Happy Monday
Intensive care units are "stretched beyond breaking", ICU nurse Dave Carr told Good Morning Britain on Monday morning. Carr described the situation in hospitals are "harrowing" and said it is "breaking NHS workers."
As cases soar across the UK, the government have faced calls to impose stricter lockdown measures, with Labour leader Keir Starmer yesterday saying the virus is "out of control" and a national lockdown is required to contain it.
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Sunday's
data shows another daily increase in Covid-19 cases, with 54,990 new cases recorded, and 454 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test. There has also been a drastic upturn in patients admitted to hospital, with 14,987 patients admitted in the last seven days, an increase of 19.7 per cent.
Speaking to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain from a central London hospital, Carr said: "We're over capacity already, so we're treating more patients than we normally would."
"The NHS has been trying to recover from the first [wave]. Our staff are absolutely exhausted," he added.
"One of the questions you should speak to Matt Hancock about is the fact that we tried to run the NHS up to the last minute as it was absolutely clear that the pandemic numbers were rising everywhere and admissions to hospitals were escalating at alarming rates.
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"We've been caught with our trousers down trying to do normal NHS work and [deal with] the pandemic at the same time. That's left us with scenes of real chaos and confusion, and real pressure inside our hospitals.
"Our intensive care units are stretched beyond breaking. We are trained as intensive care units to look after one patient on a ventilator with life support machinery.
"In ITUs across London, these nurses are looking after not one, not two but three patients on ventilators and other organ support machines.
"It's absolutely harrowing."
Carr also hammered the government's 'flip-flopping bad management' of the pandemic, saying: "We're catching up with ourselves now, we're not ready."
"We've been put in this position by the flip-flopping bad management, lack of lockdown, schools open, the whole mismanagement of the pandemic."
Piers Morgan also asked Carr about a protest staged outside a hospital in London, in which people chanted 'Covid is a hoax'.
The protest had a great impact on Carr's colleagues, driving many to tears, he said.
"It led to ITU staff breaking down in tears," he explained.
"My own view is this is a small minority of people who probably think the earth is flat. But it is concerning that the flouting of the rules has grown almost as seriously as the virus has. And I think this has got to be pinned on the amount of mixed messages."
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