Covid hospital admissions rise in every region in England

New Covid-19 admissions to hospitals in northwest following closely behind London, latest data shows

The number of Covid patients in London hospitals is up by 68 per cent (PA Wire)

The NHS in England recorded a 44 per cent weekly increase in hospital admissions on Christmas Day, with those in the capital up by 68 per cent while admissions increased in every region, new data shows.

On a rolling 7-day basis, the northwest saw admissions rise by 60 per cent within a week, according to the latest figures available.

Hospitals in the east of England and the Midlands saw a 48 and 47 per cent increase respectively, while the southwest saw an increase in total admissions of just 2 per cent.

However, hospital chiefs have warned against “overinterpreting” the data, published by NHS England, as it does not differentiate between patients who were in hospital for other reasons, and tested positive for the virus incidentally, and those admitted because of Covid.

The latest data comes after the government confirmed yesterday it would not impose any further restrictions before the new year.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals in England, said there had been an increase in the number of Covid patients in hospital, but added: “In the previous peaks, we’ve had some very seriously ill older people who’ve got really significant respiratory problems and ... they had to go into critical care.

“The difference this time is we’ve got quite a few patients who are coming in – they might have fallen off their bike and knocked their head, or broken their leg – and what’s happening is they’ve got no symptoms, but when they arrive, they’re actually testing positive for Covid.

“Interestingly, the statistics that we use don’t actually distinguish between those two. So we just need to be careful about overinterpreting the data.

“We still don’t know exactly what’s going to happen at the point when Omicron meets the older population, and clearly, we’ve had a lot of intergenerational mixing over Christmas, so we are all still waiting to see [whether we are] going to see a significant number of increases in terms of the number of patients coming into hospital with serious Omicron-related disease.”

Environment Secretary George Eustice said the government is keeping the level of Covid hospital admissions under “very close review’’ after ministers decided there would be no new restrictions in England before the new year.

Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “This is a disease that’s not going away, the infection is not going away, although we’re not going to see as severe disease for much longer.

“Ultimately, we’re going to have to let people who are positive with Covid go about their normal lives as they would do with any other cold. And so, at some point, we’ve got to relax this.

“If the self-isolation rules are what’s making the pain associated with Covid, then we need to do that perhaps sooner rather than later. Maybe not quite just yet.”

Meanwhile, virologist Dr Sarah Pitt has called for “a few measures” to curb the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The microbiology lecturer said the “seriously infectious virus” was “putting some people very seriously in hospital, and some people are dying”.