LONDON (AP) – Hospitals across the UK are in a dangerous state in January, medical staff warned Friday amid infectious coronavirus attacks blamed on a variety of new viruses. Authorities were pressuring previously reactivated field hospitals just to treat new patient pressure.
There are growing concerns about the capacity of the National Health Service which has already been put in place to deal with the expected rise in people seeking treatment for COVID-19 infections over the coming weeks. ahead of which may be inspired by holiday gatherings over Christmas and the New Year.
On Friday, the UK registered a further 53,285 new infections, down slightly from the previous day’s high of 55,892. Although it is difficult to compare the onset of the pandemic due to the lack of testing in the spring, the UK has recorded the highest four new daily disease numbers over the last four days – all over 50,000 and about twice the daily number in recent weeks. .
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 “a disgrace” to see people who were not following the direction of social distance or wearing masks.
A chief physician also warned of burns among front-line health workers 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.”
The spike in new cases is said to be the result of a new, more contagious version of the virus that was first identified around London and the south-east of England.
With the transition time between new cases, hospitals and COVID-19 deaths, there are serious concerns about the pathogenesis of the pandemic over the next month or two. It has the second highest virus death toll in Europe at 74,125 after recording a further 613 deaths on Friday. The country is expected to surpass Italy and become the worst country in Europe again.
As a result of the spike in new diseases, which have prompted even stricter lock-in restrictions, British authorities have abandoned their strategy to roll out coronavirus vaccines, choosing to get more injections into people as soon as possible, and delaying the second sight for up to three months.
In a joint statement, the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said that the first dose of vaccine offers “substantial” protection.
Currently, two vaccines have been approved for use in the UK and both require two doses each.
About 1 million people have received the first dose of the vaccine, developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer PFE,
and German biotechnology company BioNTech BNTX,
22UA,
with a small minority also receiving the second dose as expected after 21 days.
See: Fauci says the US will not extend between doses of vaccines: CNN
Earlier this week, Britain approved a vaccine developed by Oxford University and British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
that’s a lot cheaper and easier to use.
Authorities then outlined the new dosing rule, which will delay the second vaccination phase from being performed at three weeks to being administered up to 12 weeks after the first screening.
“In the short term, the further increase in vaccine effectiveness from the second dose is likely to be small. Most of the initial protection from clinical infection is after the first dose of the vaccine, ”said medical officials.
However, there has been some criticism of the new plan. The UK’s leading doctors’ union has warned that delayed second doses are causing major registration problems for thousands of elderly and vulnerable people with vaccines.
“It is completely unfair and unfair to the tens of thousands of patients most at risk to try to reschedule their meetings,” said Richard Vautrey of the British Medical Association.