Matt Hancock leads today’s coronavirus press briefing
‘Much further to go’ in coronavirus fight
Health Secretary Matt Hancock says one of his central aims is making sure NHS capacity is always ahead of need – so there will always be enough beds for those who need them.
There are currently 2,963 spare critical care beds across the health service.
“There is much further to go,” he admits – saying 535,000 tests have now been carried out – of which 129,000 have tested positive. Hospital patients with COVID-19 is now down to 17,681.
He says the latest hundreds of deaths “tells us of the deadly nature of this virus” and tells the public “we owe it” to those who have passed away to keep up social distancing.
UK vaccine project will be ‘trialed in people this week‘
Hancock says the work developing a vaccine is an “uncertain science” but that two of the leading vaccine developments – one at Oxford University and one at Imperial College London – are “making rapid progress”.
He pledges £22.5m going to Imperial to support their clinical trials – which will assess samples and begin work on a very large phase three trial.
And £20m is going to Oxford team to fund their clinical trials.
He declares that vaccine from the Oxford project “will be trialled in people from this Thursday”.
‘We remain in a situation of danger’
England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam is talking us through the daily slides released at these news conferences.
He says on transport use there is a “very clear” continuation of “low trends of usage” compared to mid-March. This is a “good sign” that people are continuing to follow advice.
Turning to the new cases, he says the “numbers remain high” and there is not a downturn at this point.
“We remain in a situation of danger.”
Matt Hancock on PPE
“I am determined to get people the PPE they need.”
Hancock says they are “working to improve the delivery system” and they have a “diverse range of suppliers”.
He says the government has had 8,331 offers of PPE and they are “investigating every one” but the “reality is not everyone who approaches us can deliver on their offers in scale”.
He says they are also working with 159 UK manufacturers.
“We’ve now shipped over a billion items and we are also at the same time replenishing stocks on a 24/7 basis.” the Health secretary said
Questioned about reports that some NHS staff are being threatened with disciplinary action for talking to journalists about PPE shortages, Hancock says “yes of course people should be able to talk about the problems that there are”
“We’ve been pushing at making sure we get PPE to the front line since right at the start of this crisis,”
The UK is Joining the EU’s PPE and other medical procurement scheme
Hancock insists that “as far as I’m aware there was no political decision not to participate in that scheme”.
He adds that “we did receive an invitation” – it came to the Department of Health, it was put to him “and we joined so we are now members of that scheme”.
But the health secretary adds that not a single item of PPE has been delivered yet through that scheme.
More to come soon…
