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The coronavirus may increasingly affect children in the UK. Laura Duffel, head of nursing at London’s King’s College Hospital, told the BBC that more and more children and adolescents going through severe courses of the disease were entering the clinic. That didn’t happen during the first wave, he said. You have to take care of “a whole room of children and adolescents with Covid-19,” he said. Additionally, more and more people in their 20s to 30s were admitted to his hospital who had severe symptoms even though they had no known prior illnesses.
Doctors denied that the virus is putting additional pressure on children’s wards across the country. Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, said: “Children’s wards are often busy during the winter. We are currently not seeing any significant pressure from Covid-19 in pediatrics across the UK. ” The overwhelming majority of children and adolescents currently have no symptoms or only very mild illness. “The new variant appears to affect all age groups, and so far we have not seen greater severity in children and adolescents.”
Ronny Cheung, a consultant pediatrician at Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, added: “I was on call this week at a children’s hospital in London. Covid-19 is widespread in hospitals, but not among children, and that is confirmed by my colleagues in London. “
Calum Semple, professor of children’s health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, said he spoke with his colleagues in the intensive care unit and “none of them have seen an increase in the number of sick children entering the unit. intensive care, nor do we hear from them. ” an increase in cases in the courtrooms ”. In the PM broadcast on BBC Radio 4, he says: “We are not seeing any other spectrum of diseases in children, and certainly not an increase in cases.”
Liz Whittaker, a consulting pediatrician at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, also said that “only a small number” of children who test positive for Covid develop serious illness and that it is currently “within expected levels.”
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Under pressure from rapidly increasing rates of corona infection, even among children and young people, English schools have to completely change their planning for the new year. For the London metropolitan area in particular, conservative Education Minister Gavin Williamson changes the pattern almost daily.
In the metropolis, hospitals are battling a wave of Covid 19 patients, which has now surpassed the peak in April. The powerful NEW teachers union is already demanding the total closure of all public schools for at least two weeks. The government is inconsiderate of the health of teachers and the entire school community, believes NEW chief Mary Bousted.
The news in the fight against Sars-CoV-2 sounds increasingly desperate. “We have many more patients than in March and April,” reports Professor Marcel Levi, director of the huge clinical complex at University College in central London.
Ambulances are also stuck in front of other hospitals in and around London because there are not enough beds available. In the capital, the NHS national health system is about to be overwhelmed by the flood of patients, experts have warned for days.
Families without education suffer the most from school closures
Based on the experiences of colleagues in London, the head of the CPR physicians association is warning the rest of the country about the coming weeks. “We are all facing a new wave,” believes Professor Andrew Goddard.
Nationwide, new infections in the week through New Years Day averaged 45,559 per day, a third more than the previous week. Experts primarily blame the coronavirus’ highly infectious B117 mutation, which first appeared in September in the London metropolitan area and the adjacent southeast county of Kent. According to previous knowledge, there is no risk of a more severe course or increased risk of death for those infected.
According to the Health Ministry tally, the total number of people who died as a result of a corona infection was 74,125 on Friday; On average over the past week, 561 Covid-19 patients died every day. Meanwhile, 1,089 per million people have died with a Sars-CoV-2 infection; Across Europe there were proportionally more deaths only in Belgium, Italy and Spain.
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The experienced head nurse of an intensive care unit on the outskirts of London makes the comparison with the first corona wave in the spring: even then, her ward was fully occupied with Covid 19 patients. “But there were far fewer cases of illness. among staff ”. Why is it different this time? “Because the schools were open before Christmas.”
In fact, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government has long made public schools a priority and lobbied skeptics with clear statistics: Children from low-income and educationally disadvantaged families suffer the most from closure. of their educational institutions.
They often lack computers to participate in virtual lessons, parents can barely help with homework, and language problems arise in immigrant families. Furthermore, how much children and young people contribute to the spread of the pandemic has long been controversial.
Political pressure
In November, Minister Williamson even threatened the Labor-ruled London Borough of Greenwich to keep primary schools open. Under the shock of the new wave of infections, the unhappy politician has to row again almost every week and, more recently, within 48 hours.
On Wednesday, Williamson used the House of Commons special Brexit session to announce that seventh-grade high school students would have to be content with just online classes in January. The government wanted to keep a large number of primary schools open, including in ten of London’s 33 boroughs.
The criterion why, for example, in the east of the capital, the Tower Hamlets district (weekly infection rate: 1041) should block its students, but the neighbor Hackney (810) should organize the lessons as usual, remained opaque.
Outraged, Labor leaders of badly affected administrative units such as Haringey (915) and Greenwich (819) asked why conservative districts with far fewer infected people, such as Kensington (535) and Westminster (520), should close the school doors. but they should keep the school running. Williamson relented on New Years Day: All schools will be closed on Monday.
