Health secretary says it is a 'sombre' day as Britain exceeds 10,000 Covid-19 deaths but NHS remains strong
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
UK health secretary Matt Hancock has said it is a “sombre day” as the UK joins those countries whose death tolls have passed the 10,000 mark as 737 more people lost their lives to coronavirus.
But when asked to respond to claims made by leading government scientist Sir Jeremy Farrar that the UK could be the “worst affected” country in Europe, Mr Hancock refused to deny the suggestion.
Instead, he said it underlined why the lock down was so important to abide to limit the spread of the infection and facilitate the NHS as its wrestles with the sheer number of cases – now just short of 85,000.
On that note he did reveal that currently there are just under 2295 critical care beds available in the UK, allowing the NHS to provide the “best care” during the pandemic while the “medical supply chain” remains strong so there is no shortage of medicines.
A new NHS app will also be launched for those with Covid-19 who will be able to securely send their information to those that someone with the virus may have been in contact with so that they can take appropriate action.
Mr Hancock started by thanking all those who have stayed at home over the Easter weekend, saying: “Your steadfast commitment to following these social distancing rules is making a difference, thank you for the part that you are playing in helping to protect lives at this critical time in our nation's history.
“But we cannot be complacent, not when there's so much at stake so please keep going, stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives today.
“The latest figures show that in Great Britain we have 2295 spare critical care beds up 150 from yesterday so throughout this crisis with all the challenges that we've been dealing with, all the operational difficulties and all the logistics we have always been able to provide the very best of care to everybody who needs it through the NHS.
“At the start of this crisis people said that the NHS would be overwhelmed and we've seen the risk of that elsewhere but not here and that is because of the action that a huge number of people have taken and the incredible work of so many
“Today I wanted to outline the next step: a new NHS app for contact tracing. If you become unwell with the symptoms of coronavirus, you can securely tell this new NHS app and the app will then send an alert anonymously to other app users that you’ve been in significant contact with over the past few days, even before you had symptoms, so that they know and can act accordingly.
“All data will be handled according to the highest ethical and security standards, and would only be used for NHS care and research, and we won’t hold it any longer than it’s needed.
“We’re already testing this app and as we do this we’re working closely with the world’s leading tech companies and renowned experts in digital safety and ethics.”
But when asked about whether Britain would be the worst or among the worst hit countries in Europe, Mr Hancock refused to rule out that as a possibility.
He said: “I think that sort of comment merely reinforces the importance of the central message which is that people should stay-at-home because that protects the NHS and saves lives.
“We get advice from all sorts of experts and we take it all very seriously and we assess it and throughout now the future of this virus is unknowable as yet because it depends on the behaviour of millions of people and the Great British public.
“The good news is that so far we have managed to start to see a flattening of the curve because people are following the social distancing and measures by-and-large and also the core goal of making sure the NHS capacity is always above the demand for NHS services has been achieved.
“And so I think especially at moments like this when we have reached this terrible marker and we are thankfully in a position where we are able to support everybody who needs it in the NHS and were able to see the curve starting to come down.”
