UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said to MPs that the NHS is calling off all non-emergency operations to free up their resources to help combat the coronavirus.
Mr. Hancock said elective surgery that was not time-sensitive would be postponed or canceled as the health service prepares for the worst.
“We will be cancelling or postponing non-time sensitive elective surgery and the NHS will make a statement about this later today,” he said.
This comes as coronavirus patients in their 40s are being placed on ventilators.
“The measures that I’ve just outlined are unprecedented in peacetime. We will fight this virus with everything we’ve got,” the Health Secretary said.
“We are in a war against an invisible killer and we’ve got to do everything we can to stop it.”
In an interview with Sky News, an NHS anesthetist revealed coronavirus patients under the age of 40 have been put on ventilators.
“As little as two weeks ago my hospital was eerily quiet. Now they [patients] are coming in quickly,” the doctor said. “We have well over 50 cases as of the weekend and our intensive care is nearly full of coronavirus patients on breathing support machines.
“It is simply not true that only the very elderly who we can imagine “would have died soon anyway” will get sick.
“I have looked after more than one patient who is in their early 60s with minor or no health complaints and who exercises regularly.
“They are not your grandparents. They are your colleague, your boss, your Pilates buddy. They are people very much still contributing to society who would perform well on any standard measure of fitness.”
Boris Johnson urged people to stop all non-essential contact with others.
The PM also warned that the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly across the country and it was time to take radical action.
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