UK coronavirus LIVE: ‘Difficult New Year’ ahead as hospital staff face Covid ‘burnout’

London still top of new Covid infections

These figures show the highest number of Covid infections reported today by English region.

London -14,212

South East -9,022

East of England – 6,700

North West – 6,178

West Midlands – 2,934

Italy suffers 347 Covid-19 deaths

The daily tally of new infections rose to 14,245 from 11,831 in the country.

Some 102,974 swab tests were carried out in the past day, the ministry said, against a previous 67,174.

Italy has registered 75,332 Covid-19 deaths since its outbreak – the highest in Europe.

Dr Fauci disputes Trump’s claims that Covid-deaths overblown

The government’s top infectious-disease expert also said on ABC’s This Week that president-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office is achievable.

And he rejected President Donald Trump’s claim on Twitter that coronavirus deaths and cases in the US have been greatly exaggerated.

“All you need to do … is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths,” Mr Fauci said on NBC’s Meet The Press.

Labour leader demands national lockdown within 24 hours

UK deaths pass grim total of 75,000

54,990 people in the UK have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to figures released on Sunday.

The single-day figure is down slightly on the record 57,725 cases announced on Saturday, but is the sixth straight day where infections have topped 50,000. 

Another 386 hospital patients died after testing positive for Covid-19, said NHS England

A further 386 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 51,437, NHS England said on Sunday.

Patients were aged between 30 and 107. All except 18, aged between 59 and 95, had known underlying health conditions.

The deaths were between December 6 2020 and January 2 2021.

There were seven other deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

‘Very rapid rise’ in Covid-19 hospital patients since Christmas, says chief executive of NHS Providers

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, urged for “appropri