LONDON (AP) – UK hospitals are canceling non-urgent procedures trying to accommodate COVID-19 patients as coronavirus cases continue to increase despite stringent new restrictions imposed to prevent a rapidly spreading new variant of the virus curb.
Another 41,385 confirmed cases were registered in the UK on Monday. It was the first time that the daily number of reported cases in the country exceeded 40,000, although many more tests are being conducted in the pandemic than before.
Dr. Nick Scriven, immediately former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the rising number of hospital patients was “extremely worrying.”
“As the numbers approach the April peaks, systems will be stretched to the limit again,” he said.
British authorities are blaming a new variant of the coronavirus for rising infection rates in London and South East England. They say the new version transfers more easily than the original, but stress that there is no evidence that it makes people any sicker.
In response, authorities placed a strip of England where 24 million people live under restrictions that require non-essential shops to close, socialize bars indoors and run restaurants and pubs for takeout only.
Still, hospital admissions for COVID-19 in South East England approach or exceed the levels seen at the first peak of the outbreak. Government figures show that 21,286 people in the UK were admitted with the coronavirus on December 22, the last day for which data is available. That’s just slightly below the maximum of 21,683 COVID-19 patients registered in UK hospitals on April 12.
Dr. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, described her experience working in a hospital on Christmas Day as “ wall-to-wall COVID. ”
“Chances are we will make it, but we will do it for a fee,” Henderson told the BBC. “The costs are not doing what we hoped, namely to keep non-COVID activities going.”
The UK has reported more than 71,000 deaths among people with the coronavirus, one of the highest toll rates in Europe. Another 357 deaths were reported Monday.
Cabinet Secretary Michael Gove said more parts of England may need to be subject to the toughest restrictions if the number of cases does not fall. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have also implemented strong lockdown measures.
Still, there is growing confidence that help could come soon, with UK regulators expected to approve a second coronavirus vaccine this week.
British media reports that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is likely to give the green light to a vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
The regulator approved a shot from US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German company BioNTech on Dec.2, making Britain the first country to have access to a thoroughly tested vaccine. More than 600,000 people in the UK have received the first of the two needed injections of the vaccine.
If the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is approved this week, members of the public will be able to receive it from January 4. Britain has ordered 100 million doses, compared to 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech injection.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is considered a potential game-changer in the global immunization efforts because it is less expensive than the Pfizer vaccine and does not need to be stored at freezing temperatures, making it easier to distribute.
But it had less clear-cut clinical trial results than its main rivals. Partial results suggest that the injection is approximately 70% effective in preventing disease from coronavirus infection, compared to the 95% efficacy reported for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
But the trials yielded two different results based on the dosing regimen used. Researchers said the vaccine protected against disease in 62% of those who received two full doses and 90% of those who received half a dose followed by a full dose. However, the second group included only 2,741 people – too few to be definitive.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told the Sunday Times newspaper he was confident the vaccine would work against the new strain and prove to be as effective as its rivals.
“We think we came up with the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is present in everyone else,” Soriot said.
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