More NHS staff will die from coronavirus, Public Health England director warns

2 April 2020, 10:29 | Updated: 2 April 2020, 11:58

The medical director of Public Health England has told LBC that more NHS staff will die in the fight against coronavirus.

Five NHS doctors have died after testing positive for Covid-19 and Professor Paul Cosford said we need to be prepared for that number to increase.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, he said: "The vast majority of people - and NHS staff like any others - will be susceptible and not immune to coronavirus.

"The vast majority of people, especially those that are fit and well normally, will make a full recovery.

"Sadly, amongst the numbers of people who die, some of those will be NHS workers.

"It's always the case that NHS staff are at the frontline of dealing with new infectious diseases like this and they are amongst the groups that we must take every possible effort to look after and to say thank you for the wonderful work that they do."

Professor Cosford also said testing NHS workers was one of the biggest priorities they are working towards now.

He added: "It is clearly a significant number of people. I know a hospital yesterday managed to get 100 or more staff back into the workplace by testing a significant number of their staff.

"That is happening in hospitals all over the country. That's one of our focuses for getting staff back to work."