UK announces hundreds more Covid-19 deaths

The UK today announced 204 more Covid-19 deaths, the lowest Saturday rise since before lockdown – taking the number of coronavirus victims to 40,465.

Today’s figure is down significantly from the record high of 1,115 recorded on Saturday April 18 during the peak of the crisis and marks a consistent downward trend in fatalities. 

For comparison, there were 215 coronavirus deaths recorded last Saturday, 282 a fortnight ago and 468 on Saturday, May 16.

It is also the lowest Saturday rise since March 21, three days before the lockdown, when there were just 56 coronavirus fatalities. 

But despite the continued downward trend in deaths, the reproduction ‘R’ rate has now risen to above the dreaded number of one in two regions of England.  

The R – the average number of people an infected patient passes the virus to – is sitting between 0.7 and 0.9 and if it breaches 1 then the outbreak could spiral back out of control.

Experts at Public Health England and Cambridge University last night suggested the R is above one in the North West and South West in England. 

Nearly 285,000 Britons have now been officially diagnosed with the viral disease, but millions more cases have been missed due to a lack of widespread testing. 

In other twists and turns in the coronavirus today:

  • Thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters have gathered in Parliament Square in a snub to ministers who begged them to stay away due to the Covid threat;
  • Hospital staff have slammed Matt Hancock’s ‘pointless’ order for compulsory face-coverings after the peak has already passed;
  • A leaked Government document has revealed most Covid patients hand over just one close contact to the NHS ‘track and trace’ team;
  • Care homes are still waiting for Covid tests after weeks of asking – as government rushes out kits to all residences where people are all aged over 65;
  • Nearly 30 scientists have called for public inquiry into government’s ‘failures’ and warn ‘many more will die’ because second wave now ‘seems probable’ this winter.

It comes as estimates produced by experts at Public Health England and Cambridge University suggested the R-rate is above the danger level of one in the North West and South West. It must stay below one or Britain will face another crisis. 

The data – fed into No 10’s scientific panel SAGE – suggested the R rate was falling before lockdown was imposed and has been creeping back up since the darkest days of the outbreak at the start of April. SAGE said the overall rate remained between 0.7 and 0.9 across the UK as a whole but admitted it may be a little higher in England. 

The death figures come as a PHE/Cambridge team updated their real-time estimates of the coronavirus outbreak in England, estimating that 5.62million people across the country – or 10 per cent of the population – has already had the coronavirus. 

The rate is similar to data seen from a separate antibody surveillance scheme carried out by PHE, which suggested the rate was 8.5 per cent.  But it is higher than data from a separate ONS sample, which puts the national level of infection at around 6.78 per cent. 

Analysis of the PHE/Cambridge data showed London has been, by far, the worst-hit region of England (17 per cent).  At the peak of the capital’s crisis – said to be the same day lockdown was imposed – 154,000 are thought to have caught the infection.

In comparison, only 4 per cent of people in the South West are thought to have been struck down by the coronavirus. 

The team claim between 10,700 and 25,300 people caught the virus across England on June 3 and that the rate has been fairly stable since the start of May.  

The team calculated that the crucial ‘R’ reproduction rate fell to just 0.4 in the capital in the aftermath of the lockdown being introduced.  However, the rate in London – as well as other regions – slowly began to creep up to between 0.7-0.8 before moving closer to one in the past few weeks.  

At the beginning of the outbreak London was the worst affected region but the latest numbers suggest it is now ahead of all but one region in terms of recovery. The data, published by the university, shows London is recording 1,310 cases each day – behind only the South West (778). 

In contrast, the North West of England is recording 4,100 daily infections and has an R rate of 1.01, the highest for any region in the country.  The South West also has an estimated R rate of 1. While the North East and Yorkshire is the only area to still be in the 0.8s. 

Meanwhile, the team’s modelling shows only one death occurs in every 113 cases – giving it an infection-fatality rate of around 0.88 per cent. Studies conducted around the world have produced a similar figure, suggesting it is up to eight times deadlier than seasonal flu. 

The PHE/Cambridge team admitted the actual infection-fatality rate could be as low as 0.77 or as high as 1 per cent. 

And the study showed huge variation between different age groups, warning the virus has an infection-fatality rate of around 23 per cent for over-75s. But it is below 0.024 per cent for anyone under the age of 44 – the equivalent of one death for every 4,100 cases.

For people between the ages of 45 and 64, the team said the death rate was around 0.36 per cent while the rate was approximately 2.3 per cent for people aged between 65 and 74.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk