Coronavirus: ‘Green shoots’ starting to show, says NHS boss
NHS England’s medical director has said the UK’s social distancing measures have begun to yield “green shoots”, despite today’s largest single day rise in deaths.
Stephen Powis said at today’s daily Covid-19 briefing that the rate of increase in infections had begun to plateau in the past few days, but warned “we’re not out of the woods” and for people to not become complacent.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove also announced at the briefing that thousands of recently ordered ventilators would roll off the assembly line this weekend and reach hospitals next week.
They will add to the 8,000 ventilators already circulating in the NHS.
Powis showed charts at the briefing that revealed public transport use had “reduced dramatically over last few weeks”, indicating that people are following the government’s strict social distancing rules.
He said this may have been the reason for a decrease in the rate of new infections.
However, he urged people to not become complacent.
“The number of infections is not rising as rapidly as it was, these are green shoots, but only green shoots,” he said.
“Winter could come and those green shoots could turn out not to be the green shoots we thought that they might be, but the next two weeks will be critical as we move through.
“We must not be complacent and we must not take our foot off the pedal.”
The death toll from Covid-19 rose by 381 people to 1,789 today in the largest single day rise yet.
Powis said it was important to “look at a series of days, instead of individual days” when looking at the death toll and that “over the last few days there has actually been a decrease”.
He said that if social distancing measures are beginning to work then there will be a lag before this translates into a reduction in mortalities.
“We will likely see a reduction in the number of infections first, followed by hospitalisations a week or so later and finally a reduction in the number of deaths,” he said.