Medics fear another Covid-19 spike as many revellers snubbed masks, social distancing and the rule of six as they enjoyed new freedoms outdoors on a sunny FA Cup semi-final Saturday

Revellers toasted the first weekend of freedom in months by downing six million pints of beer today in a sun-soaked splurge of socialising.

Drinkers formed queues outside beer gardens, with many staying on to watch the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Manchester City on jumbo outdoor screens.

High streets were busy too, and Joshua Bamfield of the Centre for Retail Research estimated 18.4million shoppers would spend £1.6billion in stores this weekend.

Dr Pushpo Hossain of the Doctors’ Association UK committee, said the packed pub gardens were “very scary”.

She said any new spike could prove too much for medics who have been exhausted by the the pandemic and demoralised by a paltry pay proposal.

Dr Hossain said: “The government has broken our morale with the one per cent. If a third wave hits we won’t be fit enough to deliver a service. We are burnt out.”

Dr Pushpo Hossain

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(David Oliver – NHS Consultant Physician writes) The High Court ruled last week that Matt Hancock had acted unlawfully in failing to publish details, within 30 days, of dozens of contracts awarded without competition for good and services – especially PPE during the pandemic. 

In his interview since, the Health Secretary didn’t seem bothered or sorry. 

He came out all guns blazing, laughing it off, running down the studio clock by saying his focus during Spring 2020 had been on “saving lives” and working tirelessly to procure the best PPE, as if that made the law breaking okay.

There was no apology. No acknowledgement that he had done anything wrong or breached the ministerial code or Nolan Principles for public office, which require honesty, integrity and transparency.

But PPE supplies to frontline staff in health and social care are no laughing matter and the court ruling is the latest in a long line of Government PPE failings.

A BMJ Study in December showed that hands on staff working with patients are around 7 times more likely to be admitted to hospital as Covid-19 patients than people in other roles. Thousands more are still suffering from “long Covid”.

It is a basic moral and legal requirement for employers to give staff in any job the equipment they need to stay safe at work. And NHS staff are government employees or contractors. 

We have come into work surrounded by Covid-19 week after week for year now. We don’t need applause. We don’t want “hero” status for doing our jobs. But we do feel badly let down and Hancock’s attitude hardly helps.

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee concluded this month that many healthcare workers had been “put in the appalling situation of having to care for people with Covid-19 without sufficient PPE to protect themselves from infection” and that “as PPE stocks ran perilously low” some were “forced to re-use single use items”.

The PAC also found that social care staff in care homes and home care services had struggled even more to get the right PPE, with the NHS being prioritised. Theirs is very hands on work, going from home to home or room to room to care for vulnerable citizens for low pay.

November’s National Audit Office report on Covid-19 procurement condemned, in unusually strong terms, the Government’s serial incompetence, lack of transparency, slow responses and poor value for public money in procuring PPE from the private sector. 

It was clear that there had been cronyism, with many contracts going to friends or party donors.

The Doctors’ Association UK has collected responses from over 1500 members about failings in supplying them with basic PPE items and another 200 members who were ignored, threatened, silenced or bullied by local bosses when they complained.

Read the full article here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/david-oliver-ppe-supplies-frontline-23553116

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that, as of Sunday morning, three quarters of all people over 80 in the UK have been vaccinated.

“(This) is absolutely brilliant progress,” he said, speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday.

“Similar number of care homes, around three quarters and in fact we’ve vaccinated more people in just the last three days than France has in the entire history of this disease.”

Mr Hancock also defended the Government’s decision to delay the second doses of those receiving the Pfizer vaccine.

Mr Hancock said the responsible course of action was to get “as many people protected… as quickly as possible” he said.

Mr Hancock said that case numbers were “incredibly high” and the NHS remained under intense pressure.

“There is early evidence that the lockdown is starting to bring cases down but we are a long, long, long way from being low enough because the case rate was incredibly high,” he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.

“You can see the pressure on the NHS – you can see it every day.”

It came in response to concerns over delaying the Pfizer vaccine by up to 12 weeks.

Dr Rosie Shire, a member of the Doctors’ Association UK, said studies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine show two doses three weeks apart gave 90% immunity.

“What really concerns us is we don’t know what happens if you don’t give that second dose of vaccination after three weeks.”

“The fact is that people are being vaccinated now and being put into what is effectively an unregulated unlicensed trial, whereby they’re receiving this vaccination on the understanding that they don’t know what’s going on.”

Dr Rosie Shire

Read the full article here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/hancock-reveals-75-over-80s-23375171

These fears were echoed by Intensive Care Registrar Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden from the Doctor’s Association.

She warned that ministers’ language and conduct had put extra pressure on doctors and that frontline staff needed “reassurance that the same thing that happened in February and March” with chaotic announcements and a lack of willingness to listen to medics “isn’t going to be repeated in the winter”.

She added: “It all comes back to valuing staff and the huge sacrifice people will make to keep people safe over the winter.”

During the pandemic, she said that staff had witnessed difficult events but had done it together – but now they had time to decompress they would have to face without adequate support.

“I think we will see staff take their own lives,” she added.

Read the full article in The Mirror.