LONDON (AP) – British hospitals across the country are facing a dangerous situation in January, medical workers warned on Friday amid growing coronavirus infections, blamed on a new variant of the virus. Authorities pressed for reactivation of field hospitals that had previously been subjected to the disease just to handle the falling in love with new patients.
Concern is growing about the ability of the already expanded National Health Service to cope with the projected increase in people seeking treatment for COVID-19 infections over the coming weeks, which could feed even more for holiday meetings during Christmas and New Year.
On Friday, the UK recorded 53,285 new infections, slightly less than the previous day’s record high of 55,892. Although comparisons with the onset of the pandemic are difficult, as testing was limited to the spring, the UK has recorded its four new daily infection numbers in the last four days, all above 50,000 and about twice the daily number of a few weeks ago. .
The director of England at the Royal College of Nursing, Mike Adams, told Sky News that the UK was in the “eye of the storm” and that it was “infuriating” to see people not following social distancing guidelines nor did they wear masks.
A referral doctor also warned of the exhaustion of front-line health workers in hospitals, while urging people to follow the rules.
“I’m worried,” Adrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC. “We’re very much in the battle stations.”
The rise in new cases is said to be due to a new, more contagious variant of the virus first identified in London and the south-east of England.
Given the time lags between new cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, there are huge concerns about the path of the pandemic over the next month or two. Britain already has the second-highest virus death toll in Europe, at 74,125, after 613 more deaths on Friday. It looks like the country will overtake Italy and become the most affected country in Europe again.
As a result of the rise in new infections, which has led to even stricter blocking restrictions, the British authorities have changed their strategy for deploying coronavirus vaccines, opting to get a start to more people as soon as possible. possible and delaying the second shot. up to three months.
In a joint statement, the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the first dose of vaccine offered “substantial” protection.
Currently, two vaccines have been approved in the UK and both require two doses per person.
About one million people have received the first dose of vaccine developed by the American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and the German biotechnology company BioNTech, with a small minority who also received the second dose as planned after 21 days.
Earlier this week, Britain also approved a vaccine developed by Oxford University and British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca this is substantially cheaper and easier to use.
Authorities outlined the new dosing regimen, which delays a person’s second vaccine from three weeks into being administered up to 12 weeks after the first vaccine.
“In the short term, the additional increase in vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest. The vast majority of initial protection against clinical disease occurs after the first dose of vaccine.” said the medical agents.
However, the new plan has faced some criticism. The UK’s leading doctors ’union has warned that delaying the second dose is causing huge scheduling problems for thousands of partially vaccinated elderly and vulnerable people.
“It is unfairly obvious to tens of thousands of our most at-risk patients to try to reschedule their appointments,” said Richard Vautrey of the British Medical Association.
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