UK passes 400,000 total coronavirus infections with rise of 4,926 in a day

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Britain today recorded another 4,926 cases of coronavirus, taking the country’s total above 400,000 confirmed infections for the first time. 

Another 37 people have died across the UK, officials announced today, which is more than on any other day for two months. The announced 44 on July 14 was the last highest figure. 

Today’s surge in infections makes Britain only the 14th country in the world to record more than 400,000 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, and just the third place in Europe, after Spain and France.

Separate Office for National Statistics (ONS) data published today showed that the weekly number of people dying of Covid-19 rose for the first time since April this month when 99 people in England and Wales were killed by the coronavirus in the week ending September 11, up from 78 a week earlier.

Although still the second lowest number of registered deaths since March and just one per cent of the total deaths from all causes in that the week, the 27 per cent rise shows a reversal of the downward trend that lasted for 20 weeks. Deaths had fallen every week since April 17, three weeks after the lockdown was imposed.

The ONS count chimes with official numbers of deaths announced each day by the Department of Health, that the daily average began to rise again on September 7 from seven per day to 22 a day yesterday. All signs point to the virus rebounding in Britain and the UK’s coronavirus alert level was raised to four last night, meaning transmission of the virus is ‘high or rising exponentially’.

Boris Johnson today announced he is making the Army available to the police in order to boost enforcement of coronavirus rules as he unveiled a wave of new measures designed to stop the spread of the disease. The Prime Minister said the police will now have the ‘option to draw on military support where required’ to free up officers so more can go out and crackdown on rule-breakers as he revealed fines are being doubled to £200.

The UK could see a crisis-level 50,000 cases a day by mid-October and 200 deaths per day in November if action isn’t taken soon to stem the rising tide of cases, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warned yesterday. But scientists have since hit back at the claims — which saw Sir Patrick and Professor Chris Whitty compare the UK’s trajectory to Spain and France, saying neither country is anywhere close to 50,000 cases a day.

The ONS report did not commit to warning of a rise in Covid-19 deaths as it has with cases, but issued a caveat that the August bank holiday may have meant the previous week’s deaths were unrealistically low.

A separate report published by the ONS today found seven out of 10 working-age people who died of coronavirus between March and June had caught the illness before lockdown began, showing that all groups saw a drop in fatalities after restrictions were introduced. It also claimed there were only 5,330 deaths involving 20 to 64-year-olds in England and Wales — roughly a tenth of the total number of victims since the pandemic began.

In other coronavirus developments in Britain today: 

• Sir Keir Starmer used his first Labour conference speech as leader to warn that a second national lockdown would be a ‘sign of Government failure, not an act of God’ that would take an ‘immense toll’ on public health and the economy;
• Sir Keir also claimed the ‘incompetence’ of the Government is ‘is holding Britain back’ and that the ‘underfunding of the NHS’ and the ‘abandonment of social care’ by the Conservatives had meant the UK was not prepared for the pandemic;
• Julian Knight, the Tory chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Select Committee, said without a ‘route map’ for getting spectators back to sports events ‘we risk decimation of our sporting and cultural infrastructure’;
• Shares in some of Britain’s biggest pub chains felt the pinch following the announcement of the 10pm curfew as City Pub Group fell 6.6 per cent while Wetherspoons dropped 0.4 per cent;
• Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething welcomed the UK Government’s decision to revert back to working from home as he said it was ‘a welcome shift… that matches our position’;
• Tory peer Andrew Lloyd Webber warned that commercial theatre will not survive unless the Government ‘steps up to the plate’;
• Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the increase in coronavirus cases is ‘extremely difficult news for all of us and the whole country’ as he said the Bank ‘will do everying we can do… to support the businesses and people of this country’.

As well as deaths, cases are also rising quickly. Britain yesterday recorded another 4,368 coronavirus cases as government data showed the number of daily infections has now doubled in a fortnight. 

Department of Health figures show slightly fewer than 4,000 new infections are now being recorded each day, on average — up 31 per cent from the figure of 2,998 last Monday. Statistics also show the rolling seven-day average jumped 48 per cent before that, from 2,032 on September 7. 

Government statistics also reveal an average 22 Britons are now succumbing to the illness daily, up from 12 last Monday and eight the week before that, meaning the rate has almost trebled in a fortnight.

By contrast, more than 1,000 laboratory-confirmed fatalities were being announced each day during the peak of the first wave.

And 204 people with Covid-19 were admitted to hospital in England for NHS treatment on Saturday, meaning the average number of admissions has tripled from 65 to 187 in a fortnight. But the number of newly-infected patients requiring hospital care across the country was around 3,000 in March and April. 

The ONS report’s increased number of death registrations showed that the number had risen for the first time since the week of April 17.

On that date five months ago it was soaring, from 6,213 by April 10 to the all-time peak of 8,758, when people were dying at a rate of almost one a minute.

ONS data counts the number of people who have died of Covid-19 by trawling through death certificate records to look for mentions of the disease.

It includes anyone who had a suspected case of the disease, as well as those who actually tested positive. The Department of Health only counts positive-tested patients.

As a result, the ONS’s estimate of the total number of people to have died from the disease is considerably higher.

It today puts the figure at 49,869 in England alone, while the Department of Health counts 36,999 who died within a month of diagnosis, or 40,923 within two months.

ONS experts show that there have this year been 53,376 more deaths than would normally be expected in England and Wales, known as ‘excess deaths’.

The vast majority of these, it is understood, can be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic in some form. Even if people have not been directly killed by the virus they may have missed life-saving medical care during lockdown, for example.

Throughout the UK there are estimated to have been 59,281 excess deaths during the pandemic, many of which are likely to be Covid-19 deaths. This number may fall as coronavirus deaths remain low and fatalities from other causes are lower than usual.

Today’s report from the ONS showed that deaths of all causes are now 5.4 per cent above the five-year average for the time of year.

Hospital deaths remain lower than usual (371 fewer than normal) but there are more people than usual dying at home (830 above average).

Experts have raised concerns in the past that this could be because people have avoided medical care during the crisis and become more seriously ill and died at home. Care home fatalities were also above average (57 more than usual) for the week to September 13.

Today’s report comes amid grave concerns that the virus is slipping out of the Government’s control again now that the numbers of officially-recorded cases, hospitalisations and deaths are rising again.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold a public TV briefing tonight when he is expected to confirm that pubs and restaurants in England will no longer be allowed to open past 10pm, in a bid to slow the spread of the virus among young adults.

A separate report published today by the ONS claimed that seven out of 10 coronavirus deaths of working age adults between March 9 and June 30 were likely caused by an infection caught before lockdown.

There were 5,330 deaths involving 20 to 64-year-olds in England and Wales, the report said.

Of these, 72 per cent (3,839), occurred on or before April 25 and the person probably caught the virus before lockdown, which started on March 23.

The ONS’s assumption is based on evidence that the maximum time from infection to symptom onset is 14 days, and there are around 20 days on average from symptom onset to death.

Rates of death involving Covid-19 in men working in health and social care were around three times higher if the virus was thought to have been acquired before lockdown than if it was caught during the period.

For female health and social care professionals, deaths rates were around two times higher for those likely to have contracted the virus pre-lockdown. 

The lockdown was linked to significantly lower rates of death involving coronavirus in all occupation groups, when compared with rates seen before lockdown.

Men working in caring, leisure and other service occupations had the highest rates of death involving Covid-19 during the lockdown.

After restrictions were introduced, there were 81.3 deaths per 100,000 in these occupations, compared with 32.5 per 100,000 of other working age males. 

Working women had ‘far fewer’ deaths than men, but those working in caring, leisure and other service occupations had higher rates of death both pre- and post-lockdown, compared with women of the same age in the general population.

There were 31.3 deaths per 100,000 in these occupations, compared with 17.5 per 100,000 working age women.

This can largely be explained by the high rate of carers and home carers, who would be likely to have continued during the lockdown and not been able to work from home, therefore possibly increasing the risk of infection, it said.

The ONS report said: ‘During the pandemic, some occupations, such as health and social care professions, have continued to work in proximity to others; this is a factor that may explain the generally higher rates seen among such occupations.’ 

It came as Sir Patrick Vallance yesterday warned the UK faces 50,000 new daily cases of coronavirus by the middle of October if the spread of the disease is not brought under control and infections continue to double every seven days. 

But scientists last night eased fears that Britain is hurtling towards the milestone, insisting that neither Spain or France have reached those sky-high levels, even though the Government fears the UK is on track to follow their trajectories.

Top scientists believe more than 100,000 cases were actually occurring daily during the darkest days of Britain’s crisis in March and April. 

And other experts believe the dreaded second wave won’t prove as deadly as the first because doctors have become better at treating the disease.