Current COVID-19 activity in the UK

May 17, 2020

Carl Heneghan

This page provides a summary of COVID-19 activity in the UK for the week ending the 17^th of May.

Deaths:

There were 1,467 deaths in the week ending May 17th.

534 (27%) fewer deaths compared with the previous week (ending 10th of May)
3,339 (69%) fewer deaths compared with the week ending the 19^th of April.

Todays COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 17th May reports 90 deaths – the lowest daily reported number since we started analysing the data.

Admissions

Daily admissions peaked on the 2nd of April (3,121) and dropped below 1,000 on the 2nd of May.

10,484 people were in hospital with COVID-19 on the 16th May, down from 11,872 this time last week.

Triage

NHS Pathways coronavirus triage shows that COVID activity for 111 and 999 triage calls are down on the previous day, and significantly down from the peak activity between the 22nd March and the 27^th March.

22^nd March: 111 Triages peaked at 19,359
23^rd March: 111 Online Journeys peaked at 146,894
27^th March: 999 Triages peaked at 1,514

Figures from the NHS dashboard for the 14^th of May.

Critical Care Beds COVID-19

COVID-19 is using 20% of the critical care bed capacity across the UK (in Scotland this figure is 12%).

Care Homes

For the week ending the 4^th May, there were 418 care homes outbreaks in England down from 1,002 per week at the peak.

5,546/15,517 (36%) care homes in England have had COVID-19 outbreaks up to the 4^th of May.

RCGP Surveillance

General Practice consultations with confirmed COVID-19 rose to a maximum of 1.27 per 10,000 on the week of the 5^th April. By the 26^th of April, the figure was 1.14 per 10,000, and then it has dropped further (there may be some delay in reporting for the last week).

ONS data published 14^th May suggested that between 27^th April and 10^th May 2020, an average of 0.27% (27 per 10,000) of the community population had COVID-19 (95% confidence interval: 17 per 10,000 to 41 per 10,000).