Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Rolls stolen from arts centre
Concerns over coronavirus continued to grip the district this week.
Families and school pupils went into self-isolation - while some panicking stock-pilers even stole toilet roll from a charity.
With supplies running low in some supermarkets, loo roll and soap was pinched from the Horsebridge Arts Centre in Whitstable.
Shocked director Liz Daone said: “We know that you are struggling to get toilet rolls from the shops, but we really would ask people to not come and take toilet rolls from our toilets, please.
“As a charity we cannot afford any increase in our costs.” Meanwhile, pupils from Herne Bay High are being tested for coronavirus after returning from a school skiing trip to northern Italy. All of the youngsters - two of which “have a cough” - have been told to stay at home until Monday.
A number of parents were outraged by the decision to go ahead with the trip, but the school has defended its actions.
At the Queen’s Elizabeth Grammar in Faversham, two self-isolating pupils are due to finish their 14 days in quarantine tomorrow (Friday). People across the country are being advised to stay home if they fear they may have contracted the virus.
A family from Herne Bay told how they have “gone a bit crazy” after being stuck in their house for 10 days after returning from a holiday in Thailand.
Mum Jessica Roe even shared pictures of medics in hazmat suits in their living room. She said: “They take swabs from everyone, two in your throat and two in your nose.
It does make you gag, but its fine.”
Ms Roe said yesterday that the family have now been given the all-clear.
Even clergymen have been issued with new advice on how to conduct church services in the wake of the outbreak. Wine will no longer be shared from a chalice with churchgoers at communion - instead, the priest alone will drink it. Bread, however, will still be shared among the congregation. Handshaking at Christian churches has also been banned, along with physical contact during the sharing of the peace, blessing or ‘laying on of hands’.
In issuing advice to parishes under the arm of Canterbury Diocese, The Bishop of Dover says the Church will “work to be prepared for all reasonable eventualities”.