Doctors in Unite believe that comprehensive, publicly coordinated and community based ‘isolate, trace and support’ procedures are vital for control of the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdown is eased. To keep the frequency of new cases in the community manageable people must be supported to self isolate once they are identified as potentially infectious. To this end […]
Tag: coronavirus
We believe that the failure of the UK government to properly coordinate testing for COVID-19 has contributed to the UK suffering the highest death toll in Europe. Countries that have had lower mortality adopted robust testing strategies early on. Testing centres are not local to where most people live. A common stipulation is that they […]
The UK has been in lockdown since March 23rd 2020 in an attempt to slow down the spread of COVID-19. Six weeks on the number of new cases per day has begun to decrease and the government and businesses are clamouring to restart the UK economy. We believe that people’s health should come before profit […]
As a paediatrician, I share the grave concerns of nurse Ian Wilson who has two children at school in Lewisham and experience of working with covid-19 infected patients. In an open letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock last week, he pleaded that we were not enrolled against our will in a giant experiment that could […]
Richard Horton, respected editor of the medical journal ‘the Lancet’, aptly summed up the current pandemic in the following words: “Coronavirus is the greatest global science policy failure in a generation. Austerity blunted the ambition and commitment of government to protect its people. The objective was to diminish the size and role of the state. […]
It is an insult for the government to claim that a life assurance pay out of £60,000 to the families of a health or social care worker who dies of COVID-19 in any way compensates for the loss of life. Despite their protestations that they “will do whatever it takes”, this again shows the scant […]
Since the start of the lockdown we have called for contact tracing and widespread testing as the only means to establish the true prevalence of COVID-19. This is what the World Health Organisation urged all countries to do from the very beginning. We welcome Matt Hancock’s announcement of testing for symptomatic key workers and their […]
This week, Dr Jack Czauderna joins the podcast to talk about contract tracing and his upcoming coronavirus pilot study in Sheffield.
It is not possible to undertake any meaningful planning for an exit strategy from the current lockdown without an understanding of COVID-19’s prevalence and our current levels of immunity. On April 2nd Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised to test 100,000 people daily by the end of the month. On that same day the UK was testing ten times […]
Dr Jackie Applebee joins the podcast today to discuss personal protective equipment.
Doctors in Unite 