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British hospitals scramble for space as coronavirus cases soar

Published:Monday | December 28, 2020 | 9:27 AM
Pedestrians wear masks as they walk on Oxford Street in London, Saturday, December 26, 2020. London is currently in Tier 4 with all non-essential retail shops closed and people have been asked to stay at home, on what is usually one of the busiest retail days of the year with the traditional Boxing Day sales in shops. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

LONDON (AP) — British hospitals are cancelling non-urgent procedures and scrambling to find space for COVID-19 patients as coronavirus cases continue to surge despite tough new restrictions imposed to curb a fast-spreading new variant of the virus.

Dr Nick Scriven, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said Monday that the rising number of hospitalised patients was “extremely worrying.”

“With the numbers approaching the peaks from April, systems will again be stretched to the limit,” he said.

British authorities are blaming a new variant of the coronavirus for soaring infection rates in London and southeast England.

They say the new version is more easily transmitted than the original, but stress there is no evidence it makes people sicker.

In response, authorities have put a swath of England that’s home to 24 million people under restrictions that require nonessential shops to close, bar indoor socialising and allow restaurants and pubs only to operate for takeout.

Even so, hospital admissions for COVID-19 in southeast England are approaching or exceeding the levels seen at the first peak of the outbreak.

Government figures show 21,286 people were hospitalised with the coronavirus across the UK on December 22, the last day for which data is available.

That is only slightly below the high of 21,683 COVID-19 patients who were recorded in UK hospitals on April 12.

Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, described her experience working in a hospital on Christmas Day as “wall-to-wall COVID.”

“The chances are that we will cope, but we cope at a cost,” Henderson told the BBC.

“The cost is not doing what we had hoped, which is being able to keep non-COVID activities going.”

Britain has already recorded more than 70,000 deaths among people with the coronavirus, one of the highest tolls in Europe.

Cabinet Minister Michael Gove said more parts of England might have to be put into the toughest tier of restrictions if case numbers do not fall.

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland also have implemented strong lockdown measures.

Still, there is rising confidence help could soon be on the way, with expectation mounting that UK regulators may authorise a second coronavirus vaccine this week.

British media reports say the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is likely to give the green light to a vaccine made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

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