Coronavirus deaths in UK hospitals rise by 10 – the second lowest Sunday increase
- There were nine more fatalities in England, one in Wales – but Scotland had none
- This is the tenth consecutive day that Scotland has record no coronavirus deaths
- England patients were aged from 36 and 89, and all had underlying health issues
A further 10 people were today confirmed to have died in hospital from coronavirus as the UK reported the second lowest Sunday increase since lockdown.
There were nine more fatalities in England, one in Wales, while Scotland had none for a tenth day in a row. Northern Ireland often does not update its total on a weekend.
Patients in England were aged from 36 and 89, and all had known underlying health conditions. But another three deaths were reported with no positive test result.
Three victims were recorded in the South East, as well as a further three in the East, while there were two in the Midlands and one in both the North East and Yorkshire.
London, the North West and the South West all had no further coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours.
Britain’s combined hospital death toll now stands at 33,877, with England seeing 29,281, Wales hitting 1,549, 2,491 in Scotland and 556 in Northern Ireland.
It comes as official figures show the number of people with coronavirus antibodies in the UK is a third lower than previously believed.
Public Health England data suggests just one in 10 people have the protective proteins in London when one in six did during the peak of the epidemic.
And less than 5 per cent of the population in the North East have the antibodies needed to battle the killer virus.
Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance previously said to achieve ‘herd immunity’ about 60 per cent of the population needs to have been infected.
The Government had also touted the idea of ‘immunity passports’ for those who had battled the virus if scientists prove antibodies will stop a person catching it again.
Yet these plans appear to have been dashed due to such low numbers testing positive for the antibodies.
Public Health England data suggests just one in 10 people have the protective proteins in London when one in six did during the peak of the epidemic (file photo)
PHE’s results were from blood samples taken from donors in different areas of the country, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
It said earlier findings did not include tests on people over 70, who were not allowed to give blood during lockdown.
This appears to have caused the original figures to be misleading when used to represent the whole country.
The new data shows that about 6.5 per cent of England has the antibodies in their blood.
London had the highest figure – 9.9 per cent – with donors in the Midlands having 6.5 per cent and only 4.7 per cent in the North East.
PHE’s results match the Office for National Statistics’ findings, which said on June 29 the proportion of people with the proteins in the country was 6.3 per cent.
Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance previously said to achieve ‘herd immunity’ about 60 per cent of the population needs to have been infected
PHE Medical Director Yvonne Doyle said last week: ‘We reckon that over the peak we had in London about 16 per cent of the population were showing that they had antibodies.
‘This is dropping off now and it’s now much lower than that. Overall between six and 10 per cent of the population are showing those kind of antibodies, as we do our regular seroprevalence testing.’
PHE said ‘waning immunity’ might be a ‘contributory factor’ in the fall in positive antibody tests, but it was ‘likely to play a relatively small role in the overall trends observed to date’.
It said: ‘In more recent sampling periods, prevalence estimates are lower and this is likely to be largely driven by changes in the precise locations of sampling over time and potential demographic differences in the donor population as lockdown measures are relaxed.’