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UK: Expert warns over number of COVID-19 hospitalisations
The major regional hospital has been forced to shelve dozens of elective operations scheduled to happen yesterday and today, including liver transplants .Administrators have blamed a sharp increase in Covid admissions which resulted in a shortage of beds and space at its intensive care unit, which is one of the largest in Europe.
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Covid vaccine mapped: Astounding charts expose INCREDIBLE rollout As a result, there were no spare beds for planned operations and transplants where patients would require an ICU bed after their surgery.
University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, which runs the hospital, has already been forced to rearrange some cancer surgeries.
Express.co.uk understands there are currently 1,091 staff absent from work at Queen Elizabeth, of which a quarter, 275, have been told to isolate or are sick with COVID-19.
A Trust spokesman told Express.co.uk: “Elective operations were rescheduled yesterday and today at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham as a result of the number of very sick patients requiring emergency care.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where surgeries have been cancelled for two days (Image: GETTY)
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty (Image: GETTY) “This is also contributed to by increasing numbers of inpatients with Covid requiring critical care.
“We are doing all we can to minimise the impact of Covid on all services, however we must encourage local people to play their important part in keeping themselves and other more vulnerable people safer by having their Covid vaccination.
On July 12, the total number of Covid inpatients stood at 110, of whom 19 were in ICU.
As of today, that figure had increased sharply to 166, with Covid patients occupying 30 ICU beds.
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Hospital worker
Elective surgeries at the trust’s other sites – Heartlands, Good Hope and Solihull hospitals – are so far unaffected.
One hospital worker told the Independent: “This is going south very quickly.”
The NHS is increasingly feeling the strain as infection rates rise, fuelled by the dominance of the Delta variant.
With all restrictions set to be lifted on Monday in what is being dubbed “Freedom Day”, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty today warned the country was “not out of the woods yet”.
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NHS workers are coming under increasing strain (Image: St Thomas Hospital)
Rule changes which will come into force on July 19 (Image: GETTY) The latest figures show there were 48,553 new cases and 63 new deaths yesterday, the biggest leap since March 26.
Mr Whitty said: “It doesn’t take many doublings until we’re in actually quite scary numbers again.
“I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”
The coronavirus reproduction number, or R value, in England remains unchanged from last week and is between 1.2 and 1.4, according to the latest Government figures.
UK coronavirus map live (Image: Express) R represents the average number of people each COVID-19 positive person goes on to infect.
When the figure is above 1, an outbreak can grow exponentially but when it is below 1, it means the epidemic is shrinking.
An R number between 1.2 and 1.4 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 12 and 14 other people.
The UK’s COVID-19 death toll is among the highest in the world but two-thirds of its adult population have been fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 variant names (Image: Express) Trending Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urging people to be cautious as England moves to Step 4 – the end of legal lockdown curbs – on Monday.
This means the last remaining businesses still closed, including nightclubs, can finally reopen.
The self-isolation requirement for people exposed to positive cases could hinder the economy, however.
Over 520,000 contact tracing alerts were sent through the National Health Service app in the week to July 7, and Karan Bilimoria, president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said it was a seriously concerning situation.
He told LBC radio: “On Monday we’re going to have a situation where on the one hand we’re opening up the economy, on the other hand we’re closing down the economy.
“The hospitality sector, 20 percent of staff are isolating, the health service up to 25 percent of staff are absent, and buses and trains delayed.This cannot go on.This is wrecking the economy.”
(More to follow).