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More Covid-19 patients are being treated in English hospitals than at the peak of the first wave, statistics show, as the UK records its highest number of new cases.
Daily figures released by England’s National Health Service show 20,426 confirmed Covid-10 patients were in the nation’s hospital beds on Monday, an increase of more than 5,000 patients in the past two weeks. The figures show that 1,641 of these patients were in beds with mechanical ventilation.
The current total of Covid-19 patients exceeds the highest recorded during the peak of the first wave: 18,974 on April 12. The number of patients fell below 1,000 for much of the summer, but hospitals saw a surge in Covid-19 admissions in October. The last time the number of patients fell below 10,000 was on November 1.
Monday also saw the highest recorded increase in cases in the UK, with 41,385 positive test results reported by the Department of Health and Social Care. That figure gives an estimated rate of 379 positive tests per 100,000 people in the UK.
The tests were not widely available during the first wave of the pandemic, so it is likely that the numbers of positive cases were much higher than those recorded in the spring.
A passenger wearing a mask due to the coronavirus pandemic talks on the phone waiting in a … [+]
AFP via Getty Images
The UK is currently fighting a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The variant is believed to spread more easily than other iterations of the virus and has been credited with a marked increase in cases in south-east England. But scientists don’t think it causes a more serious disease.
The exact origins of the new variant remain unknown, but travel-related cases to the UK have since been detected in countries such as India and South Korea, and across Europe. It’s worth noting that British researchers have sequenced more than 150,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes so far during the pandemic, about half of the total sequenced worldwide.
Experts believe that the three main vaccines will remain effective against this new variant, and UK regulators are expected to decide whether to approve a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and Astrazeneca in the coming days.
