Covid causes largest number of deaths from infectious disease since 1918
The number of people dying from infectious diseases has climbed to meteoric levels owing to Covid-19 reaching highs not seen since 1918 and the Spanish Flu pandemic, new analysis reveals.
In 2020, more than 73,500 people in England and Wales died of Covid-19 - with 4,400 other registered deaths related to all other parasitic and infectious diseases.
The Office For National Statistics said more than 140,000 people have now died in the UK with Covid-19 mentioned on their death certificates as the underlying cause or a contributory cause.
The ONS uses a different way of recording Covid compared to the government which has the total number of deaths at a lower 125,5000 estimate.
Last year was the deadliest 12 months for infectious diseases since 1918 when there 89,900 deaths in England and Wales.
The new data also revealed the strain the hospital system in the UK was under during winter.
The winter months are well known to be the toughest period for the NHS each year, with January often being the worst month.
But the 2020/2021 winter was much much more difficult as the country went through the worst of the second wave.
In the last week of January 2021, more than 5,000 adult critical care beds a day were occupied in hospitals in England, compared with around 3,000 a day in the same week in 2020.This decreased in February but it was still the highest number of people in critical care beds in February in a decade.
Hospitals also opened significantly more beds in anticipation of the influx of Covid patients.
Between January 20 and February 5 2021, there were more than 6,000 critical care beds open each day.
Throughout January and February between 2017 and 2020, the number of critical care beds open was between 3,500 to 3,900.The number of people testing positive and dying each day from Covid-19 has fallen in recent weeks across the UK but still remains at high levels when compared to the first wave.
There were 4,618 cases in the UK on Sunday and a further 52 deaths.
There are still over 8,000 patients in hospital with Covid, comparable to levels seen in late May but significantly down from the peak of almost 40,000 in January.
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