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Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read with a weekly update on how Britain came to have one of the highest COVID-19 per capita death rates in the world.
Weekly Update : Full Timeline (with additions in red) beneath
Speaking on the BBC’s Question Time on 26 March 2020, Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, described the Government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic as “a national scandal”. Here is a look through the key moments which explain why.
Weekly Update
9 April 2020: “Hospitals across England are running out of the surgical gowns needed to treat patients with COVID-19 and do not know when fresh supplies will arrive, two secret NHS memos reveal”. The memos “contradict repeated assurances by ministers and NHS bosses that they are getting on top of the widespread shortages of PPE that have produced panic and fear among frontline staff” (Guardian).
UNISON reports that “thousands of people working in the NHS, social care and local services have contacted a UNISON hotline in the last week expressing anxiety at the lack of gloves, masks, eye protectors and gowns where they work”. The union passes these testimonies onto the Health Secretary (UNISON). In a briefing to its members, the RCN notes that it “is acutely aware that members have reported a lack of adequate personal protective equipment in all health and social care settings during the crisis”. (Royal College of Nursing)
10 April 2020: The UK reaches a new record high of 980 recorded daily deaths from the Coronavirus of those tested and dying in hospitals.
This number is higher than any daily maximum recorded in Italy (or any other European country other than France, though France’s figures include deaths in care homes) during the entire pandemic to date, and places the UK’s per capita death rate from the Coronavirus as one of the highest in the world (Statista). Most of the media coverage leads with Boris Johnson’s recovery after being in intensive care (ITV News), while the BBC News website’s main headline is about the Government’s supposed “herculean” efforts to secure enough PPE for the NHS frontline staff who are becoming infected with COVID-19 in record numbers (Jack Seale).
Health Secretary Matt Hancock urges NHS staff not to overuse PPE: “We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource it is. Everyone should use the equipment they clinically need, in line with the guidelines: no more and no less” (Guardian). The BMA says that PPE supplies in London and Yorkshire “are running at dangerously low levels” and “that some pieces of equipment are no longer available – forcing doctors into impossible situations, and ultimately, putting their lives at risk”. (BMA)
11 April 2020: A leaked letter from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to the Department of Health and Social Care notes that the handling of PPE for care workers has been “shambolic”, with delivery of equipment “paltry” and “haphazard” (BBC News). “A US institute that predicted deaths from COVID-19 in the UK would be the highest in Europe at 66,000 has revised down its forecasts as a result of new data.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, based at the University of Washington in Seattle, now predicts 37,494 deaths in the UK by 4 August, although it says that the figure could be between 26,000 and 62,500. Despite the lower figure, it still predicts that the UK will have the highest death toll in Europe”. (Guardian)
12 April 2020: “UK Government stockpiles containing protective equipment for healthcare workers in the event of a pandemic fell in value by almost 40% over the past six years”, the Guardian has found. Analysis of official financial data suggests £325 million was wiped off the value of the Department of Health and Social Care emergency stockpile, reducing it from £831 million in 2013 under the Conservative-led Coalition Government to £506 million by Mar