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LONDON (AP) – Britain’s hospitals across the country face dire straits in January, medical workers warned on Friday amid the spike in coronavirus infections blamed on a new variant of the virus. Authorities have lobbied to reactivate previously shelved field hospitals just to handle the crush of new patients.
Concerns grow about the ability of the already stressed National Health Service to cope with the expected increase in the number of people seeking treatment for COVID-19 infections in the coming weeks, which could be further fueled by the rallies holidays at Christmas and New Year.
The UK recorded 53,285 new infections on Friday, down slightly from the previous day’s high of 55,892. Although comparisons with the start of the pandemic are difficult given that testing was limited in the spring, the UK has recorded its four highest daily numbers of new infections in the past four days – all over 50,000 and so. double the daily number from a few weeks ago. .
The head of the Royal College of Nursing in England, Mike Adams, told Sky News the UK was in “the eye of the storm” and it was “infuriating” to see people not following the advice. social distancing or wearing masks.
A prominent doctor also warned of burnout of frontline health workers in hospitals, while urging people to follow the rules.
“I am worried,” Adrian Boyle, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC. “We are really at the combat posts.”
The spike in new cases is believed to be due to a new, more contagious variant of the virus first identified around London and in south-east England.
Given the time lag between new cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, the trajectory of the pandemic over the next two months is of great concern. Britain already has the second highest death toll from a virus in Europe, at 74,125, after another 613 deaths on Friday. The country seems poised to overtake Italy and once again become the most affected country in Europe.
Due to the spike in new infections, which has resulted in even tighter lockdown restrictions, UK authorities have shifted their coronavirus vaccine rollout strategy, choosing to get more people to take a first vaccine as soon as possible, and to delay the second shot. at three months.
In a joint statement, the chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, said the first dose of the vaccine offers “substantial” protection.
Currently, two vaccines have been approved for use in the UK and both require two doses per person.
About 1 million people received the first dose of the vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech, with a small minority also receiving the second dose as planned after 21 days.
Earlier this week, Britain also approved a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. it is much cheaper and easier to use.
Authorities then described the new dosing schedule, which delays a person’s second injection of vaccine to three weeks to be given until 12 weeks after the first injection.
“In the short term, the further increase in vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest. The vast majority of the initial protection against clinical disease occurs after the first dose of vaccine, ”the doctors said.
Yet the new plan has been criticized. The UK’s leading doctors’ union has warned that postponing the second dose is causing huge scheduling problems for thousands of partially vaccinated elderly and vulnerable people.
“It is patently unfair for tens of thousands of our most at risk patients to try now to reschedule their appointments,” said Richard Vautrey of the British Medical Association.
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Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccines and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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