In the UK, hospitals are on the verge of …

UK is on red alert amid uncontrolled increase in cases linked to new variant of covid-19 what does it say at the limit of the capacity of the health system: In the past few hours, around 60,000 new cases have been recorded, bringing the number of infections to three million people. Meanwhile, the death toll stood at 80,868: It is the European country with the most deaths from the coronavirus.

In this context, the health authorities warn that if this uptrend continues and the British do not respect the restrictions imposed to stop the second wave, hospitals are going to collapse and it ‘will happen soon’. “The four British medical chiefs and the National Health System’s chief medical officer recommended for the first time to raise the alert level to 5, the maximum. This means that if action is not taken, there is a risk that our health service will be exceeded in 21 days ” Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer of England, said in a newspaper interview The Sunday Times.

“Hospitals face the most dangerous situation we can remember “, he stressed. “Hospitals may not have room to redirect emergency cases and the staff-to-patient ratio will be unacceptable even in intensive care. There will be preventable deaths,” he said.

Epidemiological situation and vaccination

According to the latest official report, UK has recorded 59,937 more Covid-19 cases, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 3,017,409 infections. During this time, the number of death amounted to 80,868, including 1,035 deaths in the last 24 hours.

United Kingdom, subject to its third lockdown and plunged into a “race against time” with hospitals on the verge of saturation, believes that it will be able to vaccinate the over 70s, caregivers and the most vulnerable people before March. These three groups, which would be equivalent to about 15 million people, belong to the population category in which 88% of deaths occur.

The campaign started in early December and immunizers from BioNTech / Pfizer and AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are administered. On Friday, the British health regulator authorized a third vaccine, that of the American laboratory Moderna, even if it will not begin to be used until the spring.