Coronavirus: mood of anxiety as hospitals await rush

Every day for a week I was waiting for the letter or a text to arrive from the National Health Service. But no, nothing.

And so on Friday — the very day British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scaled up orders to close schools, pubs, clubs, restaurants, health clubs, theatres, and everyone was swerving on the other side of the road to keep 2m apart — I nervously rode my bike to St Mary’s Hospital in London.

There was security at the door and an old man with a walking stick being helped by his daughter, but everything else was shuttered.

I walked down silent corridors eerily empty, carefully prising open doors with my foot to a waiting room where I had the choice of the 50 chairs. Not too far away at another entrance, ambulances came and went and the frenzied scene there, frontline staff say, couldn’t be more different.

Two masked doctors and a nurse excised a troublesome mole from just below my neck. Seven patients were due on their shift, but two had already cancelled, one an elderly patient and another in his 30s, both of whom thought the risk of going to the hospital was too great in this grim time.

While quickly sewing me up with nine stitches, Dr Lina said they were keeping the cancer surgery going, for now. But all new consultations were being done over the phone.

Other departments, except maternity, have been turned into emergency wards. Operating theatres have been converted into intensive care.

Private hospitals have opened up their 8000 beds, 1200 more ventilators and 20,000 staff. Elective surgery has been cancelled. Hospital executive teams send out daily video emails to staff.

The positive cases listed by each region are only those who have been confirmed in hospital and are thus seriously ill. Many others are on ventilators, but their results haven’t come back yet.

Engineers from Rolls-Royce and McLaren are working on making new ventilators and even veterinary surgeons have been asked to donate their equipment to the national cause.

Everyone knows the tsunami of coronavirus patients is about to strike and the nation is anxious.

Uncomfortably, Britain is tracking parallel to what has happened in Italy, precisely two weeks behind.

Italy has hit 4825 deaths. A fortnight ago, it was 233. On Saturday, Britain had 233 deaths.

Britain’s top scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, has told Westminster that if the country has 20,000 deaths it will be a good outcome as some modelling shows that without strict isolating measures the death toll could hit 250,000.

All the while, there has been a flight to the country. Rich Londoners with second homes have gone to the coastal regions of Cornwall or to their estates.

In north Norfolk, a beautiful rural coastal region, the local parliamentarians have issued urgent pleas for Londoners not to travel because the elderly are at risk.

“More holidaymakers will exacerbate our local food provision and supermarket delivery service,’’ North Norfolk MP Duncan Baker said.

‘’We strongly urge people not stockpile and put pressure on our food supply.

“Above all, visitors from densely populated areas such as London may very well bring the virus to an area which so far is experiencing a lower number of cases.’’

Sunday was Mother’s Day across the country and Mr Johnson, who on Friday had quipped he would see his mother, rowed back on that with an urgent plea to keep away.

“The best thing is to ring her, video call her, Skype her, but to avoid any unnecessary physical contact or proximity,” he said.

“And why? Because if your mother is elderly or vulnerable, then I am afraid all the statistics show that she is much more likely to die from coronavirus.

“We cannot disguise or sugar-coat the threat.”