"A kind of continuous tsunami". The picture used on BBC Radio 4 by Chris Hopson, an official of the British public health system, to describe the situation in London hospitals is striking.
After having "massively" increased the capacity of intensive care in recent weeks, hospitals in the British capital are facing an "explosion" in the number of "seriously ill patients" of the coronavirus.
This tension is accentuated by the fact that the proportion of caregivers absent for illness is "30%, 40% and in some places even 50%", continued Chris Hopson, who speaks of an absence rate "unprecedented "
According to the latest report published Wednesday, 463 people died of the new coronavirus in the United Kingdom and 9 529 were officially infected.
Deemed initially lax, the British government has stepped up measures to fight the epidemic.
Faced with the aggravation of the past few days, the government has finally decreed a general containment of the population and announced the opening next week of a temporary field hospital of 4,000 beds in a conference center in London.
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