A spokesman for the National Health Service (NHS) told CNN on Saturday that those in charge of the field hospitals – hastily set up during the first wave of the pandemic but largely mothballed since then – were asked to “ run the services ” on December 23. to prepare ‘. use.”
The NHS has come under severe pressure in recent weeks as the new variant of the virus made its appearance, particularly in South East England – including London, Kent and Essex – and parts of Wales.
On Friday, the UK reported 53,285 new confirmed Covid-19 cases and 613 new deaths. On Thursday, it reported 55,892 new cases, the highest daily number in the country since the start of the pandemic.
According to the latest government health data on Jan. 1, there are currently 22,534 coronavirus patients in hospitals across England, of whom 1,940 patients with confirmed Covid-19 infections require mechanical ventilation beds.
Doctors have made a passionate appeal to the public to stay home and follow government guidelines on social aloofness as hospitals and other health services come under severe strain.
In another message posted Thursday, Pearse said: “Media reports of pressure on the NHS are all true. The situation in London is now MUCH worse than the first wave and still deteriorating. Sad to see long lines of ambulances waiting to be seen. Outside the hospital where I work. “
‘Record numbers’ of Covid patients
London mayor Sadiq Khan told CNN that the capital’s hospitals were dealing with “record numbers” of Covid-19 patients on top of the normal, non-Covid winter surge in demand.
“We now have more Covid patients in hospitals in London than ever before during this pandemic and the NHS in London, hospitals in London and our fantastic health workers in London have been stretched,” Khan said Thursday.
Khan said he was “concerned” that hospitals would be overwhelmed, but added that the NHS had the flexibility to increase capacity, for example by canceling certain routine elective surgeries.
“But the big concern we have is that if we continue to see an increase in virus spread, it is possible that hospitals will not be able to cope, and that’s mainly the concern because we don’t have the normal January yet. reached, not -Covid peak, ”he said.
When asked if the military could step in to help new patients, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Times Radio on Thursday: “Of course we are ready to help Nightingales if critical pressures exceed the capacity of the existing NHS. is going.”
He said the military has currently deployed about 5,000 personnel in the Covid-19 response.
Most of England is now under the strictest restrictions to try to limit the spread of the virus.
Amid the worsening situation, ministers were forced to reverse a decision to reopen some primary schools in London next week after coming under pressure from local authorities and education unions. All schools in London will switch to distance learning from Monday, when the new semester starts, with only vulnerable and critical working-class children allowed in person.
The change came just two days after the British Ministry of Education said nine boroughs of London and the City of London would keep primary schools open, while those in 23 other boroughs would remain closed. Khan tweeted Friday that the government “had finally seen reason and U-turned” was planning to open schools in some areas.
Vaccine rollout plan
The new strategy, announced Wednesday by the head of the UK drug regulator MHRA, means that the interval between doses can be extended to up to 12 weeks, instead of the three weeks previously set.
The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has been in use in the UK since early December, when the country was the first in the world to approve it, but supplies are limited. Pfizer has said it has no data to show that just a single dose of its vaccine would protect against the disease after more than 21 days.
UK regulators have also advised giving the second dose of the newly approved Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine four to 12 weeks later.
More than half a million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine will be available from Monday, according to UK Health Minister Matt Hancock, with millions more to follow in the coming weeks. The vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute than the Pfizer / BioNTech shot because it can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures for at least six months.
But even if the government achieves its goal of rapidly vaccinating millions of elderly and clinically vulnerable people, reducing Covid-related hospital admissions, the UK faces a few difficult weeks.
“It’s a pretty grim and depressing picture right now,” in England, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam told a press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday. “It is almost certainly true that the NHS has not yet seen the impact of the infections that will have occurred during the Christmas mixing, which is unfortunately quite sobering.”
New variant is more common in young people under 20 years of age
As of January 1, at least 30 countries, including the United States, had reported cases of the more contagious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK.
A study written by a collaborative team from Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh, Public Health England and others confirmed that the variant had greater transmissibility and was more common in people under 20 years of age.
Although the study released Thursday found that people under the age of 20 make up a higher proportion of cases of the new variant of the virus, the authors said it was too early to pinpoint the reasons for this, adding that further research to was underway.
According to health officials, there is no evidence that the variant is more deadly or causes more serious illness.
Jim Naismith, professor of structural biology at the University of Oxford, responded to the study, telling the UK’s Science Media Center that it was “not really possible to exaggerate how serious this new strain is” in terms of reducing the infection rate.
“Unless we do something else, the new virus strain will continue to spread, more infections, more hospitalizations and more deaths,” he said. “The NHS is under a lot of pressure and without change this will get worse. January and early February will be difficult. If we fail to reduce the spread of the new species then we will probably overwhelm the NHS, the consequences of which would be terrible. “
CNN’s Hira Humayun contributed to this report.