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A hard-hitting new government announcement asks the British if they “can look coronavirus patients in the eye” as ministers toughen messages amid concerns that the new variant is more deadly.
The first in a series of new announcements aired on ITV and Channel 4 on Friday night and features COVID-19 patients and staff caring for them in Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.
It begins with a room full of doctors trying to save someone in intensive care before showing the faces of the very sick with the virus and the doctors who treat them.
They remain silent, looking at the viewer, before a voice asks, “Can you look into your eyes and tell you that you are doing everything you can to stop the spread of COVID-19?”
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Deadliest UK COVID variant
The change in tone comes after the prime minister warned that the second coronavirus The variant can be more fatal than the original.
He and several experts have also warned that the lifting of restrictions in March would simply lead to another lockdown in April, leaving the UK with no hope of returning to normalcy anytime soon.
“There is some evidence that the new variant may be associated with a higher degree of mortality,” Boris johnson he said at a Downing Street news conference on Friday.
Its chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, said that with the new variant, 13 to 14 out of every 1,000 people over 60 with the virus are dying.
With the initial, the number was 10.
Meanwhile, nurses have written to the government asking for an “urgent” review on whether standard surgical masks prevent transmission of the new variant in COVID wards.
Dame Donna Kinnair, executive director of the Royal College of Nursing has said that some hospitals are using enhanced PPE, creating a “postal code lottery” of protection.
A record 1,820 people were reported to have died of coronavirus on Wednesday, with another 1,401 COVID-related deaths recorded on Friday.
The government claims that someone is admitted to hospital with the virus every 30 seconds in England, and a quarter of them are under 55 years old.
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Vallance: ‘The virus is with us forever’
In Friday’s briefing, Professor Chris Whitty, medical director, stressed that infections across the country are still “at a very high level” and the situation is “extremely precarious.”
“The impact of the current wave continues to put significant pressure on hospitals across the country and many patients are very ill,” he urged.
“Vaccines provide clear hope for the future, but for now we must all continue to play our role in protecting the NHS and saving lives.”
Sir Patrick Vallance also cautioned that there is not yet enough evidence to say whether current vaccines will protect against emerging variants from South Africa and Brazil.
But despite the rising death toll, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said Friday that the virus the reproduction number (R) had dropped from 1.2 to 1.3 to 0.8 to 1.0.
Although this suggests that the lockdown is working, experts warned that the restrictions are still far from being relaxed, as hospitals are still in crisis, and that more could be needed to keep the numbers low.
Rowland Kao, professor of veterinary epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “While recent results showing a decrease in the number of cases are good news and suggest that the variant can be controlled by existing measures, these results on the deaths imply that the burden on hospitals will continue to be high requiring a longer period of restrictions. “
SAGE member and former chief scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport told the BBC: “If the evidence shows that the decline in cases is not continuing, then clearly legislators will have to consider much tougher measures.”
