Coronavirus: UK deaths up by 367 in highest daily rise since May

The UK has recorded 367 more coronavirus deaths over 24 hours, the highest daily rise since  May.

Some 22,885 new infections have also been confirmed, according to government figures, bringing the UK total to more than 915,000. 

Covid-related deaths in England and Wales have risen for the sixth week in a row, separate data from the ONS showed on Tuesday. 

The daily death toll reported on Tuesday accounts for people who died in the 24 hours up to Tuesday within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

When taking into account fatalities for which Covid-19 is included on the death certificate, the UK death toll now surpasses 61,000.

“We continue to see the trend in deaths rising and it is likely this will continue for some time,” said Dr Yvonne Doyle, Public Health England’s medical director. 

"Each day we see more people testing positive and hospital admissions increasing. Being seriously ill enough from the infection to need hospital admission can sadly lead to more Covid-related deaths.

“We can help to control this virus. We know that by washing our hands regularly, wearing a face covering and socially distancing we can save lives by slowing the spread of the virus.”

According to the government’s Covid dashboard, 322 of the deaths reported on Tuesday occurred in England, 25 in Scotland, 13 in Northern Ireland, and seven in Wales.

Health chiefs at Leeds Teaching Hospitals – one of the largest NHS trusts – became the latest to announce they are being forced to cancel operations, with more Covid patients on its wards on Tuesday than during the peak of the first wave in April. 

There were 239 patients with the virus in hospital on Monday – a rise of nearly 30 per cent in just three days.

As parts of northern England grapple with rising cases and Tier 3 restrictions, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust and Rotherham NHS Trust also confirmed cancellations on Monday.

It comes a day after scientists warned “immunity is waning quite rapidly”, after the results of the vast Imperial College London-led REACT-2 study found just 4.4 per cent of more than 365,000 volunteers in England had antibodies in September.

This was a reduction of 26 per cent from three months earlier, when more than 100,000 were tested in June following the first peak.

Experts said the findings suggested Sars-CoV-2 acts similarly to other seasonal coronaviruses – to which individuals become susceptible to reinfection after six to 12 months.

The results underscored the need for a vaccine, scientists said, adding that the rate at which antibodies diminish following natural infections may not be mirrored following an inoculation.

“All of the vaccines which are currently moving forwards towards trials are based on completely different mechanisms of stimulating immune response than infection with a virus itself,” Professor Wendy Barclay, head of Imperial’s Department of Infectious Disease, told a press briefing on Monday.

“So it’s not a given that just because natural immunity does this fairly fast waning … that a good vaccine will also do that. 

“A good vaccine may well be better than natural immunity, and there’s an awful lot of new vaccine technologies being tested which we’re hopeful may induce long-lasting antibodies – which may not need as frequent boosting as one might need if you were using natural infection to create immunity.”