GREEN SHOOTS HOPE IN VIRUS BATTLE
● Britain hits ‘plateau’ in new cases ● Boy of 13 is youngest UK victim
BRITAIN’S strict lockdown is successfully cutting the surge in coronavirus infections, a health chief declared last night.
Professor Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said “green shoots” of recovery are being seen.
The rate of new cases of people testing positive for the deadly virus has hit
“a plateau” thanks to social distancing measures, he said.
But he warned the good news should not lead to a let-up in the national effort to curb the spread of the epidemic.
It came as a 13-year-old died on the UK’s
darkest day of the outbreak so far, with a doubling in the daily death toll meaning 1,789 people have now died.
Official figures released yesterday showed 381 people died in UK hospitals from coronavirus-related illnesses in the previous 24 hours, up from 180 announced on Monday.
Boris Johnson told ministers at the country’s first ever Cabinet meeting held by video conference that the epidemic “is going to get worse before it gets better” while insisting: “It will get better.”
His Government faced fresh questions about the rate of testing for the disease after officials admitted his target of 25,000 tests a day may not be hit until the end of the month.
Prof Powis said yesterday’s 15 per cent increase in new cases, up to 3,009 from 2,619 on the previous day, suggested the infection rate was flattening.
Speaking at yesterday’s Downing Street coronavirus briefing, he said: “We have had a rise in the number of UK cases, but recently we have had a bit of a plateau.”
Pointing to a graph showing the infection rate, he said: “The good news here is that the line is not going up very steeply, but we are not out of the woods. We need to keep our foot on the pedal.
“It’s early days, but it’s very important we keep complying with those instructions.
“So green shoots, but only green shoots, and we must not be complacent and we must not take our foot off the pedal.”
Prof Powis said the country was facing a critical fortnight in the effort to curb the epidemic.
He said: “I honestly think it’s too early to tell at the moment and I very specifically used the term because they are just green shoots.
Winter could come and those green shoots could turn out to be not the hopeful green shoots that they thought they might be.
“But I think the next week or two will be critical as we move through. This is the start of the battle.We can stop this virus, but we’re at the start, and we mustn’t let go of the measures and let go of everything that we’re doing.
“You have to keep your foot on the pedal as I said, no complacency.
“I want to encourage the public that they are playing their part but I don’t want to give the message that we need to do anything other than maintain our compliance with the instructions. Everybody needs to do that.
“Because that is the only way that we will get through this.”
Prof Powis warned that the death toll will continue to rise sharply in the coming days. He added: “I expect that we will still see, unfortunately, a rise in deaths because that is the measure that unfortunately we will turn around last.”
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, speaking at the news conference, admitted the doubling in the death rate was “deeply shocking”.
Referring to the lockdown measures, he said: “Now is absolutely not the time for people to imagine there can be any relaxation or slackening.
“There’s not a fixed date like Easter when you know that the peak will come, it depends on the actions of all of us.We can delay that peak, we can flatten the curve through our own particular actions.”
He also conceded that the NHS was struggling to boost the number of tests for coronavirus infections. Mr Gove said: “We must go further, faster. “We are increasing the number of tests. One of the constraints on our capacity to increase testing overall is supply of Must do more... Mr Gove the specific chemicals that are needed in order to make sure that tests are reliable.”
Mr Gove also revealed that the first UK-made ventilators to help support coronavirus patients will be delivered next week to join around 8,000 devices made overseas that are currently in the NHS.
He said: “I can announce that this weekend the first of thousands of new ventilator devices will roll off the production line and be delivered to the NHS next week.
“From there, they will be rapidly distributed to the frontline.”
Officials said the first batch of the Penlon ventilator devices, rapidly adapted from other existing ventilator designs, will be ready for dispatch this weekend. The device is being manufactured by a consortium including Formula One teams McLaren and Mercedes, as well as Ford, Siemens and Meggitt.
A number of other British manufacturers have also started urgent production of new ventilators, designed from scratch, following efforts from the industry and Government to rapidly increase numbers available to the NHS, according to the Cabinet Office.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries insisted testing needed to be done where it is useful “otherwise it is a wasted effort”.
She said: “It’s not that we are not testing.What we are doing is focusing on using testing for clinical care as a priority, which I think people understand completely.
“Then, secondly, around getting our frontline workers and then everybody back into safe work.
“At the moment, if you were a member of the public and you tested positive, you would not be taking any different action to the action that we are asking you to do currently.
“If we send a clinical team out to test you at your home, we would be using capacity we could be using in the health service.”
Dr Harries also conceded that distribution of protective clothing to NHS staff had been “tricky”.