Speaking to my neighbour earlier. She's a physio and is working at St James' in Leeds (though it is zero hours).
She started three weeks ago, and for the first 9-10 days was on every day bar 2. Full shifts. Helping out anywhere and everywhere (physio apparently is a very useful thing to combat this) on the COVID wards.
Anyway, while they weren't stretched to capacity then, in the last 10 days, she's had one shift. Today, the hospital have told her that basically, they're over-staffed.
I'm not picking holes here. It's better to have people available and not need them than the other way around. But at least it shows, in some areas at least, the NHS is absolutely nowhere near its capacity. If it was, then they'd be all hands on deck. Yorkshire today also reported its lowest daily death total rise in two weeks.
The death toll here in the UK is horrible and disgusting because I think it's safe to say a big proportion were avoidable.
However, the fact that we have never come close to reaching capacity such as Spain and Italy did, with people lying on hospital floors dying, has to be considered a positive.
The fact that the extra hospitals have now been built and we do now have excess equipment and ventilators should also mean we are far better prepared to deal with a second wave when/if it comes. Unless the Tories sell it all off, mind.
