If the British government\u2019s goal throughout the coronavirus pandemic has been to protect the health service, the next few weeks will be the biggest challenge yet.<\/p>\n
After overtaking Italy again as the country with Europe\u2019s highest death toll, the U.K. is at the epicenter of the continent\u2019s struggle to contain Covid-19. Daily infections are at a record\u2014 one in 50 people in England now have the disease\u2014while Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week shut schools and ordered the population to stay at home.<\/p>\n
Medical staff say they may be forced to turn people away from hospitals if the latest lockdown fails to curb quickly enough a new strain of the virus that emerged in southeast England last month.<\/p>\n
Winter already stretches health care and the virus means more patients are spilling into corridors and others are having to be treated in parked ambulances. The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, said the National Health Service is facing a crisis as rampant infections combine with staff illness and burnout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many thousands of patients coming in,\u201d said Tom Dolphin, 42, a consultant anesthetist at a London hospital. \u201cThe worrying thing is we probably haven\u2019t seen the peak yet from the patients coming who got infected over Christmas and the New Year period.\u201d<\/p>\n
During 10 months of turmoil over its handling of the pandemic, the U.K. government managed to keep the country\u2019s treasured NHS afloat and then became the first Western country to start immunizing its citizens. That now risks becoming a hollow victory as an accelerated vaccine program races against an out-of-control virus.<\/p>\n
Medics had been pressuring Johnson to take nationwide action amid the surge in cases in recent weeks. But even at the weekend, the government was suggesting that schools would remain open.<\/p>\n
Quicktake<\/span>Why the U.K.\u2019s Mutated Coronavirus Is Fanning Worries<\/span><\/p>\n New treatments mean a greater proportion of Covid-19 patients are being kept alive, but many still need to remain in the hospital due to breathing difficulties. That\u2019s also putting pressure on capacity. The health system had already entered the pandemic short of about 40,000 nurses.<\/p>\n For nurse Stuart Tuckwood, the tougher lockdown brings at least some relief as the country desperately waits for the vaccination drive to pay off.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople know how bad things are and how much worse they\u2019re going to get if cases continue to rise the way they are,\u201d said Tuckwood, who works in a hospital in the south of England and is also national officer for nursing at union Unison. \u201cWe can\u2019t rely on the vaccine being the magic solution. There can be no complacency about the ability of the health service and staff to cope.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s death toll stood at 76,423, according to Bloomberg\u2019s Coronavirus Tracker, after fatalities outpaced Italy\u2019s in recent days. The number of daily cases on Tuesday rose to almost 61,000\u2014the most since the coronavirus swept into Europe, though also after the U.K. ramped up testing.<\/p>\n Johnson said in a televised address on Monday that the number of Covid patients in hospitals in England was 40% higher than the first peak in April. The dramatic escalation has prompted him to gamble on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n As well as locking down the nation again, the government is trying to rapidly increase the number of people who get their first dose of vaccine by pushing back their second shots.<\/p>\n That\u2019s aimed at stretching supplies of the two vaccines being rolled out: one from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE and the other from AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford. The move gained support from some health experts but sparked concerns from others, including Pfizer.<\/p>\n The aim is to maximize the number of vulnerable people who will get at least some protection in the shortest possible time. Johnson said on Tuesday that 1.3 million people had been immunized. The government has set a target of vaccinating almost 14 million people by mid-February.<\/p>\n The reality, though, is that Britain has little choice. There are almost 9,000 more coronavirus patients in hospital beds than there were on Christmas Day\u2014the equivalent of nearly 18 hospitals, according to the group NHS Providers.<\/p>\n The stress on doctors and nurses is increasing, and \u201cthat really does trigger a need for a new way of thinking,\u201d said Doug Brown, chief executive of the British Society for Immunology. \u201cThe risk of not doing this is much greater.\u201d In a normal world, the country would stick to the original dosing schedules tested in the clinical trials, he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not in a normal world at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Protecting the NHS resonates in Britain. During the first lockdown in spring, people stood on their doorsteps and applauded healthcare workers every Thursday evening and children painted rainbows to stick on the front windows. The government is relying on a fatigued nation to step up again, with the NHS now key to rolling out the vaccines.<\/p>\n Read More: U.K. Hospitals Face Breaking Point as Johnson Prepares Lockdown<\/p>\n Finding and deploying enough staff to carry out around 2 million vaccinations a week is no easy task and will have a big impact on the health service, said Richard Sloggett, a former special adviser to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.<\/p>\n \u201cIt certainly feels like we are moving to a point where we are betting the house on a vaccine program,\u201d said Sloggett, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank.<\/p>\n The hope is that the lockdown will work before hospitals are unable to cope, said Dolphin, the anesthetist, who is also a member of the BMA\u2019s council. The restrictions are due to run in England until at least mid-February, though Johnson signaled in a press conference Tuesday there could be many more months of restrictions ahead. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s getting to the point where the service isn\u2019t what we would normally recognize as fit for the U.K.,\u201d Dolphin said. \u201cOr fit for any country, really.\u201d<\/p>\n