Britain today announced 186 more coronavirus deaths as worrying official data shows the average number of daily victims has risen for the second day in a row.
Department of Health data shows the official daily toll is 7.5 per cent higher than the 173 recorded last Friday, amid mounting fears the UK could be rocked by a second wave of Covid-19 as lockdown eases.
The laboratory-confirmed death toll now stands at 43,414 – but separate grim government statistics show the real number of fatalities since the crisis began to spiral out of control is closer to 55,000.
Data shows the seven-day rolling average of daily deaths is now 121, up from 119 yesterday and 118 the day before – the first time it has increased for two days in a row since the end of May.
For comparison, almost 950 Britons were dying from Covid-19 each day during the peak of the outbreak in mid-April.
Despite signs of the death curve flattening, Scotland today recorded no new deaths – the first time no fatalities have been recorded on a weekday north of the border since the pandemic began.
Separate promising statistics released yesterday showed the R rate has remained below the dreaded level of one for yet another week and that the number of new cases is still shrinking by as much as 4 per cent each day.
In other coronavirus developments in Britain today:
- Britain’s biggest shopping centres including Lakeside and the Trafford Centre could have to close as their owner Intu admitted it will likely have to call in administrators;
- Boris Johnson warned of the danger of a ‘serious spike’ in coronavirus infections if people take ‘liberties’ with social distancing rules;
- The risk of dying from coronavirus after being hospitalised has plummeted since the peak of the outbreak, Oxford University statisticians found – dropping from 6 per cent to 1.5 per cent;
- Police chiefs warned that a ‘pressure cooker is building up’ which could erupt into an orgy of violence this summer as lockdown ends;
- Men working in factories or as security guards were being killed by coronavirus at more than twice the rate of healthcare staff during the height of the crisis in Britain, shock official data showed;
- Sweden’s top virus expert said the ‘world went mad’ with coronavirus lockdowns which ‘fly in the face of what is known about handling virus pandemics’.
Department of Health statistics released today showed 165,665 tests were carried out or posted yesterday. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.
But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month — since May 22.
Health chiefs also reported 1,006 more cases of Covid-19, which is slightly down on the 1,118 that were recorded yesterday. It means the official size of Britain’s outbreak now stands at 309,360 cases.
The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours — it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.
The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. For example, the Scottish government last Thursday announced two deaths – but the DH recorded nine north of the border.
Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync. Wales is not thought to be affected.
And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon — which only takes into account deaths in hospitals — does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.
For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities ‘as soon as they are available’.
NHS England today reported 67 more victims in hospitals across the country. Wales recorded two victims in all settings, followed by one in Northern Ireland and none in Scotland.
Health chiefs today revealed the death toll had jumped to 43,414, which is actually 184 more than yesterday’s toll – not 186.
But they admitted two deaths identified by Public Health Wales had been taken off the cumulative toll because they were duplicates.
It comes as it was revealed today that the risk of dying from coronavirus after being hospitalised has dropped since the peak of the outbreak, suggesting doctors are getting better at treating it.
Analysis by Oxford University shows that 6 per cent of people admitted to hospitals in England with the virus died at the beginning of April.
But the figures show by June 15, just 1.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients were dying of the disease – a quarter of the level at the peak of the crisis.
Oxford statisticians can’t pin down exactly why survival rates have fallen so much – but they believe doctors may be becoming better at treating the virus.
In April there was no approved medicine to treat Covid-19, a disease still shrouded in mystery after jumping from animals to humans at the end of 2019.
But now the NHS now has two drugs at its disposal to treat critically-ill patients – the Ebola medicine remdesivir and anti-inflammatory steroid dexamethasone.
Dexamethasone, a £5 steroid that has existed for decades, was the first drug proven to reduce the death rate among hospitalised patients needing oxygen.
Analysis by Oxford University shows that 6 per cent of people admitted to hospitals in England with the virus died at the beginning of April. But the figures show that by June 15, just 1.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients were falling victim to the disease – a quarter of the level at the peak
The evidence around remdesivir is more mixed but studies have shown it helps the most critically ill people who need ventilation.
There is probably also be fewer people catching the coronavirus in hospital than at the peak of the crisis, which may have contributed to the fall in death rates.
Hospital patients are inherently more likely to be already unwell or elderly and so are more likely to die if they do catch it.
Men working in factories or as security guards were twice as likely to die of coronavirus than healthcare workers during the height of the outbreak in Britain, shocking data also revealed today.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) experts analysed the occupations of all the 4,700 Covid-19 victims in England and Wales who were of working age (20-64) and died between March 9 and May 25.
Analysis showed 74 male security guards or bouncers died for every 100,000 men during the brunt of the crisis, followed by a rate of 73 for male factory workers.
In comparison, male nurses and doctors – who were treating the sickest Covid-19 patients, many without proper protective gear – died at a rate of 30 per 100,000 men, as a whole. The rate among ambulance staff (82.4) was still higher, however.
The ONS – who cautioned there was not enough data to accurately look at the most dangerous jobs for women – says its data does not prove these jobs are more dangerous than working in hospitals because it does not take into account ethnicity or deprivation, two factors linked to a higher risk of dying.
And statisticians warned the rate for factory and security workers will also be skewed upwards because there are many more healthcare workers.
For example, 130 male healthcare workers died from coronavirus during the two-and-a-half month period, compared to 62 deaths among factory employees.
Factory workers have worked throughout the crisis to keep the nation fed during lockdown, and are among the most likely to have been interacting with others when the disease was spreading at its fastest.
Security guards had to be deployed to supermarkets during the outbreak to ensure social distancing was adhered to inside shops and in queues, exposing them to hundreds of potential Covid-19 carriers each day.
Data also shows the death rate was higher in 17 different occupations for men, including taxi drivers (65), chefs (56.8), busmen (44.2) and shop assistants (34.2) at a higher rate than the national average (19.1). They were up to six times more likely to die from Covid than men in ‘professional’ occupations (11.1 per 100,000). This is largely thought to be because they continue to work from home and avoid contact with others.
Experts said today’s findings showed that Covid-19 ‘is largely an occupational disease’ and called for all workers who have regular contact with patients or the public to be supplied with personal protective equipment (PPE).
Are doctors getting better at treating Covid-19? Britain’s coronavirus death rate in hospitals has FALLEN to a quarter of level it was during peak of the crisis
The risk of dying from coronavirus after being hospitalised has plummeted since the peak of the outbreak, suggesting doctors are getting better at treating it.
Analysis by Oxford University shows that 6 per cent of people admitted to hospitals in England with the virus died at the beginning of April.
But the figures show by June 15, just 1.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients were dying of the disease – a quarter of the level at the peak of the crisis.
Oxford statisticians can’t pin down exactly why survival rates have fallen so much – but they believe doctors may be becoming better at treating the virus.
In April there was no approved medicine to treat Covid-19, a disease still shrouded in mystery after jumping from animals to humans at the end of 2019.
But now the NHS now has two drugs at its disposal to treat critically-ill patients – the Ebola medicine remdesivir and anti-inflammatory steroid dexamethasone.
Dexamethasone, a £5 steroid that has existed for decades, was the first drug proven to reduce the death rate among hospitalised patients needing oxygen.
The evidence around remdesivir is more mixed but studies have shown it helps the most critically ill people who need ventilation.
There is probably also be fewer people catching the coronavirus in hospital than at the peak of the crisis, which may have contributed to the fall in death rates.
Hospital patients are inherently more likely to be already unwell or elderly and so are more likely to die if they do catch it.
Of 10,387 people in hospital in England with Covid-19 on April 2, 644 died, giving a death rate of 6 per cent.
On June 15, 50 out of 3,270 hospital patients fell victim to the disease, which works out at roughly 1.5 per cent.
The researchers considered whether those being admitted to hospital were younger, and so more likely to survive.
But the data showed there are actually now more deaths over the age of 60 than at the peak in early April.
Jason Oke, from the University of Oxford, was one of the statisticians behind the UK analysis.
He told The Times that he was initially uneasy about releasing the analysis, adding: ‘We sat on it. We had a good discussion about it to try and work out all the different ways we could be wrong.
‘Then we thought we should put it out there — it’s what we’ve observed. The caveat is, we don’t really understand why this is happening. But it’s happening.’
Other hard-hit countries, including the US and Italy are seeing similar trends in their death rates.
Dr Oke admitted the newly-approved drugs may be partly behind the fall, but he said there would be other factors at play.
He warned a less optimistic explanation may be that a large number of mild to moderately ill patients were turned away from hospitals in April.
He said: ‘Maybe early on the pandemic, when we thought we would be overrun, we took only the severest cases.’
If only the sickest patients – who are more likely to die from Covid – were being treated, then this could skew the death rate upwards, even if there was no difference in the actual survival rate.
The total number of people dying with Covid-19 in English hospitals each week has fallen by 4.3 per cent a day, meaning numbers have halved every 16 days.
Deaths hit their peak of 899 on April 8 but have since fallen to just 50 on the week ending June 15.
The number of people in hospital with coronavirus has also fallen from a peak of 15,702 on April 10 to 2,891 on the June 19 – meaning numbers have halved every month.
Data shows that between 1,900 and 3,200 people are catching the coronavirus every day in England — but the speed at which the outbreak is shrinking has ‘levelled off’, according to data.
King’s College London ‘s COVID Symptom Tracker app estimates that just 2,341 Britons are being struck down with the coronavirus every day. Last week they used this data to estimate that there were 3,612 people catching the virus every day in Britain and roughly 4,942 people the week before that. The figure was higher than 11,000 per day a month ago
The estimate is lower than last week, when two separate projections from King’s College London experts and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) ranged from between 3,200 to 3,800.
King’s College’s COVID Symptom Tracker app predicts 1,978 people in England are getting struck down daily. The ONS, whose estimate is based on population swab testing, puts the figure at approximately 3,142.
But statisticians cautioned the number of people infected with Covid-19 could have even gone up — from 33,000 people a fortnight ago to 51,000 on June 21, around 0.09 per cent of the population (one in 1,100 people).
The ONS explained that the extremely small sample size — the number is based only on 14 positive tests, up from 10 last week — is likely to have swayed the estimate.
Experts stopped short of saying the outbreak had rebounded and started to rise again, instead saying there was no evidence it was either growing nor shrinking.
Government advisers today claimed the R rate for the UK and England remains between 0.7 and 0.9 for the third week in a row. But they admitted it could be as high as 1.0 in the North West. Number 10’s scientific advisory panel SAGE today also revealed the growth rate — how the number of new daily cases is changing day-by-day — is still between minus four and minus two per cent.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week dramatically unwound the coronavirus lockdown, bringing the country out of ‘hibernation’ — with a return for pubs, haircuts and weddings and family and friends getting the green light to meet up indoors for the first time in months.
The Prime Minister said he wanted to ‘make life easier’ after an ‘incredibly tough time’ with bars, restaurants, cinemas and hairdressers in England able to get back up and running from July 4 – dubbed ‘Super Saturday’.