Coronavirus
No prizes for guessing what today’s main story is. The Times warns that the danger is spreading fast.
Boris Johnson ordered fresh action against the coronavirus last night amid fears that the pandemic is spreading faster than anticipated.
As the death toll in Britain hit 21 yesterday, after doubling in four hours, the prime minister ordered the government to accelerate plans to make the elderly and vulnerable stay at home possibly for several months and force whole families to self-isolate where one member has symptoms of the disease.
Johnson will chair a meeting today that is expected to impose the new rules this week — two weeks earlier than medics and scientists had expected last week.
Private hospital beds could be used, says the Mail.
Boris Johnson will issue a Churchillian plea to business this week – asking for their help in defeating coronavirus.
The Prime Minister will go to private hospital groups asking them to free up beds for NHS use, and urge manufacturers of medical equipment to ramp up production of ventilators and other life-saving machinery.
His request will mirror that of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, who in 1938 went to captains of industry seeking their assistance in re-arming Britain to prepare the country for the looming threat of war.
The Sun also says this could happen.
PATIENTS stricken by the coronavirus will be treated for free in private hospitals if the NHS is over-run, the PM vowed last night.
Boris Johnson has ordered officials to buy up private clinic beds to boost capacity if the killer virus quickly spreads.
And he will appeal to suppliers to step up production of medical kit — including life-support machines.
The two-pronged action came as NHS beds across the country filled up with coronavirus sufferers and the UK death toll hit 21.
Labour and the unions have demanded that private beds be made available, says Sky News.
Private hospital beds should be made available to treat people with coronavirus, Labour and the GMB union have demanded.
They say there are around 8,000 beds in at least 570 private sector hospitals in the UK.
The call comes as Labour and the GMB say the NHS is now expected to “deal with a national health emergency despite being under strain from years of privatisation and cuts”.
And business will be asked to play its part, reports the Telegraph.
Boris Johnson is putting British industry on a war footing to help deliver the equipment that the NHS needs to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
In an unprecedented peacetime call to arms, the Prime Minister is asking manufacturers including Rolls Royce and JCB to transform their current production lines to help produce ventilators as part of a “national effort” to tackle the virus.
As ten more patients in the UK died from Covid-19, doubling the current death toll, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, declares in an article for The Sunday Telegraph that “our generation has never been tested like this”.
But those who are too ill to save may not be treated, reports the Times.
The chronic shortage of intensive-care beds and kit could soon force hospitals to introduce a triage system, where some patients are denied specialised care because their chances of survival are deemed too low, doctors have warned.
The UK has just 6.6 intensive care beds per 100,000 people, half the number in Italy and about a fifth of that in Germany.
If the rate of infections keeps growing, the NHS could run short of intensive-care places and equipment by the end of March. This weekend the NHS was aiming to expand many units to roughly double the current 4,250 beds to more than 8,000.
Older people could be told to self-isolate, reports ITV News.
People over 70 will be instructed by the government to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months, under a “wartime-style” mobilisation effort by the government likely to be enforced within the next 20 days.
It is part of a series of measures being prepared by the prime minister, health secretary, chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser to prevent the health service from “falling over” and to save lives as Covid-19 becomes an epidemic in the UK.
Other measures already being planned include the forced requisitioning of hotels and other buildings as temporary hospitals; the requisitioning of private hospitals as emergency hospitals;
The Mail claims we’ll be on a war footing.
Britain’s over-70s will be told to stay at home for four months while the government goes on a war footing to firefight the coronavirus crisis, it was revealed last night.
Mass isolating of the elderly – even if they are not ill – will begin within the next 20 days as Boris Johnson ratchets up efforts to tackle the UK’s ballooning outbreak.
Although the drastic measures have been drawn up to protect those most vulnerable to the killer COVID-19 infection, it brings serious concerns about the wellbeing of pensioners cooped-up for such a long time.
The Times also compares the situation to war.
The NHS is on a war footing with internal coronavirus guidance issued by health chiefs this weekend warning doctors to prepare for a “significant epidemic”.
Health chiefs are drawing up plans to postpone up to one million routine operations to free up staff and equipment for the seriously ill.
Private hospitals have been asked to step in to relieve some of the strain on the NHS, by treating the least sick patients who still require urgent hospital care.
In an effort to curb the virus’s spread, some hospitals have banned visitors and non-clinical staff from intensive care, A&E and neonatal units.
Jails could be a breeding ground for the virus, says the Mail.
Ministers have been warned coronavirus could rip through Britain’s jails – because inmates drink hand sanitiser.
The alcohol-based germ-killing gel cannot be placed in prisons after previous attempts to distribute it were blighted by dangerous levels of intoxication.+2
The Ministry of Justice is also working to avoid the jail riots sparked in Italy last week over health moves to suspend family visits.
But not all suspected victims are being tested, reports the Independent.
The World Health Organisation has repeated calls for all countries to find and test every coronavirus case after the British government claimed the practice was “no longer necessary”.
Announcing the next stage of the UK’s strategy, the chief medical officer for England said on Thursday that only hospital patients would now be formally checked for the virus.
“It is no longer necessary for us to identify every case and we will move from having testing mainly done in homes and outpatients and walk-in centres, to a situation where people who are remaining at home do not need testing,” Professor Chris Whitty added.
The Sun reports that troops could be brought in.
TROOPS could guard hospitals and supermarkets in drastic new measures set to be rolled out in a bid to tackle the coronavirus.
It comes as the death toll in the UK soars to 21 and plans were announced to isolate people over the age of 70 for four months.
Shoppers have stripped supermarket shelves of essentials including toilet paper and dried pasta as officials say they’ve moved into the second phase of plans to contain the deadly bug.
As a result, it is understood the government will deploy the armed forces.
Even non-uniformed staff could be used, says the Mirror.
Dozens of non-uniformed members of Army have been drafted in to help with the coronavirus response.
Some 38 members of the Royal Logistics Corp have been deployed to local planning forums to boost resilience, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said.
They are Ministry of Defence planners “who will be helping local areas draw up their plans as to how they support public services and emergency services throughout the outbreak”, he added.
Downing Street’s comments come after the Times reports troops could be deployed to guard Downing Street and Parliament under MOD contingency plans.
Soldiers could be used on the streets, says the Mail.
Ministers have drawn up plans to put troops on the streets to help deal with the coronavirus crisis after the number of deaths almost doubled within 24 hours.
With the death toll jumping from 11 to 21 and the number of confirmed UK cases leaping by almost 40 per cent, Downing Street accelerated plans to ban large public events and implement the self-isolation of entire households where any member has succumbed to the illness.
In a bid to ‘shield’ the most vulnerable, the Government is also expected to tell people over 70 to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months.
The Mirror reports a call for the PM to plan in case he is affected.
A Tory MP has called on Boris Johnson to set out a formal procedure for what happens if the Prime Minister is incapacitated or killed.
Peter Bone has been trying to have a line of succession laid out in law for almost a decade without success.
He called on the government to back his Bill so it could be in place in case the PM falls ill with coronavirus.
“Nobody seems to be able to tell me what happens if the Prime Minister is incapacitated,” Mr Bone told the Mirror.
“Maybe there’s a letter somewhere that says who’s in charge.”
Meanwhile, the travel ban imposed by the US has been extended to the UK, reports the Telegraph.
Tens of thousands of travellers’ flights to the US will be cancelled today after Donald Trump extended his travel ban to the UK and Ireland, causing chaos for British families and businesses, whose plans are torn up at short notice.
The US president, who said yesterday he was awaiting the result of a coronavirus test, acted after the World Health Organisation designated Europe the epicentre of the pandemic.
Mike Pence, the vice-president, said there had been a “unanimous recommendation” from health experts to extend the ban, adding: “Americans in the UK can come home, legal residents can come home, funnelled through specific airports, and processed.”
The ban will start tomorrow, reports the Mail.
Donald Trump has extended the United States’ coronavirus travel ban to people from the UK and Ireland.
The flight freeze will kick in at midnight Monday, scuppering work and holiday plans for Britons preparing to make trans-Atlantic trips.
The President had initially excluded the UK and Ireland from the European ban of 26 countries, but added it to the blacklist this afternoon as infection rates soared overnight.
But how will this all end? The Telegraph reports a comment by a top scientist.
The UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser has said a degree of herd immunity will help the UK population as Covid-19 spreads.
Sir Patrick Vallance acknowledged there are fears that clamping down too hard on the spread of the virus through tight social distancing measures could see it return in the future.
He said the aim is to “reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission”.
In Sir Patrick’s opinion, almost two thirds of Britain’s population would need to contract coronavirus in order for herd immunity to stave off the disease in future.
But there is hope of a vaccine, says the Mail.
Two top doctors believe an experimental drug has helped save the lives of American coronavirus patients.
George Thompson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California Davis Medical Center, was part of the team that administered the drug, remdesivir, to a sickly American woman who tested positive for the virus on February 26.
‘We thought they were going to pass away,’ Thompson told Science magazine Friday about the patient – who was the first known ‘community spread’ case in the United States.
The Sun also has the story.
A CORONAVIRUS patient believed to be on the brink of death has recovered after being given an experimental drug.
The woman, who contracted the illness in the US, was a test subject for ‘remdesivir’ and is said to be “doing well”.
George Thompson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, who helped to provide care to the patient told the Science journal: “We thought she was going to pass away.
“The day after the infusion of the drug, she consistently got better.”
The woman, who had not travelled to an infected country and is not known to have any contact with a COVID-19 patient, was given her first dose 36 hours after her diagnosis.
And the new vaccine could skip the animal testing stage, says the Mail.
The first human trials of a coronavirus vaccine are to be launched within days, scientists in the US have said.
The ‘genetic hack’ was accelerated past the animal testing stage and will be used on healthy volunteers, then patients if it deemed safe.
It comes as scientists in Britain said a vaccine could be tested on humans by June after encouraging results on mice.
Massachusetts-based Moderna created the candidate cure but have taken a different route to traditional techniques.
Trade talks
Away from the virus, there are a few other pieces of news. The Express reports on the trade talks with the EU.
BORIS JOHNSON has been warned one crucial aspect that has exploded into a war of words between the UK and European Union will ultimately be the “deal breaker” in negotiations over a post-Brexit free trade agreement (FTA).
The UK and Europea Union opened talks over their future relationship after Brexit – just weeks after Britain finally officially left the bloc on January 31 after several months of delays. Boris Johnson wants an FTA agreed with the EU before the end of the transition period in December 2020, which he is refusing to extend. The Prime Minister is also threatening to walk away from the negotiating table in June if there is little chance of achieving the FTA the UK desires.
Leading EU figureheads, including chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, have reacted furiously to what they see as extremely hardline tactics from Mr Johnson and his negotiating team.
ECHR
And the EU’s human rights court is still throwing its weight around, reports Breitbart.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dismissed the case of two Christian midwives who were denied jobs in Sweden for refusing to perform abortions, ruling that the violation of the women’s consciences was “justified”.
After losing several court battles in Sweden, the two women — Ellinor Grimmark and Linda Steen — took their plight to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which announced this week it will not take up the case.
Swedish law obliges all midwives to perform abortions and makes no allowance for conscientious objection based on religious faith.
Child grooming
Another grooming gang has been sentenced, says the Sun.
MEMBERS of a sick grooming gang who raped an “extremely vulnerable” teenage girl have been jailed for a total of 74 years.
The gang had been plying their victim with drink and drugs since she was 15 and treated her like a “piece of meat”, a court has heard.
The young woman told Sheffield Crown Court she’s been “scarred for life” by the abuse, which has left her suicidal.
Blundering police failed to investigate her claims for five years, it was heard.
Now vile sex predators Jasim Mohammed, 38, Kawan Ahmed, 32, Nzar Anwar, 41, and Shangar Ibrahimi, 30, have each been jailed for between 12 and 25 years after they were convicted of rape.
A fifth man, Saba Mohammed, 41, was also jailed for four years after being convicted on conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Education
And if a pupil is caught with a knife in school, they may just get away with it, reports the Mail.
Pupils who bring knives to schools will not automatically be expelled under controversial plans to scrap a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to the deadly weapons in class.
MPs have criticised the proposals – which have been floated in some areas of the UK worst hit by knife crime – saying the only message should be that blades have no place in school.
The suggestion comes as head teachers try to reduce the number of pupils they exclude – which some experts say leads to more involvement in knife crime and other illegal activity.
Now Wandsworth Council in South-West London has circulated guidelines saying that permanently and immediately excluding any child who has carried or used a knife against others ‘is not appropriate’.
HS2
More talk about the high speed train line is in the Times.
Boris Johnson is being warned not to “delay or dilute” plans for the HS2 line to Leeds, which the region’s political leaders say represents the “golden thread” to level up the Tories’ new heartlands.
Civic leaders along the eastern leg of HS2, which runs from Birmingham to Leeds, are growing increasingly concerned that the government intends to prioritise the high-speed line to Manchester, known as the western leg.
Writing below, Labour’s Judith Blake, leader of Leeds city council, and the Conservative leader of Nottingham county council, Kay Cutts, who also chairs the East Midlands HS2 board, warn it should not become a competition between “Manchester and Leeds”.
In a recent speech, Andrew Stephenson, the new HS2 minister, made no mention of Leeds.
Rail travel
Lack of electric train lines has forced a load of carriages to sit and rot, says the Sun.
THOUSANDS of “ghost trains” are standing idle in railway sidings despite years of chronic overcrowding, a probe found.
Carriages with a combined length exceeding 20 miles are rotting away — yet passengers paying top dollar often cannot get a seat.
Researchers found that the unused trains, being held in at least six depots, contain more than 110,000 seats.
Many are sent to scrap to avoid storage costs.
Investigators say the electric-only trains have been rendered useless by the failure to electrify lines across the country.
Fewer than 40 per cent of lines in Britain are electrified — among the lowest level in Europe.
I’ve done my three score years and ten, plus another five. – I am a fairly heavy smoker and drinker, so I guess it’s curtains for me. – Good-by !
I limit my leaving the house to only essentials, and have not noticed the bare shelves in the local Supermarket. – Is this problem regional ? – I will see my family on a regular basis, but we all observe a common sense approach to physical contact, so I guess that they want me to hang around for a bit longer ! ,,,,, It has been said that we are now on a war footing, and if so, could I suggest that we all use the weapon of mass destruction against this damned virus of an enemy. – It’s called by the oft used name of Common Sense, and is simply cleanliness, plus very limited social interaction !
Three or four months of a comfortable prison called home, is easily bearable for me, with Radio, TV and Internet use, and I have started to read the seven volumes of Churchill’s History of the English speaking Peoples, which I was always too busy to get started upon. ….. Being retired with a steady pension income, makes it all very easy for me, but I feel sorry for those still working. – My family covers Office worker, Teacher, Charity worker and Prison Officer, so I am sensible of the real problems that exist ! ….. BE POSITIVE AND SENSIBLE, AND WE WILL WIN THROUGH !
Boris Johnson is welcome to his job of PM. – He will now know that it is impossible to please all of the people, but he has the right advisors at his side, as well as the necessary powers able to be deployed as required. – No matter what an individual’s political take is, these circumstances are requiring a closing of all ranks behind the leader. – As I say, he’s welcome to the job, and may good judgement and the Almighty be on his side !
Now it’s a crime to be over 70 years old! Enforced incarceration for four months? That’s akin to being thrown into jail without trial!
So now we can see exactly how the elderly are perceived by the political ‘class’. A nuisance that they would like to see gone from the scene altogether!
It must be remembered that pensioners usually always vote. So they are even more of a nuisance because they can see through the inadequacies of modern day politicians and aren’t usually reticent in voicing their scorn at the ineptitude of most of them!
How are they planning to keep them
In their homes? Guards on the gates? Guards on the streets? “ Where are your papers” demands on the entrances to shops?
If the government had taken action sooner, closed the borders and also stopped any further illegal immigration (rather than continuing the rescue missions off our coasts) we would have had more respect for them. As it is, I expect to see mass disobedience amongst the normally law abiding pensioners of England. (I say England because it seems the Scots will not be following the diktat! Perhaps a mass migration of over 70s to Scotland???)
Idiocy rules!
Without the discretionary spending of the over 70s we don’t have an economy. Scotland may have a huge boom though if large numbers move there to avoid the house arrest and silver shaming. Who knew the crazy was less strong in the SNP than the Tories?
Plenty of pensioners at last night’s classical concert. They are taking sensible precautions but not giving up on a social life for a load of what ifs.
After the four months of house arrest will more pensioners have died of a) suicide brought on by loneliness and mental health issues or b) a virus that is primarily killing the over 80s with underlying health conditions (UHC to get the acronym in early seeing as it crops up in almost every death press cutting.)
Peter Hitchins has two articles in the Mailonline which hit the mail on the head.
Nail sorry typo.
Great articles indeed – thanks for the tip!
Trade talks – reacted furiously … see as extremely hardline tactics.
Long overdue. Its my money. Its our country’s money. The plundering has to stop.
I can think of more than one negotiator who one would liken to a rotweilers with a machine guns around the table. Quiet spoken too! I have names if the Govmt wants to up the ante.
Tickling Surrender May’s tummy (winces at the thought) is no more.
And, ”extremely hardline”. They’ve had hundreds of years to learn proper English. And to speak it, like what she does in Buck House.
Well said MWT and Norman. But is there more to it ? are TPTB globally grabbing this chance to remove all our civil liberties? Are governments really acting on their own discretion? I fear the Civil Contingency Act 2004 ; plus the “EUSSR” is rapidly now becoming a reality. ; the first EU Public Prosecutor commences powers in November; whether or not we’re part of the EPP system, she can have anyone arbitrarily arrested under EU Arrest Warrant. BoJo says he’s scrapping EAW but will he backtrack? We are still subject to EAW during transition, and may still be under a future combined Trade and Security treaty ?
PS I also speculate, far fetched though it seems , that TPTB are trying to collapse the West’s economies at a time of their choosing?
Bad precedents are being set currently. 1) Governments are seeing how easily they can use a media driven madness of crowds to put in controls socialists have dreaming of for decades. 2) terrorists and hostile powers are seeing the perfect way to bring down the West – steal or develop a bioweapon that kills at least ten octogenarians with emphysema. 3) people are seeing when TSHTF that its everyone for themselves and selfishness rules.
It’s easy to pull the wool over the eyes of an ovine population.
The ponzi banking system and unpayable debt mean it was all likely to collapse at some point in the near future. Handy if it happens before Trump goes before the voters later this year. Don’t let a good “crisis” go to waste.
Can we expect mass uncontrolled immigration to continue during this emergency putting even more pressure and demand on public services?
When the old folk are finally allowed to leave their houses blinking in the summer sunshine it would be a bit ironic for them to succumb due to a boatload of Iranians just landed on the local beach.
I recently saw a u tube clip of economic migrants arriving on a Greek beach. The locals turned out with shotguns, baseball balls and similar, to dissuade them from staying. The local Greek plod arrived to break things up.
The anger of the locals was clear and unambiguous.
Its not pc to hope this reaction will escalate, so I wont say it.
It does indicate that the local aborigines have had enough and if no-one else is going to act, then. . . well .
Covid-19 is NOT the Black Death. The only people it is killing are elderly in bad health. Elderly in reasonable health are minimally at risk. Why should they be forcibly barricaded in their homes, whilst the economy falls off a cliff? The economy is not just numbers on a Government spreadsheet: it’s also people’s homes, businesses, livelihoods, jobs, the shops, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, hotels they visit. These will all disappear if this ridiculous over reaction continues. Are these a price worth paying so that the old and frail get to eke out another few months of miserable existence in the nursing home before dying anyway of something else . Newsflash to the West: we don’t live forever.
P.S. How long before someone gets murdered for a toilet roll? Idiocracy is here.
Yes – what you say does make sense – however! What concerns me is the fact that people have become careless and dirty and far too reliable on chemical cleansers – what a joke!
Once again I return to those snippets from WWII – “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases – catch them in your handkerchief” – and equally important, “Is your journey REALLY necessary?”
You of course are welcome to your opinion, but I have no intention of taking chances on the current breed to observe even the most basic of personal hygiene and self-control – and consequently I will trust in only my immediate family, over whom I have traditionally had reasonable care and influence over the years – Yes! Common sense are the bywords.
I wish all the contributors to this excellent site good health – but I KNOW that the ‘golden oldies’ who pepper these pages with their insight and wisdom will in fact have more chance of surviving than the ‘woke’ Mob.
Good luck to all.
Interesting how the media reports that ‘private hospital’ beds will provide ‘free’ treatment for NHS patients, if NHS hospitals are ‘over run’. Apparently demanded by Labour virtue signalling but rather out of touch as usual. Private Hospitals have been accommodating NHS patients for years as Local NHS Trusts routinely purchase operating theatre space and beds , in fact outside of the larger private hospitals in London many already have up to 60% occupied in this way it’s good business and reduces NHS waiting times. Incidentally where are all the additional high dependency nursing staff going to appear from as most private hospitals will not have sufficient staff to cope with additional 24/7 high dependency/intensive care patients If the Department of Health and our local emergency planning resilience committees don’t know this already , it begs the question just how far are they reacting not to the scale of the emergency but to politically driven media agenda and armchair experts who seem not to have heard of the 2004 Civil Contingency act and its provisions which seem to have come as a shock and were not as they suggest dreamed up at the drop of a hat by Boris.