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73 NHS staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital test positive for coronavirus as 318 self-isolate at home

AFP via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images

More than 70 workers at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London have tested positive for coronavirus.

Some 181 staff members at the children's hospital have so far been tested, of which 73 were found to have the virus.

Around 315 workers are also now self-isolating at home, although the hospital insists this has not impacted its services.

Great Ormond Street itself has eight confirmed Covid-19 patients in its care at the moment.

A spokesman for the hospital said: "We continue to monitor Covid-19 related staff absence carefully which currently equates to six per cent of our workforce and are able to fully staff all of the services we have planned to run at this time.”

The Bloomsbury based centre is one of the world's leading children's hospitals and is the largest clinic for child heart surgery in the UK.

The news comes as the Government faces sustained criticism that NHS workers do not have the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep them safe while they treat patients with the infectious disease.

Former World Health Organisation director Anthony Costello first revealed the figures on Thursday, tweeting that he had received an email informing him of the outbreak in the hospital.

He shared a snippet from the message which read: "We now have eight Covid-19 positive patients across the hospital.

"Through our staff testing, we have had 73 confirmed Covid positive staff members out of 181 tested.

"318 staff members are currently off work because they, or someone in their household, are displaying symptoms. This is similar to yesterday."

Mr Costello went on to express concern that adequate measured were not being taken to protect workers in the hospital.

He said: "An informant tells me social distancing in the hospital is a fiction," before adding: "Many team members do handovers in a small office space without the use of masks."

However, Downing Street insists that PPE is now reaching the medical front line – with more than 45 million units delivered to NHS trusts and providers on Wednesday.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: “We have now delivered 397 million products of PPE over the past two weeks, including masks, alcohol hand rub and aprons.

“Yesterday, over 45.5 million units of PPE were delivered to 280 trusts and providers, including five million aprons, one million of the FFP3 face masks, six million surgical masks and 21 million gloves.

“We do recognise that there have been some distribution problems while we have been dealing with the surge in demand.

“We are confident that the supply is now reaching the front line. Where that is not the case there is a 24-hour NHS-run hotline where NHS and social care workers can call to request the PPE that they need.”

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