Coronavirus: Britain’s call to arms to help the most vulnerable

Britain has begun galvanising an army of volunteers to help more than 1.5 million elderly and vulnerable people in self-isolation.

Friends maybe, but these two were keeping their distance as they chatted in Clapham Common in south London. Picture: AFP

Britain has begun galvanising an army of volunteers to help more than 1.5 million elderly and vulnerable people in self-isolation.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock made a national call for more than 250,000 volunteers to help those who in the most severe form of house lockdown: no visitors, no outside walks or shopping trips.

These are mainly elderly, the over 70s and those with serious health conditions whom the country is trying to wrap a protective barrier around to save their lives.

While Mr Hancock was asking for National Health Service volunteers to do the shopping, collect medicines and conduct phone checks with those being shielded, the sudden spike in deaths in Spain underscored the British ­approach to those most at risk.

The crisis in Spain appears to be outstripping the chaos in northern Italy, with the Catalonia region ­experiencing a sharp rise in cases and deaths, alongside Madrid.

On Tuesday 566 people in Spain died of the virus in 24 hours, with the death toll rising to more than 3000.

Early studies of 16,000 infections in Spain show the most common patient is a man over 80 with previous conditions, particularly coronary disease.

While the disease affects women only slightly less, the ­severity of the disease disproportionately hits men. About 90 per cent of Spanish deaths involve people over 70.

Earlier this week the British government sent a letter telling the elderly and vulnerable to immediately isolate and be shielded from the virus for at least 12 weeks.

Others forced into home confinement include organ transplant recipients, cancers patients, those with severe respiratory conditions, diseases such as cystic fibrosis, ­severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and people on immunosuppression therapies. Pregnant women were also advised “to shield’’ out of an abundance of caution taken by Chief Medical ­Officer Chris Whitty.

Britain is preparing for an avalanche of cases in the coming weeks and is preparing a 4000-bed temporarily hospital called The Nightingale, at the Excel conference centre in East London.

Mr Hancock said the health service had been boosted by the ­injection of 35,000 workers, made up of 11,800 former NHS workers, 5500 final-year medics and 18,700 final-year student nurses who will move to the frontline.

He said the government had purchased antibody tests and would soon be able to test health workers to ascertain if they had immunity to the virus.

Other NHS workers were trying to return to Britain on the few flights available from Australia.

Paramedic Ned Starling and his girlfriend, who is a nurse, said they were in a social media group of 500 NHS workers trying to get back. Mr Starling was in Sydney sorting a flight, having travelled around Australia for three months.

“If there’s any way of just promoting this idea that if there is ­repatriation, there’s a whole bunch of useful people that are willing to come back now, as soon as possible, to work,” he told the Press ­Association.

“I personally feel that these are people that need to be back in the country. My reason for wanting to come back is really because I want to provide some help at home.”