Shutdown: The virus that changed the world

New Year's Eve was barely six months ago but now seems like a lifetime ago, around the

world

hundreds of millions of people gather to celebrate a new decade, while in Britain there is a promise of better times after years of bitter division about braixen 2020. about us and now we have a wonderful opportunity for you to come together as a country and move forward together. The most spectacular show is organized by the Chinese government in Shanghai. There are no fireworks here. Instead, 2,000 drones fly in a choreographed display to show the

world

how far China is advancing in scientific innovation that is 500 kilometers away, in a provincial city few of us have heard of the deadliest threat to the global stability in a generation is already heading our way we started hearing rumors at least at the end of December There is talk of some kind of disease in Wuhan in China, not many people had heard of Wuhan before all this started.

It is a huge city, it has 11 million people. It is the capital of the Bay provinces. There is a lot of industry. It's a big city. To begin with, what we did here at state media was eight people were punished for spreading rumors about this outbreak. Within hours we activated our incident management system and then immediately began meeting. What do we know? What do we need to know? We help our member states, how do we help all people? And it happened so quickly when we arrived at the station, it should be one of the busiest times, there is no one anyone wants to go to Wuhan, everyone is very, very worried, I try.

Stay home as much as possible and try to avoid coming to places like this where there are a lot of

virus

es. If I go out, I wear a mask when we see an ambulance come in, what happens is lots of people come out in protective suits. The ambulance crew inside are wearing protective suits and are removing someone who is face down on a bed and that's when you start to realize that this isn't just a regular type of outbreak, it's something that the authorities are taking very very seriously I went to bed around 3:00 am. m. I got a call saying Wuhan is about to go into lockdown.

At 10 a.m. m. on the same day it will be closed and no one will be allowed to leave Wuhan, whether by air, whether by car, whether by train, it is an extraordinary measure, something that has never been tried before in the history of modern medicine, isolating to the people, effectively quarantining a city of 11 million people, they have closed this huge metropolis, they are afraid and that makes you afraid. We are not sure about the roads. We have seen reports that they are being blocked by the police. It starts to get congested. Traffic begins to increase.

It gets slower and slower. You have an eye on the moment when you arrive slower at the checkpoint. and slower, but then you finish and that's a big relief, the first place we stop is a gas station, we all need to catch our breath, that's when we start talking to the people you didn't have a front yard with , Yeah. I'm worried that they say the city will be closed. I need to go back to work after Chinese New Year, but I don't know when the lockdown will end, so I decided to leave early. They asked me what worries them that they don't want to do it.

Being in Wuhan because they don't believe it is a safe place and that's why they want to leave now. Five million people leave Wuhan, go to all parts of China, all parts of the world, some of them take that disease with them. It comes three weeks after China first alerted the World Health Organization about a mysterious new

virus

. Chinese authorities are subsequently praised for the speed and openness of their response, but Beijing now faces accusations from the United States that it knew about the outbreak long before and that it is too slow to alert the rest of the world.

Some of these accusations are based on Leaks from the Pentagon's little-known National Medical Intelligence Center, a specialized unit that uses satellite imagery and computer interceptions to monitor viral emergencies, threaten national security, there are reports. That intelligence hinting at some sort of emerging public health emergency in the city of Wuhan was generated as early as November, now that's a full month before China officially alerted the World Health Organization about what we now know as the corona virus outbreak. China insists that the truth about the emergence of the virus has always been told, but Rauh's intelligence on the origins and timing of the disease among the world's superpowers has since increased and now threatens the coordinated global effort needed to defeat the new mortal threat if two great powers decide that in the middle of all this they can have a big massive fight it is a terrible thing for the world I am talking about seven point eight billion people I am talking about one hundred and ninety-four nations never, never in the history of Public health has been so important for everyone to work together these are not empty words this is the reality as British citizens return to the UK from China it is clear that there is no initial sense of urgency about the outbreak on the other side of En the world, we have Ally Fleur when we land, if you have any symptoms, there is no virus, please contact us, however, everything was in English or Chinese, besides that and besides the fact that I live in one hand.

I know what the situation is like there a little more, it won't make any difference I was not tested here I was not tested at an airport There has been nothing in the next few days Chinese scientists confirmed that the virus believed to have originated in bats transmitted by human transmission. More cases are being reported every day across the Far East, from Thailand, Singapore and here in Hong Kong, but for leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, top of the agenda is the threat posed by climate change and Conversation about the virus is ruled out.

Has the CBC told you the words about a pandemic right now? Oh, we are not at all and where we have it totally under control is a person who comes from China and we have it under control. Everything will be fine, only when the virus begins to spread across Asia to several other countries, on January 30, the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency of international concern. The main reason for this statement is not because of what is happening in China. but because of what is happening in other countries and that is supposed to be the Brownian cry for the rest of the world to prepare to hold back and delay taking some kind of action, but that is not the case in the UK, the authorities initially they seemed to have done so. everything is under control by taking a tough approach with those returning from infected areas and transferring them to specially built isolation units, we simply have not seen people transported on buses to quarantine zones by staff and medical personnel in protective suits.

I think this makes a lot of people take notice. that this is a threat that not only exists on the other side of the world but is here now within our community, but on the same day it emerges that the virus is already loose among the population and has infected a student in the north of In England, the discovery is greeted with assurances that we have little to worry about public health. England has informed us that the risk of an infection spreading to others on campus is low. The university is open and will continue to operate as normal that evening.

Britain officially. leaves the European Union with the Prime Minister willing to end the issue that has paralyzed the political process for so long: Boris Johnson obtained an enormous majority in a general election and with this he wants to try to transform Great Britain, he wants to achieve Brexit through At the end of 2020 and during January and February, the government did not focus much on managing the coronavirus crisis, they are focusing on that internal agenda. At this point, the virus is spreading rapidly around the world. By the second week of February, there are 40,000 confirmed cases. Around the world and the death rate is increasing, international teams of scientists are frantically searching for ways to return to the previously unknown deadly disease.

It is about twice as contagious as the flu, ten times more deadly, and experts are slowly beginning to piece together what they know about the virus. It is an extremely serious situation and this is the first time that the World Health Organization has given the disease the name kovat 19 coronavirus 2019 and once you have a name you can really see your enemy, but in the first week of March the government still refuses to take drastic measures Boris Johnson does not want to limit the freedoms of British citizens, it is Nicola Sturgeon, for example, who is pushing for more draconian measures that she resists, so Britain is making little progress Slowly with your response instead of taking big steps, as you can see.

The tension in Boris Johnson in some of the interviews he gives I spoke with him on March 5 and there he insisted that it was not the right time for Britain to change the way it does things, everything remains the same, he told me. but that same night there is a significant event and then the news breaks, the Royal Berkshire Health Trust announces that the first person to die from kovat 19 in this country had underlying health conditions and had spent the last few weeks in and out hospital and that's all we're told, even with last night's bad news, the Prime Minister maintains a positive public image.

His advice to the nation is to wash our hands regularly. He pledges £46m for vaccines. investigation and then admits that darker days could be ahead. It seems to me that there will certainly be a substantial period of disruption when we have to deal with this with this outrage, how big it will be, how long it will last, I think it remains an open question next Monday there is a deepening sense of crisis when the global stock market records its biggest drop since the 2008 crisis the travel industry suffers a massive drop in demand and thousands of jobs are feared to be lost supermarkets are affected by panic buying and across the country The streets begin to empty in the second week of March, the death toll almost doubles and there are warnings that the worst is yet to come, while this is a fairly big jump for the UK, it is quite comparable to what we are seeing in many other countries right now we saw a very similar trend yesterday in Germany, so unfortunately this is not unexpected.

Among those mourning is the family of Nick Matthews, who at 59 becomes the youngest victim of the virus. I have to be on par with you, on par with the British public. more families are many more families are going to lose their loved ones early now changes to our daily lives are coming rapidly with the announcement that the local elections in May will be postponed and the Six Nations rugby tournament will be suspended abruptly despite the government's wish for football to continue as normal clubs decide it is too risky to continue playing and across the country NHS staff begin to prepare for the biggest challenge of their lives.

What I'm saying is that we are the long-term effects of being exposed. over and over again we don't know, we don't know, friendly on the front line, you know, it's something we have. I'm a little worried, to be honest, I've never had so many showers in my entire life where we shower feels like a show about 15 times a day and Alko John my hands about a billion times a day at the beginning of the most dramatic week in politics in a generation, the Prime Minister and his team are trying to prepare the nation for the full scale. of a threat ahead yes, this enemy may be deadly but it is also beatable this government will do whatever it takes this government will give them all the tools they need to overcome this we will do whatever it takes the economy is now colliding with the airline The industry is suffering mass redundancies and some companies have already left across Britain.

The retail sector and food industry are facing hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies with overseas supply chains choked. The British manufacturing industry is paralyzed. Everything has suddenly

changed

because for a long time you know all the talk was about the government's grand abysmal ambitions to level up, spend a lot more money trying to improve the state of the UK economy and now suddenly it's quite clear that we are going to have to spend billions of pounds, hundreds of billions. of pounds trying to alleviate the full impact of covert 19, their measures were absolutely necessary. I think we would have seen it collapse or businesses across the economy that could then not be easily resurrected and therefore our productive capacity would be permanently damaged at least. damage for a long time, but even the billions already promised are notEnough, three days after the whatever-it-takes mantra, the Prime Minister and Chancellor returned with an even more technological announcement, for the first time in our history, the government is going to step forward. and help pay people's wages, we are setting up a new coronavirus job retention scheme.

Any employer in the country, small or large, charitable or not-for-profit, will be eligible for the scheme, all the rules we are used to about how the British economy works just gone and British capitalism, just as We know it, it has

changed

forever and in the week when the nation tries to understand the full magnitude of the looming crisis, a dire warning comes from Europe about the suffering that awaits. Italy, where there are already more than four thousand fatalities, the army has been called to dispose of the dead in the chapel of this hospital in the north of the country.

The next shipment hopes only a handful of mourners will be able to attend the funerals. Hospital intensive care. The unit is now on the brink of collapse, the patients are highly contagious but the medical staff have no choice but to risk their own lives treating them a very young service it is a disaster it is a tsunami and we are here 12 hours a day which is really interesting here is that now they have had to expand the intensive care unit but now it is absolutely full, it is absolutely full in all the hospitals in Lombardy, they hope that they can take someone and the other really scary development is that the patients are becoming a lot younger people, do not believe that this is happening here and the deadly accounts happening everywhere else it will be because it will be if nothing is done to stop it with the dire warnings from Italy and other parts of the world multiplying, one question stands out: what How prepared is Britain for a pandemic that is now just days away? like people have a chance to be adults, you know, and stop going out and stop gathering in groups and they haven't and then we're seeing the kind of reaction that we're seeing from people coming in and dropping dead in the first days of the virus.

Both the public and the opposition broadly support the government's handling of the crisis, but in March there is growing concern among many about continued freedom of movement across the country when so many people around the world are starting to die and now Decisions such as allowing the Cheltenham festival to take place are being condemned as unacceptable. Gamble is scary because if you want to know what the most efficient way to spread a virus is, it would be at a football game, it would be at a horse rally because that's where people come together. We are very close to each other, that is the ideal situation to spread a virus.

If you wait a week before organizing to contain an outbreak, the problem is 8 times bigger if you wait 2 weeks. The problem is 40 times bigger if you wait three. weeks the problem is 300 times greater if you wait four weeks the problem is a thousand times greater if you wait five weeks the problem is many, thousands of times greater due to the speed of spread hello, what is cancer like and are you talking about the coronavirus and now the change? Scientific advice to ministers on how to tackle the disease is under intense scrutiny in early March. The message is to stay calm and carry on as usual.

There is a danger of doing things too soon because they would not be effective at the time. Right now the number of cases in this country is 23 and that means that as long as people wash their hands and take the precautions in place, that is the right thing to do, but within 24 hours of the Health Secretary's assurances, the ministers attend an emergency. cobra meeting faces a barrage of questions women are going to agree with this my answer is very worried keep it in your handkerchief the Prime Minister has been criticized for being a part-time PM because he took this time off over the recess Your country's MP is standing down, flooding is happening across the UK, the coronavirus crisis is starting to escalate in Europe and Boris Johnson is nowhere to be found, sir.

Williams said schools closed mr. Williamson, should I close the school? Williamson for CSIS Can we contain the virus? Are we moving into the delay phase? Can we contain the virus? Do you have a message for the public? Minister. I remember reporting that the government has not yet said that this is going to be a big problem for the UK that they think they can contain it, but behind the scenes they know that the coronavirus is coming towards us like a train in the next few days the main advice to the public is a simple instruction on personal hygiene, but in the second week of March there is a major change in policy towards the end of the Cheltenham Festival, which has had a total attendance of 250,000 people.

The message now is to care for the most vulnerable and, above all, protect the health service. We are trying to reduce the number of cases. at any time, that is very important for the NHS to be able to cope with this and it is also important because it extends it into the summer months. What scientific advisors are trying to do is flatten the curve to delay the peak. and that means that younger people should be allowed to contract the virus, they are more likely to have mild illness. The idea is that by allowing them to spread among themselves and not get particularly sick, you will slowly develop immunity against the virus that we want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely, which you can't do anyway, not suppress it, so we get the second peak and also allow many of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune to this to help with the kind of population-wide response that would protect everyone from that herd immunity.

I know you spoke yesterday when you appeared with the Prime Minister in terms of developing herd immunity within the UK. What do I mean? What kind of percentage of people should they have? contracted the virus probably around 60% approximately is an announcement that demonstrates a hugely controversial herd immunity from exposure to this disease we already surely knew from China that the mortality rate behind several epidemiologists have estimated that it could have been greater than two hundred thousand Deaths due to corona virus, the majority of deaths would occur in people over sixty years of age, but it is in no way limited to the fact that we have seen some younger and healthier people also succumb to this virus 48 hours later, in a sign that Government is struggling to come up with a coherent strategy Health Secretary Matt Hancock denies herd immunity was ever official policy.

The following Monday, March 16, a bomb falls on the ministers' desk that changes everything. This is a study by scientists at Imperial College London who assessed that The current government policy of mitigating or slowing the disease should change immediately. Now it calls for suppressing and reversing the epidemic by increasing the social isolation of the entire population. Scientists estimate that if the existing policy continues, more than a quarter of a million people could die. They came out with the study that basically says that unless the government suppresses the spread of the coronavirus, the NHS will collapse, and they've analyzed the data coming out of Italy and they've come to the conclusion that the need for critical care for patients is much greater than what they initially thought and the government looks at that and thinks we can't let that happen.

We have underestimated the need for NHS care. We have underestimated the need for intensive care beds. Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and stop doing it. all unnecessary travel, this is a pretty big change from where we were four days ago, but in other Western European countries in the US they go further still they are states of emergency cities forced lockdown families have been asked to stay home well that's where we are in relation to two others don't forget that if other countries are at different stages in their movement up the curve and we have always made it very clear that what is crucial is punctuality and for those who are further up the curve the news is very grim, in fact Italy has overtaken China with the highest number of recorded deaths at three and a half thousand the United States now has the third highest infection rate in the world most in a New York increasingly deserted, the general figures are sobering at this time and everyone knows that these figures can change at any time from this hour onwards 463 confirmed cases in In New York City and in Spain, despite the strict quarantine rules, mortality rate reaches 1,000, as the global spread of the covert 19 pandemic seems unstoppable.

At home, panic buying in supermarkets is on the rise and my medical staff are now suffering as a result. I am an intensive care nurse there. I just finished petanques. I was at work. I just wanted to get a few things together for the next 48 hours. There is no fruit, there are no vegetables. I just don't know how I'm supposed to do it. stay healthy who knows the people here only strictly staple food shelves you just need to stop people like me they will look after you when you are Louis just stop please alarmed by the increasing pressure on the NHS and armed with new scientific data the Prime Minister now he is making the most important speech of his life good evening the corona virus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades the time has come for us all to do more starting this afternoon i must give the brits people a very simple instruction , they must stay home.

No Prime Minister wants to enact measures like this. I know the damage this disruption is causing and will cause to people's lives, their businesses and their jobs. I want to thank everyone who is working on the plan. -To beat the virus, everyone, from supermarket staff to transport workers, caregivers, nurses and doctors on the front lines. Thank you. I think everyone in Whitehall and in the government and ministers. I talk to all of us. The magazine covers The story we all tell you about the speed and scale at which our lives are having to change and the one that some of the cabinet ministers I spoke to claim is that they simply cannot risk that level of number of dead in the UK for the rest.

For the first time in our history, the entire country is having to adapt to life under lockdown for older people and those with underlying health conditions. The advice is a strict quarantine for at least three months. I used to say seeing friends and, rather, saying no. I can't follow the rules. In some nervous parts, like a ghost town, in other parts, well, in most parts, she was busy and it's just that you know everyone is scared, you come across things on social media and you don't even know what to believe. During lockdown the death rate in the UK continues to rise, those who have been lucky enough to survive reveal the agony of their suffering.

He had terrible shortness of breath and an extremely high temperature on Wednesday, which has been exacerbated. Because my body fought the infection on Thursday, I called an ambulance and have been in hospital because this is the fifth day the nation is on the warpath against the virus with the NHS on the frontline. The government promises to provide whatever is needed, but since the beginning of this crisis it has been clear that the right equipment is in short supply. The NHS admits it urgently needs 30,000 extra ventilators to help those with breathing problems. The government accepts that it simply cannot cope with a demand or is concerned about the demand for ventilators being placed on the NHS and is turning to the industry for help, so across the country companies like this vacuum cleaner maker and damn machines accept the challenge of saving. lives, we think we have solved all the difficult parts by just making the last bits of a time and air pneumatic that would hopefully be ready in a few hours, if it works we can remove all the electronics from it and it will still burn up.

Supplies are very important, but for Boris Johnson's administration the lack of preparation is the beginning of a political crisis from which they have not been able to escape. In 2016, the NHS carried out an exercise to analyze what could happen to Britain in the event of a flu pandemic codenamed the disease. It concluded that the Health Service was unprepared for a large-scale viral emergency, but the results were never published. Why was it labeled top secret? Why is it still not available today? I think the report said very clearly that our hospitals were no longer in a position to do this. to deal with a pandemic and, despite these warnings, medical personnel are having to fight serious shortages on a daily basis, in many caseswe were really caught up when hospitals were about to run out of overnight supplies for another day. or two, so he has been plagued with a feeling of uncertainty and not being sure if he would have the equipment when he needed it, but the official answer is that everything is under control; the Department of Health and Social Care has said they have enough and we are now working across the NHS to make sure it gets to the right place and in the right quantity from the very beginning of the pandemic.

The government has promised to make testing a priority, but consistently fails to deliver on what the World Health Organization is delivering on. clear about the tests test test test your director says because otherwise you are dealing with a pandemic blindfolded. We saw a lot of countries in Asia immediately adopt this whole-of-government approach, they started their systems immediately to find the disease, they ramped up their systems to test because they knew they needed to know where this virus was, so they knew where they were, where they had to combat it, where they needed to step up, they built up their workforce, so they looked at contact tracers and made sure they had enough healthcare professionals, and so could you immediately see the difference?

The government is struggling to comply with many of the recommendations and contact testing of the population is minimal in the second week of March. Limited capacity means only hospital admissions are now eligible. I was very concerned on behalf of doctors that a policy dealing with isolation testing containing the virus was not in fact being followed. We started by testing people who were contagious or contacts and then moved to a situation where the government was only testing those who were attending the hospital without taking into account the status of those who were outside the hospital. when we knew that this infection was spreading within the community, the third week of March sees the highest number of people dying to date from the virus in a single day, that night the government encourages everyone to join in what will become a weekly event, massive applause. to celebrate the NHS and all his hard work, we are also grateful for the openness, he works on the front line, it is a small thing that we can all come together, hopefully, make them understand the Prime Minister enthusiastically joins in the morale boosting exercise Four hours later, at midnight, he is told he has contracted the potentially lethal virus.

He didn't surprise me, but he did dismay me, especially when we discovered That day it emerged that not only the Prime Minister, but also Matt Han called Health Secretary and Chief Medical Officer Chris Witte also has coronavirus. Behind the scenes there is growing concern about the Prime Minister's health, even as he assures the public that he is feeling well first. Everything in my case, although I feel better and have finished my seven days of isolation, unfortunately I still have one of the symptoms of... a symptom that I have a high temperature, this can still become one of the most important. videos in case of any queries, a doctor from the CDC in the US, the body that analyzes Disease Control, watch that video, measured the breathing rate of the Prime Minister and contacted a British parliamentarian and told him he said look his breathing is not a rhythm which means he is fine he will almost certainly need medical intervention in the next few days almost two weeks into the lockdown and the bad news never ends with the death rate rising in more than 700 in one day that night, Her Majesty The Queen addresses the nation.

For the fifth time in his 68-year reign, I speak to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time, a time of disruption in the life of our country. I want to thank everyone on the frontline of the NHS, as well as care workers. and those who fulfill two central roles and who selflessly continue their daily duties outside the home to support us all, we must take solace that while we still have more to endure, better days will return, we will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again, we will meet again, but in a matter of hours Her Majesty's historic speech is overshadowed by the latest news.

We have received a statement from Downing Street, a spokesperson says that, on the advice of his doctor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted this evening. hospital just hours before the Queen's historic speech to the nation the government is mired in the biggest crisis of any administration since the Second World War at 9:15 that night I'm sitting at my desk and an email arrives, it's a statement from number 10 and says that the Prime Minister has been taken to hospital says that he has been taken to hospital for tests he says it is as a precaution but I know immediately that this is really serious because I know that the Prime Minister and his team would not want overshadow the Queen's speech With Boris Johnson hospitalized, the Foreign Secretary takes charge and insists that everything is business as usual.

There is an incredibly strong team spirit behind the Prime Minister and he makes sure that we get all the plans that the Prime Minister ordered us to accomplish to implement them as soon as possible. possible Dominik Robb was a sort of first among equals but with no real power and when you're in a moment of national crisis simply having a convener rather than a leader at the helm is very difficult and that meant you essentially got this feeling that Whitehall was ruining Things weren't going to be like big decisions were made while the Prime Minister is incapacitated.

Six weeks later, it is discovered that the country's most senior official, Sir Mark, said well, also contracted the virus at the same time and the The magnitude of the emergency at the very heart of the government has been hidden from the public and the rate of Mortality is now increasing rapidly. Frontline staff are still not receiving the protective equipment they so urgently need. Doctors feel they have to reuse masks. it should be single use and sometimes they talk to nurses and the nurses do some of these high risk teachers and they try to hold their breath because they're not sure and they don't know if the last thing they were given is going to offer them the right thing. protection and now NHS staff are dying dr. alpha sadhu had been enjoying his retirement but he falls victim to the virus after volunteering to return to work, we bid him farewell not knowing that that would be the last time we would see him and after that, from sunday night to Tuesday morning, just deteriorated body off organ failure I have never seen anything you know I am quite like my parents are doctors I have quite a bit of experience or quite a bit of experience with different diseases and viruses that exist but I have never seen anyone at the Warsaw Manor Hospital in the Midlands ARIMA Noreen, a 36-year-old nurse, leaves behind a family that includes three young children.

Her loss is deeply felt by all of her colleagues who work together to save lives. One in the NHS and dies. We all feel it. You know, I mean especially. with the kind of solidarity everyone has shown towards the NHS over the last few weeks by clapping and stuff like that, I'm sure everyone will be affected differently and the death of one of their own in the line of duty doesn't affect them. staff's determination to carry on nurse Amy O'Rourke dies in critical care unit in Margate where she worked aged 39 in Facebook tribute Megan one of her three daughters posts message depicting her mother as an NHS angel I have no words mummy I can't wait to hold your hand when we meet on the other side, they were one of us, they were one of my NHS family professionals.

I am concerned that there are more and I want to honor them today and recognize their service at the hospital. admissions are now 1,000 a day the issue of testing for NHS staff is more urgent than ever before he was hospitalised, the Prime Minister had promised to make it his number one priority and I want to say a special word about testing because it is so important and as I have said for weeks and weeks this is the way forward this is how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle this is how we will defeat it in the end your government is not delivering and staff are staying away o We are facing a terrible anxiety at work, no one gets tested, doctors, nurses, the only way they test us is if we are sick enough to need to spend a night in the hospital and we have pneumonia, so this is spreading . and spreading and spreading, I mean, yeah, we're going to wear PPE, we're going to go protect ourselves, but come on, let's be real, the test of do you have it? is critical, it means that people who are key workers who are self-isolating and staying at home can have confidence that they do not have kovat 19 and can return to work, which is critical, especially for NHS staff, and How is Matt Hancock going to do it right?

Regional testing centers are opening across the country. which have the extra capacity, set an ambitious total of one hundred thousand tests by the end of April and it is not just in testing of NHS staff where Britain is still lagging behind in testing of the general population, vital to tracking the extent of spread and help. combat the outbreak remains minimal during the first week of April, the total number of people tested in the United Kingdom is just over 200,000, or 0.03 percent of the population compared to Germany, where they have already tested 1 million people. In Germany, you have a very good idea. how the virus is spreading within its borders here in the UK, we are acting blind, our testing is done in hospitals not even care homes so we don't know how many older people are vulnerable there, we have no idea , so I don't really know how far immunity has spread without mass testing and the development of a vaccine within months, if not years, Britain faces a long and uncertain period behind closed doors and for all of us everywhere the Lockdown is a struggle.

I am the principal of Lady's primary school, learn MA. My mother is 80 years old and it has been really very difficult not to see her during this time. She has many underlying conditions and all of her grandchildren are desperate to see her. I'm Mary, I miss you too. Matt, his wife, his grandmother and their three children stuck in a flat in Merseyside, money is tight because work has completely dried up and there is nowhere to go and play well, we don't have much space, we only have a small small patio or garden this is our small square outside the house these are our streets here it is usually full of children playing all day is it really necessary according to the new lockdown laws there is even a restriction on the number of people who can say goodbye to their loved ones The Atkins family is giving their beloved father and grandfather a unique musical send-off by hosting an orchestra of friends and family who will gather online.

The family hopes their farewell to master musician David Briggs will inspire others and help them come. taking their own losses, so we are now in the critical care area of ​​the emergency department. Everyone here today is here because of respiratory problems, often coded almost uniformly around the world. The virus continues its relentless spread in the United States, where New York City is the hardest hit. The death toll now reaches a grim milestone. I think we all know we have to get to a certain point. That point is going to be horrible in terms of deaths in the next week and a half.

It's going to be weeks, I think it's going to be very difficult in Spain where the confinement is still in force after five weeks there are more than one hundred and thirty thousand reported cases and twelve thousand deaths and in China where the outbreak was first announced almost three months ago. They gathered to mourn their dead. The official count here is just over 4,600 deaths in a population of 1.4 billion people. China says it has been completely open and transparent throughout this crisis, but there are many who disagree, pointing simply to the fact that its numbers appear to be quite suspiciously low given the size of the population and there is now widespread condemnation of the Chinese government's attempts to suppress the truth.

Dr. Li Wang Liang is the first person to alert his colleagues about the strange new virus. In Wuhan he doesn't know what it is, but a few days after sending that message they call him to the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and reprimand Dr. Li later dies from the virus fighting to save lives in the city, but following a public outcry over his treatment, the vilified whistleblower is now officially a martyr in a sign that history is already being rewritten by first time in decades. Mass burials are now taking place. place in Britain with a disproportionately larger number of members of the black, Asian and ethnic communitymixed deaths, this cemetery now has to cope with the loss of 30 people a week and social distancing means mourners cannot attend.

I went out more than ever. What he could really do is just sit there wait five minutes, he wasn't allowed to go anywhere and just come home, it was just hard, it's been three weeks and he left in the ambulance and that was the last time I saw him since the Prime Minister's admission to the hospital. The party line is to reassure the world about his health, although it is clear that his condition requires urgent attention. Throughout the process we were told that he was in good spirits even when he went into intensive care, so as a political journalist, the lack of knowing and being able to report on the Prime Minister's health status and being absolutely sure that he is right because It's a pretty important role at this stage.

It was stressful. On April 12, Boris Johnson is seen by the public for the first time in over a week and makes public the full extent of his illness. Today I left hospital after a week in which the NHS saved my life. Without a doubt, it is difficult to find words to express my debt. We will win because our NHS is the beating heart of this country. it's the best thing about this country it's invincible it's powered by love with the death rate still rising britain tries to enjoy an easter bank holiday we will only defeat this virus for good if we all stay the course like no other before so please stay home this holiday weekend that everyone says many are ignoring the instructions to make the most of the simple things we have for so long taken for granted, like sunshine and fresh air, most people are following the rules and, Although almost everyone behaves well, it is necessary to move.

Are you going to be dealt with with a fixed penalty notice or arrested? An old soldier spends the Easter holidays marching on the epic journey of a lifetime. Captain Sir Tom Moore walked 100 meters from his garden in an act of bravery raising millions for NHS charities, please remember things will get better as the song says, the sun will shine. I will never walk alone. I'm just Trulia now. I think that's for sure, but things will get better. better, but for many members of Captain Tom's generation, the corona virus pandemic is taking a terrible toll. The entire top floor of this nursing home had been occupied by corona virus victims and I remember thinking when we were putting on the jumpsuit and mask. and going up the stairs I wasn't quite sure what we were going to see.

I've been to field hospitals around the world after natural disasters and it felt chaotic like this walking down the hallway, room after room, with an elderly patient gasping for breath. to breathe, there is no equipment to support them, there are no ventilators, there is no support other than the caregivers who turn the patients around trying to calm them down. It was a shock, this is a care home in the UK in 2020 and it was chaos that they are now having care homes like this in Sheffield. to take on elderly patients to ease pressure on NHS hospitals and, after a decade of austerity that has hit local authorities hard, the long-neglected social care sector threatens to be overwhelmed , which we thought wasn't going to be that big and then literally in a matter of days. weeks has become massive, thousands of elderly people are dying almost unnoticed and those who fight to protect them feel totally abandoned.

We are told that every healthcare staff member and every resident, regardless of whether they have symptoms, will not be tested, they are alive, it is clear. from the government's own advice to care homes that they are aware of the threat but have been too slow to respond, you knew and your department knew that this was a high risk area, you have provided guidance to care homes elderly repeatedly over the last few months I wonder if you will take this opportunity to apologize to the families of their loved ones who died in nursing homes because the government likely failed to protect them.

That's the thing, Nick. I think it is not reasonable as a question. Ensuring care homes have the support they need has been a top priority from the beginning, especially as people are frailer and therefore more at risk. It is currently estimated that there have been more than 12,000 deaths in the social care sector in England and Wales throughout the month of April, the death rate in hospitals is reported to be slowing, but by the end of the month it exceeds the figure which the government had previously stated would be a good outcome and the pressure on NHS staff is relentless.

They were exhausted, you know, I don't work continuously, but not very far for the last five weeks, and the nurses, you know, the nurses are exhausted, they've been working, you know, really long 12-hour shifts and in there, all this PPE. He raps exhausted and for patients like Donna here in Warrington there is still no sign of when the suffering in this intensive care unit in Warrington will end. They have spent weeks fighting the clock to save lives. We are still the best in the world. bad situation at home the fighting here has been relentless but now there are signs of hope the national death rate is reported to have peaked and closer to home there is more good news after days on a ventilator fighting for his life Peter Smith has managed to get him out much to the delight of the staff who fought so hard to save him and although he still needs oxygen to breathe, Donna made it and this mother of three also owes her life to the hospital staff.

I got worse, worse and worse. so I came on Sunday and I felt very bad, I felt terrible. Honestly, I didn't think I'd come home and they could do it. It's been really great so my kids came to pick me up and I just can. I can't explain to you how Julia makes me feel, how incredible she feels? You must miss them terribly, but while each passing hour brings new hope in the fight against the virus, concerns are growing about the effect on people with other illnesses in normal life. One day the hospital's outpatient department would be full, but during the pandemic everyone has practically disappeared.

What worries me a lot is that patients stay away. I don't think heart attacks have suddenly stopped happening. I don't believe it. that people are not having strokes. I worry that people are not going to hospital because their concerns about contagion take over or they are a burden on the NHS while Britain is still under strict lockdown, other countries that went into isolation earlier are now lifting restrictions. As their death rate begins to fall in Spain, they take to the streets for the first time in weeks. You're not radical yet. I haven't walked through my door for almost three months so far, while Italy is currently the country with the highest death toll in the world.

The highest death rate hopes to return to normality, but in Britain, for many of society's most vulnerable, the burden of being locked down for seven weeks is becoming increasingly difficult. Camila, who has heart and lung disease, is fighting for the basics they have had. a little bradle oh how stupid again its the only thing that has caused me stress during this whole thing and its the whole shopping delivery thing i still haven't received anything from any of the supermarkets even though i signed up over five ago weeks on the government website and as I was told that the parents of four-year-old Sofia Marshall have to monitor their daughter's life-threatening heart condition.

I can't lie, my anxiety the last few weeks has been bubbling and brewing. I think it was really a success this weekend thanks to the exciting news. that we know that we have reached our peak, I know that there is still a long way to go until we resume some normality while Rex, his wife Selena, suffers from Alzheimer's and I must admit that it is difficult and because Slean has this in diseases and I think this In reality it made it worse because when things were normal she went out she went to the day center on Thursday Friday there was no place and one thing that is not her, since she was so wonderful she did so many things and yet that's how things are we don't know where we want end and during the course of the pandemic it is becoming clear that we do not all share the same risk.

The London borough of Newham is the worst affected in the country and people here are scared. Oumar lost his father and his aunt to the disease, including my father. There is another gentleman on this road who passed away. A gentleman who wrote that my father knew personally and from one more where an elderly couple - comes down the The deeper reality in Britain is that people from black, Asian or mixed ethnic backgrounds are twice as likely to die because of kovat 19 than anyone else, and for frontline workers the explanation is simple: we're not all in this together, we are. cleaners we are the care workers where the nurses we are the bus driver we are doing all the jobs you know with the general public we are close to them so we will get it by the first week of May the mortality rate is falling enough abruptly enough for emergency hospitals like Nightingale to close, but overall the UK now has the highest death toll of any country in Europe.

Boris Johnson is back in charge, but he faces the toughest decision of any peacetime Prime Minister. Minister, when and how to lift the lockdown, there is a discussion about how cabinet ministers put it between the doves and the hawks, so those who want to stay in lockdown are very anxious about the NHS and then there are those who are very, very worried. The economy, bills and debts are piling up, but they are basically waiting for Boris Johnson to fight before making any decisions, but it is clear that after the Prime Minister's brush with death, he is a changed man, there is no doubt that will enter this crisis. that Boris Johnson's emphasis is on freedom, it is on protecting people from having to lock themselves up too soon, it is about preserving freedom, but after the period of infection and then convalescence, his emphasis changes quite a bit, he keeps talking about the need to preserve the health of the national security is more important than the economy in the questions of the first Prime Minister after his illness it is good to be back although I have been away longer than he faces a new leader of the opposition demanding answers about his administration's response to the emergency yesterday we tragically learned that at least twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty-seven people in the United Kingdom have lost their lives to this terrible virus which is now the highest number in Europe and the second highest in the world.

That's not a success in the government's autopsy. The handling of the kovat 19 pandemic is already underway and will continue for years with questions about the high death toll and whether its fundamental approach is even the right one. Blocking is not something that is a recommendation. What we have recommended is a comprehensive approach that includes cases. find case isolation care for cases contact tracing increase testing increase your lab capacity increase your workforce make sure you have clinical pathways so you know when you have a patient where they should go how they should be cared for by others argue that there are too many right now unknowns to draw lasting conclusions the fact that Britain has the highest death toll in Europe could be an absolutely damning indictment against this government, but sitting in the middle of this pandemic it seems too early to make that judgment what role for example does population density how about the fact that London is the center of a global hub?

What role did demographics play? It may be secondary to those other factors, but right now one area of ​​the government's handling of the outbreak is attracting widespread and media condemnation. There is growing criticism that, in its determination to prevent the NHS from being swamped, the government sacrificed social rights. care sector I think when we look back we will see what happened in our care homes as a huge scandal. We knew that vulnerable older residents were going to die from coronavirus, but I think the mistakes that were made and the failure to protect care. homes meant that the number of people who died was much higher than it should have been and there is great anxiety about the devastating economic cost of the lockdown and its effect for decades to come with so many shops and businesses closed that the UK now faces The biggest recession in 300 years and it's costing the government billions every month just to keep the economy on life support if you add up the number of people the government pays.government, whether it's because they work in the public sector or because they receive pensions or, more recently, receive the furlough scheme, so we're talking about more than half of all workers in the UK, the expense of that has been enormous , but the argument is that if they had not done this, there would have been nothing left when the disease passed what remains we still do not know the answer to as the country is now looking to get back to normal and there is growing anticipation over the Prime Minister's plans For the future, it is a fact that by adopting these measures we prevented this country from being plunged into what could have been a catastrophe in which the worst reasonable scenario was half a million deaths.

I know you know it would be crazy to now squander that achievement by allowing a second peak, we must remain vigilant, we must continue to control the virus and save lives, but apart from a new slogan and some colorful slides, there is not much of a roadmap for a nation. looking for guidance, what you're telling the public is actually not a change in policy but a change in emphasis and they're really trying to slowly lift their foot off the brake to slowly move forward and what they want to try and avoid is stop, start, stop , start, stop, start in terms of ease and lock, so they are coming in.

Very, very cautiously, six months after the first news of the outbreak in China, Britain and much of the world are stuck in limbo, a strange middle ground between wanting to return to normal and still fearing the virus as we go. let's see. It is now a very slow process whereby, whatever the government says, people themselves will be reluctant to re-engage in the economy if social distancing has to be maintained, something most people now want to do to protect themselves. themselves and their families, which is inevitably a slow process since the beginning of the pandemic, the world has been offered the hope of a vaccine and the opportunity to restart our lives and around the world thousands of people are working around the clock hours of the day to achieve that goal.

I am confident that we have the right people working on this, I am confident in the spirit of collaboration that I have seen around vaccine development. Scientists around the world are talking to each other. There is a healthy competition about it. It is not a competition to be first. It's a competition to be first. save lives, but others believe that behind this vision of a world working in harmony for a common goal lies a darker story. In recent weeks there have been reports of foreign intelligence agencies, including those of Russia and China, attempting to hack vaccine programs around the world. is looking for a vaccine for this corona virus and the country that finds the vaccine first will be the king.

It is a diplomatic, political and geostrategic golden bonanza and the countries we know are trying to spy on each other trying to get as much information as possible. Rao/cyber warfare and vaccine highlight growing gap between Washington and Beijing we are not happy with China we are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it could have been stopped at the source, it could have been stopped quickly and it has not spread throughout around the world and at a time when the international community needs to come together, there is alarm about escalating tensions if we cannot get China and the United States to come together. coming and finding common concerns and working together on the science, the answers, planning for the future, how we are going to restart economies, how we can restart tourism if every time they sit down and talk to each other, we are going to get it on track is a real blow for all men, women and children now and for generations to come.

I cannot stress to you how serious this is. Many fear that a vaccine is years away or never coming and we face a new normal of disrupted social distancing in work and family life, along with a long-term economic crisis, in his historic speech on April 5, The Queen reflected on how history will judge those of us who were living through the covert crisis, hopefully in the years to come. Everyone will be proud of how they responded to this challenge and those who come after us will say that Britons of this generation were just as strong. Like everyone else, there is no doubt that the virus has taken a terrible toll on the nation and changed our lives forever, but they also stand as shining examples of great courage and dedication from our health services staff and our frontline workers.

There has been determination and determination. a sense of solidarity throughout the country and in the difficult days that still lie ahead, it is these memories, above all, that we will have to hold on to so as not to have a sunny day smiling as you always do until the skies chase away your dog. tags very far away, very good loan for the people there now, tell them I won't be long, they will be happy to know, so let's go, she will give this show, we will meet again, I don't know where. I don't know when but we will meet again