News highlights from the past few days in BSL.
Taken from BBC News website on 27th March 2020.
The government has advised that people buying and selling property should put on hold all property sales until after the Coronavirus crisis has subsided. The Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has asked parties of contracts that have already been signed to amicably agree a new move date even though legally the completion and move date stand as binding in UK law. Lenders have agreed that they will honour mortgage agreements set for future completion and move dates. Some house moves are critical and will still need to go ahead. For these particular property moves the police will not get involved and will allow the move to continue.
Firefighters are being given extra resposibility to support the fight against the Coronavirus in the UK. Over the next two months the extra responsibilities they will be undertaking will be delivering food and medicine, driving ambulances and collecting corpses. The General Secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, Matt Wracks has said that firefighters are ready to support the community aiding other emergency service departments as police and ambulance staff numbers fall. Th firefighter staffing numbers have fallen due to those self-isolating because of the Coronavirus. Matt Wracks went on to say that the Coronavirus is a big challenge and that it is important that firefighters have the correct Personal Protective Equipment as they still need to be available to carry out their firefighting duties that other emergency services are not trained to do e.g. fighting fires.
he Metropolitan police want to increase staffing numbers by asking those police coming up to retirement soon to continue to work and retire later and by asking police who have retired in the last five years to re-join the force..
Dr Habib Zaidi died at Southend Hospital last Wednesday (25th March 2020) aged 76. His family said he had ‘textbook’ symptoms of the coronavirus. Dr Habib had not seen patients in person for a week prior to getting ill. If the test results for the Coronavirus come back as positive he will have been the first doctor in the UK to have died from contracting the Coronavirus.
There will be an update to Health Care Workers Personal Protective Equipment coming in the next 48 hours. At the present, Health Care Workers in Hospitals and GP Surgeries use Personal Protective Equipment if a patient has been diagnosed with the Coronavirus or if the patient is suspected of having the Coronavirus. Dr Claire Taylor who works as a GP in South London who believes she has contracted the Coronavirus from working as a GP says she was seeing with patients that were low risk and still contracted the Coronavirus. She feels strongly that all Health Care Professionals need to wear Personal Protective Equipment when face-to-face with patients because some people are asymptomatic with the virus and can, therefore, spread it unknowingly.
Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in a BBC Interview says that UK Politics has changed. He says the government’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak has proved him right. He said he had been demoted for wanting to spend more money but that now that is happening.
Yesterday (26th March) people came out of self-isolation onto their doorsteps, balconies and at their windows to praise NHS and Health Care workers by cheering and applauding to thank them for being nearest the danger. Emergency services have tweeted that they could hear the applause in Kingston, South London which was emotional and moving. Some landmarks for example the London Eye and Tower Bridge were lit the same colour as the NHS blue to pay tribute too.