Hospitals and councils have been told to find additional beds for coronavirus patients within two weeks as the NHS braces for a second spike in cases and with hospital admissions starting to increase following a steep rise in virus infections, isolation units in which COVID 19 patients can recover are being set up, freeing room on wards for those requiring the most care.
More than 10 million people will soon be living in local lockdown zones after the North East became the latest area to impose curfews, with Liverpool and regions of the West Midlands expected to follow within days.
Chaos at testing centres continued on Thursday as Baroness Harding, the head of NHS Test and Trace, revealed that up to one million people a day are applying for 230,000 available tests.
It also emerged that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is preparing to adopt a national traffic light system for putting areas into lockdown, with regional action being activated when infection rates reach a set level.
The template for the so-called escalation framework, seen by a media outlet, includes provision for mandatory masks at the amber level, indicating face coverings will be legally mandated in even more settings than they are now.
And it’s understood that ministers will confirm that family visits to care homes will be halted in places in which infections are most elevated and while proposals were still being concluded, they’re expected to be included in the winter care plan aimed at lowering the spread of the virus among elderly residents.
Another 3,395 people tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, with a further 21 deaths, as infection rates skyrocketed in much of northern England, with cases reaching the highest levels since May, and the current trajectory pointing towards a second peak in the next two weeks, hospitals are preparing for a potential influx of patients after admissions tripled in a fortnight.
But isn’t that what the Nightingale hospitals were built for? To take the pressure off the systems that need to treat the 30 men and women who die each day from Cancer. The diabetics and heart disease sufferers that have been refused treatment through this pandemic.
Local lockdown will simply crucify the economy and millions of people will become disaffected and disengaged and the virus is doing more to harm the mind than it does to our body.
Yet another diversion, another threat, another poke in the ribs to make sure project fear remains on the attack and the Government has a vested interest in all of us keeping our heads down and eyes averted.
The news outlets will do their best to suppress all but COVID news, and while we all cower in silent submission, the Government will put another sleight of hand and I’ve come to the conclusion that most journalism is just clickbait intended to misinform and instil dissatisfaction.
And the newspaper’s comments sections just echo chambers for extremes of misinformation with no intent to develop a more informed view and it’s extremely evident that endeavouring to post prohibited truths or comments is a waste of time and more and more it’s becoming more like ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’.
And now I’m noticing numerous adverts that use the phrase ‘the new normal’, and the Government define themselves as a One Nation Government, or should that read a One World Nation.
And I do try to avoid conspiracy theories, but the vulgarity and transparency of the Government’s mishandling of this amazingly feeble virus either points to incompetence on a cosmic scale or an underlying agenda.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 