14,162 New Cases of Covid-19 Recorded in Britain
Britain today recorded 14,162 more coronavirus cases, with the number of people testing positive for the disease every day doubling in a fortnight.
Data from last Tuesday, which would normally be used to measure how much the UK’s outbreak has grown in the last week, is unreliable due to a catastrophic counting error at Public Health England. It means Wednesday September 23 is the most recent point of reference — there were just 6,178 cases on that date.
Another 70 deaths from coronavirus were announced by health chiefs, bringing the country’s total death toll to 42,515, a very slight drop on last Wednesday when 71 deaths were recorded. Death tallies were not affected by the counting error, meaning figures from last week can still be used as a point of reference.
Yesterday a further 14,542 more cases were recorded, which was triple the number of people who tested positive on that day a fortnight ago. The rolling seven-day average of daily infections – considered a more accurate measure because it takes into account day-to-day fluctuations, has also surged upwards over the same time frame.
Although the curves are clearly trending the wrong way, the number of Covid-19 deaths and infections are still a far-cry from levels seen during the darkest days of the pandemic in spring, when more than 1,000 patients were dying and at least 100,000 Britons were catching the disease every day.
The spiralling cases come amid mounting fears the UK could face new lockdown measures – after Nicola Sturgeon announced that pubs, bars and restaurants in five Scottish regions will have their opening hours restricted to between 6am and 6pm for 16 days, and will only be able to serve food and non-alcoholic drinks inside.
The restrictions – which comes into force from 6pm on Friday – will affect Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley.
The First Minister’s decisive action may bounce Boris Johnson into taking further action, after he was today confronted by Labour over figures that show local lockdown restrictions have failed to stem the tide of coronavirus infections in the North of England.
There are mounting fears the UK could face new draconian restrictions within days under plans for a local ‘Covid alert’ system – which would see pubs and bars forced to pull down the shutters after cases get above a certain threshold.
As the number of deaths from coronavirus continues to rise:
The leaders from four Covid-hit northern cities, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle have written to Mr Johnson begging him not to ramp up coronavirus curbs again
Heathrow bosses prepare to trial the world’s first coronavirus passport in a bid to get passengers back into the air without the risk of quarantine;
Scotland could announce the closure of pubs today, according to reports, in a desperate bid to stop the spread of the virus in its tracks;
NHS laboratories say they could run out of Covid-19 testing materials in days after Swiss supplier Roche warned it was facing a ‘very significant drop’ in processing capacity at its centre in Newhaven, Sussex.
