With social distancing now the order of the day, Matt Hancock used today’s government press conference to update the nation on NHS preparedness – and call for the country to come together to tackle the pandemic. The latest government figures put the number of coronavirus fatalities at 422 and this is expected to rise. In order to prepare the NHS for an increase in cases, the Health Secretary announced that a new temporary hospital is to open in London’s ExCel Centre – and said that so far 11,788 retired NHS staff had responded to the government’s call for volunteers to return to work. Hancock said the government is now hoping to recruit 250,000 healthy individuals to form an NHS volunteer responders army, to help with deliveries to the vulnerable.
But although the general message is one of unity, cross-party tensions also came to the surface. Since Boris Johnson’s statement to the nation – which had a television audience of 28 million – calling for everyone to stay at home where they can, there has been criticism of the number of people still using the tube in London.
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