Visiting Isolated People Online–A Guide for the Technology-Confused

Here are the two simplest options I have.
If you already use Whatsapp, Whatsapp video call is easily the simplest, but for maximum 4 people.
For more than four people, or for people using computers not phones, Skype 'Meet Now' is the simplest.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Each household needs Any ONE of these:

  •             Either: A smartphone with camera and internet
  •             Or: A tablet or ipad with camera and internet
  •             Or: A computer with webcam and microphone and internet

Desirable: One or more people in your group who know what Apps, Webcams and Online Accounts are.

HOW TO

Option 1: WHATSAPP for Maximum 4 People

  1. Create a New Group in Whatsapp if you do not already have a group for the people who want to meet.
  2. In the group, tap the "phone"+ icon in the top right corner
  3. Add people to the call

DONE!

Option 2: SKYPE for Maximum 50 Households

Option Skype, Step 1: Each person must install Skype and create a Skype account

  1. Install Skype: https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ 

  2. Create an Account

    1. Open Skype and go through the process to create an account

... and then ...

... and so on.

Notes:

  • Using your mobile phone number for your account may be simplest.
  • You do not have to give your real date of birth to Skype. 
    I often use 1/1/1999 for apps which do not need to know my real date of birth.

Option Skype, Step 2: Meeting leader gets everyone's Skype account

The meeting leader and/or others need to know everyone's skype account, and add them as a contact in their own Skype.

Option Skype, Step 3: Meet!

  1. Set a meeting time. Everyone open Skype! Make sure you are logged in.

  2. The meeting leader uses Skype to start the meeting and invite each person.

    1. Open Skype and click the 'Meet Now' button
    2. Add people to the meeting
    3. Start the call

DONE!

Q: Can't I send them a link instead?
A: Yes if you think that will be easier. Use the Copy Link button instead of the Add people button. Then paste the link into a text message or an email or a whatsapp message or however you can best reach people.

Recommendation for your first online get together 

Expect your first “visit” will be entirely taken up with playing with the technology, getting it to work, getting everyone's microphone to Can You Hear Me and I can't see you …

If this is for a church or other regular small group, meeting online for the first time, then perhaps plan for the first one to just be a chat, a 'how is everyone doing' and a time for prayer.

UK Chief Scientific Advisor 13th March 2020 Quotes

BBC Radio 4 Today program 13th March 2020 time index = 2h:11m:40s — 2h:22m

nb these are summarised retypings, not exact transcripts

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000g4fk
(available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p086jfg5 which starts 2 minutes earlier.)

Q: Could we start with sports events. What’s your reasoning for thinking at the moment they should go ahead?

A:Our reasoning is based on which interventions will pull down the peak and broaden it. 

The biggest effect is the measure announced yesterday: If everyone with a fever or a new persistent cough stays at home for a week and should reduce the peak by 20%.

The 2nd measure is home isolation for entire househould if one person is ill.

In terms of protecting the vulnerable, and this is the one that is really critical, that needs to be done when you have transmission in the country at a level where they are at risk. So those are the key things.

Stopping mass gatherings is eye-catching but they are very much more minor (which is not to say that we will not do it). You are much more likely to catch in a small space from someone you know. I think it is more likely that there will be transmission in pubs where people are aggregating to watch a sporting maatch than in the stadium itsekf.

At the moment, the things that people should do are to stay at home, for a week, if they have symptoms. I completely agree with Jeremy Hunt’s point that we must really look after care homes and get that right.

Q: “Your wider thinking: Serious people look at Wuhan, Hong Kong, Singapore and look at the very drastic action they have taken and the falloff that has followed. Why is that not the model for us?”

A: UK is in close contact with Singapore team, they have done selective school closure where they had cases, not general closure. The measures we have just taken are actually quite extreme and other measures may come into play. One of the things we need to do is monitor this outbreak very carefully and react in advance of things, but not just go for things because they seem instantly attractive.

Q: Is your fear that those actions taken in other places, may lead to covid19 coming back more aggressively in the Autumn?

A: That is exactly the risk that we see from previous epidemics, that if you suppress something very very hard when you release those measures it bounces back, and it bounces back at the wrong time. So our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not to suppress it completely also because most people get a mild illness to build up some degree of herd immunity as well, so that more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmissions at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable from it. Those are the key things we need to do.

Q: So that is quite fascinating the herd immunity idea. In many respects it would be a good thing would it for the disease to be spread quite widely now would it rather than later?

A: What we don’t want is for everyone to get it in a small amount of time so that we swamp and overwhelm NHS services. So that is the flattening of the peak—you can’t stop it—so you should end up with a broader peak, during which time you would anticipate that more people would get immunity and that becomes part of the protective process.

This is likely to become annual.
… [discussion on future years]…

Q: Will you publish more of your models and data?
A: Yes. This is a collective scientific effort we need all of the input we can get to get this right and we must be prepared to change our minds as the evidence changs and you cannot go in with a fixed plan that is immutable. 

Q: When it comes to individuals who fall seriouslyu ill are you learning more about what works and brings them back to full health?

A: It looks like there are 2 phases to this illness. A 7 day mild viral phase and for most people that’s it. For a small number of people there is a second phase which starts after about 5 days which seems to be a reaction of the body to the virus. So then that illness is a reaction of the body to what was the viral infection. .. It’s about supportive care, oxygen therapy, ventilation in the most critically ill.

Monolingual Democracy

“In the UK, people cannot read most of the foreign press, so they are easy to influence by super-rich owners of newspapers and other media. Now that we are living in Belgium again, with a few shorts visits to the UK each year, it is very noticeable how narrow the information input is in the UK in comparison to that in Belgium, where everyone who has had an education can read two, three or more languages and can follow the news of neighbouring countries.”

M Turner-Prins, 2020

Colorless Green Ideas

It can only be the thought of verdure to come, which prompts us in the autumn to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable matter covered by a brown papery skin, and lovingly to plant them and care for them. It is a marvel to me that under this cover they are laboring unseen at such a rate within to give us the sudden awesome beauty of spring flowering bulbs. While winter reigns the earth reposes but these colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

C. M. Street

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations