Four more areas to enter lockdown
Curbs on 430,000 more people in south Wales after Covid cases surge Worst-case scenario could see 2,000 hospital admissions a week by Xmas Top doctor fears staff shortages will be major problem in second wave
BRIDGEND, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport and Blaenau Gwent will be placed under local lockdown at 6pm today following an increase in coronavirus cases.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething said there had been a “worrying and rapid rise” in Covid-19 cases in the four areas, which have a combined population of about 430,000 people.
It brings the total number of areas in south-east Wales under local restrictions to six, including Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf, affecting a total of more than 850,000 people.
Figures from Public Health Wales show there were 234 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed yesterday – the highest number recorded in a single day since April 22 when 253 were recorded.
Mr Gething said: “Coronavirus has not gone away. It is still circulating in communities across Wales and, as we are seeing in parts of south Wales, small clusters can quickly cause real issues in local communities.”
The UK Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warned that the UK could see 200 or more deaths per day by mid-November if the current rate of infection is not stemmed.
Scientists advising the Welsh Government have forecast that in a “reasonable worst-case scenario” weekly hospital admissions in Wales will peak at almost 2,000 around Christmas Day, with a potential 6,300 deaths by March 2021. The Swansea
University researchers say this could be mitigated with better testing and extra public caution.
The warnings came as intensive care consultant Richard Pugh, chair of the Welsh Intensive Care Society, raised fears that shortages of critical care staff could impact on the Welsh NHS as it faces a second wave.
ADOCTOR who shared a powerful account of her frustrations and pain at the reality of fighting coronavirus was trolled after a photograph of her was chosen by the Duchess of Cambridge for an exhibition.
The startling image of Dr Ceri Hayles is included in 100 photo portraits selected by the National Portrait Gallery for the Hold Still project, an effort to create a collective portrait of the UK during lockdown.
Dr Hayles posed after removing her Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and looks exhausted, her face bearing the marks and indentations of wearing a mask and visor for several hours.
The caption of the picture said: “This is what broken looks like. This is operating for three hours in full PPE. This is dehydration. This is masks that make your ears bleed because the straps have slipped and you daren’t touch them.”
But Dr Hayles, who was working in Bridgend, but now works for the Royal Gwent in Newport, described the reaction to the picture as “varied”.
“There have been so many wonderful comments from people I had never met, through to patients who came forward to say I had looked after them,” she told BBC Radio Wales.
“There have been wonderfully positive comments, but there have been a few people who have said things along the lines of I had faked or and I had been paid money for it.
“It is mad that people think like that. I feel sorry for people who haven’t seen what we have seen, and therefore think the only way that those images are made is through lights, cameras and make-up.
“It is a very real situation that so many of us find ourselves in work and to have people question your integrity on a very public scale is quite difficult to cope with. You think, if they don’t believe what is happening, how are they ever going to take any of these measures seriously to prevent us from being back there again?”
Speaking about a potential second wave, Dr Hayles said that it is “terrifying” that we could be going back to how things were six months ago.
“The stress levels that everyone in work endured. We would all do the same things again, but it is not a welcome prospect,” she said. “Things have reached a bit of normality and we have reached the stage where we can do elective work for people who have been waiting months and months for their elective work to be done.
“To be able to see those patients again has been brilliant. It would be sad from patient point of view to stop doing that.
“The stress that we all went through was not something I would want to go through again. We were working a lot more hours, in much more stressful conditions. We were struggling to provide care that we wanted to because you had to put all this kit on. Pausing for 30 seconds to put all the kit on can impact the outcome for them.”
Kate Middleton unveiled Ceri’s picture as one of the 100 that will be shown in her community photography project at the National Portrait Gallery.
The caption with the Welsh doctor’s image, added: “This is fighting an invisible enemy that becomes more visible each day.
“This is a face I never thought I’d show the world, but one which I wear more and more. I took this photo to have as a reminder of how far I’d been capable of pushing myself when I needed to. I sent it to my family to tell them what a hard day it had been and they were all so shocked by it. The person they know as being so well put together, always wearing a smile, was not the person they saw that day.
“Looking back on it now, I feel immensely proud of the commitment shown by myself and my colleagues to provide safe care for patients, even in the depths of a pandemic.
“We still wear full PPE for all of our cases, and you never get used to it, but I know we’ll keep doing it for as long as it is needed.”
WEEKLY hospital admissions in Wales are predicted to peak at almost 2,000 around by Christmas Day, scientists have estimated.
By March up to 636,000 people could have been infected with Covid19 – around a fifth of the Welsh population – and there might have been as many as 6,300 deaths.
In comparison, the first Covid-19 wave has so far infected 20,644 people in Wales with 1,603 deaths.
The latest projections, produced for the Welsh Government by its Technical Advisory Cell (TAC), are said to represent a “reasonable worst-case scenario”.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething stressed the figures were “not a prediction”. Nevertheless they showed the “scale of harm” that potentially faced Wales in the coming months.
Equally, the data will allow the health and care sector to plan ahead in order to mitigate the worst of the second wave, he said.
Mr Gething said interventions designed to reduce the spread of Covid-19 were already in place and were being escalated in areas of concern, such as today’s move to put four more areas of Wales into local lockdown.
He added: “In all of this there is a balance. I hear some voices saying we need to make sure the cure is not worse than the disease. But what we need to understand that if we are prepared to contemplate this level of public harm, there will be real economic consequences. It isn’t a case of choosing between health and the economy.”
For the TAC report, four model scenarios were considered for the period from July 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021.
Cardiff opted to use projections by Swansea University, whose researchers estimated the second wave of infections would peak around Christmas Day. Their model indicates there will be 190 cases in hospital intensive care units (ICU) during an end-ofDecember peak.
As there are plans for 5,000 extra hospital beds, including 350 ICU beds, this suggests there should still be capacity to treat non-Covid cases.
Researchers pointed out the second wave figures were “deliberately pessimistic” and could be mitigated by better testing and extra public caution.
“It is not what we think will happen,” they said.
Mr Gething said everyone can play a play in ensuring this worst-case scenario did not happen by observing social distancing and following other Covid-19 guidelines.