If there are less than 20,000 deaths in the UK from coronavirus then ‘we will have done very well’, the country has been warned.
Today the UK death toll from Covid-19 reached 1,019.
NHS England medical director Professor Stephen Powis, speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing alongside Business Secretary Alok Sharma, insisted it’s “possible to get on top of this virus”.
Last week Boris Johnson, who is in self-isolation after himself contracting the deadly bug, said the UK could ‘see the pandemic off’ in 12 weeks.
Today Mr Powis said: “If we can reduce the transmission rate… then the virus will start to decline in the population.”
(Image: PA)
But only if “we all comply with the measures and reduce that amount of transmission”.
Mr Powis continued: “The number of deaths that arise out of this epidemic in the UK, if it’s less than 20,000 as Sir Patrick Vallance [the government’s chief scientific adviser] said that would be a good result – although every death as I’ve said is absolutely a tragedy…
“Although that will be a good result, it will only happen if we stop the transmission of the virus.”
Prof Powis said the NHS was working “incredibly hard” to increase its bed capacity.
He said the focus was firstly on London, where coronavirus has spread quicker than in other parts of the country.
(Image: Getty Images)
“We are not at capacity yet within London, but beds are being opened all the time to increase that extra surge capacity,” he said.
“In the first instance we are using theatres and recovery areas; those are areas in hospitals where anaesthetic machines, ventilators, are already used for surgery and can be readily adapted to take critically ill patients.”
He added: “That’s almost doubling the capacity that we have already. We are not using it at the moment, but clearly the number of patients is increasing each day.”
Today the first images from inside the NHS Nightingale Hospital – a re-purposed ExCel centre in east London – were released.
(Image: REUTERS)
(Image: Andrew Parsons / 10 Downing Street)
In other developments this weekend:
– NHS workers began being tested for coronavirus at a temporary drive-through testing station in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey.
– Photos revealed the inside of the ExCel centre in London which is being made into a temporary hospital with two wards, each for 2,000 people, to help tackle the coronavirus response.
– The British Red Cross said evictions of asylum seekers from Government accommodation are to be halted amid fears about the disease.
– Police urged motorcyclists to stay out of the countryside and told them they cannot claim it is part of their permitted daily exercise under lockdown rules.
The total number of deaths is 34% higher than the equivalent figure on Friday and the largest day-on-day percentage increase since March 18, when the total rose from 71 to 104 (46%).
It took 13 days for the number of deaths in the UK to go from one to more than 100. It has taken a further 10 days for the total to go from more than 100 to more than 1,000.
Meanwhile, the number of people tested in the UK for coronavirus was 120,776 as of 9am on Saturday March 28.
Just under 50,000 tests (47,958) were carried out in the seven days to 9am on Saturday. In the previous seven days the number of tests was 35,072.
The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK now stands at 17,089, as of 9am on Saturday.
One week ago, on March 21, the total stood at 5,018.
