Hospital beds, Staff, Doctors we just don't have enough.

We have 17,000 fewer NHS beds along with staff than we had in 2010 and the NHS was struggling before Covid-19 came along.
The effect of that is obvious in the current situation the NHS will get overwhelmed much sooner than it would have done.

We have the least amount of beds compared with any other country in the EU. The UK has about 2 beds per 1,000 people, Germany, by comparison, has 6.

https://www.ft.com/content/effd0dae-655f-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

We have fewer doctors than most other countries

https://www.ft.com/content/effd0dae-655f-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

The figures below were taken from data available at 22/03/20 00:06 GMT

The death rates in Germany are incredibly low, wonder why that is?

Italy
Coronavirus Cases = 53,578 Deaths = 4825 = 9%

Germany

Coronavirus Cases = 22,364 Deaths = 84 = 0.37%

UK

Coronavirus Cases = 5,015 Deaths = 233 = 4.64%

France
Coronavirus Cases = 14,459 Deaths = 562 = 3.88%


Cases in Italy passed the 100 mark reaching 157 on 23rd Feb 2020
Cases in Germany passed the 100 mark reaching 130 on 1st March 2020 Italy +8
Cases in the UK passed the 100 mark reaching 116 on 5th March 2020 Italy +12
Cases in France passed the 100 mark reaching 100 cases on 29th Feb 2020 Italy +6

We are approx 12 days behind Italy and if you go back 12 days on Italy figures they were at 9172 infections the UK is currently on 5,015 (4,157 fewer cases) so we are not matching Italy although this is unpredictable and we will run out of beds sooner.
We are approx 4 days behind Germany. If you go back 4 days on German figures they were at 9,367. Again we are not matching them with 4,352 fewer cases.
France reached 100 cases on Feb 29th so we are 5 days behind them. On March 15th France had 6,633 infections. This is closest to the UK but France still has 1,618 more infections.
Unfortunately, these figures don't show the true scale of what we are facing and I think we are about to find that out.
The long and the short of it is we don't have the hospital beds, staff, or doctors to cope.
Government policy to do the opposite of what the rest of the world was doing and WHO was recommending will cost a lot of lives.

Time will now tell, but this is a long-haul situation.


LINKS
bbc.- Have 17,000 NHS beds been cut in England?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/03/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/