New infections have doubled in recent weeks; hospitals ahead a few dangerous weeks.
British physicians warned on Friday that hospitals across the country are facing a few dangerous weeks amid new coronavirus infections blamed on a new version of the virus.
A day after the UK recorded 55,892 new infections and a further 964 coronavirus-related deaths, concerns are emerging about the impact on the National Health Service which is too high. Field hospitals built in the early days of the pandemic but subsequently decommissioned are being reactivated.
Mike Adams, director of the Royal College of Nursing England, told Sky News that the UK was in the “eye of the storm” and that it was “embarrassing” to see people who were not following the social pace guidelines or wearing masks.
A chief physician also warned of a shooting among health workers on the front line of the uprising in hospitals, while also urging people to follow the rules.
“I’m worried,” Adrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC. “We’re really at battle stations.”
New infections have been doubling in recent weeks after a new strain that is said to be about 70% more contagious has been found behind a large spike in cases around London and the south east of England.
With the loopholes between new cases and subsequent hospitals and deaths, there are serious concerns about the course of the pandemic over the next month or two in a country with the second highest death toll in the region. Europe is associated with a virus at nearly 74,000.
As a result of the spike, the strategy around the distribution of vaccines has been changed so that people get the first injection as soon as possible, with a second registered one delayed.