NHS workers queuing to get checked out
for covert 19 at a testing site set up
in Wembley North London they think all
of us we are given the same time that's
why there was a long queue but he when
you reach there there test doesn't take
long
many were alerted by email last night
staff are meant to wait until they have
an appointment and a reference number
yeah they said without confirmation
anymore they won't get tested so they're
turning away NHS stuff now as well so I
don't understand like why what the
problem is I travel all the way down
from here each Kent that's about two
hours drive down here underneath a tone
bar that is quite discouraging I'm not
too strong enough where I just drove
myself down here I don't think I'm gonna
come back at the government's daily
press conference public health England
said this was the beginning of a much
bigger testing rollout for NHS staff we
will have fire and have five centers
where people can drive through and get
their testing done in order of priority
NHS chief executives are identifying
that priority and the intention here is
to get from thousands to hundreds of
thousands within the coming weeks so we
are very committed to our NHS frontline
staff the government's prioritizing
ambulance staff a Andean intensive care
unit workers with only 2,000 NHS staff
so far tested some losing faith in the
Machinery's ability to deliver then
we've got five days and nobody got two
of them open it so fast yeah all the
information we've been there since just
after 12:00 queuing it's now one and
we've moved about three or four cars for
within an hour at the Wembley temporary
testing site for NHS workers some
hundred also did get tested the tiny
start on a massive problem some accused
public health England of blocking
progress on testing insisting that only
their own labs like this one in North
London and NHS labs are used some
scientific institutions around the
country have complained that their own
offers of lab space or technical
equipment seem to have got lost or
ignored
even when you told them some of these
experts are saying that you had hit
ready to send to them for help with the
testing you didn't hear anything back
that's is that shocking to you well I
think I have certainly heard examples of
businesses that came forward and wanted
to support us who have expressed
concerns that they weren't listened to
if that's the case then I'm very sorry
and that shouldn't happen and I would
urge them to reconnect with public
health England or the appropriate bodies
and we will do everything we can to take
up their offers of support everything
should be thrown at this the plans at
the moment are just not ambitious enough
not creative enough so another part of
the thing with their centralized and
planning is they want to have good
quality control which of course is
important you need the tests to be
accurate but they need to think of
creative ways of maybe lessening the
Gripen quality control a bit without
losing the quality control back at the
frontline please for help from NHS
frontline workers our continuing one
working at Southampton General Hospital
contacted Channel four News about her
experience of treating kovat 19 patients
if everyone was tested we could get back
to next to 20 nurses and health care
assistants today just on our ward and
that could literally mean life or death
for some of our patients the scariest
part is not having the protective
equipment the WHI guidelines so that
anyone doing these viral swabs needs to
wear a long-sleeve gown wear a medical
mask and they need eye protection and
gloves but all we have are the gloves
we're completely unprotected as
frontline staff Southampton hospital
said these are anonymous claims that we
are not familiar with and do dispute we
have adequate supplies of personal
protective equipment we've heard of one
hospital where there's 60% of staff on
one war who because of the lack of
testing when we're making a horrible
crisis potentially even worse because we
just didn't act soon enough on testing
well this is the challenge we want to
get those NHS and boys back to the
frontline as quickly as possible we are
now in a position to
significant numbers of NHS car cameras
were allowed in again to the success
story of the government's crisis
response the 4,000 bed pop-up hospital
created in London's doctrines but
elsewhere in the healthcare landscape
the story is not so positive
MPs report care homes and their
constituencies are being told there
might well not be hospital places for
residents if they catch covert 19 at the
peak of the crisis and testing kits for
care homes are being severely rationed
now tests are being rationed homes can
only test five people and only if
somebody is symptomatic in the care home
so that means that the staff we were
working there and mostly agency staff
who were going between homes are being
tested so the strategy is not keeping
coronavirus out of homes is not keeping
people safe and secondly if you're over
75 it is very clear now that the
authorities are encouraging care homes
to get residents to sign not a cetacean
orders and also to prepare them for the
fact that if they contract rotavirus
they are to stay in the care home they
will not be admitted to the hospital and
it is very likely they'll lose their
life inside the care home
having had recently gone through the
process of contracting this coronavirus
luckily with relatively mild symptoms
and I find myself on the other side of
the illness but still in no less a state
of social distance and general isolation
none of us can say when this will end
but ended we'll until it does let us try
and live with hope and with faith in
ourselves in each other look forward to
better times to come Welsh Assembly met
in virtual form today
numbers were reduced by agreement to try
to make the format work in London
posters beam out their messages to near
empty roads but the government wants the
roads to stay this way even as the
weather warms to help the NHS cope with
even more admissions weeks to come well
joining me now from his home in London
is Sir Robert let the presidents of the
Academy of Medical Sciences and I should
say I'm speaking to you from my home as
well Sir Robert coogee first of all put
the number of deaths announced today in
some context for is what does it tell us
about how this disease is gripping the
population well good evening I think
that what we're witnessing is the
predicted peak of infection and as you
understand the consequences are being
infected if you have serious illness or
even fatality
lags about three or four weeks behind
first contracting the infection so what
we're witnessing is the peak of
infections which will not be impacted on
by the social distancing measures for
another ten days or maybe even two weeks
so I think there will unfortunately it's
obviously very tragic there will be
increased number of cases over the next
week or maybe two weeks before we hope
to see things plateauing off so we are
going to have to
brace ourselves for thousands of people
to die next week I think I don't want to
make predictions about numbers and they
vary from day to day today obviously was
a distressing number I wouldn't care to
say what numbers it'll be in the coming
days but I as I said I think that the
wave of infection that's gone through
parts of the population will be playing
out over the next week or two before we
see those social isolation measures
really biting can you tell us in your
mind what is the importance of getting
up the number of tests being done in
terms of fighting the disease and are we
doing everything that we can in order to
do that with people would have read a
number of scientists today saying well
I've got machines and technicians or
scientists who aren't being used are we
doing everything we could I think that
right now we are so thus far I think the
facts are that 150,000 people have been
tested the initial strategy was to focus
on unwell patients I think that made
very good sense so that you knew if
you're caring for patients in hospital
when you were treating patients with the
COBE of nineteen tension now is focusing
quite rightly on on healthcare workers
and things are being wrapped up really
quite fast so that's true in local
provision in diagnostic facilities and
hospitals and just to reassure you that
what I witnessed is terrific
collaboration between university
research facilities and hospital
facilities is certainly true in my own
University King's College London where
labs are being made available machines
are being made available technicians are
being made available to work with and
expand the capacity of the NHS staff in
guidance and Thomas's in King's College
Hospital it's really very gratifying to
see on top of that that are then these
very large testing centres being set up
I think it may be for around the country
where again we have loaned pcr machines
and technicians to help to staff these
large testing facilities so I'm very
that over the next few weeks you'll see
a massive increase in the scale of our
ability to test because I just go on to
point out something that may be very
obvious but what we're talking about
here and what you've discussed so far is
the so-called PCR test which is
detecting the virus and telling you
whether or not an individual actually
has the virus on board at any one moment
in time there's a second category of
test which is the antibody test which I
think deserves a great deal of focus
because once we have and I think we're
very close to having a reliable antibody
test that will then give you two vital
bits of information firstly who has been
infected and recovered and is immune now
we don't were not certain yet that if
you've had the infection you can't get
it again but there's a very good chance
that that may be true so for healthcare
workers if they have their antibody
positive they've had the infection they
may well be safe to go back into the
workplace but the other thing it will
tell us is what fraction of the
population have had this virus because
as you appreciate in many cases it's a
very mild illness and at the moment we
really are not cited on what fraction of
the population has been infected nor by
the way as any other country as far as I
know you're also working we read on a
sort of an experiment of giving people
plasma from people who have recovered
from coronavirus do you think this could
be the answer well I wouldn't say it
could be the answer but I think it may
turn out to be helpful so this is not a
new concept
it's called convalescent antisera
convalescent simply meaning you've
recovered from an illness it was used in
the SARS epidemic a few years ago some
patients in China with covered 19 were
treated with convalescence sera and it
seemed to be beneficial so we're looking
into the possibility of during that NHS
Blood and transplant is also very much
on the case here and it may be a value
in in seriously ill patients we've not
done anything yet we're simply doing the
preparatory work
in order to be able to do a trial
potentially just briefly Sir Robert RB
people will have also read about
meetings earlier this year in which
scientists said the alert level if you
like didn't need to change is there any
sense that you feel that science has
made the wrong call earlier this year no
I don't think that's the case I think
that this is a very fast-moving
situation and we've discovered how this
virus behaves and they've got a much
better idea on how many patients get
seriously ill and particularly what kind
of patients in general get seriously ill
and so I think understanding has moved
very fast the point I would really
prefer to make and emphasize I have
never seen the scientific community
galvanized in the way that it has over
the last few weeks it's quite
extraordinary and a huge amount of
research is going on and most
universities around the country re
orientating their science towards
understanding this virus understanding
the immune response understanding how we
can find new ways to treat it indeed
even designing new ventilators from our
biomedical engineering centers so all of
that I think is extraordinarily
impressive and the way the NHS has
gathered again is extraordinarily
impressive - thank you very much indeed
for your time thank you my pleasure a 13
year old boy from South London described
by his family as a loving son with a
heartwarming smile a 19-year old chef
who'd moved here from Italy an NHS nurse
whose relatives say he always went
beyond the call of duty these are just
some of the people behind those
devastating numbers who have died after
testing positive for covert 19 our chief
correspondent Alex Thompson has more at
13 the youngest victim of the outbreak
to date his family insist he had no
underlying health issues
I smell Mohamed Abdel Wahab was taken by
ambulance to King's College Hospital in
London on Friday with a high temperature
he succumbed to cardiac arrest on Monday
with
immediate family able to be at his
bedside he was a young boy age 13
without his mother without any sibling
on his on his deathbed in the last
movies and that's very hard to digest
and really understand as to how how
lonely and how sad must be but we from
the belief that we have is that he's
gone to a place that's better and he's
hopefully they gives comfort to the
family another teenager 19 year old
assistant chef Luca de Nicola seen here
on the right also died with no other
apparent health problems he passed away
at North Middlesex Hospital last Tuesday
both tragic losses but exceptional
almost everyone under seventy in good
health should recover is not only
protecting those that are obviously
harboring comorbidities or higher risk
and protects these rare cases to which
are basically hidden we don't know there
was no way we could know that these
these cases would have resulted in death
the ultimate sacrifice
frontline NHS staff killed by the virus
they were protecting others from organ
transplant surgeon dr. a de la Toya
volunteering for NHS work in the
Midlands I'm Jed al-hawa knee ear nose
and throat consultant in Leicester
doctor Habib's ID a GP for more than 45
years in leigh-on-sea doctor alpha Sardu
who returned from retirement at 68 to
fight the virus and Thomas Harvey a
nurse who gave more than 20 years to
care for others in Ilford
mr. Harvey began self isolating for 14
days and subsequently became ill and
died he wasn't tested for the disease
but his friends say he suffered many of
the common symptoms his son told this
program his father died alone trying to
keep others safe to the end I woke up in
the morning with my mum screaming
because he had passed out behind the
toilet door and that opens inside so I
actually have got cuts on my arms I had
to punch through the door to rip a hole
so I could climb in
and you know check his pulse and
everything obviously but at that time
the police had come along with the
ambulance falling behind but no it was
it was it was too late
he believes the testing and protective
equipment problems in the NHS
contributed to his father's death he had
the symptoms from earlier on and you
know his workplace knew about that he
should have been tested diagnosed a lot
sooner
and you know given the correct hospital
treatment as well this well this could
have been easily prevented I think
especially for someone who's given 20
over 20 years of their life to helping
other people on their HS good Mays
Hospital told this program
it follows NHS protocols on protective
equipment and testing
you