UK’s renewed COVID disaster threatens to overwhelm London hospitals
The United Kingdom is making preparations in case London is overwhelmed by COVID-19 infections, Health Secretary Matt Hancock mentioned on Thursday, amid experiences hospitals within the capital may very well be inundated with sufferers inside two weeks.
Projections leaked to main medical publication the Health Service Journal (HSJ), printed on Wednesday, confirmed that even when the variety of COVID-19 sufferers elevated on the lowest fee thought-about seemingly, London hospitals can be wanting almost 2,000 acute and intensive beds by January 19.
Asked in regards to the estimates, Hancock mentioned he was involved in regards to the pressures on the National Health Service (NHS) however claimed the federal government was placing further sources into areas below probably the most vital pressure.
Hancock advised broadcasters a area hospital arrange in east London’s ExCeL conference centre was on standby and able to relieve stress on the NHS if required.
“We’re putting in the extra resources to make sure that the NHS gets the support it needs in the parts of the country where it’s under the most significant pressure,” he mentioned.
“For instance in London, (we are) making sure that the Nightingale hospital is on standby and there if needed. And if it is needed, of course, then it will be used.”
The Nightingale hospital was initially arrange for COVID-19 crucial care, however solely 51 sufferers have been handled there earlier than it was mothballed in May.
The British Medical Journal reported it was being repurposed to take non-COVID sufferers recovering from operations and procedures, with the intention to relieve the unprecedented demand for beds elsewhere.
London gripped by new COVID variant
On Wednesday, the each day variety of deaths from COVID-19 throughout the UK surpassed 1,000 for the primary time since April. The nation’s complete COVID-19 dying toll for the reason that begin of the pandemic is greater than 77,300, the best in Europe.
London and southeast England have been the areas worst hit by the brand new variant of the virus, which is driving the spiralling caseload.
According to Wednesday’s HSJ report, NHS England London Medical Director Vin Diwakar had advised London’s most senior docs that below the “worst” case state of affairs, London’s hospitals are predicted to have a shortfall of 4,400 beds by January 19.
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from London, mentioned such an end result would result in docs and nurses having to make “life-and-death decisions” about who they deal with.
It may additionally imply delayed therapy for sufferers who want crucial look after different well being situations, Hull mentioned.
The bleak projections come as England begins a brand new nationwide lockdown, which went into power on Tuesday.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson mentioned the lockdown phrases would stay in place till mid-February.
By then, the federal government hopes to have given one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to greater than 13 million people who find themselves judged most in danger from the virus – together with everybody within the nation older than 70.
“There does seem to be consensus … that this new highly virulent variant of the virus probably won’t be contained by a lockdown alone,” Al Jazeera’s Hull mentioned. “So all eyes now are on the vaccine roll-out.”
WHO raises alarm
Separately on Thursday, the World Health Organization’s European department mentioned extra wanted to be executed to cope with the alarming scenario introduced on by the brand new COVID mutation within the UK, and one other which has emerged out of South Africa.
Speaking at a information convention, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, referred to as the present scenario “a tipping-point in the course of the pandemic”, as Europe was challenged by surging circumstances and the brand new strains of the virus.
“This is an alarming situation, which means that for a short period of time we need to do more than we have done and to intensify the public health and social measures to be certain we can flatten the steep vertical line in some countries,” Kluge mentioned, referring primarily to the brand new variant first found within the UK.
The measures proposed by Kluge have been these “with which we are all familiar”, he mentioned, as he listed the adherence to generalised mask-wearing, limiting social gatherings, sustaining bodily distance and hand-washing as prudent however in want of being intensified.
These measures, coupled with sufficient testing, quarantine and isolation, and vaccination, “will work if we all get involved”, Kluge mentioned.
Europe has been onerous hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with greater than 27.6 million circumstances and 603,000 deaths, in response to the WHO’s monitoring.
WHO Europe additionally estimates that extra mortality in 2020 was 5 occasions that of 2019 and thrice that of 2018.
