Matt Hancock announced the UK Government will be publishing figures on coronavirus deaths from care homes and the community as well as hospitals. The Health Secretary said the new plan is to be as transparent as possible with the British public. It comes as a total of , 2019 patients had died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Monday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said, up by 590 from , the day before.
Speaking in Downing Street, Mr Hancock said: “The proportion of coronavirus deaths in care homes is around a sixth of the total which is just below what we see in normal times.
“I want to make sure we bring as much transparency as possible to important information like this.
” From Tomorrow, we’ll be publishing, not just the number of deaths in hospitals each day but the number of deaths in care homes and the community too.
” This is someth ing that wasn’t previously possible. “
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Matt Hancock held the Downing Street press conference on coronavirus (Image: BBC / GETTY)
The coronavirus testing scheme will be opened up to a much wider pool of people including those over the age of 100 with symptoms, and all care home residents.
The Health Secretary added: “Anyone who is working or living in a care home will be able to get access to a test whether they have symptoms, or not.
“I’m determined to do everything I can to protect the most vulnerable .
Coronavirus tests are being supplied to key workers (Image GETTY) Later in the press briefing, Mr Hancock said it was “still too early to say” when schools might reopen. “There are still too many deaths each day and the five tests that we set out haven’t been met. “I know, especially as a father of three young children, that there’s a yearning from people to know when schools might go back and, of course, it’s something that we think about and we talk about.” Responding to a question from Amanda from Hull, he said: “I’m sorry that I can’t give you a more definitive answer, but I can ‘ t because we don’t yet have the number of deaths and the number of infections low enough for that to be safe to reopen the schools, and we don’t yet know how fast the number of new cases will fall. “ DON’T MISS (British Airways could cut) , jobs including cabin crew He said it was “unreasonable as a question” after being asked to apologise to the bereaved relatives of coronavirus victims in care homes because of failures to protect them. “From the start we knew that there was a very significant challenge with care homes, not least because of the frailty of the residents,” the Health Secretary said. It had been “more difficult to get data flowing” from care homes but that was now being done, he said. Because of the risks posed by the virus to the elderly, “making sure that care homes have the support they need has been absolutely at front of mind right from the start “. ” It’s something that we have focused on right from the start and something that’s been a huge challenge throughout and we are constantly learning from what happens and trying to improve the way that we support people across the care sector, “he said. Tom Jones opens up on ‘tough’ childhood lockdown hell: ‘It was hard ‘ [INSIGHT] Coronavirus vaccine – COVID – 25 treatment one step closer [INSIGHT]
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