Covid hospital admissions down 74% from peak of second wave, NHS figures show

The number of people being admitted to hospitals in England with Covid-19 has fallen significantly since the peak of the second wave of infections in January, new NHS figures show.

A total of 1,068 admissions were recorded on 19 February, a drop of 74 per cent from the 4,134 reported on 12 January, NHS England said.

It is the lowest number of daily admissions since 28 November, days before England came out of its second lockdown on 2 December.

Hospital admissions are one of a number of datasets Boris Johnson has considered to come up with the highly anticipated “roadmap” to getting the country out of its third lockdown.

The PM will set out the plan to fellow MPs in the House of Commons at 3.30pm on Monday, ahead of televised press conference at No 10 at 7pm.

Along with hospital patient figures, government has looked at the impact of the vaccine rollout programme, infection rates, the R number, new cases and deaths to make the decision.

While the drop in hospital admissions is a clear sign that current restrictions are working, analysis by the PA news agency found numbers varied region to region.

This could be significant as Mr Johnson said on Monday that he could not rule out a return to regional restrictions if needed.

In most parts of England, daily admissions based on a seven-day rolling average are at their lowest since early December but for others the figures are even better.

In southwest England, for instance, the average is at its lowest since 3 November while in the combined region of northeast England and Yorkshire it is down to levels last seen on 20 October.

Hospital admissions are based on the number of patients admitted in the previous 24 hours who are known to have Covid-19, plus any patients diagnosed in hospital with the virus in the last 24 hours.

Separate figures from NHS England show the number of hospital patients in England with coronavirus has now fallen 59 per cent from the second-wave peak.

The number stood at 14,142 on 21 February, down from a record 34,336 on 18 January.

Although significant, figures were lower still when England’s second lockdown ended – when the number of hospital patients stood at 13,212.

During the first wave of the virus, patient numbers peaked at 18,974 on 12 April.

It comes after a study published on Monday suggested Covid-19 jabs deployed in the UK cut hospital admissions by around 90 per cent.

Four weeks after receiving a first dose, both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines cut hospital admission with the disease by up to 85 and 94 per cent respectively, the real-world data from researchers in Scotland found.

Among those aged 80 years and over, the two vaccines were associated with a combined 81 per cent reduction in hospitalisation risk.

The findings offer the first real indication of the impact of the UK vaccine rollout, raising hope that the jabs will help to end what has been the most severe phase of Britain’s epidemic.