the uk is closing all its travel
corridors
from monday as concerns grow about new
variants of the coronavirus
anyone arriving in the uk will have to
present a negative test and will still
have to self-isolate
for up to 10 days the new border
restrictions will be reviewed in a
month's time
it comes as the prime minister urged
people to stay at home this weekend with
hospitals across the uk
under extraordinary pressure more than
37 000 people are currently being
treated for coronavirus a record number
with the peak not expected for another
10 days in most places
a quarter of the patients are under the
age of 55.
tonight hospitals in nottingham and
newcastle amongst others
are standing ready to accept intensive
care patients from london to try to ease
the pressure
on the worst hit areas but the prime
minister said there was hope
with more than 3.2 million people
already vaccinated in the uk
here's our health editor hugh pim
this hospital was one of the first to
fill up with seriously ill coveted
patients last march
now the same thing's happening again
only more so
like many other hospitals in the south
east of england northwick park
is under severe strain there are more
patients
now than there were in march and april
and may
and if those numbers continue then it
doesn't matter how good we are at
looking after kovid
we'll just run out of beds because of
pressure on critical care units like
that
hospitals in nottingham have been asked
to take coveyed patients from london and
the southeast
and newcastle is also set to receive
patients from further south
even london trust leaders say hospitals
around england have been asked to help
by boosting capacity
we know we now are moving patients a
small number of patients from london
to other parts of the country because
london's critical care capacity
is very very full um in it that's not
something we would normally
want to do but i hope in one sense it's
a reassuring sign of how far the nhs
will go
to treat every single patient who needs
care
some hospitals in london and the south
east of england are so
stretched that patients are having to be
moved hundreds of miles for treatment
does this not suggest that not enough
was done by the government to prepare
the nhs for the second wave
a huge amount was done to uh prepare
uh the nhs for and has continuously for
the last
year and actually even in uh in the
in london where the situation has been
toughest uh
the the london nhs has been under huge
huge huge pressure
but they really have been coping
magnificently
a social media site has brought together
impressions from the nhs front line
one doctor said as he died in the
hospital bed all alone
i held his hand saying everything was
going to be okay
i realized now that me saying those
things was more for me than for him
another entry said i became an a e nurse
because i feel like we make a big
difference to our patients
but with this virus we don't get that
another doctor reported
my grandparents both died of kovid five
days apart in different hospitals
seeing all this loss and suffering at
work is so much harder
when i've been on the other side of it
as well
admissions to hospitals like this one in
kettering involve patients who got the
virus a couple of weeks before
as for new cases there are tentative
signs of a change of direction
recent case numbers show in the last
week northern ireland wales and scotland
have all seen case numbers fall
it's the same in england with more cases
in a bigger population
including dips in hot spots like london
but in some council areas like noseley
holton and the isle of wight
there have been increases officials
believe the peak of infections may have
passed in some areas but not hospital
admissions
it takes a while between people first
getting infected to getting ill enough
to go to hospital
so that peak will be a bit later in
every area of the country a bit later
than the peak of infections
and then the peak of deaths
unfortunately is a bit later still so
the peak of deaths i fear is in the
a future reversal of those trends may
only come once there's been widespread
vaccinations
but progress is being made with the
daily total now hitting 300 000 for the
first time
hugh pim bbc news and you can see a full
report from north oak park hospital on
news night tonight
on bbc two at half past ten
so the uk's borders are being tightened
from monday morning but for how long and
what impact will it have here's our
transport correspondent caroline davis
while most of us are being told to stay
at home today saw another announcement
about international travel
yesterday passengers from south america
and portugal were banned from traveling
to the uk
to stop the spread of a new covert
variant from brazil
today the prime minister announced
another measure to tighten up travel
to protect us against the risk of as yet
unidentified new strains we will also
temporarily
close all travel corridors from 0-400
hours on monday today's announcement is
not a travel ban
it's about quarantine combined with
earlier policies it now means from
monday anyone traveling to the uk
will have to show they have a negative
covert test less than 72 hours before
they depart
when they arrive they must now
quarantine for 10 days
no matter where they've flown from in
the world or pay for a cover test on the
fifth day
if it's negative they can leave
quarantine early
as well as airports the policy applies
to the eurostar and seaports
but won't apply to anyone traveling
within the uk or ireland
or to some jobs like hauliers the
governments say that this step is now
needed
because it's difficult to predict where
new variants might come from
passenger flights are already
significantly down heathrow airport
handled just over a million passengers
in december
down nearly 83 on last year there's been
criticism
that this policy would have been more
effective if it had been introduced
earlier
lots of the british public will say look
we're really worried about the variant
in other countries
other countries have taken measures we
were slow to it
and they will be wondering why this
didn't happen sooner and why the delay
now till monday
during the summer the travel industry
saw travel corridors as a lifeline
it kept people going on holiday today
many say they support the suspension
so long as travel corridors can come
back later this year
if we're going to have an aviation
sector coming out of this we need to
open up in
in the summer we look forward to having
conversations with the government about
that but
for the here and now we are absolutely
clear that we will support the
government
this is one of many travel policies the
government have introduced
the question now is whether it will make
a significant difference
in keeping the country safe caroline
davis bbc news
our deputy political editor vicky young
is in westminster significant changes to
the borders almost a year after the
pandemic
began so why now yeah i mean the
government has been criticized for not
being as
strict as other countries what they've
done is to use quarantine
as the main tool their point being that
if someone comes into the country
if they're not going out then they're
not spreading it and that's the approach
they've taken now the logic for doing it
now is because they say of
these new variants we've been very good
at isolating them and finding them once
here
of course they want to now try and find
them before they get here
and they can't be sure where they are
coming from now one minister described
all this as a
safety first approach they say they
don't want to fall
at the last hurdle so what is going to
get us over that hurdle
well it is of course the vaccination
program and here
there has been some remarkable progress
we've heard that over 3 million people
in the uk
now vaccinated and they don't want to
have that good work and progress
undermined by new variants coming in so
some
good news amid some still bad news on
deaths and hospitalizations
vicky young and westminster thank you