Pillar 2: swab testing for the wider population, as set out in government guidance. Pillar 1: swab testing in Public Health England (PHE) labs and NHS hospitals for those with a clinical need, and health and care workers. This has resulted in a reduction in the number of cumulative tests.
This is due to Northern Ireland not processing testing data for 17 May, and the removal of a quality control sample from Wales data.
Deaths reported for Tuesday 24 March only covered from 09:00 to 17:00 on that day subsequent reporting is for 24-hour periods from 17:00 to 17:00. ^ On 25 March PHE changed reporting of deaths to be correct up to 17:00 the previous day, while cases are reported up to 09:00 the same day.Īs well as the major strain on the UK's healthcare service and a substantial fall in life expectancy, the pandemic has had a severe impact on the UK's economy, caused major disruptions to education and had far-reaching impacts on society. In late 2021, the Omicron variant arrived in the UK and drove another rise in cases. Daily cases rose into the autumn, but deaths and hospitalisations were lower than previous waves because of high vaccination rates. As restrictions were lifted from April 2021, the more transmissible Delta variant arrived in the UK and drove another wave of infections in mid-2021, which delayed the lifting of the last restrictions until July. The country's vaccination programme was the first to start in December 2020 and was in early 2021 one of the fastest in the world. In late 2020, a more infectious variant of the virus emerged in the UK, causing another rise in the infection rate during winter that was deadlier than the first, and prompting another UK-wide lockdown. As the infection rate (or positivity rate) rose again in autumn 2020, regional restrictions were reintroduced in some areas and in each of the four countries. Restrictions were gradually lifted during the summer after the peak of the outbreak. The health services established temporary critical care hospitals, but initially faced shortages of personal protective equipment. Police were empowered to enforce the measures, and all four governments given emergency powers not used since the Second World War. Those with symptoms, and their households, were told to self-isolate, while those considered at highest risk were told to shield. On 23 March 2020, the government responded to the widening outbreak with a stay-at-home order banning all non-essential travel and social contact, and shut schools, businesses and gathering places. The country's response at first included a public information campaign and certain expansions to government powers, but was otherwise relatively slow in implementing restrictions. Each constituent country has its own publicly-funded healthcare system operated by devolved governments. There has been some disparity between the outbreak's severity in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – health-care in the UK is a devolved matter. Since early 2021, the UK has had one of the world's highest testing rates. This is Europe's second-highest death toll after Russia, and 20th-highest death rate. By that date there had been 147,371 deaths among people who had recently tested positive – the world's seventh-highest death toll and 28th-highest death rate by population. As of 20 December 2021, there had been 11.4 million confirmed cases – the most in Europe and fourth-highest worldwide. The virus reached the UK in late January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID-19).
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