LONDON (AP) – British hospitals are canceling non-urgent procedures and struggling to find space for patients with COVID-19, as coronavirus cases continue to rise despite new restrictions imposed to contain a new variant of the virus that spreads quickly.
Another 41,385 confirmed cases were reported across the UK on Monday. It was the first time that the daily number of reported cases in the country exceeded 40,000, although many more tests are being carried out than at the beginning of the pandemic.
Dr. Nick Scriven, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the growing number of hospitalized patients is “extremely worrying”.
“With the numbers approaching April’s peaks, the systems will again be stretched to the limit,” he said.
British authorities are blaming a new variant of the coronavirus for increasing infection rates in London and south-east England. They say the new version is more easily transmitted than the original, but emphasize that there is no evidence that it makes people sicker.
In response, authorities have placed an area of England that is home to 24 million people under restrictions that require the closure of non-essential stores, the socialization of bars indoors and allow restaurants and pubs to operate only to take away.
Even so, hospitalizations for COVID-19 in southeastern England are approaching or exceeding the levels seen at the first peak of the outbreak. Government data shows that 21,286 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus across the UK on 22 December, the last day for which data are available. That is just slightly below the 21,683 COVID-19 patient who was registered in UK hospitals on April 12.
Dr. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, described her experience working at a hospital on Christmas Day as “end-to-end COVID”.
“Chances are we will deal with it, but it comes at a cost,” Henderson told the BBC. “The cost is not doing what we expected, which is being able to keep non-COVID activities going.”
The UK has reported more than 71,000 deaths among people with the coronavirus, one of the highest death rates in Europe. Another 357 deaths were reported on Monday.
Cabinet Minister Michael Gove said that more parts of England may have to be placed under tougher restrictions if the number of cases does not fall. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have also implemented strong blocking measures.
Still, there is growing confidence that aid may be on its way soon, with the expectation that UK regulators will be able to authorize a second coronavirus vaccine this week.
British media reports say the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency is likely to give the green light to a vaccine made by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The regulator authorized a jab made by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German company BioNTech on December 2, making Britain the first country to have access to a rigorously tested vaccine. More than 600,000 people in the UK received the first of the two injections needed for the vaccine.
If the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is authorized this week, the public will be able to start receiving it from January 4. Britain has ordered 100 million doses, compared to 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is considered a potential game changer in global immunization efforts because it is cheaper than the Pfizer vaccine and does not need to be stored in freezer temperatures, facilitating distribution.
But it had less clear results from clinical trials than its main rivals. The partial results suggest that the injection is about 70% effective in preventing coronavirus infection diseases, compared to the 95% effectiveness reported for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
But the tests produced two different results based on the dosing regimen used. The researchers said the vaccine protected against disease in 62% of those who received two full doses and in 90% of those who received half a dose followed by a full dose. However, the second group included only 2,741 people – too few to be conclusive.
AstraZeneca’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, told the Sunday Times that he was confident that the vaccine would work against the new strain and be as effective as its rivals.
“We think we have discovered the winning formula and how to achieve effectiveness that, after two doses, is up to everyone,” said Soriot.
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