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UK coronavirus hospital admissions 'past peak' - Coronavirus Daily Update UK

Jun 01, 2021
Michael Gove, good afternoon and welcome to this 10th press conference on our progress in the fight against chest 19. I'm joined today by Professor Steve Paris, National Medical Director of NHS England, in a moment or two I'll turn you over. Steve to take us through the Cabinet Office briefing room slide

update

s, but first I want to set out the latest data on

coronavirus

. In the United Kingdom, 1 million two hundred six thousand four hundred five

coronavirus

tests have been carried out, including seventy-six thousand four. one hundred ninety-six yesterday in total one hundred eighty-six thousand five hundred ninety-nine people tested positive, which represents an increase of four thousand three hundred thirty-nine cases since yesterday fourteen thousand two hundred forty-eight people are currently being treated in

hospital

for coronavirus compared to 14 thousand six hundred and ninety-five yesterday, unfortunately, of those who tested positive for coronavirus in all settings, twenty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-six have died behind the figures, there has been an increase of three hundred and fifteen deaths since yesterday in everything In all environments, this pandemic has claimed more than twenty-eight thousand lives and each one of them is precious, each one valued, each one irreplaceable, the pain of grief and anguish is deeply personal, but as a society we are showing care and compassion beyond borders, offering support and an opportunity to talk together about grief and for those who are experiencing the first Ramadan without a loved one, this will be a particularly painful time.
uk coronavirus hospital admissions past peak   coronavirus daily update uk
I send my deepest condolences to all the families who are grieving, as are the Christians who were unable to celebrate Easter together in the church and the Jewish community. whose Easter rituals were affected by social distancing our thoughts are with Muslim neighbors who cannot break the fast together I must adapt their religious and cultural practices due to the crisis we have all learned to adapt and must continue to do so after the First Minister sets out how we will get back to work later this week his comprehensive plan will explain how we can move our economy forward how we can get our children back to school how we can travel to work more safely and how we can make life in the workplace is safer, but Before we can ease existing restrictions, we must ensure that the government's five tests are met, that case numbers are falling, that death rates are falling, that the NHS has the that it needs and that measures are in place to stop a second

peak

overwhelming the NHS.
uk coronavirus hospital admissions past peak   coronavirus daily update uk

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uk coronavirus hospital admissions past peak coronavirus daily update uk...

Particularly aware that those on the frontline of our public services will need clear guidance on safe working, they will need the right personal protective equipment and adequate access to testing if we are to make all the progress we want in the coming weeks. We are consulting with employers, unions, professionals and public health experts to set out how we can ensure we have the safest possible working environments and the Prime Minister will say more later this week on personal protective equipment for key workers. We are increasing the distribution of distribution. and supply from 25 February to May, the second in which we delivered more than 1.08 billion items of PPE across England's health and social care system, with our devolved government colleagues delivering tens of millions more.
uk coronavirus hospital admissions past peak   coronavirus daily update uk
This overall figure includes one hundred and forty-nine million masks, 173 million aprons, two million Gans and six hundred and fourteen million gloves. On May 2 alone we delivered an additional 20 million items of PPE in England, but there is much more to do and work directed by Lord Dayton to improve Domestic production of PPE is vital to our efforts and in testing, thanks to the hard work of so many people across NHS England's public health system, our pharmaceutical sector and our universities, we have tested more of 200,000 key workers and their families, allowing those who do not have the virus to return to work and protecting those who do, we have now of course expanded the criteria for testing beyond key workers to anyone older over 65 years old who have symptoms and anyone who has to travel to work and this week we will be piloting a new test track. and tracing procedures on the Isle of Wight with a view to rolling them out more widely later this month.
uk coronavirus hospital admissions past peak   coronavirus daily update uk
All of these steps will help us get more people back to work and help support the delivery of our public services and I want to thank those who have done so much to maintain the delivery of critical public services during this crisis, our teachers, from the incredibly difficult provide educational support to millions and the government has committed £100m to boost remote learning for those who need it most. The newly opened Oak National Academy complements all the work done by schools and teachers by providing 180 video lessons each week and, particularly interested in helping vulnerable and disadvantaged children continue their education during the pandemic, schools continue to receive funding Additional funding in the form of the pupil premium for those most deserving pupils amounts to around €2.4 billion a year and we have ordered laptops to help disadvantaged young people who will be sitting key exams next year.
We are also providing laptops and tablets to those children with social workers and care. leavers to help them stay in touch with the services they need, keeping them safe and supporting learning at home and, if disadvantaged pupils in sectarian schools and care leavers who are preparing for exams do not have internet access, we will provide them with free routers to connect while schools are Closed over the Easter holidays, we were able to ensure that over 60% of schools were open every day with places for both vulnerable children and critical workers, and The free school meal voucher program ensured that children who needed it could continue to access food.
Despite school closures, 15,500 schools have so far placed orders for vouchers, of which more than £35 million has been redeemed. The latest data available shows that around 49,000 children and attendees on April 24 were classified by schools as vulnerable, more than double the number. for a week now and whilst this is going in the right direction we estimate that it still represents only around one in ten of all children and young people classed as vulnerable, we want this figure to increase further and are working with schools in the local authorities. and universities to provide better support to vulnerable young people.
All this additional support, of course, takes time, puts pressure on existing staff and costs money. That's why we've promised an extra £1.6bn to cross-border councils to support their essential frontline services, including those for adults. social care this son brings funding given to councils to over 3.2 billion parents to help communities get through this crisis. We have also deployed military support to help the public sector. The indicted support force mobilized by the Ministry of Defense now has 20,000 personnel and more than 3,600 personnel. They are deployed in support of 86 separate projects providing military assistance to civil authorities nationwide. They are assisting the Ministry of Housing Communities and local government, Hope Health and Social Care and also the NHS with planning and logistics.
In England, Scotland and Wales, on the ground they are helping to build and staff temporary Nightingale

hospital

s and operate regional coronavirus testing centres, of which there are now 49 across the country, as well as mobile tests we are implementing. To date there are 77 across the country 156 military planners are integrated at grassroots level with our existing local resilience forums emergency services partnerships local authorities the NHS the Environment Agency and others are helping to co-ordinate and protect our local services vital supplies and supplies with additional support from senior Whitehall officials, plus we have local government to thank for their energetic work because since the end of March, 90% of rough sleepers known to councils have received an offer accommodation that guarantees their safety and that of the government.
More widely it is also working hard to support those who have not been identified as shielded but are still vulnerable. In the coming days we will deliver our millionth package of essential foods to those most at risk across the country, up to two hundred thousand. Daily phone calls are being made and councils are helping to support them in other ways, including organizing regular volunteer calls to those who are isolated in our communities. The support provided by many local organizations has been inspiring as people step forward to help. Friends, neighbors and the government have helped mobilize another important lifeline through the NHS volunteer response programme.
More than 600,000 people have been ID-checked and are helping with the

daily

errands that make such a significant difference: collecting groceries, making contact like a human voice on the end of a phone, and transporting patients and supplies for the NHS and, therefore, Of course, we are all working with supermarkets to ensure that more online delivery slots are available for those most in need in each of these areas, the government in Westminster has been working with ministers from the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. This has helped us monitor and react to the trajectory of the virus across nations, allowing us to intervene wherever people need it in each of these

daily

press conferences.
We have paid tribute to the compassion and dedication of our public sector key workers. I recognize how much we all owe to his stoicism and steadfastness. Nurses, doctors, cleaners, paramedics, pharmacists, care home staff, prison and police officers, teachers, social workers, those who prepare and deliver food. our rejections and the administration of our welfare system deserve our gratitude they deserve our support they are amazed by our minds they are the best of us we owe them a lot and we in government will do everything we can to support them during the next phases of our response to the pandemic and now I will give the floor to Professor Paris to tell us the latest events regarding the pandemic.
Thank you and good afternoon. If I may start by reminding everyone once again of the five tests that the government has set out to adjust the lockdown, so this is shown here on the first slide. The first is that the NHS has sufficient capacity to provide critical care and specialist treatment across the UK and of course I am delighted that the NHS to date has been able to deal magnificently with the surge in coronavirus patients that we have seen, but that it must continue and we must be sure that the same will be true in the coming months, secondly, that we see a sustained and constant fall in daily debts due to the coronavirus and, as I will show later, that is happening now, although we must ensure that it is maintained; thirdly, that there is reliable data to show that the infection rate is declining to manageable levels across the board and while we are confident that we have seen a decrease in the spread of the virus in the community we need to see the data and be sure of the data to know that that is indeed the case and that it can be sustained Fourthly, that the operational challenge is part of which you just heard, including testing and PPE. that we have now we are in a position where we will be able to meet future demand in the coming months and, fifthly, the confidence that any adjustment to the current social distancing measures does not risk a second

peak

of infection, a transmission rate exceeding r1 in In other words, one person infects on average more than one person because that will lead to an increase over time in the number of infected people and then greater pressure on the NHS once again, so that those are the five tests now, as we have said many times. the British public has responded magnificently to the government's call to comply with social distancing measures and on the next slide we give you some more data on the evidence that that compliance has been high and you can see here that in retail and workplace recreation and transit stations that represent thepublic transportation, but also in other areas where we have seen a decrease in the time that people spend in those environments and I think that in general, as with other slides that we have shown you from last week, shows that the The public continues to respond to requests on social media to maintain social distancing measures to comply in order to protect the NHS and save lives.
Now on the next slide we show you the number of positive tests from the history of daily testing in the UK and you I heard a little bit about that again today and you'll see that texting capacity has increased very rapidly over the last week and We are now at a very high level of testing of over a hundred thousand, a small dip over the weekend, but we anticipate that that testing capacity will continue to increase and is a very important component of our approach going forward. On the next slide you'll see how that translates to new cases, so there are positive cases in testing and again you saw an increase in the last few days and I think that reflects that we are now testing in more settings where we can allow more people. come forward for testing because testing capacity has increased, but the numbers have not increased dramatically and I think that means that even with more testing it is evidence. that the infection rate in the community is decreasing on the next slide you will see how that translates into people in the hospital with kovat 19:00 and as I have said many times this is a mild illness for the vast majority of people, but unfortunately for some a hospital admission is required and you can see that the peak of hospital

admissions

has passed, particularly in London where we saw the steepest rise and now we have started to see the steepest fall and since mid-April we have started to see a decline in the total number of people hospitalized and that again is evidence that the rate of transmission of the virus in the community is decreasing and that translates into fewer people being admitted to the hospital and then the next slide showing again how this translates into the use of intensive care beds, so these are our sickest patients, again a small minority, but nevertheless a very important group of people who will have to be cared for in intensive care units and you can see again that the proportion has been decreasing since mid.
April and, in fact, if we looked at the absolute numbers we would see a decrease in the absolute numbers, so again there is evidence that we are seeing the benefits of complying with social distancing measures and the reduction in transmission of the virus in the community is starting to have an effect on fewer people in critical care and finally the last two slides unfortunately represent those who have died, of course there are stories behind every death and our hearts go out to those loved ones who suffered the loss of a family member or a Friend, but you can see that on a seven-day rolling average of these figures provided by Public Health England, Positive Health and Developed Administration, the trend is now downwards, so it appears that we have surpassed the peak of death, and we are starting to see a decrease in the number of deaths, which of course is good news and again represents the benefits of complying with social distancing and then on the final slide, as we have shown before, an international comparison now reporting UK debt in all settings, remember earlier in These graphs show that we were for some time reporting hospital deaths.
Now this is all environment and again the usual caveats regarding different countries measuring this differently. The measure that I think we all recognize will be the key measure: excess deaths for everyone. mortality because that will take into account the overall effect of the pandemic but it will be some time before that kind of comparison can be made between countries thank you thank you very much Steve thank you now let's move on to the questions and I think I have two questions from members of the public who have been sent: what lessons have been learned to prepare our health systems in care systems for expected future waves of the virus and how we are ensuring that we have adequate supplies of ventilators and PPE that work for those.
Future waves are expected now well, that question was from Chris and London. What lessons have we learned for future waves of the virus? How will we ensure we have enough PPE and ventilators in the future? We are learning lessons all the time as is the world. This is a new virus and scientists are working internationally to determine the best way to combat it. That is why we are testing treatments that can prevent the virus, once people have been infected, from becoming more dangerous to them. That's also why we're working. internationally to try to secure a vaccine against the enemy, of course we hope it will take some time, but one of the things we have learned is how to improve our testing capacity.
We have now also increased domestic ventilation production and the location is increasing domestic PPE production as we move forward. Well, and I think the lessons we're learning in the UK are similar to the lessons other countries are learning too. Steve, yes, as you may have heard the chief medical officer say, on this podium, in the future, the intention will be to keep the transmission rate the r value below one, which is one of the five tests established by the government to adjust the lockdown, as I mentioned a few minutes ago and if we can do it successfully, then we should protect ourselves against future waves of the virus. but having said that, nothing is ever certain and it is absolutely true that we must move forward putting measures in place within the NHS to ensure that if for some reason we see our future waves we can cope with this and I think the lesson I have learned is that the NHS is able to behave incredibly flexibly, incredibly agile and increase its capacity in a very short time if you go back just a month or two to where we were at the beginning;
The NHS was planning how we could manage an increase in the number of cases of people with Kovat 19 at the time. Remember we were seeing health systems in other parts of the world becoming overwhelmed, so you'll remember the images from Wuhan in China in early January. You will remember the images we saw in northern Italy when the health system was overwhelmed and patients had to be flown to other countries and you will remember seeing images in closer countries, France, of patients who had to be flown out from major urban centers such as Paris. So what I learned is that the NHS and the excellent NHS staff, when faced with that challenge, can very quickly deploy the extra capacity that is required and they have done it magnificently and at no time during the surge in cases in April. , the NHS was in a position where it couldn't give kovat 19:00 patients the treatment they needed, which is a great testament to how well the NHS has been able to cope and I think the lesson has stuck then. clear.
The future is we can do that but we need to maintain that capacity but we need to maintain it at the same time defending all the other services that the NHS is providing and we have always provided the emergency services but some of the services we had to suspend during April , like elective surgery for example, my lesson is that the NHS is incredibly flexible, it can respond to this challenge and will respond to the challenge in the future. next few months, thanks Steve, thanks, we'll move on to the next question submitted by the public. Rebecca from Scotland asks.
We see daily graphs showing the quantifiable scientific effects of lockdown. How are non-quantifiable non-scientific social and emotional effects taken into account? When considering the balance between the benefits and harms caused by lockdown, Rebecca, we are seeking all the time to ensure we balance the need to protect life to protect the NHS with the recognition that you are right that lockdown will have an impact In the health. the mental and emotional well-being of many of our citizens and of course by suppressing economic activity it also means that the wealth that the country needs to ensure that we have high quality public services is also affected, but the five tests that have been established and that the D reminders above are a very good way to ensure that we can make an appropriate judgment because the worst thing that could be done would be to prematurely relax the current measures to see a second peak that does not risk overwhelming the NHS and causing us would force lockdown measures to be introduced again, that would be the most dangerous of course, I think for us to take Steve, yes, so as a doctor I am very aware that the measures that we have asked for have to ask people to Complying with the obligation to stay at home and avoid social contact with cats can have detrimental effects in terms of health, but also emotional and social effects, as you have asked in your question and we are very interested in all my clinical knowledge and scientists.
Colleagues, let us ensure that as soon as possible we can give advice allowing those measures to be relaxed, as you have heard several times the damage that could be caused in terms of health as a direct effect of the Virus deaths due to the virus must be balanced over time with the damage that has been caused during the lockdown and it is not easy that they are two things that are not easy to reconcile, but I can say that we are very, very aware of the effects that the lockdown has both socially emotional effects as health and that is why charting a path forward that will allow those restrictions to be lifted over time and at the same time keep the transmission rate low in the community is absolutely the goal we are working towards.
Thanks thanks. Well, now we move on to questions from representatives of news organizations and the first is from Chris Mason from the BBC. Chris, hello, good afternoon you both, Mr Gove, lockdown measures are starting to ease, how are the government going to persuade people that they are? It's safe to be out and about more and Professor Paris, how confident are you in the model that predicts the impact of a particular rule change? Well thanks Chris, you are absolutely right – the British public have shown amazing stoicism and understanding. of the need for the lockdown measures and they quite rightly want to ensure that, when they are relaxed, they are relaxed in a way that ensures that the sacrifice of the British people has been worth it and that we continue to operate in a way that means that the Public health comes first and that is why it is so important that we consult with employers and unions to make sure people understand the guidance on how to work safely.
It is also important that we make it clear that any approach we take is a preparation that We are not, as the First Minister of Scotland said, flipping a switch and returning a situation to the old normal. Our phased approach is one that allows us to monitor the impact those changes are having on public health and, if necessary, in a specific area. and localized, that means we can pause or even reintroduce restrictions that may be necessary to deal with localized outbreaks of the disease, and of course it is also important that we make sure people have the right guidance and information. a safe and suitable working environment, appropriate personal protective equipment and that will vary from environment to environment, the type of PPE you will need if you work in critical care is different to the type of PPE you might need in another public sector. and then the latest is that Matt Hancock's surprising success in increasing testing means people can have greater confidence, along with the development of the track and trace approach to testing being mooted on the Isle of Wight , in which we will be able to ensure that people who suffer from the virus themselves and their contacts can be encouraged to stay home so that we can limit the potential for any outbreak.
Yes, so it depends on the modeling. I think Chris is always the first point to make: modeling is simply that it is a process of taking a set of assumptions, a set of knowledge and predicting what will happen in the future and the reality will always be different than the model fraud, not will be an exact replication of the model and sometimes some of the assumptions can be I'm not sure and there are some unknowns when modeling so having said that right at the beginning of this the government or for the government produced a reasonable worst-case model that predicted what would happen if no action was taken. to MIT to prevent, mitigate or reduce the level of transmission in the community, of course, no country has stood by and implemented some type of social distancing measures, so we won't know, we won't.we will know. which that would have been against that model because everyone has implemented a set of measures that has meant that that did not happen once the lockdown measures were in place and other models would be produced that took into account the expected compliance of the public. with those lockdown measures and as I said you will have heard before the brief public has been really excellent in adhering to them and in fact what we have seen certainly in the NHS in terms of the predictions of those sorts of models and the models. come from a variety of academic groups working together as predicted in terms of bed numbers, bed usage has actually followed the shape of those predictions, it never follows them perfectly in absolute numbers, but it has more or less followed them in the shape of what we've seen, that gives me some confidence that, going forward, the models are a reasonable way to predict what we might see and they predict that over the next month we will continue to see a decline in the number of patients in hospital with kovat 19, the number of people in critical care and indeed the number of deaths and of course that is what we are seeing in reality, clearly we will need to do more modeling.
Clearly, it is important that various academic groups draw on these models. Right and proper is what ages another and groups of models will never be an absolutely perfect prediction of reality, but I am confident that in the future they will give us a very good guide to what we are likely to see, thank you very much. a lot of it was that houki chris, is there anything you wanted to follow up on and just wanted more clarification on? Very quick follow up with you Mr Gove, we have become very used to the mantra taped to the lecterns you stand behind and can we expect in the next phase to come a more subtle message reflecting what could be a set of rules more subtle and nuanced?
Well, I think you are right that the message has reached the hearts of the British people. I think what we need to do is just make sure that the advice we give on the ground is reassuring enough. I think it's about ensuring that people feel that the guidance we give about how a workplace can be safe is sensible, reliable and supported. by employers and unions, I think that is the most important thing, and I will now turn to Dan Huot from ITV. Hi, sorry for that hunter and me. I'm going to have to say this seriously for both and firstly for the The NHS contact tracing app has been trialled on the Isle of Wight and this week, given that it takes between fifty and sixty per cent of the entire population and to download this app once it is up and running, how crucial it will be for government policy to desuppress the virus and to what extent they will dictate in the future the measures that they have implemented or lifted in terms of lockdown and secondly, in the tests, the number drops to approximately 76,000 and how do you explain that sharp drop and in just 24 hours and how worried are you about the drop of almost 30,000 tests.
Well, thanks Dan. On the first, you are absolutely right that when it comes to contact tracing, the more people download the app developed by the NHS, the better. There are about 80,000 households on the Isle of Wight and obviously we would like to see more than half the problems if we can register on the app, but it is surprising and obviously refers to two points that Chris Mason made about how civil the people. during this crisis and knowing that this is a contribution that we can all make to help keep our neighbors and our communities safer, I think it is a very, very powerful incentive, and the leader of the other white council and the MP for Alouettes, the excellent Bob, you see Both have said that they believe it is in the interest of the island and the country that as many people as possible register on the app about the point of testing.
It is the case that you could expect that over a weekend they would declare truthfulness with fewer people going to work that there could be a drop in the number of tests that could occur at that time, but again, I did not think in any way that was two steps away from the incredible achievement of the NHS and others and so significantly increasing the number of tests that are available yes, on the app I think you are absolutely right, it is a component of a number, it is probably a component of a series of measures that will be necessary.
I think it is unlikely that this alone will be the only measure or the only intervention that will ensure that the virus is always under control. Contact tracing will need to be carried out as we have always done so that people follow leads as to who they have contacted. exactly why public health England is recruiting thousands of people to help with contact tracing and will need to let go of other measures we have become accustomed to, such as whether you are symptomatic and whether you have the virus and whether it is done the proof. The positive thing is that you will have to stay home for a while, so it is a component: the more people download it and use it, the greater the contribution it will make, but it will not be the only contribution and of course trying it will help us a Understand before you deploy exactly what that contribution is likely to be, so testing on the Isle of Wight is a very important phase in understanding how the application will be used and exactly what the contribution will be.
Thanks, did you want to come? Going back to anything that's just there in the app, what evidence do you have, maybe from other countries or the research you've done so far, suggests that this could actually work because it's clearly very new so I guess I have a feeling ? from the press of the powers that does not depend too much on this, again, Professor Paris, I am ruining the point that it is an arrow in the quiver, but it is the case that other countries, Germany and France, are also developing applications and we I want to make sure they are interoperable.
The fact that other developed nations and our European friends and partners are following this path. I think it just underlines how wise NHS X was in investing and leading this technology, but yes, other countries are developing. or use apps, not everyone has implemented one, so you are absolutely right, there will be international learning as we go as to when these applications are implemented in some of the Far East countries, they have been used successfully, so there is evidence that they can be used as part of a series of measures, but I think even in countries like Singapore and other countries again it is a set of measures, it is not a single measure, so we will learn some of that as we test and then implement it and I think the other important point to make is that it will never be a single set of measures that are frozen and then don't change over time.
I think measures will always need to be reviewed and adjusted based on what the infection is doing and what the reality of the situation is, but enforcement will be an important component of that in the future thanks to you, thank you. Turn now to Channel 4's Indigo Gilmour News Indigo Mr Gove, do you agree with his transport? Secretary that if maths tests had been implemented earlier many lives could have been saved and Mr Gove keeps telling us he is aware of the PPE issue once again today but a BMA report published today said that half of doctors had to find their own PPE because the government didn't, what would you say to the families of frontline NHS workers who died without receiving the proper protective equipment they needed?
Thanks and continue with the first point about testing again. I think there will come a time when we have this virus under control when we can ask ourselves some deep, profound questions about the lessons we can learn as a country from how we handled this virus in its early stages. Incredible achievement by Matt Hancock, Jim Bethel, our NHS and others to ensure we can increase testing. I think it has been an example of what the public sector and the private sector can achieve working together under very strong political leadership, but of course. In due time we will have the opportunity to look back, reflect and consider what we did right and what we did wrong.
No doubt this government, like all governments, will have made mistakes, but it will be impossible to determine exactly. what were the areas of greatest concern until at some point in the future we have all the information we need. I'm in PPE. I would never say we were at the top. I would always say that we were doing everything we could and it is natural. It is a cause for concern for any of us if people on the front line do not have adequate personal protective equipment, but that is the case, as as you will know, the BMA does an excellent job mainly, but not exclusively, of representing people in primary care.
GPS etc., and it has happened in the past that those in general practice will, in any case, have acquired a lot of their own equipment, but of course we want to ensure that we do everything at a reasonable price. NHS level and beyond to support everyone who has the right personal protective equipment and again, in due time, there will be an opportunity to look back and see what we have done well and what we haven't when it comes to doing In the meantime, We'll make sure frontline workers get everything they need, although our whole focus is on making sure we can do our best to support the people who are putting everything on the line to take care of us, so I hope it's helpful.
You may want to follow me on the failures related to PPE and what they are telling their families who lost their loved ones, frontline NHS workers. Well, every death is a tragedy and we want to make sure we do everything we can to support those in use. The front line in the NHS and, as I say, it will be a time when we can act on what could have been done better in the meantime, what we need to do is make sure that, as Lord Dayton is doing, as he is doing the Department of Health, like everyone else.
The arm of the government is making us use all the tools at our disposal to increase production of aprons, gloves, visors and other Ganga equipment that people on the front lines need, of course, it is important to recognize them and I know you do. The range of personal protective equipment that might be required in one setting will be different from another, but Steve, you might want to say a bit more about PPE, obviously as a doctor who worked on the frontline for many years. I have said it before and I will say it again. I know how important it is that PPE is provided to my colleagues, my friends on the front lines.
I know it has been a challenge. I know the government has been working very, very hard. I know it is an international market that is under significant stress as each country has been trying to purchase PPE for a couple of weeks now. I know you were worried about gowns, the position of gowns has actually improved a bit in recent weeks, so depending on the PPE item things will change. improve over time, but it is a challenge for exactly the reasons we said, but it is absolutely critical as you said the government is staying on top of that challenge and PPE is provided to frontline staff.
Yes, and Steve is right, I'm serious. It does not take responsibility away from any of us in government, but it is a global challenge and viewers of Channel Four News and others will have seen some of the protests and other countries in France and Germany when doctors have complained about the lack of PPE, like I say, that doesn't take away for a second our responsibility to do even better, but it does mean that I think people recognize that this is a Travon Chris global hope of the telecom mask that you guys grew up with today they spoke one. how systems in seasons and staggering start the work day when will daily life return to what we knew before the pandemic hit how many years it could take let me start quickly I miss a professor Paris Nightingale hospitals are empty if they were built by error or they filled up second wave just quick coverage, what are the viruses that we value today what was the exact date last week and at what exact moment did the UK go through the peak and that's for very important questions Chris in the first one about when we can return to normal, I think people have used the phrase a new normal and with that I think what they wanted to imply is that we can begin, we hope that, as you point out, since not everyone realizes, reduce to ease some of the restrictions, but we have to do it cautiously and the tropical sector was right in saying that we can start to see perhaps more people using public transport, but as long as they are helped to stagger or control the times in which they They use public transportation. transportation and the way people have already adapted to how they might use supermarkets and grocery stores etc. ultimatelyUltimately, unless and until we have a vaccine, I suspect we are going to have to live with some degree of restriction due to the nature of the virus, but obviously we want, wherever possible and consistent with our public health measures, to restore life of people as close to normal as possible, but you asked three detailed technical questions that Steve could answer, but they are so precise that I think they may bypass any ability of any scientist or doctor to answer accurately.
I'll try from the beginning on how long the new normal will last as hopefully an answer that none of "We can give right now if I remind everyone, but this is a virus that at the end of last year was unknown , it hadn't been in the human population and therefore the population around the world was not immune to it, so "We've only really known anything about this virus for four months and it's really difficult to know how it will develop in months and years to come, but a few things that I think I can be sure of, first of all, is that the scientific response of this virus is probably the best for any new virus.
The fact that it was a sequence, this genetic sequence was known within weeks of being identified, means that the sites can ramp up very quickly, including the ability to get vaccines produced and start testing. them and also, of course, starting to use drugs and understanding which drugs are likely to bind to the virus or to parts of the body's machinery that the virus affects, which means that we can proceed at a pace that is probably The laboratory certainly hasn't been the case in any other pandemic before our pandemic, which gives us hope that we can get to a solution, be it a vaccine or even drugs, sooner than we had hope ten twenty years ago, but it is impossible. to say when that will be, but it is certainly true to say that we will have to adapt to a new normal until we get to that point in the second question, which was what were the built-in errors of the nightingales?
Absolutely 100 per cent not and if you remember I was talking a little earlier in response to another question that if you turn the clock back a month or two, we would be seeing an increase in the number of cases of infection in the UK and seeing images of everything the world of health systems that were overwhelmed and had not implemented or were about to implement a series of social distancing measures without absolutely knowing how the public would respond to that and it would have been foolish not to have planned for additional capacity within the NHS, we did it. that in a number of ways, including nightingales, the fact that we haven't needed to use all that capacity is actually good news because it means that the public has complied with the social distancing measures, they have started to flatten that curve and we have seen We would have We saw fewer

admissions

and ultimately fewer deaths if we had, if this virus had been allowed to spread unchecked and the initial worst case scenarios, as I said, no country has let it develop, would have meant many, many, many deaths and one There is enormous pressure on the health services, so I think it would be a hundred thousand times more critical if the NHS had not put in that extra capacity and been overwhelmed;
You would rightly be wondering why we hadn't gone every mile that we could possibly put in that extra capacity so that NA the nightingales weren't built by mistake and we may still need them, we're not done with this yet and although government policy and The scientific advice is to try to ensure that the virus does not start. spreadAgain, we can never be absolutely sure and so over the next few months we need to maintain that extra capacity until we have more certainty and then thirdly, when was the peak, so I think that's a question that It really can't be answered precisely.
As you may have heard, because first of all there have been a series of spikes in debt, spikes in hospital admissions and spikes that have occurred at different times across the country because different regions of the country have been in different stages, but as you saw in the slides presented at the beginning, most of the measures we're looking at started to taper around mid-April, so I think generally speaking we saw a stabilization across a variety of measures around mid-April. Thank you very much, Steve and we will do it. Turn now to see in a row, I'm sorry Chris, you wanted to go back, forgive me, our body was washed today, I'm sorry, oh yeah, again, I'm sorry, you did, that was a quarter, so I think the Safari violence has said that I am the medical director. they believe our value is around 0.7.
We are measuring it directly at the moment through the work of the Office for National Statistics. I think that's being measured by randomly testing people in the community once the data has been presented to us. is available, I think it will be better to give a more precise figure, but I think, as Patrick also explained, I think it's really impossible to come up with an absolutely unique and precise number because across the country, in different environments, it will be slightly different, so I think you'll always see a range, but with better data that range will narrow.
Thank you very much, thank you, Chris. Now we'll turn to Sienna Rogers from the job listings. Hello, a month ago the government announced a plan to release the bass. -Prisoners at risk and it was expected that up to 4,000 would be released, but after mistakes were made, the plan was stopped, so Mr. Gope, can you tell us how many risk assessed prisoners in total and how many pregnant prisoners have been released? Teacher self-harm rates in English and Welsh prisons increased by 14% last year, so with visits canceled at the moment, are you worried? about the well-being of people in cells 23 hours a day.
Thank you Sienna, thank you. Regarding the early release of prisoners, the Lord Chancellor and his team developed a package of which the early release of prisoners was only part of the order. to ensure that we could restrict the spread of the virus within the prisoner state and the reason for this was to reduce the number of cases from the prisoner state that would be in our NHS, so our main objective, as always, was to protect the NHS and there was a number of changes that the Chancellor made to the prison system to increase capacity and include cohorting within particular prisons and restrictions on the transfer of prisoners, but part of it, as he rightly points out, was capacity in specific circumstances.
To release some prisoners early and a series of tests were applied, it was necessary that their first crime, their index crime, was of a particular type, so they did not pose a risk to the public and it had to be true that they were Near the at which time they would have been released anyway and, as you point out, the prisoners at the front of the line were those pregnant women who found themselves in prison. I know that there were at least 33 people who had been released. I think the number is higher now, but after this press conference, of course, I will speak to the Ministry of Justice and make sure they have the exact figures, but as I say, I think it was around 33 that were released this time last time. week, I think those were the confirmed figures, but we will give you the absolutely precise figures and I will give them to you, yes, on prison health in general, so I absolutely believe that we should always do everything we can to support health data prison about this time last year.
I spent a morning in a prison in the north of England observing the prison health services and was incredibly impressed with the dedication of the staff inside the prison, but also with the staff and GPs coming in from outside. to provide support and clearly in a time of crisis, a time of emergency like the coronavirus, it is really important that we put extra focus on ensuring that prison health responds at the same time, it is important to ensure that we maintain safety and we reduce the possibility of outbreaks and spread of kovat, but that is a very important balance and reflects, in a sense, the balance in the community that was the topic of one of the previous questions about how to balance the type of measures that may need to be implemented measures to stop the spread of the varicose vein virus, ensuring that the potential downsides of this are also managed appropriately, so yes, I think it's incredibly important that we do that.
Thank you so much. You see, it was there. particular point you wanted to follow up on, sorry yes please just wanted to ask what you are doing right now to prepare for the increase in prison population expected when restrictions are lifted and core activities resume normal. Well, you are right that in the beginning The timing of poop being thrown from our courts into our prisons has been minor and that has helped us manage the situation in prison and over the course of this week we will be investigating at the ministry with the group of implementation that I preside over both how we can ensure that there are more criminal cases that are heard properly and also how we can ensure that the prisoner state can manage a part of that, that's me, ensure that we have access to additional facilities and I think that is the case that a former secure training center for young offenders in Medway has been made available to the state prison, but it is also true that the state president is working with energy and others to ensure that there are enough spaces when and when, as You rightly point out, more criminal cases are being heard.
I will now turn to Ahmed Versi of Muslim News. Hello, I would like. I understand that NHS England and Public Health England have an investigation into the disproportionate impact of covered 19s on BAME communities. I would like to know what the terms of reference are for this investigation and the names of the members of this investigation and, secondly, why every time questions are asked about this impact of coffee 19 or more they are proportionally missing only we are communities, the answer we always get is To be with biological reasons that we could talk about due to the high preponderance of diabetes, heart disease, etc., don't you think there are more structural problems like racism and discrimination that affect the community and also to national health?
I think very powerful questions and challenges often arise as the work being carried out to analyze what appears to be a significant additional number of deaths among the B AME population is being carried out by a variety of people in the health service. NHS Public Health England. and of course we have the support of Sir Trevor Phillips and others to look at those figures and of course these things need to be looked at as fully appreciated in the r and it may be the case that it comes into In some minority populations, like you indicates with the reference to diabetes, there is a raesha prevalence of comorbidities that may be a factor, but it may also be the factor that, as we know, inequality may contribute to public health outcomes and we may need to take action.
Step back and look more broadly at some of the inequalities that exist within our society, but I certainly wouldn't want to prejudge that question and I certainly know that Steve knows a lot more about these issues than I do from a scientific standpoint. Steve Yes, it is an incredibly important question or set of questions, which is why the investigation is being carried out by Public Health England. We in NHS England do not have the core expertise or experts in the particular areas of work who need to look at this. in an area where Public Health England has the expertise, of course we will support Public Health England, but the Chief Medical Officer has asked Public Health England to look at I don't have a full list of people's names. who will participate in that. but I'm sure that will be available as you have said that it is possible that some of the associated underlying conditions or higher prevalence in certain ethnic groups may be important because they are also risk factors that mean it is more likely. contract the virus or suffer complications, but as you say, that might not be the only reason and it is really important that Public Health England and colleagues who are working on this act with an open mind and look at all the possibilities.
Biological causes may well be one part, but it is important that they are analyzed in the round. I absolutely agree with you. Thank you so much. Did you want to follow up? Yes, you mentioned Trevor Phillips. There are two problems. One of them is that he recently said that. The death phase of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities was not significantly higher than that of thegeneral population; However, all the reports I have read show that the Pakistani and Bangladeshi committees actually have a much higher death rate than the general population and the reason he said, which is very surprising is that because are doing ritual ablutions, what kind of person are you using that kind of conclusion?
Well, I'm not aware of those comments, but I do know that Trevor Phillips, as chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, was always someone who was guided by data and public health. England would do nothing more than follow the data to come to appropriate conclusions and of course we need to look at what we discussed earlier and Steve potentially mentioned some biological aspects. factors, but also as your question implied, perhaps also some structural economic factors that may lead to inequality in Latin America, equality may have been a result of discrimination, but we must look at all of these things, reportedly, and ​​I think anyone who is willing to give their time who is a distinguished public servant like Trevor Phillips to help us in this effort is someone who supports us, we welcome that, so thank you very much.
That's the end of this press conference and I look forward to one of my colleagues joining you on the podium tomorrow. Thank you. So, Michael Gove, they are ending Downing Street's latest corona virus briefing. Let's remember some of the main points of that press conference that just ended well. Mr Gove told us that yesterday more than 315 people had died with corona. virus in hospitals, care homes and in the wider community, this means that a total of twenty-eight thousand 446 people had died after testing positive for the corona virus in the United Kingdom and that at 5:00 p.m.
Yesterday, on the issue of testing, Mr Gove said that seventy-six thousand four hundred and ninety-six coronavirus tests were carried out in the UK on Saturday and, announcing efforts to help with the future lifting of lockdown, he said that the government will carry out tests. The new tests may track procedures on the Isle of Wight next week before being offered more widely later this month. Well, a health correspondent, Richard Galpin, has been listening to all that information. Richard, as always, let's take a look. a little bit closer look at the statistics that we heard in terms of the numbers that we've heard, I mean, the big picture that was explained is that, in all the major areas, infections, deaths, etc., the numbers are declining in Generally, although slowly, but there are still very high numbers, for example, if we look at the number of people who tested positive, it is one hundred and eighty-six thousand people, so it is a very large number of people and, Obviously, there is concern about the possibility of more deaths, etc., when you have this number of cases and as you say, we now have over 28,500 or so people who have died, that number is getting more and more clear and closer to that of Italy and I know that obviously we can't necessarily compare them, it's obviously problematic, but it might look like Britain will move up to having the highest number of deaths in Europe.
We don't know, obviously, yes, but it seems like a possibility on the positive side, for example, the number of people in hospitals is going down and down. now we're down to 14,000 200 at the peak were something like 18,000 so those numbers are going down significantly and obviously that's very important so on the topic of testing, I guess it's worth noting that testing is being done at a lot more people, right? So if more people are testing positive, some might say it's as a result of more people getting tested. Yes, it's a very good thing that testing is now happening significantly, in very significant numbers, although it's gone down a little bit now, right? forums around a hundred thousand at the end of last week has now dropped to around 76,000, but that was explained during the press conference as possibly due to the weekend when things tend to get delayed.
What else stood out in the briefing there? a very good question when they said: do you know how you can convince people that it will be safe to come out of lockdown when that actually happens? and Michael Gove gave a rather long answer. I mean, obviously focusing on the needs to be safe in doing this as obsolete Lee is the number one priority, but he said they would consult with employers and unions and he said it needs to be a gradual approach so that the impact of changes and, if necessary, reimpose some blocking. measures on a localized basis and that presumably involves maybe different regions, different cities, different towns, I'm not quite sure what level it would go to, but you're talking about differentials between different parts of the country, potentially if infections start to rise in particular areas due to to the lifting of the blockade, and that is the case.
I think the first time we heard a Cabinet Minister talk about measures being used on a localized basis to use the Earth twice, that's not the case at all, sir? I think he is absolutely right. I think this is significant. Maybe you know that we were I see a little bit more of the government's thinking that this is the way to be able to move forward and you don't know that very large parts of the country can move forward, but you know and then, if necessary, other parts where there were problems, then they can be solved. in this localized way so that it doesn't affect everyone in the country because we've been in lockdown for quite some time and obviously it has potentially very serious impacts on people's lives in many different ways, well we are as you say about to come in I think Week 7 of lockdown is an important week coming up, isn't it?
Yes, because now we are going to do it. We are waiting for this great plan from Prime Minister Boris Johnson. We think he'll obviously take this. This week they hit the May 7 deadline, which is when they have to review lockdown measures once again. They have to do it about every three weeks, so we are waiting for this really decisive announcement from the Prime Minister. about how things could be gradually improved or how they could be eased and he's talking about, you know, this, certainly, Michael Gove was saying it would be about how to get the economy going again, how to get the whole economy moving, how to get the children back. in the schools and how to get workers to work because of us, obviously transportation is a problem, so how to get transportation going so that people can go to work and then, and so it can be, how can you do that safely and then also people? once they are on the job, they can work in a safe environment, so many questions, so many problems to address, that Richard, many things, a health correspondent, Richard Galpin, sees the headlines as they happen and watches the news from the BBC live on the app and get the full story with the BBC decoder UK Slash News follow the story for the latest news with BBC News

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