London's hospitals will be overwhelmed by Covid patients in TWO weeks: Stark NHS briefing reveals how - in a BEST CASE scenario - 2,000 beds are needed even after Nightingale is opened

London's hospitals will be overwhelmed by Covid-19 in less than two weeks even in a 'best' case scenario, an official briefing reportedly warns.

Medical director at NHS London Vin Diwakar provided the worrying analysis to medical directors of the capital's hospital trusts over a Zoom call this afternoon.

Even if coronavirus patients grew at the lowest likely rate and capacity is increased - including opening the Nightingale - the NHS would still be short 2,000 general, acute and ICU beds by January 19, the HSJ reports.

Three scenarios are laid out for both G&A and intensive care - 'best', 'average' and 'worse'. These account for the impact of four per cent daily growth, five per cent growth and six per cent growth, respectively.

The briefing shows that the NHS in London had just 46 spare ICU beds on January, which is 3 per cent of its overall capacity. Over 70 per cent of its critical beds were taken up by people with Covid.

On the same date there were just spare 720 general and acute beds, 5 per cent of its total, and more than 40 per cent were in use by infected patients.

It comes after Britain breached 1,000 daily coronavirus deaths for the first time since April and declared another record-high number of cases with 62,322 more positive tests.

Department of Health data shows the grim figure of 1,041 laboratory-confirmed deaths — only the 10th time the UK has topped the milestone — is UK's highest daily count since April 21.

And experts fear the death toll will continue to spiral as the soaring cases over the past three weeks translates to more deaths as people get sicker.

Statistics show it is the third day in a row Britain has posted a record number of cases, following from the 60,916 yesterday and the 58,784 the day before. It is also 24.6 per cent up on last Wednesday's count of 50,023.

In another day of coronavirus chaos:

Hospitals across England are seeing more coronavirus patients than they did in the first wave in 2020 (Pictured: Staff in an intensive care ward in St George's Hospital in London)

GP dishing out Covid jab says they have had NO doses despite being 'raring to go'

A GP on the frontline of Britain's great coronavirus vaccine push has revealed doctors have still not received doses that were supposed to arrive last month, amid fears Boris Johnson has over-promised with his pledge to jab 13million Brits and end lockdown by March.

Dr Rosemary Leonard, an NHS family doctor who works in South London, said her practices were 'raring to go' and had been waiting on their first batch of vaccinations since December 28.

But she claimed the delivery date has been pushed back three times already, with the first doses now not due to arrive until January 15, more than a fortnight late.

Dr Leonard, who also writes a column for the Daily Express newspaper, warned the vaccine roll out was becoming a 'postcode lottery for patients', and believes the delay is the result of 'central supply issues'.

Despite being just days into the rollout of the Oxford vaccine, there has already been finger-pointing between the Government, regulators and the jab's manufacturer AstraZeneca over who is to blame for the delays.

Matt Hancock and NHS bosses have suggested manufacturing has been too slow, while the Prime Minister has blamed the UK's stringent batch testing rules which mean every deliver of vaccine needs to be quality checked.

It comes as independent pharmacists begged the Government to let small chains dish out vaccinations to help Number 10 fulfill its ambitious vaccine promises, which will require jabbing a mammoth 3million Brits a week.

MailOnline has spoken to at least half a dozen membership bodies which claim there are 11,000 pharmacies 'ready, willing and able' to assist in the rollout of the programme. They say they are being held back by more Government red tape.

A GP on the frontline of Britain's great coronavirus vaccine push today revealed doctors have still not received doses that were supposed to arrive last month.

Dr Rosemary Leonard, an NHS family doctor who works in South London, said her practices were 'raring to go' and had been waiting on their first batch of vaccinations since December 28.

But she claimed the delivery date has been pushed back three times already, with the first doses now not due to arrive until January 15, more than a fortnight late.

Dr Leonard warned the vaccine roll out was becoming a 'postcode lottery for patients', and believes the delay is the result of 'central supply issues'.

Meanwhile shocking footage from an intensive care unit has revealed the extent of the coronavirus crisis and the strain it is piling on the NHS.

Emotional doctors and nurses were seen struggling at London's University College Hospital while caring for the growing amount of coronavirus patients.

Operating theatres and some paediatric rooms have even been converted into intensive care units to deal with the ever-growing number of patients. Footage filmed by the BBC showed the alarming reality on hospital wards.

One patient, Attila, 67, opened up about the trauma of suffering from the virus. He said: 'It knocked me out. I didn't think I would make it. There is no oxygen around. It's very frightening.'

A doctor went on to explain that if the hospital is forced to keep increasing its capacity at this rate it will only be able to last another week before it cannot provide intensive health care to all patients.

The high street has also thrown its weight behind the rollout of the mass vaccination scheme to get life back to normal by spring.

Bensons for Beds today revealed it has written to the Government, offering all 250 of its stores across the UK to serve as temporary vaccination centres. And the owner of the London nightclub G-A-Y claimed this morning he'd written to Westminster Council putting forward his venue.

So far only 1.3million people in the UK have been vaccinated with the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech jabs since the programme launched a month ago. There is a growing clamour today for the process to be ramped up dramatically - with concerns that local chemists and other facilities are not being used enough.

In an attempt to justify the decision to send England into its third national lockdown, Mr Johnson also said the ONS report published yesterday showing the extent of infections across the country as well as rising hospitalisations showed it was 'inescapable that the facts are changing and we must change our response'.

Dr Rosemary Leonard , an NHS family doctor who works in South London, said her practices were 'raring to go' and had been waiting on their first batch of vaccinations since December 28. But she claimed the delivery date has been pushed back three times already, with the first doses now not due to arrive until January 15, more than a fortnight late

Emotional doctors and nurses were seen struggling at London's University College Hospital while caring for the growing amount of coronavirus patients

Gavin Williamson confirms TEACHERS will decide GCSE and A-Level grades

Teachers will decide school pupils' GCSE, A-level and AS-level grades this summer after exams were scrapped due to Covid-related school closures, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed today.

The exams that were due to be sat in May and June this year will be replaced by school-based assessments, he told the Commons in a statement this afternoon.

The under-pressure minister finally faced MPs amid chaos over the decision to close schools during the new lockdown.

He told MPs schools will be required to produce between three and five hours of online lessons per day while they are closed for up to three months.

Telling MPs that 'our schools have not suddenly become unsafe', he said they are 'much better prepared than last March' to implement home-learning.

He said: 'We have set out clear, legally binding requirements for schools to provide high-quality remote education. This is mandatory for all state-funded schools and will be enforced by Ofsted.

'We expect schools to provide between three and five hours teaching a day, depending on the child's age. If parents feel their child's school is not providing suitable remote education they should first raise their concerns with the teacher or headteacher and, failing that, report the matter to Ofsted.'

He added: 'I will not apologise for being enthusiastic to ensure that we had been able to be in a position to roll out exams - but we do recognise where we are as a result of this pandemic, we have to take a different course and that is why we're taking the route we are.'

He said the details of how the teacher assessments would work were being 'fine-turned' along with Ofsted, exam boards and teaching unions.

He told MPs: 'So we had no choice but to return to a national lockdown in England with similar measures being adopted by the devolved administrations so that we can control this new variant until we can take the most likely victims out of its path with vaccines.'

When Mr Johnson announced the lockdown on Monday night he said the measures would be reviewed in the middle of February.

But the regulations being voted on by MPs this afternoon are due to last in law until the end of March.

Mr Johnson tried to assuage Tory fears that the measures could still be in place in April but also insisted the nation must be 'extremely cautious about the timetable ahead'.

He said: 'As was the case last spring our emergence from the lockdown cocoon will not be a big bang but a gradual unwrapping.

'That is why the legislation this House will vote on later today runs until March 31, not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a regional basis, carefully brick-by-brick, as it were, breaking free of our confinement but without risking the hard won gains that our protections have given us.'

Mr Johnson said schools will be the 'very first things to reopen' when lockdown measures can start to be eased.

Sir Keir Starmer said Labour will support the new lockdown as he warned the UK is facing 'perhaps the darkest moment of the pandemic'.

But he said the situation is not the result of 'bad luck' and that it 'follows a pattern' as he accused the Government of failing to heed the warnings of experts and of repeatedly failing to act swiftly enough.

'In the first wave of the pandemic the Government was repeatedly too slow to act and we ended 2020 with one of the highest death tolls in Europe and the worst-hit economy of major economies,' he said.

'In the early summer, a Government report called 'Preparing for a challenging winter' warned of the risk of a second wave, of the virus mutating and of the NHS being overwhelmed.

'It set out the preparations the Government needed to take, I put that report to the Prime Minister at PMQs in July.

'Throughout the autumn Track and Trace didn't work. Sage advised a circuit-break in September but the Prime Minister delayed for weeks before acting.

'We had a tiered system that didn't work and then we had the debacle of the delayed decision to change the rules on mixing at Christmas.

'The most recent advice about the situation we're now in was given on December 22 but no action was taken for two weeks until Monday of this week.

'These are the decisions that have led us to the position we're now in – and the vaccine is now the only way out and we must all support the national effort to get it rolled out as quickly as possible.'

There is growing anger on the Tory backbenches over the Government's handling of the pandemic.

Boris Johnson under fire over delayed border testing plan

Boris Johnson was under pressure today to sort out plans to demand people have a negative Covid test result before they enter Britain.

Ministers have indicated that such a requirement is coming in a bid to block any influx of new variants of coronavirus after a South African strain was found in the UK.

But no firm details have yet been released and the Prime Minister came under fire in the Commons today over when they will be brought in and how much notice will be given.

It came as new figures from Labour showed that just three in every 100 people arriving in the UK are being checked to see if they are complying with quarantine requirements.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has written to Priti Patel to demand 'an urgent review and improvement plan of quarantine arrangements'.

He claimed the current system of checking up on only a fraction of people is leaving the UK 'defenceless and completely exposed' to importing coronavirus variants.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer took aim at the PM in the Commons today as politicians returned to vote on the new lockdown rules.

'The Prime Minister knows there is real concern about the rapid transmission of this disease. There are new strains being detected in South Africa, Denmark and elsewhere. The quarantine system isn't working,' Sir Keir said.

'The Prime Minister said yesterday that we will be bringing in extra measures at the border. I have to ask, why are those measures not introduced already? They have been briefed to the media for days but nothing has happened.'

Mr Johnson gave no details and only offered a bland statement, saying: 'I think it is vital we protect our borders and protect this country from the readmission of the virus from overseas and that is why we took tough action in respect of South Africa when the new variant became apparent there and we will continue to take whatever action is necessary to protect this country from the readmission of the virus.'

Some senior Conservative MPs had joined the Opposition in calling for the introduction of another national lockdown.

But the idea of hardening the restrictions sparked fury from other Conservatives, who insisted the country's experience of the pandemic shows that lockdowns do not work and are crippling the economy.

Tory MP Mark Harper, who chairs the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown sceptics, has demanded a 'substantial relaxation' of the restrictions as soon as the four top priority groups have been vaccinated.

Writing in the Telegraph he said: 'Achieving this crucial goal must now become the central, overriding focus of the Government.

'We need to start seeing daily vaccination reports updating MPs and the public to ensure we are making the progress we need.'

He added: 'Once these groups have been vaccinated, and have become immune to the disease, this should be a clear threshold for when a substantial relaxation in restrictions can begin.'

Tory colleague and fellow CRG member Steve Baker later tweeted that he agreed with Mr Harper, adding: 'Once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, draconian restrictions must be substantially removed.'

Many Conservative MPs are pushing the Government to spell out the exact circumstances in which the lockdown will be lifted.

Tory former minister Jeremy Wright told Mr Johnson in the Commons the Government needed to be 'more definitive' on when curbs could be eased.

A furious Sir Desmond Swayne blasted the restrictions, telling Mr Johnson: 'Pubs can't compete with supermarkets for off sales, even within a household you can't play tennis or golf.

'Notwithstanding the assault on liberty and livelihoods, why are these regulations pervaded by a pettifogging malice?'

Mr Johnson replied: 'Pettifogging, yes, malicious, no. I am going to have to take the hit here, the intention is to stop the virus, protect the NHS and to save lives.

'To do that we have to engage in restricting transmission between human beings.'

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, said 'many' MPs are concerned at being asked to approve a lockdown which could last until the end of March.

Speaking in the Commons he said: 'I welcome the Prime Minister's assurance that this House will be consulted on the lifting of restrictions, should it be possible before the end of March, but can I say to him that many of us are concerned at being asked to approve a lockdown which could continue until March 31.

'Can I ask (Mr Johnson) to reconsider and to offer the House a vote at the end of January and at the end of February as well, not on whether to lift restrictions, but on whether to continue them or not?'

The 25 per cent of deaths caused by Covid-19 (shown graph right) is the highest proportion so far during the second wave, and it means that the total number of people to have died in that week is significantly higher than at the same time in previous years (graph left)

NHS statistics show that it is rare for people under the age of 40 to die of Covid-19, with 100 of the 17,572 fatalities in November and December in that age group

Tony Blair says UK needs to accelerate Covid vaccine scheme

Former prime minister Tony Blair today said the UK needs to dramatically accelerate its coronavirus vaccination programme in order to lift lockdown rules in the spring.

Claiming 'it's not complicated' on live TV this morning as he launched a 'blue-print' for improving the country's vaccine roll-out, Mr Blair suggested restrictions could ease 'significantly' in February if the NHS scales up to millions of jabs every week.

As supplies flow into the country in the coming weeks, Mr Blair said, officials should strain every sinew to make sure every dose is used as soon as possible. He said there should be pop-up vaccine centres and mobile ones, that pharmacies should be used, and volunteers recruited en masse.

Polling stations, pubs and offices should be used as hubs and supplies could provide as many as three million doses per week by the end of February, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change said in a report.

By the end of February, the institute claims that half the population could have had the first dose of a vaccine to protect them from Covid-19. Britain has only pledged to vaccinate 13million of the most vulnerable residents by the middle of next month.

Mr Blair has become involved in the vaccine policy after he was the first to publicly suggest restricting jabs to one dose to begin with and stretching them further, avoiding holding back supplies to ensure people get a second one. This has since become the official policy of the Government's roll-out.

Mr Johnson replied: 'I can't believe it will be until the end of March that the House has to wait before having a new vote and a new discussion of the measures we have to take.'

Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh said many of his colleagues who will vote in favour of the rules 'out of loyalty or because we want to preserve the Government's authority' are 'worried' about successive lockdowns being 'less and less effective'.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson is facing a Cabinet split over his decision to close schools across England.

The Prime Minister initially sided with hawks led by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson who wanted classes to remain open.

But he switched to agree with doves including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Michel Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, after being presented with new data showing the scale of the problem facing the nation, the Financial Times reported.

Mr Johnson's statement to MPs came after the Government's vaccines tsar today admitted that the NHS will need to be giving around three million vaccine doses a week by February to meet the PM's target.

Nadhim Zahawi said the goal of covering more than 13million of the most vulnerable within seven weeks was 'very stretching' – but can be delivered.

There is a growing clamour today for the vaccination process to be ramped up - with concerns that local chemists and other facilities are not being used enough.

So far around 1.3 million people in the UK have been vaccinated with the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech jabs and Mr Zahawi said there will be a 'massive acceleration' in the coming days.

Challenged that the weekly figure would need to be more like three million than two million to hit the PM's target, Mr Zahawi nodded and said: 'You're going to see that increase – the NHS have got a very clear plan.

'We've got a fantastic team working, seven days a week, all hours to deliver this.

'No doubt, it is a stretching target. But I think it's one that we should absolutely look to deliver.'

Sickening moment maskless 'Karen' COUGHS in the face of grocery store customer, then claims she doesn't have to wear a mask because she 'isn't sick'

A woman was captured on camera following a customer through a supermarket as she coughs on her after claiming she does not need a mask because she is not sick. Video of the incident, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter alone, allegedly took place in a Su per Saver in Lincoln, Nebraska according to Twitter user @davenewworld_2. In it, an unidentified woman was captured dramatically coughing as she smiles saying 'Excuse me! I'm coming through' in the direction of the customer recording her. Scroll down for video An unidentified woman was captured dramatically coughing as she smiles saying 'Excuse me! I'm coming through' in the direction of a woman recording her A woman was captured on camera following a customer as she coughs on her in a supermarket without a mask on claiming she does not need one because she is not sick @chaiteabugz #karen #covid #karens #karensgonewild #karensalert #masks we were just wearing a mask at the store. ¿ o

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