Due to the sharp increase in the number of new infections, space in British hospitals is becoming scarce. The clinics were filled “from wall to wall” with Covid-19 patients, said the head of the emergency physicians association RCEM, Katherine Henderson, on Monday BBC. There are patients with corona symptoms and patients with other diseases who would then also test positive for corona, she said. According to the latest government figures, more than 22,000 corona patients are being treated in hospitals.
The deputy chief of the NHS national health service, Saffron Cordery, said the pressure on clinics was high, especially in southern England, where a new, potentially highly contagious variant of the virus had recently spread. Now there is hope that mass vaccinations will start soon with the vaccine that the pharmaceutical company Astrazeneca developed together with the University of Oxford. Approval by the UK authorities is expected shortly. The product from the Mainz company Biontech and the US company Pfizer has been in use for almost three weeks.
Government advisor Calum Semple, a respiratory disease expert, said the drug would reshuffle the cards in the fight against the pandemic. “It can be stored at a lower temperature and is therefore much easier to transport across the country,” said Semple BBC. “This vaccine is very important because it doesn’t just make the antibodies that protect against infection.” It also promotes the formation of T cells – a key weapon of the immune system.
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