Public health experts have decried the “phenomenal failure of policy and practice” in the UK health system. This is coming after it was announced that more than 100,000 people have lost their lives in the UK since the disease surfaced in the country almost a year ago.
Record High
The daily figure for recorded deaths was 1,564 on Wednesday, and it was a new record high. Analysis of figures from government and statistical agencies pegs the total number of deaths at 101,160. These numbers are by a long way greater than some of the worst-case scenario estimates made during the first wave of the pandemic.
So far, almost one in every 660 people in the UK have died from complications caused by the disease during the pandemic. The UK has been one of the hardest hit by the virus, with a mortality rate as high as 151 per 100,000 people. This figure places the UK ahead of the US, Spain and Mexico.
Deaths May Continue to Be Recorded
According to a member of the government’s Sage advisory group and director of University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, Prof Andrew Hayward, “The UK ranks seventh in the world in terms of numbers of deaths per million population through the pandemic. During the last week, our death rate was the second highest in the world—a record that is ‘world-beating’ in all the wrong ways.
Continuing, he said: ‘Our intensive care units, which have always had much lower capacity than many other European countries, are at breaking point. Our frontline NHS staff are exhausted and traumatized. Hospitalizations and deaths will continue to increase across the country for at least the next two or three weeks and possibly beyond.’
Another member of Independent Sage, Christina Pagel, also warned that the death toll is likely to rise further.
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