TwelveAngryMen
Well-known member
And this is before Freedom Day
Personally I think the self-isolation rules should have been relaxed first - as it stands employers are getting rinced again
Official figures show the UK has recorded more than 50,000 Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, as company bosses say the delivery of supplies is being hit because of the number of workers self-isolating.
Government data posted online says there have been 49 further deaths in the period with 51,870 cases recorded. The highest ever reached was 68,053 on January 8.
One in every 95 people in England has coronavirus, according to the Office for National Statistics. It said the figure reflected data for the week to July 10, adding that in Wales one person in 360 was infected. In Scotland one person in 90 has the virus and in Northern Ireland it is one in every 290.
Hospital admissions increased 61 per cent last week to 4.43 for every 100,000 people.
Caroline Green, chief financial officer of Pallet Track, a network of transport companies, warned that goods would not be moved around the country on time because of the drivers affected by Covid-19.
She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “I’ve taken a straw poll across my 87 haulage members, and we’ve got over half of them are currently impacted by staff off through Covid or track and trace. The majority of these staff are actually drivers and that means goods won’t move around or they move around late.
“Of all the employees that are currently not working over 70 per cent are not ill with Covid — they are off because of track and trace. We typically deliver goods next day, or on a two or three-day economy service across the UK, and now we’re seeing delays of days that are being added on to that.”
The last time the level of cases in England was so high was in early February, after a peak at the start of the year when 1 person in 50 was infected. The overall figures masked large disparities, with 1 in 40 in the northeast testing positive.
Cases were still being driven largely by younger and unvaccinated age groups, particularly secondary age schoolchildren. Among the over 50s, 1 in 200 were found to be infected, while in the over 70s it was 1 in 500.
One of the largest hospitals in the country cancelled all planned operations for two days as a rise in Covid-19 infections puts a strain on the NHS.
Dozens of elective operations due to take place today and yesterday, including liver transplants, were cancelled at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
The hospital blamed a rise in Covid admissions leading to a lack of beds and space on its intensive care unit, which is one of the largest in Europe.
In Sunderland hospital staff are being asked to postpone holidays because of “extreme pressure” due to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Staff at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, which is dealing with one of the highest infection rates in the country, are seeing hospital cases doubling by the week.
In an internal note to staff earlier this week, bosses said there were 80 Covid-19 patients receiving hospital treatment compared with two exactly a month before.
The NHS is grappling with pressures caused by rising infections. Last night NHS chiefs warned that mass isolation of staff was harming patient care after half a million people in England were told to quarantine by the contact-tracing app.
It is understood that there are 1,091 staff absent from work at Queen Elizabeth, of which a quarter, 275, have been instructed to isolate or are sick with Covid-19.
The hospital’s intensive care unit was full on Thursday and ten patients were on a watch list who may need critical care.
This meant there was no space in the ICU for post-surgery care for patients scheduled for planned operations and transplants.
Hospitals across the country are facing a surge in demand with a combination of increasing coronavirus patients and other types of emergency care. NHS hospitals and ambulance services are experiencing record pressures and June was the busiest month ever for major hospital A&E departments across England.
One hospital worker at Queen Elizabeth told The Independent that Covid wards were filling up and patients were having to be transferred to maintain capacity. They added: “This is going south very quickly.”
This morning Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned that the public were “not out of the woods yet” as the nation looked forward to an end of lockdown on Monday.
He said that the number of people in hospital with coronavirus could reach “quite scary” levels within weeks.
The latest figures showed 48,553 more cases, the highest since January 15, and 63 deaths, the biggest daily reported increase since March 26.
Whitty said: “I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”
Infections are returning to January levels, with ministers considering exempting frontline NHS staff from isolation requirements to take the strain off the NHS.
The president of the CBI warned that the Covid-19 tracing app was“devastating” the economy after more than half a million people were forced into self-isolation.
Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea urged ministers to abandon the app in favour of a test and release approach, telling Times Radio that the government had “got to listen” to warnings from businesses over shortages in staff.
A minister suggested today that people could take tests in order to avoid self-isolation before August 16, when quarantine rules are lifted for those who have received both doses of the vaccine.
Personally I think the self-isolation rules should have been relaxed first - as it stands employers are getting rinced again
Official figures show the UK has recorded more than 50,000 Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, as company bosses say the delivery of supplies is being hit because of the number of workers self-isolating.
Government data posted online says there have been 49 further deaths in the period with 51,870 cases recorded. The highest ever reached was 68,053 on January 8.
One in every 95 people in England has coronavirus, according to the Office for National Statistics. It said the figure reflected data for the week to July 10, adding that in Wales one person in 360 was infected. In Scotland one person in 90 has the virus and in Northern Ireland it is one in every 290.
Hospital admissions increased 61 per cent last week to 4.43 for every 100,000 people.
Caroline Green, chief financial officer of Pallet Track, a network of transport companies, warned that goods would not be moved around the country on time because of the drivers affected by Covid-19.
She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “I’ve taken a straw poll across my 87 haulage members, and we’ve got over half of them are currently impacted by staff off through Covid or track and trace. The majority of these staff are actually drivers and that means goods won’t move around or they move around late.
“Of all the employees that are currently not working over 70 per cent are not ill with Covid — they are off because of track and trace. We typically deliver goods next day, or on a two or three-day economy service across the UK, and now we’re seeing delays of days that are being added on to that.”
The last time the level of cases in England was so high was in early February, after a peak at the start of the year when 1 person in 50 was infected. The overall figures masked large disparities, with 1 in 40 in the northeast testing positive.
Cases were still being driven largely by younger and unvaccinated age groups, particularly secondary age schoolchildren. Among the over 50s, 1 in 200 were found to be infected, while in the over 70s it was 1 in 500.
One of the largest hospitals in the country cancelled all planned operations for two days as a rise in Covid-19 infections puts a strain on the NHS.
Dozens of elective operations due to take place today and yesterday, including liver transplants, were cancelled at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
The hospital blamed a rise in Covid admissions leading to a lack of beds and space on its intensive care unit, which is one of the largest in Europe.
In Sunderland hospital staff are being asked to postpone holidays because of “extreme pressure” due to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Staff at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, which is dealing with one of the highest infection rates in the country, are seeing hospital cases doubling by the week.
In an internal note to staff earlier this week, bosses said there were 80 Covid-19 patients receiving hospital treatment compared with two exactly a month before.
The NHS is grappling with pressures caused by rising infections. Last night NHS chiefs warned that mass isolation of staff was harming patient care after half a million people in England were told to quarantine by the contact-tracing app.
It is understood that there are 1,091 staff absent from work at Queen Elizabeth, of which a quarter, 275, have been instructed to isolate or are sick with Covid-19.
The hospital’s intensive care unit was full on Thursday and ten patients were on a watch list who may need critical care.
This meant there was no space in the ICU for post-surgery care for patients scheduled for planned operations and transplants.
Hospitals across the country are facing a surge in demand with a combination of increasing coronavirus patients and other types of emergency care. NHS hospitals and ambulance services are experiencing record pressures and June was the busiest month ever for major hospital A&E departments across England.
One hospital worker at Queen Elizabeth told The Independent that Covid wards were filling up and patients were having to be transferred to maintain capacity. They added: “This is going south very quickly.”
This morning Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned that the public were “not out of the woods yet” as the nation looked forward to an end of lockdown on Monday.
He said that the number of people in hospital with coronavirus could reach “quite scary” levels within weeks.
The latest figures showed 48,553 more cases, the highest since January 15, and 63 deaths, the biggest daily reported increase since March 26.
Whitty said: “I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”
Infections are returning to January levels, with ministers considering exempting frontline NHS staff from isolation requirements to take the strain off the NHS.
The president of the CBI warned that the Covid-19 tracing app was“devastating” the economy after more than half a million people were forced into self-isolation.
Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea urged ministers to abandon the app in favour of a test and release approach, telling Times Radio that the government had “got to listen” to warnings from businesses over shortages in staff.
A minister suggested today that people could take tests in order to avoid self-isolation before August 16, when quarantine rules are lifted for those who have received both doses of the vaccine.
