Covid-19 UK emergency campaign hospitals asked to be ‘ready’ to admit patients

by

A spokesman for the National Health Service (NHS) told CNN on Saturday that those in charge of field hospitals, set in precipitation during the first wave of the pandemic but largely missing since then, were asked to December 23 that “prepare the services to use.”

The NHS has been under severe strain in recent weeks as the new variant of the virus has consolidated, particularly in the south-east of England (including London, Kent and Essex) and in some parts of Wales.

On Friday, the UK reported 53,285 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 613 new deaths. On Thursday it reported 55,892 new cases, the highest daily number in the country since the pandemic began.

According to the latest government health data from 1 January, there are currently 22,534 patients with coronavirus in hospitals in England, of which 1,940 patients with confirmed Covid-19 infections have required mechanical ventilation beds.

Doctors have made a passionate appeal to the public to stay home and follow government guidelines on social distancing, as hospitals and other health care services are under intense pressure.

Intensive care physician Rupert Pearse, at Royal London Hospital, East London, tweeted Saturday who was returning to work in the Covid ICU. “Almost all of my patients are under 60 and were in shape. Some are very young. If you think this disease can’t affect you, think again,” he said.

In another message posted on Thursday, Pearse said: “Media reports of pressure on the NHS are true. The situation in London is now MUCH worse than the first wave and is still deteriorating. Sad to see long queues of ambulances outside the hospital where I worked “.

Ambulances are parked outside NHS Nightingale Hospital at ExCel Center in East London on 1 January 2021.

“Record numbers” of Covid patients

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told CNN that the capital’s hospitals were dealing with “record numbers” of patients with Covid-19, in addition to the normal, uncontrolled winter rise in demand.

“We now have more Covid patients in London hospitals than at any time during this pandemic and the London NHS, London hospitals and our fantastic healthcare workers in London are stretched out,” Khan said on Thursday.

Khan said he was “concerned” about hospitals overflowing, but added that the NHS had the flexibility to increase capacity, for example, by canceling certain routine and elective surgeries.

“But the big concern we have is that if we continue to see an increase in the spread of the virus, hospitals may not have the capacity to cope and that’s especially worrying because we haven’t reached normal January yet, no — covid, ”he said.

Asked if the military could step in to help with new patients, UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Times Radio on Thursday: “Of course we are ready to help with nightingales if critical pressures exceed the capacity of the The existing NHS. “

He said the army currently has about 5,000 troops deployed in response to the Covid-19.

An overview of the signs of social distancing that were displayed at Coldfall Elementary School in Muswell Hill on January 2, 2021 in London, England.

Now most of England is subject to the most severe level of restrictions to try to limit the spread of the virus.

Amid the worsening situation, ministers were forced to reverse the decision to reopen some primary schools in London next week, after pressure from local authorities and teachers’ unions. All schools in London will now move on to distance learning from Monday, when the new term begins, and only vulnerable and critical working children will be able to attend in person.

The change of course came just two days after the UK Department of Education said nine London districts and the city of London would keep primary schools open, while those in 23 other boroughs would remain closed. Khan tweeted on Friday that the government “finally made sense and turned around” its plan to open schools in some areas.

Vaccine deployment plan

The UK government is setting its hopes on a way out of the disaster in a rapid deployment of the two vaccines that have now been approved for use by the national regulatory agency.
But his plans to delay the donation of second doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in order to prioritize the first doses for as many vulnerable people as possible have provoked opposition from groups of doctors.
UK chief medical officers defend delay in second dose of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine

The new strategy, announced on Wednesday by the head of the British drug regulator MHRA, means that the interval between doses can be extended up to 12 weeks, instead of the three weeks stipulated above.

The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has been used in the UK since early December, when the country became the first in the world to approve it, but supply is limited. Pfizer has said it has no data to show that a single dose of its vaccine would provide protection against the disease after more than 21 days.

British regulators have also advised administering the second dose of the recently approved Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine four or twelve weeks later.

More than half a million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine will be available starting Monday, according to UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, with millions more to follow in the coming weeks. The vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute than the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, as it can be kept at normal refrigerator temperature for at least six months.

But even if the government achieves its goal of rapidly inoculating millions of elderly and clinically vulnerable people, thereby reducing Covid-related hospital admissions, the UK faces tough weeks ahead.

“Right now it’s a pretty gloomy and depressing picture,” in England, Deputy Medical Director Jonathan Van Tam told the Downing Street press conference on Wednesday. “It is almost true that the NHS has not yet seen the impact of the infections that will have occurred during the Christmas mix and that, unfortunately, it is quite disturbing.”

The audience is seen on a quiet Princess Street in Hogmanay on 31 December 2020 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

New variant more common in children under 20 years

As of January 1, at least 30 countries, including the United States, had reported cases of the most infectious variant of coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom.

A study written by a collaborative team from Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh, Public Health England and others, confirmed that the variant had higher transmissibility and was more common in people under 20 years of age.

Although the study, published Thursday, found that people under the age of 20 accounted for a higher proportion of cases of the new variant of the virus, its authors said it was too early to determine the reasons for this. , and added that there were ongoing investigations.

There is no evidence that the variant is more fatal or causes more serious illness, according to health officials.

In response to the study, Jim Naismith, a professor of structural biology at Oxford University, told the UK’s Science Media Center that “it was not really possible to exaggerate the severity of this new strain” in terms of reducing the rate of infection.

“Unless we do something different, the new strain of the virus will continue to spread, with more infections, more hospitalizations and more deaths,” he said. “The NHS is under severe tensions and without any change this will get worse. January and early February will be difficult. If we fail to reduce the spread of the new strain, we are likely to overwhelm the NHS, its consequences will be severe.”

CNN’s Hira Humayun contributed to this report.

.Source