1.1M IN ENGLAND HAVE COVID

Infection rate hits one in 50 as daily cases surge past 60,000

MORE than a million people had coronavirus last week, according to random testing.

The survey by the Office for National Statistics found that one in fifty residents had the virus in England between December 27 and January 2.

It means more are catching Covid-19 each day than are being vaccinated.

Yesterday an all-time high of 60,916 positive tests were recorded, along with 830 deaths. Hospital admissions hit another high, at 3,351. The April peak was 3,099.

Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, warned the infection rate had risen by 70 per cent in the last two weeks of December.

‘The data shows a really serious emergency at the moment,’ added the professor. ‘It is clear the new variant is rising all around the country. This has inevitably translated into new numbers of patients going into hospital.

‘Unfortunately because of the spike in people going into hospital we will inevitably see an increase in the number of people who die as we go into the rest of January.’

London is the worst-affected area, with an estimated one in 30 infected. Hospitals in the capital have more than 6,800 Covid patients with a further 866 admitted yesterday.

Pressure on wards is expected to continue throughout January, forcing doctors into decisions about who to treat. The ONS finding of one in 50 – or 1.1million cases – is up from one in 70 the week before, and one in 115 in early December. Last summer it was one in 2,000.

More than half of infections are now from the new, more infectious variant. The number of Covid inpatients has increased by more than one third since Christmas Day, and latest NHS England data shows there are 26,467 in hospitals. The British Medical Association said doctors were comparing their workplaces to ‘warzones’, with ambulances forced to queue for hours at hospitals across the capital.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chairman, said: ‘Hospitals are stretched to breaking point, with doctors reporting unbearable workloads as they take on more Covid-19 admissions alongside the growing backlog of people who need other, non-Covid care.

‘ Doctors are desperate, with some even comparing their working environment to a warzone as wards overflow, waiting lists grow, and ambulances queue outside hospitals because there are now so many people with Covid-19.’

Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told the BBC: ‘We will need to wait several days if not weeks to see a reduction in people coming to hospital.

‘When we have these high levels of infection there is a delay to patients coming into hospital and to deaths. It is going to take us probably until the end of January to see if lockdown is having the effect it should have. We know that the next few weeks are going to be extremely difficult.

‘There are going to be difficult decisions in organisations around elective care. They are going to have to look at what is prioritised, where staff can be moved. You have to focus on emergency cases that are right in front of you.’

Boris Johnson said those who looked at the data would ‘understand overwhelmingly that we have no choice’ but to take action. He said: ‘The Office for National Statistics is telling us that more than 2 per cent of the population is now infected – that’s over one million people in England.

‘The number of patients in hospitals in England is now 40 per cent higher than at the first peak.’

‘A really serious emergency’