UK announces another 53,285 coronavirus cases and 613 deaths on New Year's Day
UK announces another 53,285 coronavirus cases and 613 deaths marking a 63% rise in infections in a week and four days in a row with more than 50,000 positive tests
- A staggering quarter of a million people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the UK since Monday this week
- Coronavirus second wave suspected to be being driven by super-infectious new variant of the virus
- Death count is down slightly from the past couple of days as bank holiday recording hiccups even out
- Today’s infection number is the second highest so far in the pandemic, following 55,892 yesterdayÂ
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Another 53,285 people in Britain have been diagnosed with Covid-19, marking four days in a row that there have been more than 50,000 positive tests announced.
The daily case count has surged 63 per cent in a week, from 32,275 last Friday, meaning a staggering 253,720 people have received positive test results since Monday this week.Â
And 613 more people have died with the virus, taking the total official death toll to 74,125, and Department of Health records show there were 23,823 people in hospital with the virus by December 28.
The count of fatalities has been erratic this week in the wake of a string of bank holidays, during which hospitals don’t record them as reliably. Death records were lower than usual over the long Christmas weekend, dropping to 230 deaths on Boxing Day, then higher than expected mid-week, rising to 981 on Wednesday, December 30. The week-long average is 554 deaths per day.
Coronavirus infections have surged over the Christmas holiday with the toughest lockdown measures for most of the country held off until Boxing Day or even later, allowing thousands of families to mix on December 25.
Cases are being driven up by the new super-infectious variant of coronavirus which emerged in the South East but has since spread nationwide.
And with London, Kent and Essex now at the epicentre of England’s second wave – two thirds of today’s cases (33,573) were from those three regions alone – pressure is piling onto hospitals in the area with some declaring they are already in ‘disaster mode’ even coping with admissions from a week or two ago when cases were lower.
Panic has gripped the NHS in London, with grim reports of ambulances queuing in the street outside A&E departments and one doctor warning she and her colleagues are already having to make tough choices about which patients should get ventilators.
London has once again become the centre of England’s crisis, with 15,089 of the cases confirmed today diagnosed in the capital city and hospitals there reporting that their wards are bursting at the seams.Â
Second worst affected was the South East, where a further 10,844 cases were confirmed today, followed by the East of England with 7,640.
These regions are the ones where the new variant, which may be 56 per cent more infectious and so fast-spreading that normal lockdown measures don’t work, emerged and where it now makes up a majority of infections.Â
Infections are significantly lower in the other regions, where the new variant does not appear to have got such a successful foothold, potentially because they were already in lockdown when it emerged.
For the North West there were 5,164 cases announced today, along with 3,079 in the East Midlands, 2,860 in the West Midlands, 2,175 in Yorkshire and the Humber, 2,104 in the South West and 1,340 in the North East.
