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The UK reported more than 1,300 deaths from Covid-19 on Friday, the highest daily figure since the pandemic began, as the Mayor of London declared a “major incident” from the coronavirus in the British capital.
Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid-19 in London was now “out of control” and warned that city hospitals are at risk of insufficient beds in the coming weeks.
Khan wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who put England on a third lockdown on Monday due to a new strain of highly communicable coronavirus, urging the government to take various emergency measures.
The mayor said the measures should include providing additional money for people who have to self-isolate and stipulating that masks should be used routinely outside the home.
“If we don’t take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die,” Khan said, speaking after the National Health Service said London hospitals were admitting 800 patients suffering from Covid-19 every day.
The UK reported on Friday that 1,325 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. Although it is the highest number recorded by the government since the start of the pandemic, it is unlikely to be the highest daily total because testing was very limited during the first wave in the spring of last year.
The government also said on Friday that 68,053 people tested positive, the highest daily number on record. However, this also reflects limited evidence from the outset.
By declaring a major incident, Khan made it easier for the capital’s authorities to take a more coordinated approach, with, for example, police or fire officials helping to operate ambulances. It also alerts the public to the seriousness of the situation.
The mayor’s office defines a major incident as “being beyond the scope of normal operations and [one] likely to imply damage, harm, disturbance or serious risk to human life or well-being, essential services, the environment or national security ”. It has been implemented in times of crisis, such as after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.
Between December 30 and January 6, the number of coronavirus patients in London hospitals increased by 27 percent to 7,034. During the same period, the number of patients on mechanical ventilators increased by 42 percent to 908.
Accelerated propagation
People hospitalized with Covid-19 were likely infected in mid-December or during Christmas, when doctors were concerned that family gatherings, allowed by the government, would accelerate the spread of the disease.
An acute medicine consultant at a North London hospital said that “at this time we cannot see a peak [in the number of Covid-19 patients] vision”.
He added that the shortage of staff was critical and that intensive care was operating 250% above normal levels.
The case rate in London is 1,036 per 100,000 people and the London Ambulance Service, which has been under sustained pressure in recent weeks, is receiving up to 8,000 emergency calls each day, compared to around 5,500 in average.
Data released Friday by the Government Office for Science indicated that new infections in England were increasing by 0 to 6 percent each day.
The so-called R number, which shows how many people a person can infect with the virus, was estimated at 1 to 1.4, a level similar to the range of 1.1 to 1.3 reported on December 23.
The government is trying to bring the R number below 1 with the latest lockdown, which experts say was crucial before social restrictions can be eased.
The latest breakthroughs coincided with another breakthrough in the UK’s efforts to protect its population, as the country’s drug watchdog approved a vaccine made by Moderna of the US for emergency use.
The decision prompted the government to increase its request for Moderna doses from 7 million to 17 million, but they will not arrive until the spring. The delay means that the approval will not help ministers in their effort to give the four highest priority population groups, equivalent to some 14 million people, the first injection of a vaccine in mid-February. – Copyright by The Financial Times Limited 2021
