UK announces 494 more coronavirus deaths

Britain today announced 494 more COVID-19 deaths, taking the official number of victims to 33,186 as 3,242 more people tested positive for the virus meaning 229,705 have been diagnosed so far. 

Health chiefs posted 627 coronavirus fatalities yesterday – the fewest deaths recorded on a Tuesday for six weeks. Tuesday counts are notoriously high because they take into account a recording delay at the weekend. 

It comes after grim figures published by the Office for National Statistics yesterday suggested the real number of victims could be thousands higher. 

Analysis of the backdated ONS figures – which take into account suspected deaths – suggested the true death toll could be 45,000. Other data showed 50,000 ‘excess deaths’ have been recorded amid the pandemic.

In other developments to Britain’s coronavirus crisis today: 

• Britons face years of higher taxes and pay freezes to cover the £300billion bill for coronavirus, leaked Treasury plans revealed as it emerged that one in three firms may never reopen;
• The UK economy contracted by 2 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 after plunging 5.8 per cent in March in the largest fall on record, as analysts expect even worse to come;
• The housing market reopened in a bid to get Britain moving again, with Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick urging estate agents to use online viewings; 
• Britons were pictured packed like sardines on trains and buses as they warned that social distancing was ‘next to impossible’ on the first day back to work for millions;
• Ministers are working with high street pharmacist Boots to recruit an army of volunteers to carry out coronavirus tests as Boris Johnson scrambles to hit his 200,000 checks a day target;
• Eight million ‘vulnerable’ workers who have underlying medical conditions or are old should not leave lockdown or Britain’s coronavirus death toll could rise to 73,000 within a year, a study warned;
• Police have warned people across Britain not to attend mass gatherings organised by an anti-vaxxing group which have allegedly been planned with picnics and live music in cities this Saturday. 

It comes after Britain’s top statistician today warned that the number of coronavirus deaths was not dropping as quickly as experts hoped they would after hitting the peak of the crisis.  

Professor Sir Ian Diamond, head of the ONS, said ‘we need to be worried as a nation’ about the seeds of a second peak in the disease being sewn as the country eases its way out of the lockdown.

And he warned the full indirect effects of the coronavirus crisis in the UK may not be known for years, with deaths due to cancelled cancer screenings or a prolonged recession likely to only emerge in the long term.

Sir Ian told MPs this morning: ‘We are through the current peak. It does seem to me we need to be worried as a nation that as we come through this current peak we do not seed another one.’

He said there were a number of different epidemics – in the community, in care homes, and in hospitals – and the authorities had to ‘be able to be prepared to act in each of those areas’.

It was not only deaths directly due to COVID-19 that were a challenge, but also indirect deaths which may have resulted from causes including ‘reprioritisation in the health service’ as it adjusted to coronavirus.

Sir Ian – who also sits on the government’s SAGE panel – added: ‘What we are seeing, I think now, is a reduction in deaths in each of those areas but not at the moment as speedy as we would perhaps like.

It comes after official figures published last night revealed that one of the most remote towns in the country has suffered more coronavirus cases per capita than anywhere else in England or Wales.

At least 552 people in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, have caught COVID-19 since the outbreak began in February, according to the latest Government data.

That gives the small industrial town of 67,000 people, tucked away on the on the Furness peninsula in the North West, a rate of 882 cases per 100,000 – or 0.88 per cent.

To put this into perspective, Barrow’s infection rate is more than double that of Wales (365), triple England’s (244) and Scotland’s (251) and quadruple the rate recorded in Northern Ireland (220). 

Figures show that Cumbria is also home to the area with the third highest infection rate. South Lakeland – east of Barrow-in-Furness – has a rate of 488 cases per 100,000 people.

And the town with the second-highest rate is Lancaster (753), which is located on the other side of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire.

Experts are puzzled as to why this part of the North West has turned into a hotspot for COVID-19 but local public health officials say it may be skewed by higher testing figures.