yes kathy make no mistake with every day
that is going by this is a situation
which is getting
worse first things first infections and
deaths today as kirsten was saying was
bleak record-breaking on both
counts take a look at this there's new
cases and
new deaths throughout the uk cases as
you can see climbed to a
new record high at 68 053 the weekly
average for casey is up 30
go back just a few three weeks as you
can see there's climbed so rapidly
and they've risen 92 so they've nearly
doubled in that time deaths as well
you can see on this graph here also
reached a new high today over 1300 dying
within 28 days of
a positive test some of that that's a
little bit of catching up over record
keeping from the holidays but the trend
the red line you can see here
unmistakably climbing ever higher let's
look at hospitalization too in every uh
nation of the uk you can see here on
england scotland wales and northern
ireland a number of covered patients
in hospital in each different nation
there are now more or very
nearly more coveted patients in
hospitals in every nation than there
were at the april peak
england 49 more than the english april
pete you can see
way above there scotland they're the
only ones just under their april peak
but only by as you can see
a couple of percent and you can see
wales down here
has more than double the number of
patients in hospital with kobe than they
had at their april peak and northern
ireland while they've got
69 percent more covered patients than
they had at their
april peak but it's dipping a little bit
the worst picture of all though
is in london not only in hospital
numbers but infection too this is
regional
positivity rate and percentage of people
in each region
of england which are testing uh positive
there's some evidence it's dipping a
little bit in london but the data we got
today
shows that it's still way out in front
of the rest of the population
three percent of the population testing
uh positive one in 30 but in some
areas of london like barking in dagenham
that's over six percent or one in 15
people
testing positive for the virus in that
part of london
all of this is why a major incident was
declared in the capital today
and why hospitals really are at their
limit and don't let anyone
tell you otherwise if you look at london
there's some parts where
you could already be quite worried that
the service isn't coping you know there
are pockets where
operations that would never be cancelled
even at the height of the worst winter
you would never see operations for
some cancers where every delay means the
worst kind of outcome for a patient
already being cancelled you wouldn't see
clinical staff in critical care units
being asked to
care for the number of patients that
they're being asked to care for at the
moment
so you're already seeing pockets of
extreme pressure in london that are only
going to spread
and remember we haven't even seen the
full impact of christmas yet that's to
come
and the worrying thing about all of this
as well is that we have some evidence
that the policy mechanism to deal
with this the lockdown might not be
quite as effective as it was
previously for example this is some data
that the transport for london has given
news night today
compares tube use in the first week of
the first lockdown that's in the
red graph part of the graph you can see
there compared to the blue part of the
graph
which is this week tube use this week
you can see to take yesterday
this week there were 1.19 million tube
journeys made yesterday the equivalent
day and the equivalent
lockdown in march there was only about
half a million so a big increase
likewise this data looks a bit more
complicated also provided to newsnite a
survey
of 6 000 teachers what it shows is the
dramatic difference in school attendance
in january this year this locked down to
march
last year again the red part of the
graph is the lock down last year you can
see
all of the attendance is bunched towards
the early part of this graph tiny
numbers either very few students uh
appearing in school at all or between as
you can see they're one and five percent
this time
much more up this part of the graph one
in
five schools are seeing 20 to 30 percent
of their kids
come through the doors some down here
are seeing more than
half and if the old measures aren't
working as well as they did before
there's a worry that if they don't fall
significantly then there aren't that
many more levers
left to pull you can have an effect on
it
um and and that and lock down definitely
will have an effect on it
um but we need to do more than just make
it plateau out because at the moment you
know clattering out at the same levels
as it's already at
would mean that we carry on with over a
thousand deaths a day
and we can't do that so we do need to
decrease
it and that is the real challenge here
to bring down
significantly bring down prevalence of
the virus and to do it soon
in their darkest moments right now
epidemiologists are concerned that the
combination
of the new variant lockdown fatigue and
the ubiquity of the virus
means that that might not happen with
all the consequences for our health
service
they're in kirsty lewis thanks very much
well in a moment we'll speak to
professor susan miki who sits
on stage and is director of the center
for behavioural change at university
college london
and dr dan poulter a conservative mp and
psychiatrist
who still works in the nhs as a mental
health doctor
but first we're going to hear from
rupert pierce an icu consultant working
at a major
london hospital a good evening to all of
you but first of all
rupert pierce you are seeing the impact
on your hospital
daily how much worse do you think it's
going to get
we don't know we're very worried about
how much worse it's going to get
you talked a lot about the first wave in
your peak it's worth noting
that the peak of emissions in the first
wave occurred within a couple of three
weeks maybe
and was down to quite low levels by four
or five weeks
this wave has been going for more than
eight weeks and we still haven't reached
the peak
so that that's really the main reason
why we're seeing such vast numbers of
patients in hospital
and and the services on the ground are
really tremendously stretched now
and can you see a difference in terms of
the patients coming and and
and the deterioration of the condition
it's hard on the ground to see uh
epidemiological patterns in the types of
patients who come in
i think that one of the important
messages is this appears to be
a disease of all adult ages we're seeing
patients in their 20s 30s 40s 50s as
well as older patients as well
and the idea that this may not affect
you because you're
too healthy is really a fallacy and
in terms of the staff and your icu
you're seeing people coming for
volunteering untrained people coming in
to help because you need them
yes so we would normally run very
strictly with one trained intensive care
nurse per each patient
we've had to dilute that down as far as
one nurse to three patients or even one
nurse to four
and we have to backfill that space with
trained nurses from other areas who
aren't intensive care experts
medical students and this weekend when i
was working even consultant colleagues
had to step in to work
work alongside our nursing colleagues to
deliver
sorry tina i know you haven't spoken out
much before now but you've decided to
speak out now
why do you think this is so critical now
well i'm very worried that we've reached
the peak and we're really not seeing the
kind of behavior that we saw in the
first wave
and i and many of my colleagues in
medicine are extremely worried
that the peak the this wave is just
going to carry on rising and rising
and that will reach a point where the
nhs simply won't be able to cope with it
and we're particularly worried about
opinion leaders
chipping away at public confidence in
the in the lockdown measures and the
public health measures that we've
introduced to try and control the
problem
and personally i find it particularly
frustrating as a doctor
to see mps questioning the logic of
public health measures
when maybe their local hospital in their
constituency is full diversity
thank you very much professors i need to
turn right now to dan pooter and susan
mickey dan putin just picking up on that
what professor pierce has described is
actually very grave and indeed
frightening
it is and the situation on the front
line is really tough at the moment
particularly in london but in many other
parts of the country as well in the
southeast
in the east of england and what was
unusual today was the fact that
the nhs were accustomed to sometimes
diverting people from a very busy
hospital where there's a
major incident but a major incident was
declared across
all of london's hospitals and the
situation unfortunately is going to get
worse before it gets better and so it's
a really difficult situation it's some
the first time i think in my time
working in the nhs that i have been
genuinely concerned about how we're
going to manage
to continue to care for our patients in
the way that we'd like to because we are
very near to being overwhelmed well
you're new to being overwhelmed so does
something have to happen very quickly
in terms of adjusting the lockdown
well certainly if you look at the
measures that are in place now
compared to the lockdown in march um and
we weren't dealing with the mutant
strain which is
more easily transmittable back in march
and there were um
it was a stricter lockdown in march and
there are there's there are
more relaxed rules about child care yes
and well let me bring in susan mickey on
that
um do you think uh the rules need to
change or
people need to comply with the rules who
are not complying now perhaps because
they're just exhausted and actually find
it incredibly difficult financially and
indeed mentally
well the evidence shows that people are
adhering to the rules
um just as much as they were back in uh
june in the summertime but what we are
seeing
is many people out and about as we've
heard earlier in the programme
but if you think about the much more
lack lockdown we have this time it's not
surprising
we have mass gatherings in terms of
nurseries and religious events
we have household contact with cleaners
trace people
nannies going in and out of houses we
have a very wide
uh definition of critical worker now and
so we've heard that you know up to 30
of classes so people are still going
into schools
all of that means much busier public
transport
and you put all of that together and it
means that we're getting really mixed
messages
on the one hand the government's saying
we're locking down stay at home
but on the other hand they're saying go
out and do all these
jobs and if you think that compared to
march
we now in colder weather so the virus
survives
longer plus people spend much more time
indoors where they're more at risk of
aerosol transmission and we have a
variant that's somewhere between 50 and
70 percent
more infectious we should be having a
stricter lockdown
yet we've got a more lacks lockdown well
dan poulter you know we heard
from press appears that there's a danger
of the nhs being overwhelmed and given
what susan miki
said and that in fact at christmas there
were
very rapid changes to the christmas get
together rules
these rules are not designed to be
revisited for another fortnight but do
you think
in the light of what you both
practitioners are saying
and indeed people like you are saying
her both a politician and a doctor
that the government actually needs to
make an adjustment now to stop the nhs
being overwhelmed
yes i i do and we need to look at things
like for example
um rules on um i mean just for example
mass uh
congregations for worship those things
have got to be looked at do you think
she's gonna be stopped
no well if it was down to me yes i would
stop it and we also
need to look at you know the way this
much greater this wider definition of
key work that's been put in place in
terms of schooling and we've also got to
look at possibly some of these issues
around support bubbles
and family bubbles because um the risk
is with one in three people
um being effectively asymptomatic so
having the virus but not knowing they've
got it
you could well be mixing in a family
bubble and infecting people
and who you care and love you love and
care about and
that's something that's happening every
day at the moment and we need to look at
this
um and and take some i think more urgent
action because
you know the worst thing that we could
see is is a situation where it gets to
the point where the nhs
is is systemically not just in one or
two hospitals but systemically
unable to cope for a prolonged period of
time and that's what we are at moment
facing so
it's like we need to revisit some of
these measures and put in place upper
measures
they're difficult but it's about saving
lives and it's about making
sure that the nhs is there for those who
are really sick but we know that some
people are desperate because they just
do not have
enough money to cope despite measures
being put in place
so the government presumably would have
to move very quickly in a short-term way
to to fill that gap if they want people
if they're desperately keen that people
do not
leave their homes absolutely and one
thing that i
part of a group of mps on the party
parliamentary group on coronavirus we
have
specifically made some recommendations
to government about exactly that that we
need to find ways of better supporting
people
who will find it very economically tough
and hard not to be
at work and we that's an important part
of this package so
what i'd hope to hear from is some some
more from the chancellor next week
um coupled with some tightness and
further tightening of the
measures that we already have in place
because you know the economics have got
to go hand in hand
with the uh health care restrictions
because that's very important
and susan this is making from your point
of view people presumably realize just
how dangerous this
new variant is do you think if they were
asked to make a bigger sacrifice within
the next two weeks that they would do it
well that's the history of the pandemic
when people see that there's a really
big threat
and that what they can do can make a
difference and they have the support to
make
that difference they will do it but we
mustn't forget that one of the most
important things
is keeping those people who are infected
or might be affected
away from the rest of the population
which is the whole purpose of test trace
and isolate
we mustn't forget that it's so important
to get that
up and running but that requires
supported isolation
other countries pay people to stay at
home other countries offer free hotel
accommodation
and visit every day when somebody is
isolating for the 10 days
to see if they're all right do they need
any practical
help with provisions or helping with
their rubbish or whatever it might be
we're not doing any of these things in
this country we're not being serious