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Covid inquiry ‘marginalising’ bereaved on first day of hearing

Bereaved families fear their experiences will be “diluted” in the UK Covid-19 Inquiry after it was confirmed their evidence would be submitted to a third-party company.

Instead of the usual “pen portraits” heard in the inquiry, families will submit their evidence to a private research company as part of a parallel listening exercise that will analyse the responses and feed back the findings to the inquiry chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett.

Matt Fowler, co-founder of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign, said while families believe the start of the inquiry is a step in the right direction after campaigning for two years, they fear being excluded from the inquiry because of the listening exercise.

“All bereaved families want from the inquiry is the same outcome that anyone should, for lessons to be learnt from our loss that can stop the monumental scale of death that took place from happening again,” Matt said following the preliminary hearing. “As Baroness Hallett herself has acknowledged, for that to happen the experiences of the bereaved must be learnt from, so why is she leaving us out in the cold instead of working with us?”

A&E doctor Saleyah Ahsan, from east London, worked in intensive care units during the pandemic. She said she remembers holding hands with people and telling them they needed to be incubated as they desperately called their families – some died in intensive care.

“It is very important that stories jump off the page and are real because they are real,” 

She added: “If we really want to make sure we get this right there is only this inquiry, it has to be right. I am a medic, I see the numbers are rising, it’s autumn. Thankfully we’ve got a booster but hospitals are getting busy – I’m worried.”

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Source: The Independent, 4 October 2022

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Covid infections caught in hospital rise by a third in one week

The number of people likely to have caught COVID-19 in NHS hospitals in England has risen by more than a third in the last week.

The 35% rise in probable hospital-acquired COVID-19 from 6 to 13 December is the highest weekly increase since 30 October, HSJ analysis of NHS England data reveals.

Hospital-acquired infections are rising across areas such as London, the South East, and South West, and also at some hospitals in the North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands.

At some trusts, the weekly total of likely hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections has more than doubled since last week.

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Source: HSJ, 18 December 2020

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Covid in Scotland: Record number of cases as NHS faces 'perfect storm'

The number of Covid-19 cases reported in Scotland has now reached 7,113, previously recorded as 6,835 on Friday.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf has warned the NHS was facing a "perfect storm" of pressure, with latest government figures showing a total of 507 people are in hospital with Covid and 52 are in intensive care.

"We are seeing a rising curve of cases in Scotland. It's reassuring that vaccines are preventing the levels of serious health harms that case numbers like this would once have caused. However, we can't be complacent and are monitoring carefully. In the meantime, please take care." Tweeted First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. 

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Source: BBC News, 30 August 2021 (Scotland)

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Covid in Scotland: Can in-person GP appointments ever fully return?

Community doctors in Scotland have told the BBC they cannot imagine returning to normal face-to-face service with current levels of demand.

Allowing more patients to see their GP in person is a top priority for the government's NHS Recovery Plan. But as the country tries to emerge from the pandemic, surgeries are seeing unprecedented pressure to catch up with patients.

The health secretary has confirmed that new guidance should allow practices to see more people in person. But greater use of telephone and video appointments, brought in when the pandemic hit, is going to continue.

Dr Begg has been a GP for 25 years. He says they won't go back to business as usual, the way they worked before.

"In person consultations are really important, to examine people, to give injections, to remove lesions, all of these. I think a flexible approach is what we need. It's what we were planning to do before the pandemic anyway; a flexible mix of phone call, video and in-person consulting where it is appropriate."

Dr Begg says the new ways of working are essential to deal with the huge number of requests they get.

"There is a demand, capacity gap and indeed there was before the pandemic. We are seeing at last more students come through medical school and more people finally coming to join general practice training, but this is going to take at least ten years to turn things around."

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Source: BBC News, 7 September 2021

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Covid in pregnancy linked to birth-related complications

A new study has linked COVID-19 to complications during pregnancy.

Scottish researchers found that women who catch the virus near the end of pregnancy were more vulnerable to birth-related complications. They are more likely to suffer them than women who catch Covid in early pregnancy or not at all.

The researchers say getting vaccinated is crucial to protect pregnant women and their babies from life-threatening complications.

The latest findings come from the Covid in Pregnancy Study (Cops), which carried out research across Scotland to learn about the incidence and outcomes of Covid-19 infection and vaccination in pregnancy. It is one of the first national studies of pregnancy and Covid.

They found that preterm births, stillbirths and newborn deaths were more common among women who had the virus 28 days, or less, before their delivery date. The majority of complications occurred in unvaccinated women.

The results, which have been published in Nature Medicine, come after recent data showed 98% of pregnant women admitted to UK intensive care units with coronavirus symptoms were unvaccinated.

Researchers are now calling for measures to increase vaccine uptake in pregnant women.

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Source: BBC News, 13 January 2022

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Covid ICU survivor: 'I have come out the other end'

Covid survivor Tam McCue is one of the lucky ones. Earlier in the year he was in intensive care in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley where he had been on a ventilator for nearly two weeks.

At one point Mr McCue, who could barely speak, didn't think he would live. 

Fast forward five months and Mr McCue, of Barrhead, East Renfrewshire, is back from the brink.

He became desperately ill but, thankfully, it only went as far as his lungs. With coronavirus some patients have have suffered multiple organ failure which also affected their heart, kidneys, brain and gut.

Mr McCue describes his recovery as a "rollercoaster".

He added: "It's a slow process. You think you can do things then the tiredness and fatigue sets in."

He said: "It lies in the back of your mind. As years go on, how are you going to be? Is it going to get you again? It does play on you. It definitely does."

As part of his recovery Mr McCue is attending the Ins:pire clinic online. It is normally a face-to-face rehabilitation clinic which involves multiple specialties, including pharmacists, physiotherapists and psychologists. Mr McCue is one of the first Covid survivors to take part in the five-week programme, which started earlier this month.

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Source: BBC Scotland News, 29 September 2020

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Covid hospital admissions rising with most patients younger people, says NHS leader

The number of people being admitted to hospital with COVID-19 is rising in some regions but "few, if any" are from care homes, according to an NHS leader.

Younger people are making up most of coronavirus hospital admissions, with 70% of admissions in one hospital consisting of under-45s, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said.

Although the number of hospital admissions is "ticking up" in areas most affected by the Indian Covid variant, the rise is small compared with the levels seen earlier in the year.

Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Hopson said most hospitalisations were among younger people and those who have been offered the vaccine but have yet to take up the offer.

A number are among those who have only had their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while “a very small number” are fully vaccinated with both doses.

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Source: The Independent, 26 May 2021

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Covid had devastating toll on poor and low-income communities in US

The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.

As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor People’s Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties.

Looking at the most deadly surges of the virus, the disparity in death rates grows even more pronounced. During the third pandemic wave in the US, over the winter of 2020 and 2021, death rates were four and a half times higher in the poorest counties than those with the highest median incomes.

During the recent Omicron wave, that divergence in death rates stood at almost three times.

Such a staggering gulf in outcomes cannot be explained by differences in vaccination rates, the authors find, with more than half of the population of the poorest counties having received two vaccine shots. A more relevant factor is likely to be that the poorest communities had twice the proportion of people who lack health insurance compared with the richer counties.

“The findings of this report reveal neglect and sometimes intentional decisions to not focus on the poor,” said Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign which jointly prepared the research. “The neglect of poor and low-wealth people in this country during a pandemic is immoral, shocking and unjust.”

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Source: The Guardian, 4 April 2022

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Covid global health emergency is over, WHO says

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that Covid-19 no longer represents a "global health emergency".

The statement represents a major step towards ending the pandemic and comes three years after it first declared its highest level of alert over the virus.

Officials said the virus' death rate had dropped from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 on 24 April.

The head of the WHO said at least seven million people died in the pandemic.

But Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the true figure was "likely" closer to 20 million deaths - nearly three times the official estimate - and he warned that the virus remained a significant threat.

"Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I've accepted that advice. It is therefore with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency," Dr Tedros said.

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Source: BBC News, 6 May 2023

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Covid fears may be keeping expectant mothers from attending needed hospital check ups

Doctors fear a rise in stillbirths and babies with impaired growth because pregnant women were too scared to seek help during the pandemic.

At a Royal Society of Medicine webinar on pregnancy and Covid, medics expressed concern that women in need of urgent attention had kept away from maternity services, for fear of catching the infection.

In other cases, those with worrying symptoms which could mean their baby was at risk may have stayed away because they feared putting pressure on services, doctors said.

Dr Maggie Blott, head of obstetrics at the Royal Free London Foundation trust, said: “A lot of the work that we do is is prevention, and a lot of women that we see, turn up for hospital as an emergency - have concerns around abdominal pain, reduced foetal movements, all sorts of things.”

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Source: The Telegraph, 18 June 2020

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Covid disruption to NHS in England wreaks havoc with surgery backlog

Operations are being cancelled across England as Covid causes “major disruption” inside the NHS, the country’s top surgeon has said, as doctors and health leaders say the government’s backlog targets look increasingly unachievable.

Six million people are on the waiting list for NHS hospital care, including more than 23,000 who have waited more than two years.

Boris Johnson said in February that he had launched “the biggest catch-up programme in the history of the health service”, but in the same month he dropped every domestic Covid restriction. Now record-high Covid rates are wreaking havoc with the ability of the NHS to catch up with surgery that was delayed or cancelled before and during the pandemic.

More than 28,000 staff are off work every day due to Covid, recent figures show, while more than 20,000 patients are in hospital with Covid, which has dramatically reduced the number of beds and space available for planned surgery patients.

“Unfortunately, Covid-19 continues to cause major disruption in the NHS, with high staff absences in recent weeks,” Prof Neil Mortensen, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, told the Guardian.

“We have heard that planned surgery is being cancelled again in different parts of the country due to staff being off sick with the virus. This is understandably frustrating for surgical teams who want to help their patients by getting planned surgery up and running again. It’s also very distressing for patients who need a planned operation.”

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Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2022

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Covid disruption leaves thousands of UK stroke patients disabled

Thousands of stroke patients have suffered avoidable disability because NHS care for them was disrupted during the pandemic, a report claims.

Many people who had just had a stroke found it harder to obtain clot-busting drugs or undergo surgery to remove a blood clot from their brain, both of which need to happen quickly.

Rehabilitation services, which are vital to help reduce the impact of a stroke, also stopped working normally as the NHS focused on Covid, the Stroke Association said. It is concerned “many could lose out on the opportunity to make their best possible recovery”.

Juliet Bouverie, the charity’s chief executive, said: “Strokes didn’t stop because of the pandemic. Despite the tireless efforts of frontline clinicians who have gone to herculean efforts to maintain services under extremely difficult conditions, some treatments still became unavailable and most stroke aftercare ground to a halt. This means more stroke survivors are now living with avoidable, unnecessary disability.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 September 2020

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Covid deaths rare among fully vaccinated

Fully vaccinated people are much less likely to die with COVID-19 than those who aren't, or have had only one dose, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

Out of more than 51,000 Covid deaths in England between January and July 2021, only 256 occurred after two doses.

They were mostly people at very high risk from illness from COVID-19.

The figures show the high degree of protection from the vaccines against illness and death, the ONS said.

Some deaths after vaccination were always expected because vaccines are not 100% effective, and it takes a couple of weeks after your second dose to build the fullest protection.

Breakthrough" deaths - occurring at least two weeks after the second jab along with a first positive PCR Covid test - tend to happen in the most vulnerable, men and those with weakened immune systems, with the average age being 84.

But overall numbers were very small - they accounted for only 0.5% of all deaths from COVID-19 over the first six months of the year.

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Source: BBC News, 14 September 2021

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Covid deaths impossible to calculate as authorities used 14 different ways to record them

The number of people who have died from Covid in Britain during the pandemic is impossible to determine because of the inconsistent definitions of what is meant by a coronavirus death, researchers have concluded.

Experts from Oxford University discovered that public health and statistics organisations across the UK are operating under 14 different definitions to classify a death from Covid.

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that many people who died in the first wave never tested positive for the virus, particularly older people who died in care homes. Instead, their deaths were registered as Covid simply based on a statement of the care home provider, and because coronavirus was rife at the time.

The authors also point out that it is unlikely that a Covid infection on its own could cause death in the absence of contributing factors, such as other illness, or the infection leading to a more deadly condition such as pneumonia.

The report also found that in some trusts, up to 95% of Covid deaths were in people with Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders.

The team said the confusion meant they were unable to separate deaths caused by Covid from those triggered by the pandemic response, and called for a proportion of deaths to be verified by post-mortem in future pandemics to determine the true reason.

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Source: The Telegraph, 19 March 2022

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Covid deaths for people with learning disability in England six times average

People with learning disabilities are dying of coronavirus at more than six times the rate of the general population, according to “deeply troubling” figures that have prompted a government review.

A report from Public Health England (PHE) found that 451 in every 100,000 people registered as having learning disabilities died after contracting Covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic, when the figures were adjusted for age and sex.

Because not all Covid deaths among people with learning disabilities are registered as such, the true figure is likely to be 692 in every 100,000, or 6.3 times the UK average, the report estimated.

Campaigners said the figures showed the government had failed to protect the most vulnerable.

The report found that Covid deaths among those with learning disabilities were also more widely spread across age groups, with far greater mortality rates among younger adults. Those aged 18-34 were 30 times more likely to die with the virus than their counterparts in the general population.

The higher death rate is likely to reflect the greater prevalence of health problems such as diabetes and obesity among those with learning disabilities, the report said. It also noted that some learning disabilities, such as Down’s syndrome, can make people more vulnerable to respiratory infections.

People with learning disabilities are also likely to have difficulty recognising symptoms and following advice on testing, social distancing and infection prevention, the report said. It may also be harder for those caring for them to recognise symptoms if these cannot be communicated, it added.

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Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2020

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Covid death rates twice as high in zero-hours and casual jobs, study suggests

Coronavirus death rates are twice as high in insecure jobs as in other professions, new research suggests.

The TUC said workers on a contract that does not guarantee regular hours or income, such as zero-hours contracts or casual work, and those in low-paid self-employment, have been more at risk of infection.

It’s thought that key workers such as those in social care and delivery driving, which cannot be done from home and require people to come into contact with others, are more insecure.

The COVID-19 mortality rate among men in insecure occupations was 51 per 100,000 people aged 20-64, compared with 24 per 100,000 in more secure work, said the union organisation.

The mortality rate among women in insecure jobs was 25 per 100,000 people, compared with 13 per 100,000 in more secure occupations.

The TUC, which called the figures stark, said more research was needed to understand the links between precarious work and risk of infection and death.

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Source: The Independent, 16 April 2021

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Covid death rates dropped as doctors rejected ventilators

Death rates among seriously ill COVID-19 patients dropped sharply as doctors rejected the use of mechanical ventilators, analysis has found.

The chances of dying in an intensive care unit (ICU) went from 43% before the pandemic peaked to 34% in the period after.

In a report, the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre said that no new drugs nor changes to clinical guidelines were introduced in that period that could account for the improvement. However, the use of mechanical ventilators fell dramatically.

Before the peak in admissions on 1 April, 75.9% of COVID-19 patients were intubated within 24 hours of getting to an ICU, a proportion which fell to 44.1% after the peak.

Meanwhile, the proportion of ICU patients put on a ventilator at any point dropped 22 percentage points to 61% either side of the peak.

Researchers suggested this could have been a result of “informal learning” among networks of doctors that patients on ventilators were faring worse than expected.

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Source: The Telegraph, 3 September 2020

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Covid death rate in prisons three times higher than outside

People in prisons are at an increased risk of COVID-19, with a death rate more than three times higher than that of the general population, and should be made a vaccine priority, according to public health experts.

There were 118 deaths related to COVID-19 among people in prisons in England and Wales between March 2020 and February 2021, representing a risk of dying more than three times higher than that of people of the same age and sex outside secure environments, the research team at University College London (UCL) found.

The higher rate of death comes despite extensive physical distancing measures, including prisons keeping many inmates in their cells for 23 hours a day.

The lead author of the study, Dr Isobel Braithwaite of UCL Institute of Health Informatics, said: “Our findings show that people in prisons are at a much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than the general population, and we make the case that both they and prison staff should be given high priority in the rollout of vaccines."

“We believe the current methods of regime restriction are not enough to protect people adequately, and a systematic, ‘whole-prison’ approach to vaccination is key to preventing further outbreaks and reducing overall deaths in prisons.”

The Ministry of Justice challenged the authors’ work, however, arguing it failed to adjust for worse health among the prison population than the community and movements of prisoners in and out of prison.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2021

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Covid death payments unavailable for staff who died in most recent waves

The families of any NHS and social care staff who died from Covid in the most recent waves will not be eligible for the Covid death assurance scheme launched at the start of the pandemic, it has emerged. 

The scheme closed on 31 March, despite pleas from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to keep it open. Since it was set up in April 2020, it has paid out £60,000 lump sums to the estates of 688 workers. A further 42 cases have been declined and 29 applications are still being processed.

The RCN wrote to then health and social care secretary Sajid Javid on 30 March, calling for the scheme to be extended. General secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen wrote: “The over-riding principle must be that no member of nursing staff who loses their life this year should be afforded any less respect and family support than one who died in 2020 or 2021…

“With a distinct possibility of new variants at any point, staff deserve assurance that they and their loved ones will not go unnoticed should they contract and ultimately lose their life to covid.”

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Source: HSJ, 19 August 2022

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Covid crisis forces suspension of maternity services

Some trusts in London and the South East are closing standalone birth centres and warning they cannot support home births because of high levels of demand for ambulance services from covid patients.

Women in East Sussex who planned to give birth at Eastbourne District General Hospital and Crowborough Birth Centre have been told they need to go to other units. Both Eastbourne and Crowborough have standalone midwife-led units and women who have a difficult labour would need to be transferred by ambulance to another hospital.

Both East Sussex Healthcare Trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust, which run the services, cited pressure on the ambulance services as the reason for the closures. The trusts, both of which are served by South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust, have also suspended support for home births.

Services are continuing at a similar birthing unit at Maidstone Hospital, with private ambulances transferring women to Tunbridge Wells Hospital if needed. However, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust has posted on Facebook to warn women the situation may change and it is monitoring ambulance response times to determine “the safety of our out of hospital birthing choices”.

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Source: HSJ, 6 January 2021

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Covid crisis ‘not over’ as hospitalisations to rise for two weeks, warns Chris Whitty

Covid hospitalisations will continue to rise for at least two weeks, England’s government’s chief medical officer warned on Wednesday as Britain’s daily cases breached 100,000 for the second time this month.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty said the country’s Covid crisis “is not over” and that new variants of the disease could arise at any time.

He pointed to the latest data showing that the number of people with Covid in hospitals has been rising, and said this would likely continue for at least two weeks.

The current rise in cases is “currently being driven by Omicron rather than new variants”, he told an audience at a Local Government Association conference, but added: “We need to keep a very close eye on this, because at any point new variants could emerge anywhere in the world, including the UK, obviously, as what happened with the Alpha variant.”

Another 194 Covid deaths were reported on Wednesday, up 27% on last week.

Prof Whitty said that death rates were fortunately still low but that hospitalisations meant there was still pressure on the NHS.

Asked about the end of free testing for the public on 1 April, Sir Chris said it was a “trade-off between disparities, because the effects of free testing are probably going to be differential across society, and [there are] very substantial sums that are going into it, which otherwise would be going into other public health issues."

However, he said that testing for staff within health and social care was “slightly different” as the risks are greater, and those who are in hospital or care homes are more vulnerable.

His comments come on the second anniversary of the day the UK announced a national lockdown.

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Source: The Independent, 23 March 2022

 
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Covid could cause 'tsunami of cancelled NHS operations'

There could be a "tsunami" of cancelled operations this winter as the NHS copes with rising numbers of coronavirus patients, leading surgeons are warning.

Members of the Royal College of Surgeons of England say they doubt the NHS can meet targets to restore surgery back to near pre-pandemic levels.

Planned procedures such as hip replacements were paused to free up beds during lockdown in the spring. And hospitals have since been dealing with a backlog.

In July, NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens told trusts hospitals should by September 2020 be performing at least 80% of their September 2019 rates of:

  • overnight planned procedures
  • outpatient or day-case procedures

And by October, this proportion should rise to 90%.

But data suggests more than two million people have been waiting longer than 18 weeks for routine operations, with 83,000 waiting more than a year - up from 2,000 before the pandemic.

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Source: BBC News, 6 October 2020

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Covid coughing study suggests NHS staff at far greater risk than thought

The NHS has been urged to rethink safety for thousands of frontline staff after new research suggested that Covid patients’ coughing is putting them at far greater risk of catching the virus than previously thought.

The study found that coughing generated at least 10 times more infectious “aerosol” particles than speaking or breathing – which could explain why so many NHS staff have fallen ill during the pandemic.

The research has led to fresh demands that anyone caring for someone with Covid-19, or suspected Covid-19, should be provided with the most protective equipment – including FFP3 respirator masks – and that hospital ventilation should be improved.

Health workers are up to four times more likely to contract coronavirus than the general population, with infection rates among those on general hospital wards approximately double those of intensive care unit (ICU) staff – who do have access to the most protective PPE.

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Source: The Guardian, 3 January 2021

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Covid causing liver damage lasting months after infection, study finds

Covid is causing liver damage lasting months after infection, according to new research.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, discovered Covid-positive patients had a “statistically significant” higher liver stiffness than the rest of the population.

Liver stiffness could indicate long-term liver injury such as inflammation or fibrosis, the buildup of scar tissue in the liver.

Dr Firouzeh Heidari a Research Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, said their findings show damage caused by Covid persists for a long time. She said, “Our study is part of emerging evidence that Covid-19 infection may lead to liver injury that lasts well after the acute illness. We don’t yet know if elevated liver stiffness observed after Covid-19 infection will lead to adverse patient outcomes.”

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Source: The Independent, 4 December 2022

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Covid cases double in a month as scientists warn about spread of new variants

Covid cases in England have almost doubled in a month after the rise of two new variants.

According to the most recent government statistics available, 875 cases were logged in England on August 11, compared to just 449 a month earlier. Hospital admissions have also risen by a fifth in a week.

UKHSA statistics show Covid cases in England rose from a seven-day rolling average of 373 on July 8 to 879 as of August 8. Also, 589 out of 6,500 neighbourhoods in England had detected at least three Covid cases in the week to August 12.

The uptick comes after reports of a new variant called Eris which makes up one in four new cases. Also, another strain nicknamed Pirola is quickly spreading globally. 

The US is also seeing an increase in hospital admissions with coronavirus, its first significant uptick since December 2022.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said they are unsettled by the variant and suggested the rapid spread could suggest an international transmission.

Christina Pagel, a member of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies that advises on the virus, said: "Without ramping up surveillance, and in the face of waning immunity, we are travelling into winter more vulnerable and with blinkers on."

Prof Pagel predicted the new wave could cause extreme pressure on the health service, with a repeat of last winter’s “unprecedented” NHS crisis of Covid, flu and respiratory virus that came all around the same time.

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Source: Independent, 24 August 2023

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