Coronavirus: NHS to test 10,000 a day
All hospitals planning for rush ‘Large numbers’ will be infected
THOUSANDS more coronavirus tests will be carried out every day as the NHS powers up its fight against the killer bug.
Equipment will be set up in hospital labs within weeks so 10,000 swabs can be tested each day in an effort to isolate more infected patients and help contain the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile non-urgent hospital and GP appointments will be carried out via video link, phone or text messages.
The measures were announced as the virus claimed its sixth life in Britain and cases rose to 373 – though many more are thought to be infected but untested.
The Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Dame Sue Hill, said: “The NHS is ramping up the number of testing centres across the country to help people get care quickly. Every hospital across the country, and the healthcare professionals who run them, are now actively planning to respond flexibly to manage new demand.”
Until now up to 1,500 samples could be tested daily at Public Health England
labs – with 26,261 people tested so far. In the next phase of the rollout 10 NHS microbiology services will step up to double the number of daily tests.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there will be an immediate rollout of outpatient appointments by phone or video calls “wherever clinically and practically possible”.
Health minister Jo Churchill said some patients will wait longer as those with more serious illness and multiple underlying conditions are prioritised.
Britain’s sixth coronavirus victim was believed to have been infected in the UK, health bosses said. The man, in his 80s, died at Watford General Hospital and had underlying conditions.
A 60-year-old man thought to be the youngest killed by the virus in Britain fell ill “instantly”, his son has said. The man died at North Manchester General Hospital on Sunday after returning from Italy last month.
His son said the victim, a British national originally from Bangladesh, was taken to hospital after going to a local health centre for a routine appointment. The son, who was not named, said: “I could not believe it because two months ago this thing didn’t even exist and today it took away my father.” A Government advisor has said UK cases will soon peak as thousands are infected. Measures to protect the elderly and unwell will be announced in the next fortnight. Soon everyone with a heavy cold, sore throat, dry PREPARATIONS Matt Hancock
cough or a minor fever will be advised to self-isolate for seven days.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries said: “We will see many thousands of people infected… because nobody has antibodies to this virus.”
Government experts believe up to 80% of the population will contract Covid-19 and around 100,000 could die.
Dr Harries said the vast majority diagnosed here are “pretty well” but may “feel a bit rough for a few days”.
She added: “It will rise very rapidly and come back down again when it effectively runs out of people in the population to infect. We expect nearly all of these patients to be fine at home.”
Hundreds of flights to Italy have been cancelled amid the lockdown there, leaving some passengers stranded.
British Airways suspended all flights to and from Italy yesterday. Ryanair will do so from Saturday. EasyJet has cancelled dozens of its flights.
But passengers from Italy continued to arrive here unchecked yesterday as PHE said checks would start today.
Carmine Loru, 39, who arrived at
Gatwick Airport on a Vueling flight from Florence, said he was given no information about self-isolation, and had had no tests. He said: “There is a lot of paranoia in Italy, but here there isn’t even anybody checking us.”
The Foreign Office said it was in contact with Brits in Vietnam after reports of nine new cases on a flight from London to Hanoi on March 2.
Two passengers on a cruise ship held outside the Marseille in the south of France were being tested for the virus.
It is the third such cruise ship to be put under quarantine. An evacuation flight for Brits on the Grand Princess in the US was expected to take off last night and land in the UK this morning.
There were 142 Brits stranded off the Californian coast. On return today they will be asked to self-isolate. One worker on board the liner said: “There is just complete chaos. It’s unsafe, contagious ship and crew are not isolated.”
Charity Bloodwise has advised blood cancer patients to avoid public places.
Expectant mothers with suspected or confirmed coronavirus were advised to attend an obstetric unit for birth.
A surgeon at Liverpool’s Aintree University Hospital has tested positive for coronavirus after returning from Italy. Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London cancelled some operations for two weeks after a health worker in its cardiology department tested positive for coronavirus.
Some food banks are starting to run out of basics and are rationing out parcels as stockpiling hits supplies.