Covid 19 coronavirus: UK hospitals overwhelmed by mutant third wave

British officials are considering tighter restrictions for the coronavirus as the number of hospitalized patients with Covid-19 surpasses the first peak of the outbreak in the spring.

Authorities are blaming a new, more transmissible variant of the virus, first identified in south-east England, for rising infection rates. An area that is home to nearly half of England’s population is under strict restrictions on movement and daily life in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

Non-essential shops are closed along with gyms and swimming pools, indoor socializing is prohibited, and restaurants and pubs can only offer takeout.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to hold a meeting of his Covid-19 crisis committee later on Tuesday. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is scheduled to update Parliament on Wednesday on whether more areas will be included in Level 4, the top tier of lockdown measures, and whether restrictions could be tightened further.

Hospitals in the hardest hit areas of London and the south of England are increasingly overloaded, and ambulances are unable to unload patients in some hospitals because all beds are full. An increasing number of National Health Service personnel are out of work because they are sick with the virus or isolate themselves.

England had 20,426 coronavirus patients in hospitals as of Monday morning, the last day for which figures are available, compared to its previous high of 18,974 on April 12. Britain has recorded more than 71,000 confirmed deaths from coronavirus, the second highest death toll in Europe. after Italy.

414 more deaths were reported Tuesday, along with a record 53,135 new cases, though that figure may include a delay in the Christmas holiday period.

Steve Hams, head of nursing at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the west of England, said medical staff were “increasingly exhausted.”

“We felt during April that this would end. But in reality, we are now seeing a third peak, so trying to keep our colleagues and teams at the moment is incredibly difficult,” he told the BBC.

Dr Sonia Adesara, a doctor in the emergency room in London, said that “doctors and nurses are canceling the license, they are taking extra shifts, they are working longer hours, but it is an extremely serious situation.”

“The situation is untenable and I think we are very close to being overwhelmed,” he said.

Some scientists are urging the Conservative Johnson government to postpone plans to reopen schools next week after Christmas break. The government plans to screen students regularly for the virus and 1,500 military personnel have been called in to support schools as they organize tests.

Andrew Hayward, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London, said the fast-spreading variant of the virus meant that for UK schools to reopen, other sectors would have to close.

“We are going to have to have stricter restrictions in other areas of society to pay for that,” he said.

Simon Stevens, executive director of the NHS, said healthcare workers were back in “the eye of the storm” as they had been in the spring.

Stevens said that coronavirus vaccines provide hope and estimated that all vulnerable people in Britain could be inoculated against the virus by late spring 2021. So far, more than 600,000 people in the UK have received an injection of a vaccine developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer. and the German company BioNTech, out of a population of 67 million.

On Tuesday some of the first people in the UK to get vaccinated received their second and final injection.

Margaret Keenan, 91, who on December 8 became the first person in the world to receive a rigorously tested Covid-19 vaccine, received the follow-up injection at a hospital in the central England city of Coventry. .

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is given in two doses three weeks apart. Its developers say it conferred 95% immunity in clinical trials.

Officials and doctors hope that UK regulators will soon authorize a second coronavirus vaccine for use in Britain. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is evaluating a vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. Media reports say clearance for that could come this week and vaccines could start next week.

– AP