2 2GN The Sunday Times February 6, 2022NEWS
FIND US ONposition of power and
authority as a policeman to
abuse me”. The sexual
harassment, which happened
in 2011 but was reported in
2020, led her to refrain from
contacting the police at times
when she felt unsafe, she
said.
“I still feel, as do many
women, that I am just as
likely to be harmed by the
police officer that responds to
my call as I am by a stranger
on the street.”
O’Connor says she isSex pest
Met officer
allowed to
keep job
speaking out to help other
women because the force has
an “institutional problem”.
She said: “The first step
would be the Met
acknowledging there’s a
culture of misogyny.
“My experience tells me
that they are still protected. If
what I have seen is the
process by which the Met is
held to account... it is
woefully inadequate, and
something needs to change.”
Her legal case will focus on
the investigation into Mason,
which her lawyer Caoilfhionn
Gallagher QC said had
“belittled her” and was
“blind to the sexist
misogynistic nature” of the
detective’s behaviour.
Dick has been fighting to
stay in her job following the
death of Sarah Everard last
year, who was killed by the
serving police officer
Wayne Couzens.
Full story, page 5→Continued from page 1PM will
need tanks
to drag
him out
in the No 10 flat during
lockdown. These included
the celebration on November
13, 2020, when Abba songs
were played loudly after
Dominic Cummings, the
prime minister’s former chief
adviser, resigned.
Johnson said: “This week I
promised change so that we
can get on with the job the
British public elected us to
do. We need to continue our
recovery from the pandemic,
help hundreds of thousands
more people into work, anddeliver our ambitious agenda
to level up the entire country,
improving people’s
opportunities regardless of
where they’re from.
“The changes I’m
announcing to my senior
team today will improve how
No 10 operates, strengthen
the role of my cabinet and
backbench colleagues, and
accelerate our defining
mission to level up the
country.”
Johnson is expected to
bolster his team further in the
coming days with the
appointment of David
Canzini, a protégé of the
Australian pollster Sir
Lynton Crosby, as a political
aide in charge of liaising with
MPs.
A small reshuffle is also
likely to follow. It could result
in the chief whip, Mark
Spencer, being replaced by
Nigel Adams or Chris Pincher,
who has been leading the
shadow whipping operation.→Continued from page 1LOTTERY8, 24, 36, 39, 46, 56
Bonus 48SATURDAY
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Lucky Stars 3, 7FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 461%
Proportion of patients admitted to
ICUs in December who were unjabbednot be used in the wider
health service.
The Nightingales have
proved to be an expensive
exercise. The eight hubs set
up in car parks during the
Omicron wave have also cost
about £11 million to set up.
Only one at the Royal Preston
Hospital in Lancashire has
admitted any patients.
Overall the seven
Nightingale hospitals, with
sites including London,for field hospitals and the
order made was based on the
demand projections at the
time. After the closure of the
Nightingale hospitals, it was
deemed that the beds could
not be used in any other
existing hospitals as the
specifications were not to the
current standard as
implemented in all hospitals.”
NHS England did not
respond to specific questions
to explain why the beds couldvariant, which had placed thousands of
patients in ICU since the summer. Domi-
nant two months ago, it now accounts for
just 0.2 per cent of cases. There are three
“sub-variants” of Omicron circulating in
Britain, but all are producing mild illness.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a
leading statistician, said: “The Omicron
wave saw a huge rise in cases, and a mod-
erate rise in hospitalisations. And yet ICU
admissions showed no rise whatsoever,
and now are rapidly falling. Since more
than half of ICU admissions have not
been vaccinated, this suggests an intrinsi-
cally milder virus rather than just
increased protection from vaccination.”
The number of admissions is so low
that the research centre, which covers
England, Wales and Northern Ireland,
will no longer publish weekly reports.
In November, less than 10 per cent of
Covid patients in intensive care were
admitted for other reasons; in recent
days, it is more than 50 per cent. The
median age of Omicron patients admittedIntensive care free
of Covid patients
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As few as 20 Covid patients a day are
being admitted to intensive care, as Omi-
cron fails to cause serious illness among
most vaccinated people.
A report from the Intensive Care
National Audit and Research Centre sug-
gests a collapse in the number of patients
becoming very unwell. It put the number
of admissions to ICU of Covid patients at
19 on January 23. About 400 people were
being admitted daily at the peak of the
second wave in January last year.
Although the most recent figures will
be revised upwards because of reporting
lags, Professor David Harrison, the cen-
tre’s head statistician, said the number of
admissions at the end of January would
still be “in the region of 20 to 30 per day”.
In England, 425 patients are on
mechanically ventilated beds — the low-
est level since July 11, a week before “free-
dom day”. On January 23, last year, there
were more than 3,700.
A consequence of Omicron’s rapid rise
has been the defeat of the deadly DeltaTom Calver Data Projects EditorAt the height of the
second wave in January
last year, 400 people a
day were being admitted.
Now it’s barely 20£13m wasted on inferior Nightingale beds
About £13 million has been
written off by the National
Health Service after
hundreds of beds bought for
Nightingale hospitals cannot
be used for patients on other
wards.
The loss, recorded in NHS
England’s annual accounts,
also includes storage for the
beds for the seven
Nightingale field hospitals in
England opened during the
pandemic. The NHS said the
beds did not meet the
required standard.
A note in NHS England’s
accounts, published last
week, said the £13 million
loss “relates to emergency
beds that were procured for
the Nightingale hospitals at
the beginning of the
pandemic and includes
storage costs.
“These were bespoke bedsBristol, Birmingham and
Manchester, are expected to
cost taxpayers more than
£530 million.
Safety concerns for
patients at the Nightingale
hospitals, which struggled
to recruit enough staff to
look after patients, were such
that few were used as
intended.
The Nightingale hospital at
the ExCel conference centre
in east London admitted only
57 patients despite opening
with 500 beds and a total
capacity for 4,000.
An NHS England
spokesman said: “The
Nightingales were created to
provide additional capacity in
case this was needed through
the pandemic. This included
securing beds that were
appropriate for patient use,
with local areas using these as
needed.”
@ShaunLinternShaun Lintern Health Editorto intensive care, at 63, is about five years
higher than those with the Delta variant.
Dr Tom Wingfield, senior clinical lec-
turer at Liverpool University, said:
“Those admitted to ICU because of
Covid-19 are more likely to be unvacci-
nated, older, and/or have multiple
comorbidities or immunosuppression.
As in other parts of the hospital, there are
also people on ICU who have Covid-
incidentally and have been admitted for
other reasons.”
According to the latest figures, unvac-
cinated over-70s are 58 times more likely
to be admitted to intensive care than peo-
ple who with three vaccine doses.
Despite unvaccinated people making up
a very small percentage of the total popu-
lation, they compromised 61 per cent of
intensive care admissions in December.
Despite falling cases, “incidental”
Covid admissions, where patients come
in for something else but are infectious,
are still causing headaches. Dr Budoor Al
Budoor, an intensive care specialist
working in London, said: “Covid might
not actively be overwhelming the system.
But the Covid patients admitted weeks
and sometimes months ago still occupy
beds and have significant needs. What-
ever few patients we admit with Covid, or
for other reasons and who happen to
have Covid, cause logistic problems.”
Some modellers had presented sce-
narios of up to 10,000 admissions a day.
@TomHCalverHundreds of
beds bought for
Nightingale
wards do not
meet the
standards
required for
other NHS
hospitalsKhan seeks curbs on
dirty Russian money
than 88,000 in 2010.
Westminster has more
properties in this category
than any other local authority
but other London boroughs
including Tower Hamlets,
Kensington, Wandsworth,
Southwark and Lambeth have
also had strong growth over
the past decade. There are
85,451 property titles held by
foreign owners in the capital.
Many of the foreign-owned
properties in London are also
left empty and unused when
thousands are struggling to
get on the housing ladder or
to find somewhere affordable
to rent. The average price of a
property in London is more
than £500,000.
Khan, a former Labour MP
for Tooting who became
mayor in 2016, said: “The
truth is that property in
London plays a central role in
harbouring illicit funds from
around the world.”The mayor of London has
called for a register of
overseas property ownership
to stem the flow of Russian
“dirty money” into the city.
Sadiq Khan has urged the
government, which is
considering sanctions against
Russia if it invades Ukraine, to
take action to stop the capital
from being used for
international money
laundering. He said:
“Ministers have turned a
blind eye to the use of our
capital city as a safe harbour
for corrupt funds, which is
having a negative impact on
our international reputation
for transparency and our
local housing market.”
Almost 250,000 properties
in England and Wales are now
registered with buyers based
abroad. There were fewerCaroline Wheeler
Political EditorA model displays a creation by the designer Pablo
Lanzarote at a flamenco fashion show in SevilleCORRIDA OF POWER
RAUL CARO/EPABanca do Antfer
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