LONDON, Jan. 12 — An estimated 4.3 million people in private households in Britain had COVID-19 last week, up from 3.7 million in the previous week and set a new record, the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Wednesday.
Prevalence of the coronavirus continues to be highest in England, where around one in 15 people are estimated to have had the virus in the week to Jan. 6, according to ONS figures.
In Wales, around one in 20 is estimated to have been infected with the disease last week, or 169,100 people, up from 157,900. For Scotland the latest estimate is one in 20, or 297,400 people, up from 238,000. In Northern Ireland, the estimate is 99,200 people, up from 72,900, in a week.
“COVID-19 infections continued to increase across all regions of England except the East of England, and London,” ONS said.
Britain reported 129,587 COVID-19 cases in the latest 24-hour period, bringing the total number in the country to 14,862,138, according to official figures on Wednesday.
The country also reported a further 398 coronavirus-related deaths, taking the tally to 151,007.
“It’s difficult to visualise what a crowd of people that big looks like, but there’s no doubt that it’s an awful lot of people. Every one of these deaths will have left a grieving family in its wake and the cumulative burden of all this suffering is hard to comprehend,” Dr Richard Cree, an intensive care consultant at the James Cook University Hospital, wrote in his nomoresurgeons.com blog.
More than 90% of people aged 12 and over in Britain have had their first dose of vaccine and more than 83% have received both shots, according to the latest figures. More than 62% have received booster jabs, or the third dose of a coronavirus vaccine. (Xinhua) -ag
