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British Prime Minister Johnson has announced a harsh blockade for all of England. The move should save the NHS state health service from collapse.
By Imke Koehler, ARD-Studio London
In Britain, the daily number of new people infected with corona is now consistently over 50,000, a new record of just under 59,000 was reached yesterday. This means that more and more hospitals are reaching their capacity limits.
Chris Hopson, director of NHS Providers, a national health service coordinating organization, described what that means. For example, clinics in London and the south-east of England would have to expand their intensive care units in the shortest possible time. Sometimes it was about doubling capacities, in some cases even tripling them.
Makeshift hospitals can’t help
In recent weeks it has happened time and again that Covid-19 patients had to wait hours in the ambulance because there was no bed available for them. Some patients were also driven long distances across England to be taken to another clinic. In fact, in these cases “Nightingale Hospitals” were supposed to ease the situation: makeshift hospitals that were built at lightning speed in the spring, even in convention centers.
However, this concept does not work, says Professor Chris Ham, a health expert from the Royal Free Hospital in London. The reason for this is that there are very few intensive care workers. Professor Ham points out that even before the pandemic there were more than 100,000 vacancies in the British NHS and now there is an even greater shortage of staff because employees are sick or have to isolate themselves. There are simply not enough staff available for Nightingale hospitals.
The lack of funding from the NHS is painfully evident
The UK is now in pain over what has long been known: the NHS is underfunded. Meanwhile, it has been warned that in a few weeks it could be overwhelmed in many regions, especially since it is assumed that the number of patients will continue to increase due to the mutated corona virus. The mutated virus is considered to be significantly more infectious than the original, which means that comparatively more people are infected and ill.
There are already more Covid-19 patients in the hospital than at the height of the first wave of infections in spring 2019. In England alone, the number has risen by almost a third to almost 27,000 in the last week, Boris announced Johnson last night. This number is 40 percent higher than the first high of last April, the prime minister said.
New closures in England and Scotland
Faced with this situation, Johnson has announced a new blockade for England in a televised speech to the nation. Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon had already done the same for Scotland. This means that schools will remain or be closed. Today’s announcement is again: “Stay home” – “Stay home”.
With this specification, the British began the first blockade last spring. For some, it gives the feeling of having returned to where the UK was just under a year ago. Prime Minister Johnson contradicted this.
Johnson seeks optimism
Referring to vaccinations that started in the UK four weeks ago, he said literally: ‘We are starting the largest vaccination program in history. So far we have vaccinated more people in the UK than in the rest of Europe as a whole. “. With the availability of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, the program could be further accelerated.
By mid-February, people in the four highest-risk groups should have received a first dose of vaccine. The groups include nursing home and nursing home residents and their caregivers, people over the age of 70, medical personnel in distress, and people at particular risk from past illnesses. With the vaccination of more and more people, then it will be possible to loosen the restrictions again, Johnson tried to give a positive perspective. But the next few weeks would initially be the hardest.
