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According to the latest official data published, there were 445 deaths related to covid-19, less than the 613 reported the day before. The number of new infections has remained above 50 thousand for five consecutive days.
The total number of infections in the UK since the start of this health crisis now stands at 2,599,789 and the death toll stands at 74,570.
Experts consider that these alarming levels of cases are due to the appearance of a new, more contagious variant of the virus, which has led to an increase in restrictions to the maximum level in much of the territory.
The dire situation threatens to overwhelm hospitals, experts warn, at a time when high schools, universities and many elementary schools are delaying their return to school until January 18, when the Christmas break was expected to end on Monday.
The president of the British Medical Association, Andrew Goddard, warned today in statements to the BBC that Christmas and the new variant of the coronavirus will have “a great impact” in the coming weeks on the spread of the virus in the United Kingdom.
As of Monday, the United Kingdom will have two vaccines to face the health crisis, after the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, which joins that of Pfizer / BioNTech, was approved by regulators last week.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,827,565 deaths derived from more than 83.9 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report prepared by the French agency AFP.
