400 covid deaths a day in care

More than 400 deaths involving Covid-19 occurred each day in UK care homes at the height of the coronavirus outbreak, new analysis shows.

There were more than 3,000 care home deaths involving coronavirus in one week in mid-april, according to the first Uk-wide review of daily deaths by the PA news agency.

Deaths rose five-fold between the start of the month and the care home peak on 17 April, when nearly 500 residents died.

At this time, testing for all staff and residents – regardless of symptoms–was not available in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while providers had not yet been advised to restrict staff movements between homes.

Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence -based medicine at the University of Oxford, believes staff movement was of“huge” significance in aiding infection spread in the absence of effective testing. Thousands of hospital patients were discharged into care homes from mid March, and there were struggles to access protective equipment.