Coronavirus: One more death at Shropshire hospitals brings toll to 122
One more patient has died after testing positive for Covid-19 at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
The total number of deaths is now 122 at Shropshire hospitals - 110 at SaTH, seven at Shropshire Community Health and five at Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry.
A statement from SaTH said: "Sadly we can confirm that 110 patients being cared for at our hospitals, and who had tested positive for COVID-19, have died. One death has been announced today.
"Our thoughts and condolences are with the families and friends of those patients at this very difficult and distressing time."
A total of 12 new deaths have been confirmed in Wales, bringing the national total to 1,111. Five of the new deaths were in Powys.
The latest government figures released, which do include deaths away from hospital, put the UK-wide death toll at 31,855 although other official statistics suggest the death toll has already passed 36,500.
The news comes as the nation awaits Boris Johnson's announcement on lockdown changes.
The Prime Minister is dropping his “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” slogan in favour of “stay alert, control the virus and save lives” as he seeks to get people back to work.
Behavioural expert Professor Susan Michie, who is a member of the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), said Mr Johnson’s new messaging is “a long way” from being clear and consistent.
Leaders in all of the devolved nations have said they will not use the new message, which they were not consulted over.
Mr Johnson gave more detail on the new advice, saying people should “stay at home as much as possible” and “limit contact with other people”.
Mr Johnson is planning to urge workers who cannot do their jobs from home to begin returning to their workplaces while following social-distancing rules.
“This is the dangerous bit,” he warned ahead of the announcement.
It is understood that a warning system administered by a new “joint biosecurity centre” will detect local increases in infection rates, with the view to locally alter restrictions in England.
With the alerts ranging from green in level one to red in level five, Mr Johnson is expected to say the nation is close to moving down from four to three.
They say that action must be taken quickly so that “lessons can be learnt” from the Covid-19 crisis to help shape future responses, should the UK be hit by further waves of the virus.
A pre-action letter sent by the Doctor’s Association UK (DA) and the Good Law Project (GLP), who are bringing the challenge, details a list of “recurrent and systemic” failures in PPE procurement and supply.
The list includes the lack of gowns, visors or body bags in the Government’s PPE stockpile in February, as well as complaints about the widely reported shipment of 400,000 gowns sourced from Turkey, many of which were deemed unfit for use.
