:
Relax with art:
This lecture from the National Gallery in London is all about Botticelli’s Venus and Mars. This is not one of my favorite paintings, but it is always a delight to hear an expert tell you how wrong you are not to like something!
Click here
Not far from the National Gallery in London, just a few stops on the London Tube, is the incredible British Museum. Now, thanks to Youtube we can now sit here and enjoy a visit around this fantastic exhibition of Pompeii. This takes over an hour but if you are interested in the extraordinary story of Pompeii then you will enjoy this!
Something to read:
There should always be time for a good book! So here are some more ideas from Elizabeth in our school library:
Have you found yourself watching more TV than usual during this lockdown?
This is all good as long as we keep a balance with other forms of entertainment, like reading, which can enrich our lives immensely.
What would the world be like without books? The great writer Ray Bradbury gives us a chilling look at a future in which books are banned and TV rules supreme. In his dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451", firemen exist not to put out fires but to burn books, the most illegal of commodities. The lead character, one such "fireman", starts questioning the destruction when he is shown a past where people were truly free, leading him to commit to saving what he once swore to destroy.
FAHRENHEIT 451:
Ray Bradbury
Have you ever wondered what life during the Medieval period was like?
In The Pillars of the Earth, renowned novelist Ken Follet immerses the reader into a spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of 12th century England.
The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, a resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known; of Tom, the mason who becomes his builder - a man divided in his soul; of beautiful Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame; and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother.
THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH:
Ken Follett
Here is the link to buy the book:
Click here
(more info in English)
Adrian Leece
General Director
