Social distancing to avoid Coronavirus

It's day one of social distancing. I'm regretting taking the boys swimming at the weekend. I do have a slight sore throat - but it's probably nothing. My wife is an NHS worker, and her parents live close - we have to do all we can to protect them and older people on our road and in our village. Including people who may be immunocompromised due to cancer treatment etc.

This blog really made me think - we have to do this now:
https://medium.com/@ariadnelabs/social-distancing-this-is-not-a-snow-day-ac21d7fa78b4

and what the implications of social-distancing and how to survive it (mentally).

I'm involved in a help and support group in our village - I've found these resources to help with that:
https://covidmutualaid.org/resources/

If this incompetent, callous Government won't protect us, we need to look after our own communities.

Community resilience plan for Coronovirus

Prof John Ashton advocated communities set up 'mini-COBRA' groups to support everyone in their village, neighbourhood etc. Here's my first thoughts:

Set up online systems so that everyone can access - eg Google docs, Google sheets, dropbox or whatever. We may want to share 3 types of information:

1. Signposting to public information - from Public Health England, Notts County Council, Parish Council.
2. General (up to date) information about local services, availability of shops, pharmacists etc
3. Personal or private information -
1. Names of volunteers, or 'helpful people in the community' (fairly low privacy)
2. Names of people who would like help or support, which may include addresses (high privacy protection required - GDPR)

Spaces and places - while people will want to be 'socially isolated' - we have to avoid physical inactivity (over months) and avoid loneliness. Aka avoiding kids going stir-crazy...! So at this stage we should prepare places that people can visit in small numbers (to minimise risk) of spreading virus. These places should be assessed for risk of contamination and a plan developed for regular cleaning (eg soap & hotwater - but I'm sure there will be guidelines). I'm thinking play park, village halls, etc.

Vulnerable people and care homes / nursing homes. We need to make sure that vulnerable people (including older people, people with disabilities etc) have food, hygiene/sanitary products, social contact. For people in care homes, we could support friends and relatives making contact via skype etc. and similarly find people in community with friends/relatives in care homes and enable them to make contact via skype.

People with clinical jobs or other 'key workers' (police, fire, council, pharmacists) - we need to support these so that they can keep doing their jobs. They also may have high contacts through their jobs, so we should help them to avoid too many contacts the the village. Support with: a) food & supplies, b) child care, c) contact with friends / relatives

People who are self-isolating - no doubt there will be guidance from a health point of view. From a village perspective we need to know who they are so that we can support people with food, etc. The more we can support people, the less likely they will break self-isolation early.

Volunteers can help with above. Also we need a team of volunteers to 'spread health information' - ie help people to understand the day-to-day aspects of hygiene, 'social-distancing', self-isolation, etc. Also reassurance or support for relatives of people who have been taken to hospital.

Please let me know if you have other thoughts, comments or questions?

on twitter: @nchadborn

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jDOTZ4wYqA4G1d_iot3Mf-U8txX2NVgg5TClL6uFj-c/edit?usp=sharing