MEDICS working at a coronavirus hospital in Italy have warned the UK to go into total lockdown or "get ready" for a "catastrophic emergency".

Disturbing images from the Bergamo hospital in Lombardy show patients in the emergency arrivals ward wearing plastic helmets and hooked up to ventilators because the intensive care unit is already full.

Doctors told Sky News they are struggling to handle the "absolute constant" influx of new patients in the north of the country which is now the epicentre of the crisis with 3,405 people dead, surpassing China.

Dr Lorenzo Grazioli, who previously worked for the NHS in Leicester for one year, urged the UK to follow the example of China and Italy and lock everything down.

He says it is the only way to beat the virus.

According to the broadcaster, the medics at Bergamo wanted Britain to see the footage and sent a simple message: "Get ready."

'GET READY'

Dr Grazioli said: "I have never felt so stressed in my life, I'm an intensivist, and I am quite used to intense moments, and the choices, and people are critical and die without any treatment, and you [usually] make the difference.

"But when you are at this point you realise that you are not enough.

"We are 100 anaesthetists, we are doing our best, but maybe it's not enough."

Doctors in the region are reportedly calling the "out of control" deadly outbreak “the Apocalypse” as the country recorded 427 new deaths in 24 hours while there are 41,000 recorded cases of deadly COVID-19.

The harrowing report says that only patients who are at the point of death are treated in Bergamo's over-crowded intensive care unit – others, who are only critically ill, are tended to in other wards.

Dr Roberto Cosentini told the broadcaster that coronavirus is not like the common flu, saying: "No, it's utterly another thing.

"More pneumonia than flu…it's a very severe pneumonia and so it's a massive strain for every health system."

He added: "Every day we see 50 to 60 patients who come into our emergency department with pneumonia and most of them are so severe they need very high levels of FIO2 or oxygen."

When the virus arrived here, there was no containment and it spread through the valleys very quickly.

"Some said it was the normal flu. We doctors knew it was not," said Dr. Luca Lorini, head of intensive care at the hospital.

Cemeteries in the region are also overwhelmed by new arrivals as the virus targets the country's ageing population.

Meanwhile, in Spain, the country is in total lockdown after their death toll hit 1,002 – climbing by 235 deaths in the past day – while France has followed suit after 371 people died.

However, the UK government has refrained from a full clampdown with people free to travel into work and socialise in bars and cafes.

Scientists advising the government warned that restrictions on daily life may have to be in place for a year, with periods of less stringent and more stringent measures.

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