Millions more Britons face being plunged into Tier 4 lockdown this week

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Doctors fear the NHS could be overwhelmed within days as hospital admissions surge due to the highly infectious Covid strain raging across the country.

The total number of patients in hospital with the virus is likely to exceed the peak from the first wave, with 21,286 coronavirus patients being treated on December 22 – the most recent day data is available for. In comparison, the figure on April 12 was 21,683.

The fears come as millions more Britons face being plunged into Tier 4 this week, with the next tier review on December 30 amid rising infections and hospitalisations.

Doctors in London said their hospitals resembled a ‘war zone’, while Members of the Scottish Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties warned the mutant strain ‘could lead to the NHS being overwhelmed’, according to The Times.

Paramedics in the capital are receiving almost 8,000 call-outs daily, and Boxing Day was described as one of London Ambulance Service’s ‘busiest ever days’. The 7,918 calls received by London Ambulance Service (LAS) on December 26 was up more than 2,500 on the 5,217 received on the same day last year, and medics are receiving support from other ambulance services in the South. 

One paramedic said that crews were waiting around six-hours on average to hand over patients, who were often being treated in ambulance bays because of a lack of available bed. He told the BBC: ‘It’s been a horrendous time. Ambulance staff are finding the whole situation very stressful.’ South Central Ambulance Service, which serves Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire, has also warned that it is ‘extremely busy’ and that 999 should only be dialled in a ‘life-threatening or serious emergency’.

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, responsible for Wales’ largest hospital has called for urgent help, asking for ‘assistance from medical students or other staff groups who have previously supported with proning patients’. 

Meanwhile NHS England warned that the entire health service will have to stay on its highest state of alert until at least the end of March due to an ongoing influx of patients, and hospitals have been told to free up every possible bed.

The UK reported 30,501 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with a further 316 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, government statistics showed.  

Yesterday’s UK covid death figure represents a 3.1 per cent drop in the number of covid-19 deaths reported compared with the same day last week, as last Sunday’s toll was 326. 

And due to delays in reporting over Christmas government figures appear to show a 15 per cent fall in the number of new cases reported yesterday, as the number stood at 35,928 last Sunday.

However infections soared by 57 per cent last week and the spread of the new strain is now taking hold further north after first being detected in Kent, reports The Times.

As a result millions more now face being told to ‘stay at home’ when the tiers are reviewed on Wednesday after a loosening of the rules over Christmas. 

Some hospitals have even begun setting up makeshift intensive care beds in paediatric and cancer wards.

Some trusts predict they will have a third or half of all of their beds filled with Covid patients by New Year’s Eve. 

Michael Griffin, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, said January and February will be ‘critical’ as he recommended a nationwide Tier 4. 

The most up-to-date seven-day hospital admission average is 1,984. Hospital admissions are currently at a higher figure than the week before the second lockdown – where there was a seven-day average of 1,191. 

One senior government official told the publication that the new strain of Covid had overtaken the old and was ‘running rampant’ in the UK. 

The rate of infection is causing the government to ramp up its vaccination programme, with hundreds of pop-up GP-led centres on the way as part of a huge drive.

With approval for the Oxford vaccine set to come as early as Monday, Government sources told the Mail that town halls and village community centres are poised to help roll out the jab to millions as quickly as possible.

The centres will be staffed by GPs, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists, with the aim to open the first of them next week.

An army of more than 10,000 volunteers and medics have been recruited by the NHS to help deliver the Oxford vaccine after its approval, it has emerged.

In other coronavirus developments today:

• Secondary schools will be shut for at least the first week of term apart from for children in years 11 and 13 – but primary schools will be open as usual from Monday, Michael Gove said;
• Hundreds of British tourists forced into quarantine at a Swiss ski resort have fled in the night rather than seeing their holidays go downhill;
• Teachers and key workers are expected to be added to the coronavirus vaccine priority list when the Oxford University/AstraZeneca jab is approved, with officials set to give it the green light within days;
• SAGE experts have warned Britain won’t curb the pandemic by February even if it starts to vaccine one million people each week, and that herd immunity isn’t likely to kick in until the summer; 
• Hundreds of pop-up GP-led centres are on the way as part of a huge vaccination drive which has seen the NHS recruit an army of more than 10,000 volunteers, it was revealed.

It comes as scientists have warned that the whole of England should be put into Tier 4 immediately to stop the spread of the new mutant coronavirus strain.

SAGE have said thousands more people will now be infected in the new year, with one of their experts Dr Zubaida Haque yesterday questioning why the government haven’t placed the whole country under the toughest restrictions to save lives.  

She tweeted: ‘Given that we surpassed 70,000 #COVID19 deaths in UK on Christmas Day, and there are now more patients with coronavirus in hospital than at any point in the pandemic, why hasn’t the government implemented #tier4 restrictions everywhere in the UK? @IndependentSage are very worried.

‘Given the crisis situation we’re in with the highest number of daily deaths with #COVID19 in 2nd wave, with 1000’s more likely to be infected because of relaxation of rules in tier 1-3 on Christmas Day AND failed govt’s test & trace system, we need #tier4 everywhere now to save lives.’  

There were 231 deaths in England yesterday, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 48,542 – within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test- NHS England said on Sunday.   

In England the patients were aged between 30 and 103. All except five, aged between 36 and 85, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between December 9 and 26.   

The mutant strain of coronavirus has sparked fear as the number of cases rise dramatically, especially in London and the Home Counties. 

And researchers have now said there is ‘some evidence that the increase may be particularly marked in children’, which raises the question of whether schools should open in January after the Christmas break.

The new variant will lead to a wave of coronavirus cases and deaths that will peak in spring 2021 for London, the South East and east of England, they said.  

It comes as millions more people moved into Tier 4 yesterday after those already under the tightest coronavirus restrictions celebrated a Covid Christmas any way they could.   

Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire moved into Tier 4, created in response to a variant of Covid-19 discovered in the UK, on Saturday.

The parts of Essex still in Tier 2, Waverley in Surrey and Hampshire including Portsmouth and Southampton, but with the exception of the New Forest, also moved into the toughest tier.

The additional six million that went into Tier 4 took the total number of people under the toughest restrictions to 24 million – 43 per cent of England’s population. A further 24.8 million moved to Tier 3.            

It came after many had to make the most of a Christmas Day already under Tier 4 restrictions in London and the south east.  

It comes after the top boss of Oxford vaccine maker AstraZeneca said researchers have worked out a ‘winning formula’ to boost the jab’s efficacy, with ministers hoping it will bring an end to the cycle of lockdowns within months.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm, says a two-dose method can push the vaccine’s efficacy rate near to that of rivals Pfizer and Moderna.

His comments come as officials reportedly prepare to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab as early as tomorrow. 

Boris Johnson vows to focus on ‘levelling-up’ Britain and ‘spreading opportunity’ after securing post-Brexit trade deal with EU

Boris Johnson has promised to focus on ‘levelling up’ Britain in the wake of securing the country’s departure from the EU.

The Prime Minister said he wants to ‘spread opportunity’ as he hopes to take advantage of his new freedoms.

He claims the deal will help him ‘deliver for people who felt left behind’, despite some criticising the agreement he struck at the eleventh hour.

Mr Johnson told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘This government has a very clear agenda to use this moment to unite and level up and to spread opportunity across the government.’

MPs are due to vote on the deal in the Commons on Wednesday and Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed his party will support the Government in a bid to avoid a no deal scenario. 

The Labour leader said it was a ‘thin deal’ that would need more work to secure jobs and industries in the UK.

And Johnson even acknowledged that the deal ‘perhaps does not go as far as we would like’ on financial services. 

But he said Britain can now diverge from the EU and go its own way in areas such as animal welfare, data and chemicals.  

But Rishi Sunak congratulated the PM on securing the trade deal in what he hailed an ‘enormously unifying moment for our country’.

The Chancellor, who was accused of being ‘absent’ in the run up to Christmas, said the agreement was a good deal for British families, businesses and jobs.

He also addressed concerns over the future of financial services, saying Brexit would offer ‘a chance to do things differently’ in the City of London after no agreement was reached for ‘equivalence’ on selling financial services into the single market.

Speaking from Richmond, Yorkshire, Mr Sunak said: ‘I think this deal represents one of the most comprehensive free trade agreements ever signed and it’s a good deal for British families, businesses and jobs.

‘It gives us a fantastic platform to go forward, maintain tariff-free access to European markets but also capitalise on new opportunities.’ 

But former Irish PM Leo Varadkar warned that the UK’s access to the European market is ‘not unconditional’ and they must continue to follow some EU rules.

Responding to the Prime Minister’s announcement of a deal being reached with the EU, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘It is not the deal that the Government promised – far from it.’ 

‘A better deal could have been negotiated. But I accept that option has now gone. At a moment of such national significance, it is just not credible for Labour to be on the sidelines.

‘That is why I can say today that when this deal comes before Parliament, Labour will accept it and vote for it.’