COVID deaths are climbing steadily, however not skyrocketing
By Ed Conway, economics and knowledge editor
The most recent COVID-19 knowledge are out and as soon as once more the headline quantity on deaths is depressingly excessive – over a thousand for a second successive day.
However as soon as once more it’s value being a bit cautious about it because it incorporates a backlog of knowledge from deaths which occurred over the previous couple of weeks.
The underlying image continues to be that deaths are climbing steadily, however not skyrocketing.
This isn’t a excellent news story, however it’s considerably much less alarming than if one focuses on these each day figures.
The case numbers at the moment truly offered some higher information, a slowing in case progress if one adjusts for the “financial institution vacation impact”.
It’ll take a while, although, to know whether or not it is a real plateauing or a dip earlier than additional progress.
Nevertheless, the true concern is the most recent knowledge on hospital admissions that are up sharply.
The bit that stood out for me considerations the provision of hospital beds.
In keeping with the most recent NHS England knowledge launched at the moment (as you’ll be able to see within the chart beneath), the variety of unoccupied hospital beds accessible usually and acute wards dropped in early January to the bottom degree since this wave started.
Throughout England there are 6,500 unoccupied beds.
The variety of COVID sufferers accounts for properly over 1 / 4 of all these in hospital beds; this time final month the proportion was one in seven.
