The UK government’s chief medical advisor Chris Whitty is ringing the alarm on health care overrun by corona patients. “There are 30,000 people with COVID-19 in the hospitals. Anyone who is not shocked does not understand what is going on.”
In London, one in thirty people is now infected with the corona virus. In the whole of England this applies to one in fifty people.
During the previous peak in April 2020, there were eighteen thousand infected patients in English hospitals, Whitty calculates. Chances are that this number will double in the coming weeks.
“We have a serious problem. It is increasing in all parts of England,” the adviser told the BBC. “The coming weeks will be the worst weeks of this pandemic.”
Whitty points to the ‘British mutation’ as the major culprit. This variant of the coronavirus is now dominant in England. “It really makes things worse in a way that the old variant was not capable of. It makes every situation of contact that little bit more dangerous.”
‘Will take weeks before vaccines are effective’
On Monday, a massive vaccination campaign was launched with huge ‘injection centers’ in large cities. In any case, England is ahead of other European countries with vaccinations. “But it will be weeks before the vaccines are really effective,” Whitty said.
“So what we have to do is minimize the number of unnecessary contacts with other people as much as possible”, was his ‘assignment’ to the English population.
“This is a problem for all of us. We must all help care and our fellow citizens. Any unnecessary contact you have with someone is a potential link in the chain that leads to a vulnerable person.”
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