Queen quits Buckingham Palace over coronavirus fears

LONDON/MUMBAI: THE Queen has quit Buckingham Palace over coronavirus fears.

Her Majesty, 93, was whisked to Windsor Castle after Cobra crisis talks. Plans are in place to quarantine her and Prince Philip, 98, at Sandringham if the outbreak worsens.

Ten more people have died, taking the UK toll to 21, it was announced Sunday, with confirmed cases rocketing by 342 to 1,140.

The Queen was chauffeured to Windsor on Thursday. A royal source said: “She is in good health but it was thought best to move her. A lot of her staff are a bit panicky over coronavirus. “The Palace hosts a constant stream of visitors including politicians and dignitaries from around the world. “The Queen has met a lot of people there until recently. But she is weeks away from her 94th birthday and advisers believe it is best to get her out of harm’s way, reported foreign media on Sunday.

“Buckingham Palace is in the middle of London and also has a bigger staff than other estates so is deemed a much more dangerous location. “There have been no specific scares or positive tests there yet but no one wants to take any chances.”

The Queen’s court could also be moved permanently during the crisis. The Palace has around 500 staff, Windsor 100 and Sandringham a handful. Palace garden parties for 30,000 guests in May and June are on the brink of being cancelled or postponed. The Queen may also have to miss the Epsom Derby on June 6.

A Palace spokeswoman said: “Future events will be reviewed on an ongoing basis taking into account the appropriate advice.” Advisers believe the Queen could be even safer if isolated at Sandringham, Norfolk. There were no confirmed cases in the county until today when three patients tested positive at hospital in King’s Lynn.

NHS England said the victims announced today were all age 60 or over and had underlying health conditions. Five were in London and the others at trusts including in Buckinghamshire, Sandwell & West Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Chester.

Meanwhile, various film and cinema associations in India have decided to put on hold shootings of various films, web series and TV shows on March 19-31 to contain the spread of COVID-19, a joint statement said Sunday. “After a lot of discussion, we came to this conclusion that from this coming Thursday, all shootings will stop till March 31,” said Ashoke Pandit, president of Indian Film & Television Directors’ Association (IFTDA), reported foreign media on Sunday.

Decision on restarting the shooting will be taken on March 30 after considering the prevailing situation, the statement said.

Several states across the country including Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and parts of Maharashtra have also called for a shutdown on theaters till the month-end, to contain the virus that has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. Smartphones pose a serious health risk in these strange times of Covid-19. Here’s how you can keep your phones safe from the virus. As the coronavirus threat looms large over the world, tanking not just businesses and whole economies across the globe, but also disrupting our daily lives, a lot has been said about following a number of simple measures to minimize Covid-19’s impact.

Among these measures, one basic rule that health professionals have stressed the most has been to maintain hygiene and avoid touching your face as much as possible. Yet, even as we are strictly advised against doing so, a companion of ours — one that lives in our palms and pockets and also comes quite frequently in contact with our faces — has managed to go under the radar and become an actual health hazard in these strange times of the Coronavirus.

While we have been focusing on sanitising and washing our hands countless times a day, most of us have all but forgotten the smartphone, which in many ways is an actual petri dish for hundreds of viruses — including Covid-19 — and comes in frequent contact with our palms and faces for not only making and receiving calls but also responding to messages and emails.

As per the Seattle Times, an average phone is covered in germs: 25,127 bacteria per square inch, to be precise. While the number may look bad, a quick look at other reports which explain how your smartphone houses more bacteria than your average toilet seat just goes on to highlight how grave a threat the innocuous smartphone can be in these strange times we’re living in today.

According to the Journal of Hospital Infection, the novel coronavirus can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures with 6271% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite within 1 minute.