It marks today the darkest day so far for the NHS, which has seen patients dying by the dozen in hospitals in every corner of the country.
And the figure is more than twice as high as it was yesterday, when only 180 new fatalities were announced.
One of today's victims was just 19 years old and didn't have any other health conditions, making them the UK's youngest otherwise-healthy fatality.
England is at the centre of Britain's crisis and 1,651 people there have died after testing positive for COVID-19 in a hospital.
Today's statistics added 367 deaths to England's toll as well as 23 across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It comes after government statisticians revealed today that the true death toll may be around 24 per cent higher than figures suggest when they released the first data set to include people who died outside of NHS hospitals.
In its statement published this afternoon, NHS England said: 'A further 367 people, who tested positive for the Coronavirus (Covid-19) have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in England to 1,651.
'Patients were aged between 19 and 98 years old and all but 28 patients (aged between 19 and 91 years old) had underlying health conditions.'
Increases in positive tests today pushed the number of diagnosed coronavirus patients in Scotland to 1,993, 1,563 in Wales and 586 in Northern Ireland.
An update on the number of positive tests in England is expected from the Department of Health later this afternoon.
Experts believe the true number of people who have been infected with the coronavirus could now be more than two million, but the Government is only testing people ill enough to be admitted to hospital.
Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to the Government, has said there could be around 1,000 cases for every one person who dies.
With a death count of 1,798, this could mean almost 1.8million people have been infected with the virus.
Sir Patrick, speaking at yesterday's Government briefing, said the number of people being admitted to hospital with COVID-19 is going up 'in a constant amount'.
The number of hospital patients has risen to around 9,000 from just 4,300 last Thursday.
But Sir Patrick assured the public the fact the NHS was seeing an additional 1,000 patients a day with coronavirus-related admissions was 'not an acceleration' and that the health service was still coping.
The new death figures come after a set of statistics this morning suggested the number of people dying could be 24 per cent higher than the NHS says.
Patients who had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificates numbered 210 in England and Wales up to March 20, the Office for National Statistics revealed.
MAILONLINE
No comments:
Post a Comment