A scientist has claimed that UK has “clearly passed the peak” as hospital coronavirus deaths has fallen during the “first wave” of the pandemic.
Oxford University’s Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute research centre as the UK recorded 449 deaths on Monday.
Professor Naismith said, “Although we have clearly passed the peak of the announced hospital deaths in this first wave, 449 deaths can never be thought of as any other than very sad news.
“The UK has been one of the hardest hit countries in this first wave and we still have to add in deaths from care homes and wider community.
“It is urgent that we learn what can be applied here so we do better.”
He added that he’s worried about “a simplistic narrative regarding testing,” which has been focused on as a possible way to release the UK’s lockdown in a safe manner.
He said, “Testing is only one part of an identify, track, trace, test and isolate scheme.
“This scheme has been very successfully implemented in South Korea. The other components of the scheme are vital to its success.
“The scheme is complex to implement and simply wishing away this complexity and pretending that the number of tests alone is key, is undesirable.”
The UK now has 124,743 confirmed coronavirus cases, on Monday there was a rise of 4,676 cases.
Globally there are more than 2.4m people infected with the virus, with 166,000 deaths. 635,000 people have fully recovered across the world.
Professor Carl Heneghan, of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, says that data shows coronavirus infection rates halved after Boris Johnson told people to wash their hands.
Professor Heneghan said the government have “lost sight” of the scientific evidence and placed the UK into a lockdown on 23 March.
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