Doctors warn of crisis as officials reject restrictions
Firefighter Matt Smither is seen working alongside critical care nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, southern England.
ADRIAN DENNIS | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON — An increasing number of doctors in the U.K. are warning that the country, and its health service, are facing a renewed health crisis due to rampant Covid-19 infections and a rising number of hospitalizations and deaths.
The warnings, from several big British medical bodies over the last couple of days, come as government officials have insisted that more restrictions on public life are not yet necessary, despite Health Secretary Sajid Javid warning Wednesday that Covid cases could reach 100,000 a day as we enter the winter period.
Making matters potentially even worse, U.K. experts are now monitoring a mutation of the delta variant that could be making the virus even more transmissible.
Read more: The delta variant has a mutation that’s worrying experts: Here’s what we know so far
‘Incredibly concerning’
The British Medical Association slammed the government’s sanguine perspective on the situation, stating Wednesday that it was “incredibly concerning” that Javid was not, as the association viewed it, “willing to take immediate action to save lives and to protect the NHS.”
“Especially as we head into winter, when the NHS is in the grips of tackling the largest backlog of care, with an already depleted and exhausted workforce,” it added in a statement, echoing numerous reports of exhausted frontline health staff.
Read more: UK doctors call for urgent return of Covid restrictions as experts monitor new mutation
The BMA backed calls, made earlier this week by the NHS Confederation (which represents organizations across the U.K. health care sector) for the government to trigger its “Plan B,” which it had said last month that it would do if Covid cases threatened to severely impact the health care service’s ability to function.
“The reality today is an unacceptable rate of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, unheard of in similar European nations. In comparison to France, we have more than 10 times the number of cases and almost four times as many deaths per million,” the BMA said.
The U.K. has been recording between 40,000 to 50,000 new daily infections in the last week. While the number of daily deaths and hospitalizations remain far below earlier peaks in the pandemic thanks to Covid vaccines, data shows these numbers are climbing too.
On Thursday, the U.K. reported 52,009 new cases and 115 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test. In addition, another 959 people were admitted to hospital, official data shows.
The government has rebuffed concerns over whether the health service can cope. Health Minister Edward Argar told the BBC Thursday that the NHS is not under “unsustainable pressure,” noting that there were about 95,000 beds in NHS hospitals, with 7,000 occupied by Covid patients and 6,000 currently empty.
“We know how those numbers can rise swiftly, which is why we’re looking at that day-by-day, hour-by-hour. But at the moment we do have the ability to manage,” he said.
Other experts beg to differ and say the data could be worse than it…
Read More: Doctors warn of crisis as officials reject restrictions