NO ONE IS SPRING CLEANING - THIS IS THE BATTLE AGAINST COVID - Urgent request to Haringey Council for more bin collections and the redeployment of commercial waste bins to domestic use
- By Brian Leveson
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- 25 Mar, 2020
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We are concerned that additional service requirements for waste collection and disposal arising from people being instructed to stay at home and from cleaning generated to combat Covid-19 are not being fully considered by Haringey.
To say I was alarmed to read the above 'update' on the Haringey Covid-19 web page yesterday (24th March 2020) would be an understatement. So, my next step was to check out the World Health Organisation Guidance : Water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste management for the COVID-19 virus Interim guidance 19 March 2020
Water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste management for the COVID-19 virus Interim guidance 19 March 2020
Two relevant points being hygienic conditions are essential for the protection of human health and the virus can be transmitted through contact
I am concerned about the advice issued yesterday about not 'spring cleaning' and minimising waste when we are all at home and naturally creating more waste before we even start cleaning to hold back the Covid virus. People are cleaning to
manage the virus - and it is essential that people do so.
I have looked at the current WHO advice regarding faecal matter and how long the virus stays on surfaces and I also consider the religious angle of cleaning and cleanliness.
No one is 'spring cleaning'! - and I hope no one is discouraged from cleaning in anyway
- WHO on faecal matter: Approximately 2−10% of cases of confirmed COVID-19 disease present with diarrhoea,2-4 and two studies detected COVID-19 viral RNA fragments in the faecal matter of COVID-19 patients. However, only one study has cultured the COVID-19 virus from a single stool specimen.7 There have been no reports of faecal−oral transmission of the COVID-19 virus.
- WHO on surface: large variability, ranging from 2 hours to 9 days
- The Jewish festival of Passover is on 8 - 16th April and there is a requirement to clean.
What I would like to see the local authority do
I really think that the local authority need to get those commercial bins into domestic areas, sooner rather than later, before this becomes an additional public health emergency. I would also
point out that not only does this disproportionately impact on people with disabilities and of certain religious groupings, but also people on lower incomes - living in more densely populated parts of the borough, in houses of multiple occupancy, in high rise
flats and on council estates - to put it bluntly the poor - who are already disproportionately suffering
in this crisis unable to afford to stockpile, laid-off from low paid jobs and, as we know from the Marmot Report, already have the lowest life expectancy rates,
that are falling.
If you thought SEND was bad - the NHS is seemingly prepared to throw away money to private companies
About 3 or 4 times a year we get the euphemistic message 'Parents please note we have put a letter in your child's bag' - its a world away from how a child's death was handled in my child's first school
More of a trial by ordeal than a well organised clearly set out administrative process for moving the care of vulnerable young adults from Haringey's Children's Services to Adult Services. We have been failed at every stage of the process.
Never EVER get on the bus without a camera running if you need the priority wheelchair space
The reality of using a London Bus in the teeming rain on a Sunday afternoon is no joke when the parents of a paraplegic person in a wheelchair clash with the self-entitled buggy-pushing parents of toddlers.
At 3pm today I received some barefaced lies from Haringey Council Adult Social Care in response to a photograph I published online yesterday and the media interest it generated
Haringey SEND Transport are insisting that a 17 year old minibus with no air conditioning is a suitable vehicle to transport my paraplegic son in this heatwave. The appalling conditions inside the minibus inside the bus is something they knew about last summer, yet they have to date done nothing whatsoever provide a suitable minibus this year nor appropriately mitigate the temperatures inside the minibus.The conditions inside the minibus are so bad that they triggered multiple seizures during the heatwave as my son has epilepsy, which they SEND transport department know about and they also know that they are triggered by heat.It is not just son who is impacted: last year we know of one child who died on Haringey SEND Transport in the summer heatwave and another who had seizures.
I am simply asking a question - are we all absolutely certain that the road closure / travel restrictions (commonly know as LTNs) placed on some of the most severely disabled people who are wholly reliant on cars are absolutely necessary
Haringey's road closures exemptions policy for disabled people is not fit for purpose, unduly burdensome and intrusive - it's time to stand up against the pro-LTN lycra-clad cycling bullies
Is the argument for and against exemptions for disabled people in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods really a case of GOOD versus EVIL?
