|
 Deaths from the virus have now exceeded 81,000 in the United Kingdom
- the world's fifth-highest toll - with more than 3 million people
testing positive. A new, more transmissible variant of the disease
is surging through the population, with one in 20 people in parts of
London now infected.
In a bid to get on top of the pandemic and to try to restore some
degree of normality by the spring, Britain is rushing out its
largest ever vaccination programme, with shots to be offered to all
those in its top four priority categories - about 15 million people
- by the middle of next month.
But the government's chief medical adviser Chris Whitty warned the
situation would deteriorate in the meantime.
"The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this pandemic
in terms of numbers into the NHS (National Health Service)," he
said.
"Anybody who is not shocked by the number of people in hospital who
are seriously ill at the moment and who are dying over the course of
this pandemic, I think, has not understood this at all. This is an
appalling situation," he told BBC TV.
"SIGNIFICANT CRISIS"
During the peak of the first outbreak in April, about 18,000 people
were in hospital but now there are 30,000, Whitty said, adding the
health service was facing "a significant crisis".
"Everybody says that this is the most dangerous time we've really
had in terms of numbers into the NHS," he said.
On Friday, London's mayor said the British capital's hospitals were
in danger of being overwhelmed by COVID patients, and ministers and
health chiefs have pleaded with people to respect lockdown measures
and stay at home unless it was essential to go out.
The government is pinning its hopes on a mass vaccination programme
to offer a way out of the pandemic by the spring.
[to top of second column] |
 Britain was the first country
to approve vaccines developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca
and by Pfizer/BioNTech, and on Friday approved
Moderna's shot. It is aiming to offer shots to
15 million people by the middle of next month.
To reach that target, which will require delivering 2 million
vaccines a week, the government is opening seven big vaccination
centres while additional doctors' surgeries, hospitals and some
pharmacies will also start delivering shots. "The
vaccinations are really beginning to ramp up, 200,000 a day, we've
done an incredible job this past week," Nadhim Zahawi, the minister
in charge of the vaccination programme, told Sky News
Those in the four highest risk levels, including those over 70, the
most clinically vulnerable and frontline health workers, will be
offered the vaccines by February 15, he said.
"We are now very close to the point, with the vaccinations, where we
are able to get on top of this, but it is not yet," Whitty said.
There have been calls for the government to take tougher action
against those who break the lockdown rules, but Zahawi said
ministers did not want to "go any tougher" although existing
measures might be more tightly enforced. [L8N2JM1EK]
"These rules are not boundaries to be pushed against," he said.
"What we need is people to behave as if they've got the virus and so
that we can bring this virus under control whilst we vaccinate."
(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, William Schomberg and James
Davey; writing by Michael Holden; editing by Estelle Shirbon, Guy
Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content |
