THE UK has recorded its deadliest day in the coronavirus pandemic, as the Government’s chief scientific adviser warned parts of the NHS were like a “war zone”.
Official figures showed that January 12 saw the highest number of deaths recorded on a single day – with 1110 Covid-19 fatalities, eclipsing the previous peak of 1073 on April 8 2020.
A record 1820 further deaths within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 were reported as of yesterday, although there is a time lag between a patient dying and appearing in the statistics.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the figures were “appalling” and warned “there will be more to come because what we’re seeing is the result of the wave of the new variant that we saw just before Christmas on December 18, or thereabouts”.
The grim statistics appeared as chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance gave a stark warning about the strain the pandemic was putting on hospitals.
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“This is very, very bad at the moment, with enormous pressure, and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with,” he said.
But there was “light at the end of the tunnel” in the form of the vaccination programme, which has so far seen 4,609,740 people receive a first jab.
Based on the latest figures, an average of 399,625 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day in order to meet the UK Government’s target of 15 million of the highest priority patients receiving a jab by February 15 – on Tuesday the total was 343,163.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, where the First Minister took questions from Ruth Davidson on the vaccination roll-out, Scotland recorded its highest excess death numbers in 129 years in 2020, according to new figures.
The National Records of Scotland (NRS) show there were 6324 more deaths last year than the average over the previous five years.
There was a provisional total of 64,084 people who died in 2020 compared to an average of 57,760 over the previous five years.
It is the highest number since 1891 when there were 9253 excess deaths, mainly caused by a so-called “Russian flu” outbreak.
This marker does not include wartime deaths which take into account civilian deaths but were heavily affected by casualties such as bombing.
If these are included then 2020 saw the largest number of excess deaths since 1940, when deaths were 7097 above average.
Excess deaths are a measure of how many more people died than would be expected based on the previous five years.
Of the 6834 deaths involving Covid-19 between March and December 2020, 93% had at least one pre-existing condition, with dementia and Alzheimer’s the most common.
People living in the most deprived areas were 2.2 times as likely to die with Covid-19 than those in the least deprived parts of Scotland.
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The most recent NRS statistics show 7448 people have now died in Scotland with confirmed or suspected coronavirus.
Between January 11 and 17, 368 deaths relating to the virus were registered, down 23 from the previous week. The majority, 240, were in hospitals – with 97 in care homes.
Speaking in Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon gave the Public Health Scotland Covid-19 statistics, which record only confirmed death figures of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days. Under this measure, 5468 people have died with the virus in total, with the First Minister announcing an additional 92 deaths in the past day.
“The figures I have reported today demonstrate the seriousness of the situation we continue to face,” she said, adding that cases “remain too high” and the NHS is under pressure that is “almost certain to increase”.
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