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Fact-check: is the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed by Covid?

ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images

Is it time for another lockdown? Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, is urging ministers to implement sweeping ‘plan B’ winter measures, saying that immediate action is required to prevent the NHS ‘stumbling into a crisis’ arguing that ‘we should try to achieve the kind of national mobilisation that we achieved in the first and second waves, where the public went out of their way to support and help the health service.’

Similar arguments were made to justify the first lockdown – with apocalyptic SAGE scenarios suggesting hospitals would be overwhelmed with a need for 138,000 ventilators (vs a supply of 6,800 ventilators) with a potential need for 72,000 ventilators by November. On this duff advice, the government ordered 30,000 ventilators – only to find the usage of ventilators fall sharply during the pandemic. The lockdown logic was faulty: it did not factor in that people had voluntarily hunkered down long before the 23 March order. Rather than fill up, hospitals were emptying fast with 43 per cent of inpatient beds and 42 per cent of ventilator units unused at the 12 April peak of the Covid crisis. The unneeded ventilators ended up being warehoused at an MoD site in Donnington.

The side-effect of lockdown on standard healthcare, meanwhile, was devastating with 7 million missed appointments and a collapse in cancer diagnoses.


But last year, it was very hard to get hold of health data. Now, it’s far easier: so we can test Taylor’s case.

First, let’s look at Covid cases – they are certainly on the rise. But the Spectator’s data hub, updated daily, shows hospital numbers (blue line, below) are pretty stable at about 5 per cent of NHS bed capacity and about a quarter of what they were during the January peak. On New Year’s Eve in England there were 49,510 Covid cases which resulted in 22,728 people in hospital; yesterday there were 36,712 Covid cases but yesterday there were 6,099 people in hospital.




And let’s look at that red line – cases – in a bit more detail.





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Steerpike
Written by
Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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