UK Virus Surge Leads To Record Daily Deaths And Hospitals Like 'war Zones'

London, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Jan, 2021 ) :Some British hospitals resemble a "war zone" due to the influx of coronavirus patients in the country's latest wave of the disease, the government's chief scientific adviser said Wednesday.

The grim assessment by Patrick Vallance came as the UK announced another 1,820 fatalities from Covid-19, breaking Tuesday's record daily toll and taking the total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test result to 93,290.

Britain's mortality rate has risen nearly 15 percent over the past week, as surging infection rates throughout December have now fed into increasing hospital admissions and deaths.

The sobering situation follows the emergence of a new strain of the virus across the country in recent months, heaping fresh pressure on overstretched health services and overwrought medical staff.

"When you go into a hospital, this is very, very bad at the moment with enormous pressure and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with," Vallance told Sky News.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has faced persistent criticism over his handling of the crisis, called the latest figures "appalling" and braced Britons for further bad news.

"There will be more to come because what we're seeing is the result of the wave of the new variant that we saw just before Christmas," he told reporters from Downing Street.

After easing restrictions briefly for much of the country over Christmas, Johnson imposed another lockdown earlier this month while banking on an unprecedented vaccination drive to try to return life to normality.