UK coronavirus: London has enough intensive care beds to deal with crisis, says Sadiq Khan

The London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the capital is “nowhere near” being able to lift the current Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and that experts have predicted the peak could be a week-and-a-half away yet.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:

When the Prime Minister announced the lockdown just over two-and-a-half weeks ago he said he would review it in three weeks’ time which is this Monday.

I think we’re nowhere near lifting the lockdown. I speak to experts regularly, in fact after this (interview) I’ll have another call with Public Health England and NHS London experts.

We think the peak – which is the worst part of the virus – is still probably a week-and -a-half away.

Earlier, speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Khan said his “thoughts and prayers” were with the city’s 14 transport workers who have died after contracting coronavirus.

Good morning. I’m Lucy Campbell and I’ll be running the UK’s coronavirus live blog for the rest of the day. I’ll be bringing you all the latest updates on what’s happening, so please feel free to share any tips and insight in the comments, via email or on Twitter.

Email: lucy.campbell@guardian.co.uk
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_

I am now handing over the blog to my colleague Lucy Campbell but here is a summary of all the latest so far today:

• Boris Johnson has spent a second night in intensive care amid concerns about the seriousness of his condition and how the government will make key decisions about the coronavirus pandemic in his absence. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the prime minister, has no power to make major decisions without cabinet agreement.

• The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said the city, which is a hotspot for coronavirus in the UK, has “got the capacity now to deal with our needs” in terms of critical care beds. Speaking to BBC Breakfast from his home, Khan said: “A few weeks ago we started planning for the worst, which is a peak where we would need in London around 8,000 intensive care unit beds.

• A new coronavirus testing laboratory is to be set up at Cambridge University to help meet the government’s target of 100,000 tests a day. The university is collaborating with pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline on the facility at the university’s Anne McLaren laboratory.

• The health minister Edward Argar has said he does not know when the government’s lockdown restrictions will be lifted, adding that “we’re not there yet”.

• Tesco has said that “significant panic-buying” in recent weeks cleared its supply chain of certain items as sales jumped by 30%. The supermarket giant said supply has now stabilised across the group as it reported its latest annual figures. Bosses at the retailer said surging demand resulted in the sale of six million tins of baked beans, 3.3 million tins of tomatoes and 3.6 million packs of toilet roll each week as stockpiling increased.

More than 100 medics in Scotland have signed a letter to the Scottish Government to express concerns over personal protective equipment (PPE).

The letter is reported to claim frontline staff are risking their lives dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak because they do not have suitable aprons, masks and eyewear, according to BBC Scotland.

The broadcaster reports the medical professionals state they have “grave concerns about the adequacy of what has been given”.

Dr Shahzad Hanif, a GP, co-ordinated the open letter. Speaking on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: “It’s not just the quantity of PPE, which the Government has so far been focused on, but it’s the quality that we feel is simply not adequate to provide enough protection for us.”

Sadiq Khan on BBC Breakfast says that Tottenham Hotspur should lead by example after images showed players training during lockdown. He said: “Ask yourself the question, is what I am doing really necessary [training]? … What you are doing is inadvertently spreading the virus and you should not be doing that.”

Tesco has said that “significant panic-buying” in recent weeks cleared its supply chain of certain items as sales jumped by 30%.

The supermarket giant said supply has now stabilised across the group as it reported its latest annual figures.

Bosses at the retailer said surging demand resulted in the sale of six million tins of baked beans, 3.3 million tins of tomatoes and 3.6 million packs of toilet roll each week as stockpiling increased.

It said 10% of shoppers bought 30% of products while it also reported stockpiling was most prevalent in the south-east of England. It added that the company has recruited 45,000 more staff members in the past two weeks in a bid to cope with soaring demand.

Numerous workers have been recruited as drivers and pickers to help expand its delivery business.

Dave Lewis, the chief executive of Tesco, stressed that ensuring deliveries can be made to the most vulnerable customers is a “live issue”, with the government providing the supermarket with an initial list of 110,000 people to reach out to.

Lewis said: “Covid-19 has shown how critical the food supply chain is to the UK and I’m very proud of the way Tesco, as indeed the whole UK food industry, has stepped forward.

“Initial panic-buying has subsided and service levels are returning to normal.

“There are significant extra costs in feeding the nation at the moment but these are partially offset by the UK business rates relief.

“Tesco is a business that rises to a challenge and this will be no different.”

World-leading disease data analysts have projected that the UK will become the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, accounting for more than 40% of total deaths across the continent.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle predicts 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 a day, based on a steep climb in daily deaths early in the outbreak.

The government must not allow universities to “go out of business” during the coronavirus pandemic as they have a vital role in rebuilding the country, unions have warned.

Universities should be given extra protection as their medical research and contribution to the economy is crucial amid the Covid-19 crisis, five unions representing higher education staff say.

In a joint letter to universities minister Michelle Donelan, the group called for urgent assurances that universities, backed up with legislation, will not be allowed to go under as a result of Covid-19.

Some universities are the biggest employer in their area and whole communities are reliant on them – and their role after the epidemic will be “more important than ever”, Unison, University and College Union (UCU), GMB, Unite and the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) say.

The letter adds: “University research is central in developing tests for the illness and antibody tests, in tracking Covid-19, in developing vaccines and carrying out medical research.

“A stable and well-resourced higher education sector will be vital in getting through this crisis.”

The five unions are also calling on the government to make sure that universities are safeguarding jobs.

The letter says: “We are already getting many reports of universities serving notifications of redundancies, and of contractors in universities sending staff home without pay or asking them to use their annual leave.

Travel firm Tui has made a number of changes to its holiday programme. Beach holidays up to and including 14 May and Marella Cruise holidays up to and including 31 May will no longer operate.

A spokeswoman said: “We are constantly monitoring the situation and will start taking people on holiday again as soon as we are able to do so.”

Health minister Edward Argar said he does not know when the government’s lockdown restrictions will be lifted, adding that “we’re not there yet”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Argar said:

We need to start seeing the numbers coming down and that’s when you’re in the negative.

That’s when you have a sense when that’s sustained over a period of time, that you can see it coming out of that.

We’re not there yet and I don’t exactly know when we will be. The scientists will tell us that they are constantly modelling the data and they’re constantly looking at those stats.

We should also remember there is always a lag of a couple of weeks in the hospitalisation and death rate data behind the actions that we’ve taken to try to slow it down because that’s the nature of the disease.

A new system of boarding buses is being trialled in London to reduce contact with drivers.

Transport for London (TfL) announced it will launch a pilot scheme which will see passengers using the middle door to board, amid growing concern over the safety of drivers following the deaths of at least nine in the UK after they tested positive for Covid-19.

The trial will be in place from this week on several routes operated by bus firm Abellio out of its depot in Walworth, south-east London, including two that serve hospitals.

Passengers using London buses normally board using the front door and leave using the middle door, to smooth the flow of people.

A new coronavirus testing laboratory is to be set up at Cambridge University to help meet the government’s target of 100,000 tests a day.

The university is collaborating with pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline on the facility at the university’s Anne McLaren laboratory.

In a joint statement, posted on the university’s website, they said:

This facility will be used for high throughput screening for Covid-19 testing and to explore the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages.

Alongside this new testing facility, AstraZeneca and GSK are working together to provide process optimisation support to the UK national testing centres in Milton Keynes, Alderley Park and Glasgow for Covid-19, providing expertise in automation and robotics to help the national testing system to continue to expand capacity over the coming weeks.

While diagnostic testing is not part of either company’s core business, we are moving as fast as we can to help where possible – with a focus on providing our world class scientific and technical expertise – working both with the Government’s screening programme and alongside the wider life sciences sector and specialist diagnostic companies.

It said further updates will be provided in due course. “We continue to pay tribute to those working on the frontlines of this pandemic, in the UK and globally,” the statement added.

“Defeating Covid-19 requires a collective effort from everyone working in healthcare and we are committed to playing our part.”

An interesting article for you all to read on the role of intensive care, written by my colleague Denis Campbell. An ICU consultant in London said: “The whole point of an intensive care unit is to keep people alive. But our main task as staff is to provide support to patients and their vital organs rather than treatment. We hope that they recover naturally and that a disease like Covid runs its course, and that they don’t die in the meantime.”

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said the city, which is a hotspot for coronavirus in the UK, has “got the capacity now to deal with our needs” in terms of critical care beds.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast from his home, Khan said: “A few weeks ago we started planning for the worst, which is a peak where we would need in London around 8,000 intensive care unit beds.

“To give you a scale of the challenge, we normally have across the whole of London about 800 intensive care unit beds with ventilators, oxygen and those sort of things. Because of the brilliance of the NHS, army planners, and many others we’ve opened the Nightingale hospital.

“We’ve got the capacity now to deal with our needs. At the moment, thankfully, we’re nowhere near reaching 8,000.

“At the moment we’ve still got 25%, about there, capacity within the NHS (in London) before we even go to Nightingale, so it demonstrates the can-do attitude of not just Londoners but those around the country who have helped us get ready for the peak of this virus.”