UK could use hotels for patients in further Covid backup plan, says minister

Hotels could be used for patients who no longer need full hospital treatment, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday, as part of a further Covid-19 backup plan the government is not yet actively putting in place.

"This obviously would be a further backup plan... We consider all the options," Hancock told the BBC.

"This would be for step-down patients so patients who have been in hospital, who no longer need the full hospital treatment but aren't quite ready to go home."

Hanock also said that the deliveries of Covid vaccines to Britain are on track and sufficient to meet the government's vaccination targets, although he declined to give figures on supplies.

"It's being delivered on track, according to the supply schedules, but the exact numbers per day and per week do move around because each batch has to be tested and has to pass these rigorous safety checks," Hancock said on BBC radio.

"So that's why the commitment we've made is over a number of weeks because we will, we'll get this, the supply and the system, increasingly smooth, over time.

"We have enough in the supply chain coming through to be able to deliver against that target," he added, referring to a government goal to offer a vaccine to all people over 70, extremely vulnerable people and health care workers by Feb. 15.