The message from the leader of the Isle of Wight Council about the coronavirus outbreak is ‘simple’ — “keep calm and carry on”.
At a meeting of the corporate scrutiny committee on Tuesday, council bosses reassured the public there is nothing to panic about following the confirmed COVID-19 case on the Island.
Responding to Cllr Debbie Andre, asking whether a strategy was in place to deal with the virus, Council leader Cllr Dave Stewart said the risk level was relatively low on the Island.
Cllr Stewart said:
“We need to keep calm and carry on.
“I am extremely reassured by the professionalism of the public health officers and we have got some great practical things we are doing.
“I say play it safe — be sensible. People have been told to wash their hands and to not shake hands — these are simple things we can do.
“Phone a friend — we are all very good at looking after our residents but we do not need to go and see them to see if they are okay, you can phone them instead.”
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Cabinet member for adult social care and public health, Cllr Clare Mosdell, said she could give absolute assurance the public health team were doing everything it could to ensure things were done correctly and to keep public fears to a minimum — but the council was not going to supply people with face masks.
She said:
“We have a strategy, everything is in place. We are ready. Nobody can say at this stage how the virus is going to progress.
“It is a really difficult time and the officers, as you can imagine, are incredibly busy.
“All I can say is I walked into County Hall today and once again I saw people shake hands, not using hand gel. You need to wash your hands properly and stop shaking hands.
“I know we are all terribly British and that is what we do but at the moment we need to protect our own personal space a lot more than we usually do.”
Councillors also urged people to ring 111 and self-isolate, instead of going to the doctors or up to A&E — ‘it is the worst thing you can do’.
Cllr Mosdell said there had been an incident at St Mary’s over the weekend, when someone claiming to be a councillor had demanded information from hospital staff. She said:
“We will be investigating that phone call but I can say categorically it was not a county councillor.”
Cllr Mosdell also added that those coming on holiday to the Island need not phone public health asking if the Island was going to shut.
Simple thing to say
………. WASH YOUR HANDS ITS NOT DIFFICULT……….
I have seen customers in Tesco ‘licking’ their fingers so they can open the little clear bags which are used for loose fruit and veg. STOP DOING THIS NOW. The trolley/basket handles are never cleaned so I would strongly suggest people stop.
All the hand washing must be playing havoc with people suffering from OCD who can’t stop washing their hands anyway, and people with eczma. Anyhow, man on bus yesterday early evening, middle aged, constantly coughing into air, at one time he coughed into his hand only to then clamp his hand around rail on bus, he was waggling his head around and laughing to himself at something on his phone, obviously lacking in the brains department. It is bad enough to rely on the British public in general to adhere to the advice given about not coughing into air, but how do you expect people not right in the head to do the correct thing in following this advice?
If even health professionals with all the care they take about not catching it, are catching it, then what good is a bit of hand washing and flimsy paper mask wearing going to do?
On radio 4 Inside Health programme, the woman presenting went through the procedures a health care worker has to go through if dealing with a patient in an isolation ward, a special mask has to be specially fitted to their face and then a noxious substance sprayed in their face and if they can even smell it slightly it shows the mask is not airtight and so the virus could get in, and that is close fitting special masks, not the flimsy paper ones that the general public would be wearing.
Eldery people living alone with no one to care about them, and being told self isolate, who is to get shopping for them? Who would know if they died?