Health Secretary Matt Hancock during a media briefing on coronavirus (COVID-19) in Downing Street, London.
Matt Hancock has claimed that the Covid pandemic in the UK is “over”, just a day after more than 600 deaths were reported from the virus.
Speaking to Sky News, the former health secretary was asked: “If the Covid pandemic finally over in this country?”
Hancock replied: “Yes, in this country”.
But a staggering 646 deaths from the virus were reported on Thursday – as well as close to 20,000 new cases.
It comes as three in five of all Covid-19 patients in hospital trusts in England are being treated primarily for something else, new figures show.
Of the 13,645 patients reported as having the virus on April 19, 8,211 (60 per cent) were not being treated principally for Covid.
This is the highest proportion since these figures were first published in June 2021, and is up from 26 per cent at the start of December.
In London the figure is as high as 74 per cent of patients while in eastern England it has reached 69 per cent.
The Midlands is at 67 per cent, but other regions are closer to 50 per cent, including the North West (57 per cent), North East and Yorkshire (53 per cent) and the South East (also 53 per cent).
South-west England has the lowest proportion, at 40 per cent, according to NHS England figures.
All hospital patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 need to be treated separately from those who do not have the virus, regardless of whether they are in hospital primarily for Covid or not.
But the growing proportion of patients who are in hospital “with” Covid-19 rather than “for” Covid-19 shows how the current wave of the virus has not led to the same sort of pressure on critical care as in previous waves.
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