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A continued rise in severe Covid-19 disease means hospitals could have more patients with the disease in two weeks than at the peak of the pandemic, NHS leaders warn.
Hospitals in England were treating 10,971 hospitalized patients with Covid on Tuesday. NHS England noted that this was more than half of the 18,970 such cases in hospitals on April 12, when the disease was most destructive.
The health service in England should return to level 4 alert status at midnight on Thursday to coincide with the start of the second lockdown. The move means that the NHS response to the resurgence of the pandemic is being managed nationally rather than regionally, and that the NHS England National Incident Coordination Center, comprising the organization’s senior team, has once again been operational, after being withdrawn in July.
It will monitor which hospitals are under the most pressure and decide what steps need to be taken to respond, for example by diverting patients to places with reserve capacity and managing non-Covid care.
The new national restrictions are due to go into effect in England on Thursday, after MPs vote on them, and will remain in effect until at least 2 December.
Why can I leave the house?
- For childcare or education, where it is not provided online.
- Go to work unless it can be done from home.
- Exercise outdoors with household members or with someone from another household.
- For all medical reasons and appointments.
- To escape injury or damage, such as domestic abuse.
- To provide care for vulnerable people or volunteer.
- To buy food and basic products.
- See people in your bubble of support.
- Children will still be able to move between homes if their parents are separated.
The government says the list is not exhaustive and that other permitted reasons for leaving home can be established later. People could face police fines for leaving their home without a legally permitted excuse.
Can you mix different homes indoors?
No, unless they are part of an “exclusive” support bubble, which allows a one-person household to meet and socialize with another household.
Parents can form a child care bubble with another household for the purpose of informal child care, when the child is 13 years old or younger.
Can different homes be mixed outdoors?
People can meet a person from another household socially and for exercise in public outdoor spaces, which do not include private gardens.
Can I attend funerals, weddings, or religious services?
Up to 30 people will be allowed to attend funerals, while stone setting and ash scattering can continue with up to 15 guests.
Weddings and civil couple ceremonies are not allowed except in “exceptional circumstances.” Places of worship must remain closed except for volunteer services, individual prayer, and other exempt activities.
Can I travel to the UK or abroad for a holiday?
Most international outbound travel will be prohibited. There is no exemption for staying away from home on vacation. This means that people cannot travel internationally or within the UK, unless for work, education or other legally permitted exemptions.
What businesses will they close?
Everything except essential stores and educational settings, including daycares, schools and universities, will close.
Entertainment venues will also have to close. Indoor and outdoor pubs, restaurants and entertainment facilities will have to close their doors once again.
However, take-out and delivery services will continue to be allowed, while construction and manufacturing will remain open.
Parents will still be able to access registered child care and other child care activities when reasonably necessary for parents to work. Some youth services may be able to continue, such as one-on-one youth work, but most youth clubs will need to close their doors.
Public services such as jobs, courts and civil registry offices will remain open.
There are no exemptions for organized grassroots team sports. Elite sports will be allowed to continue behind closed doors as at present, including Premier League football matches.
Aaron Walawalkar
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said the number of people needing hospital treatment will continue to rise inexorably until mid-November, despite the midnight shutdown on Thursday. That was “built in” because of the 10-day lag between someone getting infected, getting seriously ill and needing hospitalization, “he said.
“As infection rates increase in the coming weeks … the projection is that the number of hospitals will also increase,” Powis told an NHS England news conference. “And as that happens, it begins to fill our hospitals, it begins to consume the current available capacity that we have, it goes beyond the maximum use of beds that we had in the first wave.
“And unless we can control the virus and we can round that curve, it will start to move towards our capacity for augmentation. So our hospital admissions and our hospital numbers are already scheduled for mid-November. “
Sir Simon Stevens, executive director of NHS England, admitted that the pressure on hospitals from Covid-19 was increasing so dramatically that the NHS might have to abandon its ambition of patients seeking normal care, not Covid during the second wave of the pandemic should be able to get it. Some trusts had already canceled planned surgery, he said. These include trusts in Liverpool, Yorkshire, Nottingham and also in Plymouth in Devon.
“In North West England, a quarter of the patients who would otherwise have their routine operations, those beds, services and facilities are being reused for the coronavirus,” Stevens said.
Saffron Cordery, Deputy Executive Director of NHS Providers, representing NHS trusts, said: “Today’s announcement by NHS England that the health service will return tonight to the highest level of emergency preparedness is confirmation that the The health service is once again facing one of the most challenging periods in its history.
“Despite months of preparation for the second wave, this will be an extremely difficult winter for the NHS and will place an additional burden on staff who have worked tirelessly since the beginning of the pandemic to care for patients.”
Powis said it was no longer just hospitals in places like Liverpool and Manchester that were under intense stress from the Covid resurgence. “Infection rates are now rising and rising faster in the south, [and] Hospital admissions are also beginning to increase in the south of the country. Therefore, our hospitals are beginning to fill the south with coronavirus patients. “
Dr. Alison Pittard, dean of the College of Intensive Care Medicine, which represents physicians who work in intensive care units, said that the majority of people admitted to an ICU with Covid had an average age of 60. and some had underlying health problems. “But we are still seeing patients who are significantly older and younger than that. So it is affecting the entire age spectrum, ”he said.
Stevens pleaded with the public to help protect the NHS by following the new rules that go into effect Thursday morning, as well as the government’s “hands, face, space” infection control tips. “The reality, I believe, is that there is no health service in the world that alone can cope with the rising coronavirus,” he said.
What he called “three lines of defense – the actions we take as individuals and families, [and] the efforts of the “test and trace program” were vital to ensuring that the NHS was not overwhelmed, Stevens said.
