The UK could turn to medical students to help manage the spreading Covid-19 outbreak, MPs heard yesterday as the country recorded its first death.
Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty told a committee of MPs that he expected the outbreak to burn itself out over period of two months – reaching its peak three weeks after becoming a full-blown epidemic.
According to World Health Organisation figures, three countries now have worse outbreaks than any province in China apart from Hubei, the source of the pandemic. The figures highlight the success of China in containing the outbreak – as well as the worldwide spread of the disease.
Hubei has recorded 67,000 of the 80,000 confirmed cases in China and 2,902 of its 3,015 recorded deaths.
The next worst-stricken region, Guangdong, has recorded 1,350 cases and seven deaths.
The latest WHO figures for country show 5,766 cases in Korea and 35 deaths, 3,089 cases in Korea and 107 deaths together with 2,922 cases in Iran and 92 deaths.
WHO yesterday said the public health problem was as much an "infodemic" as an epidemic, warning of the impact of the public being overloaded with information. IT called for employers and trade unions to ensure they conveyed basic messages about handwashing and self-isolation. It said it was discussing with global trade unions issues such as safe staffing levels and loss of salary from sickness absence.
In England, NHS 111 reported struggling to tackle a huge surge in calls, increasing by 20% last week. Out of 442,000 calls, the service only managed to answer 340,000.
The first death was of a woman of 75 in Reading and is thought to have been already in intensive care at the time of diagnosis. Across the UK a total of 116 cases have now been identified. 18 hospitalised patients have recovered, it was reported.
Professor Whitty said: “One of the things which is clear, if you model out the epidemic, is we will get 50% of all the cases over a three-week period and 95% of the cases over a nine-week period if it follows a trajectory we think it’s likely to.”
The chief medical officer said he was "confident" there would be volunteers from non-working doctors.
He said: “Doctors go into medicine for a reason, if there was a crisis and they thought they could help, I’m confident we’d get a lot of volunteers."
He said planning was "in full tilt" for the delay phase of the outbreak, adding: “This could be anywhere from a rather bad winter for the NHS – but in spring or summer – through to huge numbers way overtopping the ability of the NHS realistically to put everyone in beds.”
* In Australia, two hospitals in Sydney sent 80 staff home after two doctors contracted the infection after attending a radiology seminar.
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