Four more people die with coronavirus as UK death toll reaches 41,433

Four more people have died with coronavirus, bringing the nation’s death toll to 41,433.

There were also 853 new cases of the virus, meaning the UK has now recorded 326,614 infections since the pandemic began. The Department of Health confirmed that 97 more people were admitted to hospital with the virus within the 24 hours previous.

This means there are now 834 people being treated in hospitals across the UK, 72 of whom require a ventilator. There were also 190,434 coronavirus tests carried out on Sunday, with a capacity of 326,086

It comes as NHS England reported three more deaths in hospitals, two of which took place in the last 10 days. Wales recorded one new death in hospital settings and Scotland reported none. Northern Ireland is yet to release their updated figure.

On Sunday, England only recorded one new hospital death from Covid-19, the country’s lowest daily increase since the pandemic began. However, figures are typically lower than usual on the weekend due to a lag in processing.

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Government ministers are said to be concerned about the likelihood of a second wave of coronavirus in the autumn, after experts warned that a second national lockdown may be necessary if the R rate continues to rise.

Last week the Sage advisory group confirmed that Britain’s reproduction number is now hovering between 0.9 and 1.1.

However, a professor at Birmingham City University claimed today that around 91% of England’s population live in areas that have seen no new coronavirus infections for nearly a month.

Professor John Clancy said he feared ‘dodgy data’ is being used to justify unnecessary local lockdowns, such as those happening in Oldham, parts of Blackburn, and Pendle.

Writing on a university blog, he said: ‘Testing systems and regimes in the UK are in total chaos. They are all over the place. And policy responses based on it will be chaos too, if we trust it, especially locally. 

‘So-called “spikes” are occurring here, there, and everywhere up and down the country because new testing regimes are causing them either with false positives, picking up residual infections or (usually more likely) suddenly increased testing in specific areas.’

He added: ‘Until we get our testing, and track and tracing system, into proper, reliable shape we should not be basing policy on it. “Just in case” lockdowns are simply not an acceptable response to dodgy data. And lockdowns cause deaths.’

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