LONDON (AP) – The UK opened seven mass vaccination centers on Monday as it moved to the most dangerous moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, with depleted medical staff rebelling under pressure from full hospitals and increasing income.
The English chief medical officer, Dr Chris Whitty, warned people to strictly follow measures to prevent the virus from spreading while they wait their turn for a vaccine. The government is trying to vaccinate some 15 million people before February 15, but Britain’s National Health Service is struggling to treat those who are sick now.
“I think everyone agrees that this is the most dangerous time we have really gone through in terms of the NHS number,” Whitty told the BBC.
People in the UK are already facing severe coronavirus restrictions, but political leaders are considering tightening the rules even further as a new, more transmissible variant of COVID-19 exacerbates the healthcare crisis. Leaders want to vaccinate the country out of the crisis, but with besieged hospitals they need to convince the public to take prevention methods more seriously.
“We don’t rule out taking further action if necessary, but your actions can now make a difference: you’ll stay home!” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said this Monday during a press conference.
Britain, with more than 81,000 deaths, has the deadliest virus number in Europe and the number of hospital beds filled by COVID-19 patients has steadily risen for more than a month. English hospitals now treat 55% more COVID-19 cases than during the first peak of the pandemic in April.
“Everyone knows what to do. And I think that’s the most important thing: minimizing the number of contacts, ”Whitty said.
Last week, England entered a third national closure that closed all non-essential shops, schools, colleges and universities for at least six weeks. The closure is slightly slower than in the spring, with many more jobs and businesses open, but police across the country have imposed fines for breaching rules that force people to stay home, except for essential reasons, such as exercise or grocery shopping.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government hopes the restrictions will reduce NHS tension as it boosts a national mass vaccination program using Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and a second from Oxford-AstraZeneca. A third vaccine approved by Moderna will not arrive until spring.
Seven large-scale vaccination centers are opening that connect nearly 1,000 more sites across the country, including hospitals, general practitioners ’clinics and pharmacies.
At a vaccination center in Stevenage, north London, medical workers administering shots described the mood marked by relief and joy.
“They have been very emotional, really pleased that there is some hope at the end of this tunnel, this very long tunnel for everyone,” said Caroline Shepherd, clinical vaccination expert at the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust. “Some people (were) quite tearful, saying, ‘I’m so glad to be here, thank you so much, we’re so grateful for the NHS.’
To date, almost 2.3 million people in the UK have received a COVID-19 vaccine. The government’s goal is to vaccinate the most vulnerable in mid-February, targeting people over the age of 70, front-line health workers, residents and nursing home staff, and other particularly vulnerable people. This will protect people who account for nearly 90% of coronavirus-related deaths and may ease the restrictions, according to the government.
“(But) we can’t be complacent,” Johnson said during a visit to a Bristol vaccination center. “The worst thing now would be for us to allow success in the deployment of a vaccine program to generate any kind of complacency about the state of the pandemic.”
___
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak