Boris Johnson has announced that he will be addressing the nation tonight at 20:00 hours.
It has been reported by the BBC that Mr Johnson will be announcing that England will be entering its third lockdown as the NHS battles to treat a vast influx of COVID patients.
Much of the country is currently in Tier 4 restrictions, but there is speculation that Mr Johnson will be announcing the implementation of Tier 5 restrictions – the highest level.
For weeks now, frontline medical staff have reported that many COVID wards are three times their capacity.
Emergency Services News reported several weeks ago that emergency ambulances have been facing delays of up to seven hours as medics wait to book their patients into A&E.
There has also been a problem concerning staffing levels both on the front line of the emergency services and in hospitals as more and more staff have to self-isolate having developed COVID symptoms.
The south-east of England has been battling against a new strain of COVID that is much more infectious than previously known strains of the virus.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) has the task of recommending what the alert level should be.
JBC scientists identify changes in infection rates using testing, environmental and workplace data.
The JBC also has an “insight team” which monitors local spikes of Covid and advises health officials and local authorities.
Their recommendations are then reviewed and agreed by the chief medical officers of the four UK nations.
A number 10 spokesperson said:
“The spread of the new variant of COVID-19 has led to rapidly escalating case numbers across the country.
“The prime minister is clear that further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise and to protect the NHS and save lives.
“He will set those out this evening”.
New YouGov polling suggests that 79% of people support another national lockdown, which is up eight points from late December 62% also think that it was wrong to open some schools this week.
One NHS worker, who asked not to be named said: ‘Whiston Hospital in Merseyside is on its knees! I saw senior nurses acting as porters to get discharged patients down to reception. They are running with a skeleton staff. As always, doing their best and trying to be cheerful, God help them!’
Others have said that the latest round of restrictions which are due to be implemented are ‘too late’ to avert a crisis in the NHS.
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This whole Covid thing is now so disreputable as to be a complete joke.
The NHS is about to be overwhelmed. Shock, horror. So what is happening with the Nightingale hospitals? Nothing. Then we must look at the testing regime.
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is incredibly accurate. It is also incredibly sensitive, to the point that clear samples can be contaminated, giving a false positive. If it is used to test the sick, this is not quite so bad, but when the healthy are being so tested, the admitted 1% error rate becomes a serious issue. If you are testing millions of people, for every 1 in 1,000 genuine cases (and this is very high) there will be 10 false positives. It is very easy to see how these numbers can escalate and that is before one takes into consideration that the test can also identify other corona viruses, known as flu, which are still doing the rounds but are now no longer mentioned.
Then we must factor in false, scaremongering reporting. Covid related deaths always sound good, but what does this actually mean? If someone has Covid 19, is on a ventilator and dies of a heart attack, then it is perfectly fair to say that the heart attack was brought on by Covid. If on the other hand, someone who is Covid positive gets run over by a bus, then it is totally wrong to claim that that death was Covid related. Yes, the poor fellow had it, although he might not have known it but that has absolutely no bearing on the cause of death, which was bus.
Therefore, what with false positives, the Lighthouse labs not using proper staff for these highly sensitive tests which leads to contamination and hysterical, factually incorrect reporting, you end up with the destruction of the economy.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that ‘elite’ sport can continue but everything must stop. Small business is being sacrificed on the alter of big business. Those in the public sector do not care. They get paid whether they work or not. Their jobs and pensions are safe, so they can get on with decorating the house.
The problem facing us all is much more insidious. Government spending has long shed its last rusting shackles of restraint and sooner or later, this money will have to be paid back. The deficit is roaring ahead, meaning the government cannot even meet the monthly payments without borrowing and that is at interest rates of 0.1%. They clearly cannot go up. If they rose to 0.2%, still absurdly low, Government repayments would instantly double and the walls would swiftly turn brown. Therefore, the economy will stagnate and without growth, there is no possible way this vast and growing debt will ever be repaid. Sooner or later, the music will stop, only for everybody to discover that not one chair but the whole lot have vanished. That will be a very painful landing.