UK Covid deaths continue to rise as 217 more fatalities and 41,299 cases are reported

England’s deputy chief medical officer earlier said the UK was at ‘half-time in extra time’ in tackling Covid
It is the lowest number of deaths since the week to September 3 (Victoria Jones/PA)
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Michael Howie3 November 2021

The Government has revealed a further 217 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.

It means 1,141 people have died from the disease in the past seven days, a 13 per cent increase on the previous week. It is the second day in a row that fatalities have exceeded 200 after 293 deaths were reported on Tuesday, the highest daily figure since February 21.

Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 166,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

While deaths are on the rise, Covid cases have been on a downward curve since mid-October.

As of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 41,299 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the Government said. That compares with 42,036 the previous Wednesday, and 50,653 the Wednesday before that.

Modelling seen by the government last month had suggested coronavirus cases could fall significantly in November without any new restrictions being reintroduced.

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Experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted that cases, hospital admissions and deaths in England would peak this month and start to fall rapidly, even without the government’s Covid “Plan B”, which includes mandatory face masks in public places and a return to mass working from home.

Meanwhile, a total of 50,071,683 first doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been delivered in the UK by November 2, a rise of 46,663 on the previous day, Government figures show.

Some 45,752,487 second doses have been delivered, an increase of 20,922.

A combined total of 8,652,842 booster and third doses have also been delivered, a day-on-day rise of 296,670.

Separate totals for booster and third doses are not available.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam urged people to be cautious in the winter and over the Christmas period but suggested easier times could be just a few months away.

In a 30-minute slot answering listener questions on BBC Breakfast and BBC Radio 5 Live, Prof Van-Tam was asked how a Christmas lockdown could be prevented.

He said: “Christmas, and indeed all of the darker winter months, are potentially going to be problematic, and I think the things that are really going to determine this are, first of all, human behaviours and caution over the winter months, but particularly in the next couple of months if you're talking about Christmas, so it's how cautious we are.

“The next one is how well the vaccination programmes go.”

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