UK virus steps could last for a few months, health official warns
23 April, 2020
Social-distancing measures to deal with coronavirus will tend to be on place for many more months, among Britain's leading health officials warned on Wednesday, as the world waits for the vaccine or prescription drugs that may stop people dying.
"Until we've those -- and the probability of having those any moment in the next twelve months are incredibly small... we will have to count on other, social procedures," Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, advised a media briefing.
Pressure is growing on the Uk government to clarify how it could ease a month-long lockdown which has seen persons confined with their homes to stem the pass on of COVID-19.
But deaths continue to rise, reaching 18,100 on Wednesday -- an increase of 759 on the prior day -- making Britain among the worst-hit countries in the global pandemic.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Primary Minister Boris Johnson pursuing his hospitalization with coronavirus, warned of the threat of a new wave of cases.
"The best risk for us now, if we eased through to our social distancing guidelines too soon, is that people would risk another spike in the virus," he said.
Whitty said it was "wholly unrealistic" to expect the lockdown to come to be suddenly lifted.
Experts were looking in the result of different community distancing steps, he said, but ministers could have decide on the right combination.
"We will have to do a lot of things, for really a significant long time frame. The question is, what's the best package," Whitty said.
Too slow
Johnson has been out of actions for more than fourteen days after appearing hospitalized with coronavirus, spending 3 nights in intensive health care.
In his absence, the federal government is battling growing criticism over its response to the crisis.
Labor head Keir Starmer on Wednesday used his first appearance found in parliament since his election at the helm of the main opposition party earlier this month to accuse ministers to be slow to act.
"There's a structure emerging here: we had been slow into lockdown, slow on tests, slow on protective apparatus," he told MPs, many of whom were going to via videolink -- a first in the parliament's prolonged history.
Raab rejected the accusation to be slow and hit back again that Starmer was looking at the situation "with the good thing about hindsight".
Brexit row
Britain's death toll only addresses those persons hospitalized with coronavirus, and Whitty said when all the statistics were collected, he likely to see a "high mortality rate found in care homes".
The state-run National Health Service (NHS) has radically expanded its critical care capacity in recent weeks but staff continue steadily to complain about a insufficient masks and gowns to protect themselves.
Ministers insist they are actually doing everything they can to get personal protective tools (PPE) from abroad and ramp up production at home.
A Royal Air Force plane landed in Britain from Turkey on Wednesday after collecting a shipment of products including 400,000 badly needed surgical gowns.
But a simmering row has erupted over whether Britain missed an opportunity to bulk buy gear through europe, which it kept on January 31 but to which it retains close ties.
The government has blamed "communication problems" however the foreign ministry's top civil servant on Tuesday said it had been a "political decision".
Within an extraordinary U-turn, Simon McDonald then retracted his evidence to the foreign affairs committee, writing to tell them it was "incorrect".
Wellbeing Secretary Matt Hancock later on revealed Britain had decided to be a part of the EU scheme on an "associate" basis but said it had yet to provide anything.
European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said Britain had "sufficient opportunity" to participate in joint procurement schemes for coronavirus.
"As to the reasons it did not participate, that is obviously something which we can not comment," he said.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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