Banner Default Image
573de470
Back-to-blogs

Day 14: Key points from today's conference

Posted on March 2020 By Jamie Southwell

Blog Img

Tonight's conference was led by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, who was accompanied by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries.

In just over a week, we've seen the total number of UK cases rise by 15,000 and the numbers will continue to escalate as Robert Jenrick says this virus is "indiscriminate".

Key points to take away from today's speech are:

  • More personal protective equipment is coming to frontline workers. As of right now 42.8 million gloves, 142,000 gowns, and 2.3 million pairs of eye protectors have been already been distributed to healthcare settings, but more is on the way and will eventually have been sent to all social workers says Mr Jenrick.

  • The minister reminds those 1.2 million people who are currently staying at home for the next 12 weeks, if they don't have access to local support, they should register for help on the government's website to ensure they're able to receive essential goods such as medicines and food. During this week alone there will be 50,000 food parcels being delivered and we'll see more within the upcoming weeks as it was announced there have been over 750,000 NHS helper volunteers so far.

  • Dr Jenner Harries warns that it might be two or three months before we begin to see the long term impact of the lockdown, and that it could be an additional three more months after that until we're able to "actually get back to normal"

The overall amount of cases in the UK has now risen to 19,522, with that being 2,433 new cases since yesterday. Total number of deaths is now at 1,228.

To read a brief summary of last night's points and important measures click here.

Here's the full conference, courtesy of The Guardian: