Britain reports highest deaths from COVID-19 since March as Johnson urges caution

Britain reports highest deaths from COVID-19 since March as Johnson urges caution
# 27 July 2021 22:14 (UTC +04:00)

Britain reported its highest number of deaths and people in hospital with coronavirus since March on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging caution despite a week of lower reported numbers of infection, APA reports citing BBC.

Britain reported 131 new deaths from COVID-19, the highest daily total since March 17, though it came after just 14 deaths were reported on Monday, suggesting the weekend might have impacted when deaths were reported.

The number of COVID-19 patients in British hospitals has also steadily risen to 5,918, also the highest since March, following a spike in cases earlier this month.

The number of new infections has fallen each day for the last seven days, though Johnson stressed the pandemic was not over.

"It is very, very important that we don't allow ourselves to run away with premature conclusions about (lower case numbers)," Johnson told broadcasters, noting it would take a while for the lifting of restrictions in England to feed through to the data.

"People have got to remain very cautious and that remains the approach of the government."

Johnson has lifted restrictions in England and is betting he can get one of Europe's largest economies firing again because so many people are now vaccinated, a decision which marks a new chapter in the response to the novel coronavirus.

Imperial College epidemiologist Neil Ferguson said the effective end of Britain's pandemic could be just months away as vaccines have so dramatically reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death.

"We're not completely out of the woods but the equation has fundamentally changed," Ferguson, whose modelling of the virus's likely spread at the outset of the pandemic in early 2020 alarmed governments across the world, told the BBC.

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THE OPERATION IS BEING PERFORMED