Vaccine pledge as PM considers tighter rules
BORIS Johnson warned yesterday that tougher lockdown rules could be needed to slow the spread of Covid-19 – as he pledged noone in Devon and Cornwall would need to travel more than 10 miles for a coronavirus jab.
The Prime Minister was on a visit to a vaccine centre at Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol – currently the closest mass vaccination site to Devon and Cornwall.
He was asked “what he had to say” to people in Devon and Cornwall – a long way from the centre in Bristol – about the rollout of vaccines in local areas. In response, Mr Johnson insisted that “no-one is going to be more than 10 miles from a vaccination centre”.
He added that the Government was “ramping up” the delivery of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to care homes.
A total of 2.5 million jabs had so far been administered across the UK by yesterday, but the PM also warned that tougher lockdown measures may be needed to reduce the spread of the disease.
He said the regulations, if strictly followed, were tough enough but added: “We’re going to keep the rules under constant review. Where we have to tighten them, we will.”
Devon and Cornwall Deputy Chief Constable Paul Netherton said that some people were getting “fed up” with the rules and were trying to find ways to get around them. “I can understand that [getting fed up] but we have to be firm, we have to save lives, we have to make sure people are keeping apart, isolating and staying at home,” he said.
At the weekend, police in Devon and Cornwall said they had dealt with up to 50 breaches of the coronavirus rules with second-home owners visiting their holiday properties among the biggest offenders.
In neighbouring Dorset yesterday, fines were being handed out to visitors, including a group who had driven nearly 170 miles from the Midlands to Durdle Door on the Jurassic Coast.
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, warned the UK has not yet hit the peak of the current wave of Covid-19 infections.
ASENIOR doctor at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital has warned that the South West faces ‘ absolute crisis’ due to coronavirus in the coming weeks.
Dr Adrian Harris, medical director at Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust and Northern Devon Healthcare Trust, made the comments at a board meeting.
He said the South West was preparing to be hit as hard by Covid-19 as the east of England has been in the last few weeks.
“If we are hit as hard, we will be hanging on by our fingernails and we are planning accordingly,” Dr Harris said.
“We hope and we pray that the lockdown has come in time for Devon.
“My personal view – and of my colleagues around the country – is that there’s a tidal wave of Covid-19 coming to the Westcountry.”
Although the actual number of cases in the South West remain relatively low, they have been rising at a rate faster than anywhere else in England.
Although sparsely populated, the South West also has a relatively low hospital capacity, meaning that even a relatively minor surge in hospitalisation numbers could prove problematic.
In the South East of England, there are ten hospitals that are running at ‘CRITCON 3’, meaning they are at “full stretch” and critical care patients are spilling on to other wards. Wards which would normally be used for things such as child care are being turned into intensive care units for adults.
Meanwhile, East Suffolk and North Essex had 367 confirmed Covid-19 patients as of 8am on January 5, compared with a first-wave peak of 143.
NHS East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust chief Nick Hulme said Ipswich and Colchester hospitals are full.
Dr Harris added: “I fully believe the situation we’re seeing in the East of England, with the problems around beds and oxygen supplies, will come to the Westcountry.
“Normally we’re able to make some fairly robust predictions about where we’re going to be. But I have to say the accuracy of where we’re going to be is probably the least
‘We hope and we pray that the lockdown has come in time for Devon’ DR ADRIAN HARRIS, RD&E
we’ve had since the beginning of the pandemic.
“We will face absolutely extraordinary times.”
On Saturday, two further coronavirus-related deaths were confirmed in Devon’s hospitals, NHS England figures showed.
One was confirmed at Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and one at Torbay Hospital.
The deaths confirmed in the data mean that the total number of people that have died in the county’s hospitals after testing positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began is now at 467.