Babak Belurs

Kamis, 19 Maret 2020

UK considers partial lockdown in London and the army may be deployed to help enforce it - CNN

Discussions have been held in Downing Street about restricting travel in and out of the city, including shutting down parts of the capital's public transport network, and about how those measures would be enforced, the sources said.

On Thursday morning, Transport for London announced that it would close dozens of underground stations and begin limiting its service within 24 hours. Up to 40 stations have been shut across the capital. "Londoners should be avoiding social interaction unless absolutely necessary," said the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan.

Johnson and Khan will meet at lunchtime on Thursday to discuss the next steps for London, a spokesman for Khan said.

The government announced that up to 10,000 military personnel will be placed on standby throughout the UK in order to maintain public services in the coming months. Government sources told CNN on Wednesday that discussions had taken place concerning what role the armed forces could play in enforcing any lockdown measures.

Scientists believe that the spread of the virus is more advanced in London than in the rest of the UK, and there are concerns that not enough residents here are heeding the advice to work from home and stop going to bars, restaurants and other public places.

People are getting creative with their work-from-home setups

Asked at the UK government's daily coronavirus press conference on Wednesday about whether London would see further legal restrictions, Johnson said: "We live in land of liberty, as you know, and it's one of the great features of our lives we don't tend to impose those sorts of restrictions on people in this country. But I have to tell you we will rule nothing out and we will certainly wish to consider bringing forward further and faster measures where that is necessary."

A Downing Street source declined to comment on specifics or timing on any further restrictions in the capital, stressing that the government would do all that was necessary to protect public health.

But if such drastic measures were introduced, Londoners would be given plenty of notice to make any personal arrangements before they came into place, two government sources told CNN. They would mirror those taken in some European countries: In France, residents face a fine if they are unable to justify a decision to be outside.

A source close to the office of the London mayor told CNN that as of Wednesday, officials in City Hall were not aware of the plans yet and had not been party to any government thinking. Multiple sources close to the Prime Minister said they did not expect an announcement about London to be made imminently. But UK officials have repeatedly warned that the situation is moving quickly.

Earlier this week, Johnson warned that the spread of the virus in London was ahead of the rest of the UK and that Londoners should "take particularly seriously the advice about working from home and avoiding confined spaces such as pubs and restaurants."

Asked Wednesday about what he thought of people who failed to heed that advice, Johnson said: "The more ruthlessly we can enforce upon ourselves the advice... the fewer deaths we will have and the less suffering there will be."

In his press conference, Johnson said that all schools in the UK would close by the end of the week and that exams scheduled for the summer would not take place.

The UK has faced criticism from other nations that it has not yet been tough enough on measures against the pandemic. But British officials have stated repeatedly that they would move on a phased plan. The UK would do the "right thing at the right time," Johnson said.

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2020-03-19 12:24:44Z
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UK considers partial lockdown in London and the army may be deployed to help enforce it - CNN

Johnson and Khan will meet at lunchtime on Thursday to discuss the next steps for London, a spokesman for Khan said.

A Downing Street source declined to comment on specifics or timing on any further restrictions in the capital, stressing that the government would do all that was necessary to protect public health.

In his press conference, Johnson said that all schools in the UK would close by the end of the week and that exams scheduled for the summer would not take place.

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UK considers partial lockdown in London and the army may be deployed to help enforce it - CNN

A Downing Street source declined to comment on specifics or timing on any further restrictions in the capital, stressing that the government would do all that was necessary to protect public health.

A source close to the office of the London mayor told CNN that officials in City Hall were not aware of the plans yet and had not been party to any government thinking. Multiple sources close to the Prime Minister said they did not expect an announcement about London to be made imminently. But UK officials have repeatedly warned that the situation is moving quickly.

In his press conference, Johnson said that all schools in the UK would close by the end of the week and that exams scheduled for the summer would not take place.

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UK considers partial lockdown in London and the army may be deployed to help enforce it - CNN

A Downing Street source declined to comment on specifics or timing on any further restrictions in the capital, stressing that the government would do all that was necessary to protect public health.

In his press conference, Johnson said that all schools in the UK would close by the end of the week and that exams scheduled for the summer would not take place.

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UK considering partial lockdown in London - CNN

Asked at the UK government's daily coronavirus press conference about whether London would see further legal restrictions, Johnson said: "We live in land of liberty, as you know, and it's one of the great features of our lives we don't tend to impose those sorts of restrictions on people in this country. But I have to tell you we will rule nothing out and we will certainly wish to consider bringing forward further and faster measures where that is necessary."

The questions about the stricter measures for London began swirling after the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, raised the issue in a press briefing Wednesday. As the political leader in Scotland, Sturgeon is party to discussions about coronavirus planning in the UK.

A Downing Street source declined to comment on specifics or timing on any further restrictions in the capital, stressing that the government would do all that was necessary to protect public health.

A source close to the office of London mayor Sadiq Khan told CNN that officials in City Hall were not aware of the plans yet and had not been party to any government thinking. Multiple sources close to the Prime Minister said they did not expect an announcement about London to be made imminently. But UK officials have repeatedly warned that the situation is moving quickly.

In his press conference, Johnson said that all schools in the UK would close by the end of the week and that exams scheduled for the summer would not take place.

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Rabu, 18 Maret 2020

Coronavirus: Craig Ruston 'youngest UK death' - BBC News

A man in his 40s with motor neurone disease (MND) is thought to be the youngest person in the UK to have died having tested positive for coronavirus.

Craig Ruston, died in Kettering, Northamptonshire, on Monday morning and his chest infection was diagnosed as Covid-19.

In a post on his Facebook page, Me and My MND, his wife Sally paid tribute to a "wonderfully kind and caring person".

In the UK, 104 people with coronavirus have now died.

Mr Ruston's wife said he was given about two years to live when he was diagnosed with MND in June 2018 and his "fight with MND was not ready to be over".

"Last Tuesday he was taken unwell and we have since spent the last six days in isolation," she said.

"Craig's chest infection was confirmed as Covid-19. How dare that take Craig who was already facing this, the most vile and evil of diseases."

In tribute to her husband, she added: "He welcomed everyone. There were no airs and graces with Craig. He loved the world. He absorbed the world.

"He was one of the most intelligent people I know that would absorb information and could somehow explain just about anything."

Prof Andrew Chilton, medical director from Kettering General Hospital, said: "Sadly we can confirm that a man who was being cared for at Kettering General Hospital, and had tested positive for Covid-19 has died.

"The patient who died on 16 March had underlying health conditions.

"His family has been informed and our thoughts and condolences are with them at this difficult and distressing time."

Globally the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus have passed 200,000 and more than 8,000 people have died.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

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2020-03-18 14:49:30Z
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I’m a Doctor in Britain. We’re Heading Into the Abyss. - The New York Times

LONDON — Ten days ago, I was asked to see a patient. I’m a respiratory specialist in an intensive-care unit at a hospital in London, so it wasn’t surprising that the patient needed a ventilator. It seemed fairly typical. But the patient turned out to have the coronavirus — our hospital’s first case and one of nearly 2,000 people who have so far tested positive in Britain. I hadn’t worn a mask. Soon I developed a cough.

Though I experienced neither fever nor breathlessness, I was told to self-isolate for 14 days. That’s where I am now, in self-isolation. And I’m not the only one from my hospital. After just one patient with Covid-19, a quarter of our junior staff are off with coughs and sniffles we would normally work through. A single case of the coronavirus has wreaked havoc in our hospital.

It’s a microcosm of what may come. Britain has fewer intensive-care beds than most other European countries. Occupancy rates are high, and there’s a daily struggle to discharge enough people to make space for new patients. Even when a bed is available, we do not have the nurses to staff it. A decade of cuts and underfunding has left us dangerously exposed. This is the perpetual winter of the N.H.S.

For the past week I have been watching from the sidelines. Watching while my colleagues gear up for the long road ahead, resting when they can, shoring up procedures for managing infected patients, training one another, and making plans for illness and ways to isolate themselves from their families. Watching while plans are made to cancel nonemergency care and move staff members to the front line.

It’s all hands on deck. Rotations to new departments and hospitals have been canceled: I will stay on in intensive care, and doctors in other departments will come join me on the front line. My plans to work part-time have gone out of the window. But this is my vocation — we are never not doctors. When we are called upon to step up, there is only one answer.

As people with the coronavirus flood our corridors, hospitals will be pushed to the breaking point. Britain is a rich country and may fare better than others. But the N.H.S. is creaking at the seams after years of underfunding. A decade of cuts by successive Conservative governments has stripped the service of resources. Staff morale is low and retention is poor. We are already working at capacity.

When our hospitals are overwhelmed and we have to decide how to allocate scarce resources, how do we choose whom to ventilate and whom not to? Italy is nearly at that point, and its health service has many more intensive-care beds per person than Britain’s. Will I have to tell someone we can’t treat a loved one because we’re out of ventilators, oxygen, tubes, masks, hospitals, staff? Will we then impose an age limit, as some hospitals in Italy are considering, or will some notion of “deservingness” come into play?

The government’s strategy centers on flattening the peak of the epidemic while ensuring the public doesn’t give up on self-isolation at just the wrong moment and head outside into the eye of the storm. So unlike some other countries, we are not yet in full shutdown. After a week of cabin fever, I can understand not wanting to enforce isolation sooner than necessary.

But I worry about how we know where we are on the epidemic curve. Have we tested enough people? What if lockdown comes too late? Will we be overwhelmed too soon? Across the N.H.S. this winter there have been patients in corridors and canceled surgeries. How many people will die because we’ve been working on the brink of collapse for too long?

I am not an epidemiologist. I do not pretend to know the right strategy. But if Britain experiences anything like what we’ve seen elsewhere, we’re on our way to tragedy.

What’s certain is that with 100,000 job vacancies already, the N.H.S. will not survive this crisis without protecting and respecting its staff. In 2018, two-thirds of doctors in their second year of training chose not to pursue specialty jobs. We are being asked to do more with little compensation while colleagues are hung out to dry because the system failed them. To add insult to injury, we have been provided with out-of-date masks with which to protect ourselves.

We already know that our counterparts in Italy, China and elsewhere have given their lives to the vocation they chose. For years, health care workers have been raising the alarm that the N.H.S. is in crisis — calling on the government for better funding for our hospitals and better working conditions for ourselves.

As the coronavirus crisis intensifies, we must be given the means to protect ourselves and our patients, particularly those most vulnerable. We deserve transparency. We demand honesty. Without that, I don’t know how many people will stick around after this is all over.

And right now, it feels like we’re heading into the abyss.

Jessica Potter (@DrJessPotter) is a respiratory specialist doctor working in London and a member of EveryDoctor, an organization that campaigns for the working rights of doctors.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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2020-03-18 06:15:14Z
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