NHS under ‘very serious pressure’ as Covid-related hospital admissions soar
As coronavirus infections reach new highs on a daily basis, there are signs the National Health Service (NHS) is beginning to creak under the pressure.
According to health secretary, Matt Hancock, the NHS is under “very serious pressure” and “flexing” the coronavirus lockdown rules “could be fatal” for the country.
Hancock told the BBC Andrew Marr show on Sunday (January 10) he does not want to speculate on whether the government would further strengthen restrictions, but added that staying at home was the "most important thing we can do collectively as a society".
Meanwhile, Labor leader, Keir Starmer, told the same show that the rules were tough but "may not be tough enough" before calling on the government to hold daily press conferences to avoid "mixed messages".
Politics aside, a leading British epidemiologist and Oxford-based infectious diseases expert, has claimed the UK is now “in the eye of the storm” in terms of the impact of the pandemic.
Peter Horby told Andrew Marr: “I really hope people take this very seriously. It was bad in March, it’s much worse now”.
Horby’s warning comes on the heels of rapidly rising Covid-related hospital admissions. As of Thursday (January 07) there were 30,074 Covid patients in UK hospitals, 39 percent more than the previous peak on April 12, when 21,684 were hospitalized.
According to multiple reports, more than half of all major hospital trusts in England are accommodating more Covid-19 infected patients than at the peak of the first wave in April.
Furthermore, NHS England figures on Saturday (January 09) shows the number of Covid-19 patients in London hospitals currently stands at 7,227, representing a 32 percent increase on the previous week.
Covid-19 infections and deaths have spiked significantly since December with on average 894 people dying within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test.
The dramatic rise in infections and associated deaths is mostly attributed to the new Covid-19 variant, popularly referred to as the “British Virus”.
Under the current England-wide lockdown, people must stay at home and can only go out for very specific reasons such as food shopping, exercise or work, but only if that work cannot be done from home.
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