UK records highest daily death toll since start of pandemic

The UK reported more than 1,300 deaths from Covid-19 on Friday, the highest daily figure since the pandemic began, as London’s mayor declared a “major incident” over coronavirus in the British capital.

Sadiq Khan said the spread of Covid-19 in London was now "out of control" and warned that the city's hospitals risked having insufficient beds in the coming weeks.

Mr Khan wrote to prime minister Boris Johnson – who put England into a third lockdown on Monday because of a new, highly transmissible strain of coronavirus – urging the government to take several emergency measures.

The mayor said the measures should include providing additional money for people who have to self isolate, and stipulating that face masks should be worn routinely outside the home.

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"If we do not take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die," said Mr Khan, speaking after the National Health Service said London hospitals were admitting 800 patients suffering from Covid-19 each day.

The UK reported on Friday that 1,325 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. Although it is the highest figure recorded by the government since the start of the pandemic, it is unlikely to be the largest daily total because testing was very limited during the first wave in the spring of last year.

The government also said on Friday that 68,053 people had tested positive, the highest daily figure recorded. However, this also reflects limited testing early on.

By declaring a major incident, Mr Khan made it easier for the capital’s authorities to pursue a more co-ordinated approach, with, for example, police officers or firefighters helping to operate ambulances. It also puts the public on notice about the seriousness of the situation.

The mayor’s office defines a major incident as “being beyond the scope of business-as-usual operations, and [one]\ likely to involve serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security”. It has been implemented during times of crisis such as in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

Between December 30th and January 6th, the number of coronavirus patients in London hospitals increased by 27 per cent to 7,034. During the same period, the number of patients on mechanical ventilators rose by 42 per cent to 908.

Accelerated spread

People hospitalised with Covid-19 are likely to have been infected in mid-December or over Christmas, when doctors were concerned that family gatherings, permitted by the government, would accelerate the spread of the disease.

An consultant in acute medicine at a north London hospital said that “at the moment we cannot see a peak [in the number of Covid-19 patients] in sight”.

He added that the shortage of staff was critical and that intensive care was running at 250 per cent above normal levels.

The case rate in London is 1,036 per 100,000 people and the London Ambulance Service – which has come under sustained pressure in recent weeks – is taking up to 8,000 emergency calls each day compared with about 5,500 on average.

Data released on Friday by the Government Office for Science outlined that new infections in England were rising at between 0 and 6 per cent each day.

The so-called R number – which shows how many people one person with the virus is likely to infect – was estimated at 1 to 1.4, a similar level to the 1.1 to 1.3 range reported on December 23rd.

The government is seeking to bring the R number below 1 with the latest lockdown, which experts said was crucial before social restrictions can be eased.

The latest developments coincided with another advance in the UK’s efforts to protect its population, as the country’s drugs watchdog approved a vaccine made by Moderna of the US for emergency use.

The decision prompted the government to increase its order of Moderna doses from 7 million to 17 million, but they will not arrive until the spring. The delay means the approval will not help ministers in their effort to give the population’s four top priority groups – equivalent to about 14 million people – the first shot of a vaccine by mid-February. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021