UK CCP Virus Cases at Record Levels, Hospitalisations Steady

A bus goes past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in London on Dec. 29, 2021. Hollie Adams/AFP via Getty Images

The number of reported daily COVID-19 cases in the UK has broken a new record, but the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths have remained steady.

A record 129,471 new cases were reported in the UK on Tuesday, 90 percent higher than the highest number from the previous waves of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus infections—and second only to the number in the United States.

The number doesn’t include Scotland and Northern Ireland, which haven’t updated their figures since Christmas Eve, but Wales’ number (12,378) was artificially high because data wasn’t updated on Christmas day and Dec. 27.

According to the UK Health Security Agency (pdf), the percentage of Omicron cases has ballooned to 92 percent of the new cases by Dec. 27—one month after the first two cases were discovered in England.

Looking at the number of new cases per million people, the UK’s number was 1,670, the eighth highest in the world after Andorra, Denmark, San Marino, Aruba, Ireland, Iceland, and Gibraltar, according to the analysis by Our World in Data website.

But the UK is also one of the countries doing the most tests—having the highest 7-day rolling average in the world on Dec. 23.

The number of people in hospitals with the CCP virus has been rising slightly. The latest number—updated on Dec. 22—was 8,240, almost 14 percent up from the beginning of the month but 79 percent less than the highest daily number reported on Jan. 18.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson on Monday quoted a hospital chief executive in South West England as saying: “We’ve seen a 30% increase in COVID positive inpatient numbers compared to 7 days ago. But largest proportion are incidental finding on admission, so COVID-19 is not the reason for admission.”

The number of patients with COVID-19 in ventilation beds has been travelling slightly downward since the beginning of November, with 842 patients in ventilation beds on Dec. 22—the latest number available.

The number of people who died within 28 days of a positive test was gappy in the last few days due to the Christmas holiday, but it appears to have been travelling downward. The latest 7-day average was 84 deaths per day, recorded on Christmas day, less than 7 percent of the number on Jan. 20.

The extent of how Omicron had affected older people during Christmas gatherings is expected to be reflected in data in the coming days.

On Dec. 28, the UK has a 7-day average of 1.23 new COVID-19-related death per million people, compared with 4.58 in the United States, and 3.76 in the European Union.