April30 2021

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments last night about this daily Covid report. It is by no means over yet and we may well face a further crisis in the months to come. Whilst it is quiet though there is time to reflect and consider the strategies for the future. I will be back on Monday. Please continue to share your news ideas or confusions. We will all do our best to help. The age has been lowered 3 times this week. If you are now over 40 in England, you can apply for a vaccine. It’s 30 or over in Wales and 35 or over in Northern Ireland. Scotland has not quite sorted it yet but are expected to say over 40 any day now.

It is believed only one person in 1,000 has Covid in the UK.There is a body called the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emergency Infection Consortium or ISARIC . its co -lead is Prof. Calum Semple, who has run a study known as Isaric /Co-CIN study to investigate just how well the Covid vaccine is working and keeping the experts of SAGE informed. Its findings show that it does work well but there are a few failures. Most cases of Covid in people vaccinated occurred with infection just before their immunisation or in the couple of weeks after immunisation. The median time from immunisation to symptoms was 15 days. Sadly, in the few that became infected despite being fully immunised they mostly died because they were very elderly and or very frail.

Back in India, things remain grim. 386,452 new infections in the last 24 hours and 3,498 deaths. It is however thought that these are serious underestimates and the true figures are much higher. After a serious of incidents where oxygen supplies have been stolen from one patient and given to another, they are now under armed guard in most hospitals. A bottle of oxygen normally costs £60 but in the black market are changing hands for more than £1,000. The drug Remdesivir normally costs about £20 a dose is selling for £500.

There has been another death from an exploding oxygen cylinder. Tomorrow India will receive some Sputnik V vaccine, they have signed a deal for 850 million doses over the next year.

Cuts to our UK foreign aid budget has already impacted on the genomic sequencing in India as the 70% cut begins to bite. Close to India, up in the mountains, Nepal is said to be in a crisis, out of control and has been described as a mini India. Eighty members of staff in one hospital are off sick with Covid. There have been 5,657 cases reported in the last 24 hours. It is believed to be due to the B1617 variant. I reported a case on Everest a few days ago.

The dreadful disaster in Israel, the worst civilian disaster in the history of Israel, has so far killed 45 and wounded over 150. There was a stampede and crush at a religious festival. These incidents should not occur. in the UK they are rare events thanks to careful planning of mass gathering events and adequate access and egress. In the 19C we had several crush episodes in religious festivals or churches. An inquiry has already been established to see what went wrong.

Pfizer have asked the EU regulator to approve its vaccine in those aged 12-15. Studies have shown it to be safe, and if approved all cases will be monitored for two years.

Barts. Health Care trust in East London said at 8am today it had only 7 patients in its 5 hospitals in critical care beds. In the last week just 38 patients in their hospitals were positive for Covid. There was only one new case in the last 24 hours.

Tonight’s statistics show 1,072,576 Covid tests have been done and of those only 2,381 proved positive. This is a 10.7% drop in the last week and the rate of positive cases is 23.9 per 100k.

Only 15 patients have died in the last 24 hours This is a drop of a further 18.5%. The death rate is 0.2 per 100k of the population. Hospitals are getting less and less impacted by the pandemic. The number in hospital has fallen below 1,500 and is reported as 1,497.

A further 132 patients were admitted in the last 24 hours.The number on a ventilator is now only 196 and falling steadily every day.

34.26 million first vaccines have been given and 14.52 million second jabs.

Please do not let your guard down just because you have no daily reminder to read. The figures here will be even better by Monday. The original slogan Hands, Face and Space is still just as relevant.

Stay safe over the weekend.