UK’s Covid alert level downgraded as hospital pressure eases
The UK’s Covid alert level is set to be downgraded as the number if patients in hospital with coronavirus continues to fall, the head of the NHS has said.
NHS England chief Sir Simon Stevens recommended the nation’s coronavirus emergency incident level be lowered from level four to level three, effective from today.
It means the threat level will move from “an incident that requires NHS England national command and control to support the NHS Response” to “an incident that requires the response of a number of health organisations across geographical areas within an NHS England region”.
It comes just one month after NHS England downgraded the national alert level from level five to level four, after officials said the NHS was no longer at immediate risk of being overwhelmed.
NHS England said that more than 380,000 coronavirus patients have been treated in hospital since the start of the pandemic, with one patient admitted to critical care every 30 minutes.
However, the number of patients in hospital with Covid has fallen from a peak of 39,249 on 18 January to 5,407 yesterday.
Due to “much reduced acute pressures on the health service”, he added that he was “recommending that we reduce the national alert level across the health service from level four to level three and that would take effect today”.
Stevens noted that there are still 400 more patients in hospital compared to a year ago, but that there had been a “very sharp decrease” nevertheless.
The NHS chief said that was due to “both declining infection rates across the community and the impact that’s now being felt from the vaccination programme”.
More than 28m people across the country have received their first dose of a Covid jab, including all top four priority groups.
The Prime Minister has insisted that the government is on track to offer a first injection to all over-50s by 15 April and all adults in the UK by 31 July despite potential hiccups to Britain’s vaccine supply.
An ongoing dispute with the European Commission over vaccine deliveries means the UK will likely have to share some of its EU-manufactured vaccine doses with the bloc.