Prince William rebukes 999 operator over coronavirus fears – ‘Don’t shake hands!’
KATE, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge became the first royals to visit coronavirus front line workers.
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During the visit to a call centre in Croydon, Prince William jokingly rebuked a worker who attempted to shake his hand despite the coronavirus outbreak. The centre deals with calls in southeast London with 999 having the busiest three days in history according to the Daily Mail, with the non-emergency 111 number also seeing high levels of demand. Garrett Emmerson, the chief executive of London Ambulance Service, said: “We are all learning new ways of behaving socially as a result of this, and indeed new ways of working.
“We were talking with the Duke about potential future visits if we are in further stages of social distancing - we may be doing remote conferencing for events like this.
“That's certainly a possibility in the coming weeks and months.”
William and Kate poured hand sanitiser onto themselves twice during the visit.
The Prince was previously a pilot with East Anglian Air Ambulance.
William replied “don't shake hands!” after a worker at the centre asked for a photo but reached for a handshake as well.
The Duke explained: “We can do a photograph if we are not within a metre of each other.”
The worker in question was supervisor Courtney Campbell who said: “I guess it's just polite, isn't it?
“In the professional environment we are so used to being greeted and shaking hands with each other.”
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William and Kate made sure to stand two metres away from others to highlight the importance of social distancing.
Paramedic Euan Flood spoke of the increasing strain on 111: “We are getting calls one after the other.
“Currently we have a few hundred calls waiting to be called back, anything from a day to two, three days old.
“We are finding that people are quite understanding when we call them back.”
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Agatha Nortley-Meshe, a GP and assistant medical director of London Ambulance Service, expanded: “Within the massive volume of calls, there are a lot of people asking for advice and reassurance.
“But there are also some really sick people in there.
“It's about making sure we get people to the right place, we get people the advice they need, we get people the care they need.'
The death toll in the United Kingdom is approaching 150 from more than 3,000 cases.
London has over 1,000 cases, more than three times the southeast of England, which is the second worst-hit part of the United Kingdom.
The only part of the United Kingdom, which had less than 100 cases at 3pm Friday was Northern Ireland.
The province had just 77 cases.
The epicentre of the outbreak has moved away from China to Europe.
The United States is also beginning to feel the strain with some states imposing lockdown procedures.