thank you for a task but not so long ago
would have seemed unimaginable a center
better known for holding worthy
conferences ready to take as many as
5,000 covered 19 patients the beds and
equipment lined up ready and waiting
today there are over 9,000 positive
coronavirus patients in hospitals across
England and we know that number is only
going to increase that's why what you
see here is a mass mobilization taking
place right across the country but also
at these new Nightingale hospitals
there's lots of people upstairs working
right now that are from mostly our
London hospitals mostly our intensive
care staff where their nurses doctors
OTPs physios they're all coming together
and there's 400 people like now upstairs
being trained and they need more but
staffing has become a critical issue in
itself
one in four nurses and doctors are now
either sick or self isolating the GMB
union said today that more than four
thousand ambulance workers across just
eight trusts are off work testing
testing testing as the World Health
Organization likes to put it is being
increased now for staff trusts told to
allocate up to 15% of their daily
capacity for England's NHS workers in
quarantined households since mid-march
Wales has already tested 1,000 staff
look familiar
they've even set up testing stations
like these again having taken them down
after the government said only patients
with pneumonia and hospitals and care
home clusters should be swabbed so just
over 8,000 were carried out in England
yesterday on just under 5,000 people not
the 10,000 ministers had claimed at the
weekend and it's a long way from Germany
where they test half a million a week
the hope by those in government - that
the controversy over personal protection
equipment or PPE might die down was in
vain plans to update the advice to
hospitals GPS and community workers have
been delayed they were meant to be
signed off on Friday
this doctor demonstrated the apron he
was given
we're in an urgent treatment center he
took in his own face children overalls
but was told to leave if he didn't feel
safe
the war is the particles from the virus
that is spread to you the best place to
be protected requires neck above this
area and the apron when he put it on
it's open around chest line the trust
told us it was not the standard approved
by public health England and that it was
important that staff comply yet we have
been contacted by NHS staff from across
the country who are making or buying
their own protection equipment a graph
released today at the Downing Street
press conference shows admissions have
gone up at about the same rate for the
past few days that shows that it's going
up not in an increasing amount but going
up in a constant amount which may
suggest that we're already beginning to
see some effects through but what's the
doors due to open here on Wednesday the
warning is that the worst is yet to come
well Victoria joins me now there's a lot
of figures flying about today how can
you make sense of them for us it's
become deeply confusing I mean you have
to say it's very impressive that they've
been able to open this hospital the
Nightingale hospital so quickly but
within that they remain these concerns
as I said in my VT over PPE the personal
protection equipments and over testing
so we're not seeing the widespread
testing that as I mentioned we saw in
Germany and what we're not seeing are
across the rate of death rates now this
is because they haven't been looking at
what's been happening in the community
so if somebody dies at home or in a care
home and you have we have felt that this
hasn't given us a proper picture but
from tomorrow the ONS for England and
Wales will start publishing rates from
the community once weekly where a death
certificate lists covered 19 and
Scotland and Northern Ireland will be
doing something similar so we should
start to get a better picture of what's
really happening out there
but it does remain the problem that we
don't have the
testing in the community so you can get
a proper balance of how many people have
got covered 19 compared with how many
people are dying that still feels some
way down the line Victoria thank you
very much social distancing is starting
to make a difference according to the
government's chief scientific adviser
Sir Patrick valence published data
showing that transport users across the
country has plummeted to a quarter of
normal levels over the last 10 days he
said that the number of hospital
admissions was going up but at a steady
pace which suggested that the clamp down
was already having some effect our
political editor Gary diamond he's in
Westminster Gary well as you say the
chief scientific adviser clearly saying
there in the press conference today that
he now thinks enough has been done on
two parts of government policy to maybe
mitigate what could have been an even
worse number of deaths in this country
on the one hand the clamp down which
produced some graphs showing had really
taken an enormous hit on Transport the
number of people who are getting too
close to each other and all the rest of
it and on the other the government
increasing the number of intensive care
unit beds around the country the
combined effect of these two things he
said is and he used the word should he
now thinks we should under undershoot
the intensive care unit provision so not
overwhelm as it had been feared the
intensive care unit provision that is in
the country as I say partly cuz the beds
are being boosted but partly he said
because of this clamp down which of
course is only a week old today said
it's standing next to him in that press
conference the foreign secretary Dominic
Robb he was focusing on the 75 million
pounds of the government says it's going
to put in to bringing back Britain's who
are abroad were traveling for work or
for pleasure all over the world and
haven't managed to make it back that
money is going to go into charter
flights individuals may have to
contribute to fares but he's really not
easy to get some of these people back if
you look online at what various
ambassadors and High Commissioners as
saying in
their messages online they're saying if
you're in the wrong part of a country
which has had an extraordinary clamp
down on travel and you're not near an
airport it is going to be extremely
difficult for you to get cross country
to a plane even if a plane is laid on
public robbed of course is the man who
is meant to deputize for the Prime
Minister if he if he is indisposed but
the Prime Minister is still doing his
job even though he's suffering from the
disease himself and we discovered that
the Prime Minister's chief aide Dominic
Cummings has also had to go home he's
showing symptoms have covered 19 a sign
of just how difficult it is perhaps to
maintain the government's own distancing
guidelines in the cramped and
old-fashioned surroundings of 10 Downing
Street Kerry Gibbon in Westminster well
joining us now via the Internet
is Professor Hugh Montgomery who is
professor of intensive care medicine at
University College London
professor Montgomery the chief you know
scientific advisor Patrick valance today
suggested there was cause for optimism
in today's figures do you share that
view um I trust Patrick completely
actually he's he's a completely
principal almost man and says Chris so
witty and so I share his view if he's
expressed it because I will be right the
fact that things aren't moving up
exponentially as they were has to be a
good sign but of course it doesn't mean
that we're not still facing massive
pressures because we're already facing a
lot of pressure and the numbers of
patients are still mounting and that's
going to cause a spurt of trouble now
you were very worried last week about
intensive care beds are you more
encouraged particularly with the opening
of the nightingale hospital well I have
to say pay tribute to my colleagues who
are trying to set that up because these
are very difficult times and it's worth
perhaps offering a slightly more nuanced
approach to this because I think that's
sometimes helpful and we've had all of
us I think across the country to expand
up the capacity to deliver a critical
care
and that's required a dramatic change in
the sort of work that we do in the way
we practice it so what we might now look
at as in intensive care beds is not
quite quite the same thing that we would
have viewed a couple of weeks ago so for
instance we've had to train different
staff
so across trusts in Great Britain with
the bedside support nursing care that
delivering direct care are often not
critical care trained nurses but have
been rapidly inducted as supported by a
critical care nurse where normally that
bed would perhaps have one critical care
nurse to that fed we now have one
critical care nurse looking after three
or perhaps even six beds and we've had
to use a change in equipment so we would
have had perhaps let's call it the
rolls-royce of ventilators the things
that help you to breathe which are
supple and allow quite sophisticated
management at lungs and we've now had to
move in many cases to the use of
anaesthetic machines which are very much
more simple devices for blowing air in
and out so whilst we're saying we
haven't run out of bed spaces the nature
of the work in those beds has now
changed dramatically and actually at
this point I put I must point out the
the extraordinary work of our nursing
staff they are absolutely taking the
brunt of this and having to perform in a
way they never have before and they are
remarkable how close do you think we are
to the eye of the storm at one point it
was sort of April the 3rd then people
said April the 13th but what are we
talking about now know the data and the
last data I heard was we were aiming for
April 13th or 14th
if Patrick's suggesting that we're now
off an exponential curve I guess it's
possible that either we will still peak
on the 13th or so of April but that the
peak might be lower and which case thank
you to the British public who have
socially distanced because if they are
helping with that flattening that curve
will have made a lot of difference and I
think in fact in many ways that's the
most important thing I'm less worried
about when I ask you specifically
sorry to interrupt but can
I asked you specifically about the the
sophistication of this equipment that is
being used in the hospitals I mean are
there enough people now able to operate
it there are enough people but with
having to change our working practices
so for instance the first step if one
goes to a hospital with this disease
if active management is undertaken will
be simple oxygen to breathe in at higher
and higher levels the next step is to
wear a hood or a tight-fitting mask that
applies constant pressure inside the
lungs to support the lungs and then the
next step is to go on to a breathing
machine that does the work for you now
until 2 or 3 weeks ago the use of these
tight-fitting hoods and masks and the
high concentrations of oxygen and so
forth would definitely have taken place
in an intensive care bed but now that is
happening in many trusts on general
wards but with support of anaesthetic
colleagues so we're eight we're just
having to deliver in a different way so
are we able to provide the staff at the
moment yes we are but it's by doing
things in a way that we weren't doing
them a few weeks ago and briefly does
the nightingale hospital with its
enormous number of beds does it kind of
mean that we are sort of within the
bounds of control in terms of being able
to provide bit I am I think it's going
to make a lot of difference and again my
credit you know the credit goes to
people trying to set this up it's it's
not a situation when we would like to be
in it's being built because conventional
beds such as we have and conventional
ventilators are likely to be exhausted
so we're having to expand capacity in a
different way this won't be a standard
intensive care unit by any manner of
means at all in terms of staffing or
equipment but that isn't in any way a
criticism because we are where we are if
we are going to exhaust the capacity we
have conventionally in hospitals there
is only one solution and that is trying
to create something else that might
offer us the support that is otherwise
lack
it won't be the same as a standard
intensive care of three weeks ago but it
will be capable of offering life support
in some way shape or form first human
Comrie thank you very much indeed for
joining us thank you our group of MPs
has written to the government urging
clarity on which employees should and
shouldn't keep on going to work
saying that non-essential workers were
being put at risk by some employers
about factory bosses are warning that
they're in danger of being vilified for
keeping operations running meanwhile the
corona virus is causing more airlines to
scale back operations or ask for a
government bailout our business and
global trade correspondent Paul McNamara
reports if a nation's on lockdown were
not flying anywhere either and today
easyJet brought its entire operation to
a halt it had already cancelled most
services in recent weeks just running
rescue flights to repatriate Britain's
stranded abroad for now they've stopped
- all 344 of easyJet's planes across
Europe are stacked up and going nowhere
the airline have told us they didn't
expect that to change until May at the
earliest so that's nearly two months
making no money whatsoever at the moment
no the ally says there is no plan to ask
the government for a bailout easyJet
haven't ruled out taking up one of the
loans that government has offered all
businesses though that's a bit rich some
critics have said for a business that
managed to pay shareholders a hundred
and seventy four million pounds in
dividends just a few weeks ago
Scotland's airline Logan era is coming
home this is an industry in ill-health
though because of coronavirus regional
airline Logan air saying today without
government help they simply won't
survive the nation's empty arteries tell
a tale of an entire economy grinding to
a halt there are still some pockets of
industry ploughing on causing many to
ask just what is essential these are the
the main inner components of the
in an MRI machine in fact 50% of the
world's MRIs have parts in them from
this Factory but the boss here says
mixed messaging from government has left
staff wondering whether or not they
should be turning up to work there are
going to be some people at home who look
at this and think come on this is just a
business here this what it really
worried about is their bottom line I
thought I find it quite offensive that
there's people talking about
profiteering that is not what's going on
here at all now we can't function unless
our material suppliers are there
providing the material and the fasteners
and the fixtures and the welding
consumables and all the things that we
need more than 100 MPs have written to
the government urging them to be
stricter on who can and can't work the
labor mayor of Manchester says he's had
a thousand emails from workers forced to
continue despite fears for their health
fundamentally then are you happy for any
non-essential businesses to carry on
working in this environment but where do
you draw a line because manufacturers
we've spoken to say they're essential
their suppliers would argue that they
are not essential but they are if
manufactured odd Carentan what they do
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can continue so the point is surely even
is to continue making sure that people
are safe as they go about the issue
lots of manufacturing is still running
though not essential dearly makes me
certainly doors again you need to think
through all the various nuances it's
often one of the smallest pieces in the
jigsaw that actually spoils the picture
and you can't quite finish the job the
significance of that really does need
thinking through in the era of
coronavirus the word essential occupies
a great space
many workers say they fear for their
well-being many businesses argue be too
heavy-handed and the light of Industry
could go out for good