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Two Doctors Launch Legal Challenge Against UK Gov’t Over Guidance on PPE in Hospitals - Reports

The United Kingdom has confirmed 616 new coronavirus-related fatalities over the past 24 hours, which brings the total death toll from the disease to 18,738, the Department of Health and Social Care said earlier in the day.
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Two doctors have launched a legal challenge against the UK government over a guidance on personal protective equipment in hospitals, Reuters reported, citing lawyers.

"We are incredibly concerned at the ever-growing numbers of healthcare workers who are becoming seriously unwell and dying due to COVID-19", the doctors, Meenal Viz and Nishant Joshi, said in a statement issued by the law firm Bindmans.

According to Reuters, the two doctors, a husband and wife who are expecting a child, have been "exposed to patients with COVID-19 and are concerned that current PPE guidance and availability are inadequate to protect them from infection".

"It is the government's duty to protect its healthcare workers, and there is great anxiety amongst staff with regards to safety protocols that seem to change without rhyme or reason", they said.

The UK government has been criticised by healthcare workers for its failure to provide enough medical equipment to NHS staff, The Guardian reported.

The reports came amid nationwide complaints about widespread shortages of such equipment, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisting on the government's belief that none of the deaths were due to reported shortages of PPE.

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