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Unwell adults should stay at home and wear a mask if they have to go outside, health chiefs said today amid warnings the NHS is facing more pressure than it did during the peak of the pandemic. The Mail has more.
The advice, issued by the U.K. Health Security Agency, also urges parents to keep their child out of school or nursery if they are ill and have a high temperature — classed as 38°C or more.
The actions will help minimise the spread of Covid, flu and scarlet fever which are “circulating at high levels” and are “likely” to keep rising in the coming weeks, it said.
It comes amid stark warnings that the delays for care caused by the NHS crisis are killing 500 patients every week, with top doctors telling Britons that the situation is “much worse” than the darkest days of the Covid pandemic.
Professor Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Adviser at UKHSA, said adults should “try to stay home when unwell”.
Those that do have to go out should “wear a face covering”, she said.
Sick Britons were also told not to visit healthcare setting “unless urgent” and avoid vulnerable people.
Professor Hopkins said: “It’s important to minimise the spread of infection in schools and other education and childcare settings as much as possible.”
The ‘back-to-school advice’ also told parents to keep their child out of school or nursery if they have a high temperature.
Professor Hopkins said: “If your child is unwell and has a fever, they should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better and the fever has resolved.”
She also urged parents to teach youngsters good hand hygiene by practising regular handwashing at home with soap and warm water.
Children should also be told to catch coughs and sneezes in tissues and then bin them to help stop illness from spreading, Professor Hopkins said.
It’s also being reported that schools across the U.S. are bringing back mask policies this week.
It comes amid warnings that the NHS is on a “knife edge” and is facing its worst ever winter due to an A&E crisis that is “killing hundreds of patients every week”.
Dr. Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, told Sky News “urgent action” to ease pressure on the NHS with staff across the board warning that the current situation is “worse than it’s ever been”.
He said: “I know that people watching this will say, ‘well every winter you have doctors on that say that this winter is terrible, that it’s normal winter pressures’. But there is a complete acceptance from all colleagues now that this is different from all previous winters — and we need urgent action now.”
He added: “This situation is much worse than we experienced under the Covid pandemic at its peak. And so we need to think carefully about how we can manage this and I think we need some urgent actions.”
‘I know we always say the NHS is collapsing, but this time it really is’? Sounds like a case of crying wolf. Dr. Cooksley also fails to explain what exactly he wants the Government to do to ‘save the NHS’ this time – particularly when the present mess is largely a result of the ridiculous actions it took to ‘save the NHS’ previously.
And wasn’t it acknowledged at some point during the recent Strep A debacle that trying to stop the circulation of common viruses is bad for our health because exposure helps to top up our immune systems? What happened to that? Are we back now to the wrong-headed advice to hide ourselves away with our ubiquitous winter sniffles?
Worth reading in full.
