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LONDON (AP) – Britain’s National Health Service will employ a specially constructed little-used field hospital in a huge exhibition center in east London from next week at the start of the pandemic last spring.
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said on Thursday the pressures facing hospitals in London and south-east England are so acute that ExCel London’s Nightingale Hospital will be open next week to hospitalized patients. A few hundred beds for non-COVID patients are expected to be available initially.
“The whole of the London health service is mobilizing to do everything it can except infections, the growth rate of admissions, that’s what the country must collectively get under control,” he said.
The hospital, which will also be a vaccination center, was one of many buildings constructed in the spring to help during the pandemic. They were named after Florence Nightingale, widely regarded as the founder of modern nursing. In fact, they have barely been used and have been put on the back burner for potential use during the next waves of the pandemic.
Stevens said the health service was in the midst of an “incredibly serious situation” with more than 50% more coronavirus hospital patients in hospitals across England than the peak in April. All of this happens when the NHS is busiest due to winter ailments.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tory government has come under fire for failing to lock down England earlier – during the Christmas season – given the rise in infections largely attributable to a new variant of the virus around the capital and from the south-east of England. The lockdown went into effect on Tuesday, more than two weeks after scientists warned the new variant was potentially 70% more contagious.
In another tightening measure, the government announced on Friday that starting next week, all people arriving from other countries will be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure. There are exemptions for some, including truck drivers, airline crew members, and children under 11.
Many public health experts have long urged the UK to adopt the measure as a way to reduce imported infections, although the virus is more prevalent in Britain than in many other countries.
The government said the measure would help protect against new variants of the virus, such as the one recently identified in South Africa.
The UK is recording virus-related deaths at the same level as some of the worst days of the pandemic. Government figures on Thursday showed an additional 1,162 people are believed to have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus. That’s just below the record of 1,224 deaths on April 21.
The total number of virus-related deaths in the UK is now 78,508. According to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the UK is again the most affected country in Europe in terms of total related deaths to COVID.
Although the number of new cases fell to 52,618 from the previous day’s record of 62,322, the seven-day average is about three times higher than a month ago. Given the delays involved, the UK could well face many more days of very high daily deaths linked to the virus.
Johnson said the likely number of virus-related deaths in the UK would be “tragically” high but ultimately depend on factors such as the speed of vaccine rollouts and people’s acceptance of the lockdown.
The UK is further along the vaccine path than others, having already approved two of them. Almost 1.5 million people, mostly over the age of 80, have already received a first dose of the vaccine. The government aims to provide a first dose to about 13 million people by mid-February, which would represent about 85% of those considered most at risk of dying from COVID-19.
People across the UK were encouraged to ‘Clap for Heroes’ on Thursday night. In the first weeks of the pandemic, the weekly “Clap for Carers” was a unifying ritual.
His return, though renamed to also recognize other key workers such as delivery drivers and postal workers, has been greeted with a mixed response. Some NHS workers have asked people to stay home and not to venture outside to applaud.
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Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic on:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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