Johnson out of ICU as health improves
PM in ‘extremely good spirits’ as he is moved back to a low-dependency ward
BORIS JOHNSON was last night moved out of intensive care as No10 said he was in “extremely good spirits”.
The Prime Minister is in the “early phase” of recovery, a Downing Street spokesman said, as Mr Johnson was moved back to a low-dependency ward at St Thomas’ Hospital, London.
He had spent the past four days in intensive care after being admitted to the hospital on Monday night.
Downing Street said he would now receive “close monitoring”.
Politicians across the Commons last night sent their good wishes, while Donald Trump, the US president, said: “Great News: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just been moved out of Intensive Care. Get well Boris!!!”
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a close ally of the Prime Minister, told The Daily Telegraph: “The oxygen and the rest has worked and his body is fighting back. It is unalloyed good news. I was plodding around the constituency earlier talking to businesses, social distancing of course, and the butcher I went to was in tears. He was so worried about Boris. In a peculiar way he has epitomised what others have gone through. He’s becoming a touchstone for the British resilience and will ultimately come out of this.”
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, added: “This is good news. I hope it is the beginnings of a speedy recovery.”
Liz Truss, the International Trade Secretary, said: “Brilliant news” while Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: “So good that the Prime Minister is out of intensive care and on the road to recovery.”
It came after senior ministers convened a Cobra meeting to discuss the process of reviewing the lockdown.
Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the Prime Minister, said it was “too early” to start lifting the measures put in place nearly three weeks ago and refused to commit to explaining what needed to happen before the lockdown was lifted. He suggested ministers would not even start reviewing the measures until the end of next week.
A Government source said the lockdown would continue until the public was told otherwise, adding the message to people was: “This weekend stay at home, and next week stay at home.”
Speaking at Downing Street last night, Mr Raab told the public “we must keep going” with the lockdown.
He said: “It’s been almost three weeks and we’re starting to see the impact of the sacrifices we’ve all made. But the deaths are still rising and we haven’t yet reached the peak of the virus. So it’s still too early to lift the measures that we put in place.”
Asked whether the Government would explain to the public what evidence it was looking to see in order to start ending the lockdown, Mr Raab said: “We will make the right decisions at the right moments and will be guided by the science.”
Speaking after the Cobra meeting, Mr Raab said figures were still being gathered on the impact of social distancing and the closure of many businesses, which would be analysed by the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. He added: “We don’t expect to be able to say more on this until the end of next week.”
Announcing his plan on March 23, Mr Johnson told the nation: “We will keep these restrictions under constant review. We will look again in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows we are able to.”
However, last night Mr Raab said: “The measures will have to stay in place until we’ve got the evidence that clearly shows we’ve moved beyond the peak.” He urged the public not to take its “eye off the ball” and visit family members or sunbathe during the Easter weekend.
It came as Sir David Lidington, Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister, told Chopper’s Politics podcast ministers should be more “open” about communicating the choices they were facing when they decided whether to lift or extend the lockdown.
‘After all the efforts everybody has made, after all the sacrifices so many people have made, let’s not ruin it now. Let’s not undo the gains we’ve made’
THE peak of coronavirus deaths in Britain may still be several weeks away, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser has warned, in a development that could leave lockdown in place for far longer than expected.
Last week, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said that a peak was expected this weekend, after which a steady decline would follow.
But at the daily briefing, Sir Patrick Vallance said deaths would continue to rise for a further fortnight even after the number of intensive care cases begins to improve.
The exponential rise in patients admitted to intensive care is slowing – taking six days to double, in contrast to three days in mid-march.
But it suggests that the plateau is still some days away, and deaths will not start falling for two weeks after that is reached, pushing the peak towards the end of the month. China did not emerge from its lockdown until around one month after the peak, which may suggest the Government will not lift restrictions until mid to late May.
Sir Patrick, responding to a question about death projections, said: “In general, I’d expect the deaths to continue to keep going up for about two weeks after the intensive care picture improves, and so we’re not there yet in terms of knowing exactly when that will be, but that’s the sort of time frame I’d expect.”
A total of 7,978 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus, up by 881 from 7,097 the previous day.
Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, University of Cambridge, said: “Today’s count of reported deaths, although a terrible toll on families and NHS staff, strongly suggests we are approaching a plateau, although sadly this may be above 1,000 deaths a day.”
Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, said the speed of the exponential rise of infections was now slowing, and giving hope that social distancing measures were working.
“At the time when I was first talking about this, the doubling time – how fast we were doubling in terms of numbers, particularly in intensive care – was about three days, it varied a bit,” he said. This has got steadily longer in time over the last two weeks thanks to what people have done.” He said it was “not quite flat”, but added: “The doubling time is now six or more days almost everywhere in the country and extending in time.”
Sir Patrick said the spread of the virus in the community also appeared to be slowing. “This is not doubling,” he added. “In the community you’d expect this now to be shrinking for all the reasons I’ve said, and the evidence suggests that’s what’s happening in terms of the transmission in community.”
Asked if he expected the total infection rate in the UK to be under 10 per cent, he said: “I can’t tell you what the answer is going to be. We need to do the experiment, find out the answer.
“But from what I’ve seen from other places, it’s mainly single digit numbers and it could be a bit higher in some places.”
Previous modelling from Imperial College has suggested that London may see as many as one in 10 people infected with the virus.
Sir Patrick said a “flattening off ” was occurring in hospital admissions, but warned it was important to keep social distancing measures in place, particularly ahead of the Easter weekend.
The Government is urging families not to visit their loved ones over the holiday.
“The message is clear, which is the social distancing we’re doing is breaking transmission, it’s stopping the hospital admissions, beginning to see that flattening off, still unbelievably busy, but beginning to see that flatten off. It’s preventing more people going into intensive care, and it will prevent deaths,” he said.
Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, who is deputising for Boris Johnson while the Prime Minister is in hospital recovering from coronavirus, said it was still too early to lift the lockdown restrictions that are in place across the UK.
Mr Raab said the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies will meet next week to discuss the latest evidence.
“While the early signs suggest that they are having the impact we need to see, it’s too early to say that conclusively,” he said.
“The measures will have to stay in place until we’ve got the evidence that clearly shows we’ve moved beyond the peak. We don’t expect to be able to say more on this until the end of next week.
“After all, the efforts everybody has made, after all the sacrifices so many people have made, let’s not ruin it now. Let’s not undo the gains we’ve made. Let’s not waste the sacrifices so many people have made.”