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England’s deputy chief medical officer has issued a stern warning to the South West and other areas that are currently not under control for major COVID-19 outbreaks ahead of the prime minister’s ‘three-tier’ closure announcement later today.
Around 3.30pm, Boris Johnson is expected to announce a three-level lockout system, which will replace all current local and national lockout rules. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has said that tough new restrictions on the coronavirus, which are expected to see the forced closure of pubs in the hardest hit areas of northern England, may be necessary until after Christmas. A senior scientist has said that he believes the restrictions are “absolutely necessary.”
At a live press conference this morning, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that the increase in coronavirus cases is now being seen “across the country” and is not just a problem for the north of England.
Referring to a slide shown earlier at the briefing on rising rates in the south of England, he said: “Now I’ve been concerned that it might have presented a bipolar picture that Covid-19 is a problem in the north and not a problem in the south.
On the contrary, this time the epidemic clearly accelerated in the north of England earlier than it did in the first wave and that almost certainly relates to the fact that disease levels in the north, and certainly in the northwest never fell so much in the summer as in the south.
“But practically every area in the UK is now experiencing growth rates of infection and that extended brown map that I showed you, which comes from the Joint Center for Biosafety, absolutely proves it.
“This is a national phenomenon now that rates are shifting up across the UK.”
He said the virus spread in closed spaces, crowded spaces and areas where people were in close contact.
Professor Van-Tam’s comment comes after Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw said there is “no justification” for placing the city under the strictest lockdown measures.
Fears arose on Monday that Exeter will be placed at Level Three of the latest restrictions. Last week, a section of Exeter was listed in 7th place in a table of the top 30 areas for new coronavirus cases in the UK.
When asked about the transmission of the disease in hospitality settings, Professor Van-Tam said: “We know that the virus thrives on what we love the most, which is human contact.
“We have more and more compelling evidence of screaming and singing as pressure points on the virus in terms of pushing virus-laden particles out further and thus making transmission more intense.”
But Professor Van-Tam played down the impact of the return of schools on the virus’ resurgence.
He said: “If salami cuts the infection data very carefully in the school age bands, what you really see is very low rates of infection increase up to around 16 years and then pick up a bit at 17- 18- years old as we get into that age group … really pretty intense streaming.
“The evidence that there is significant transmission in schools is not really supported by rising infection rates and in fact we already know that children are not drivers of infection and spread in the community in the same way. that we know they are for influenza, for example. . “
On Test and Trace, Professor Van-Tam said the country could have been “in a worse situation now if we hadn’t had Test and Trace notifying people when they had been in close contact and asking them to isolate themselves.”
“So please keep using this system, it is still vitally important.”
Professor Stephen Powis, England’s NHS National Medical Director, said the country was in a better position than in March and April.
“Clearly, we have learned a lot from that first wave, we have learned better treatments for patients and dexamethasone … we learned that it reduces deaths.”
But he cautioned: “R is above one, that means infections will continue to rise, and as infections continue to rise, hospital admissions and the impact on health services will continue to rise.”
Professor Powis said: “Increased testing of asymptomatic NHS staff would go beyond front-line employees.
“As testing capacity increases and we begin to see new technologies in the emerging tests that we are beginning to roll out across the NHS, we are now at the point where we will more systematically test asymptomatic personnel on a regular basis.
“And we will do it first, on the advice of the medical director (Professor Chris Whitty), in those areas of the country with high rates of infection, such as the Northwest.
“When it comes to staffing, yes, of course we want to test front-line staff in hospitals, but it’s not just front-line staff.
“We know from virology studies in which we analyze the antibodies that can be carriers, it can be receptionists and other hospital workers who can contract the virus, so it is not just doctors and nurses.
“And yes, we want to extend this outside of the hospital to our primary care setting, like general practice.”
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