53,285 new cases by report date. But when I look at cases by SWAB date (bearing in mind processing lags)
On Tuesday 29 Dec there were 64,043 cases in a single day.

613 (28 day cut off) despite only England reporting. I shall return to deaths later.

No idea where that unicorn came from.

Nothing funny AT ALL about the insane upward pressure on
admissions.

The last COMPLETE day of reporting (22/12/20) suggested 2434 admissions on that day.

BUT Scotland has not reported since 22/12/20 when it recorded 70 admissions.

If we look at the most recent date of admissions for the 4 nations

70 = Scotland on 22/12
2795 = England on 28/12
13. = NI. On 30/12
136. = Wales on 29/12.

In the region of likely 3014 admissions in a day

Have to go back to the first week in April to see that many

If we do the same with Patients IN hospital it was 23,823 on the last COMPLETE reporting day (Mon 28/12/20).

But it looks to me to be more likely around 26,158 or more, taking each nation’s most recent report.

That is about 25% higher than in the Spring surge.

This is beyond shocking ESPECIALLY when you look at the continuing Tsunami of positive cases! Well over 40k most days (save Xmas Eve and Xmas day) and 64k cases last Tuesday.

We need to have an urgent sense of case levels since then esp as Xmas mixing likely to just be showing

Let’s have a look at London hospitals to give us a sense of where we might be,

Last admissions report was last Monday 28/12/20 and we know it has been rocketing since then.

IN patients =5,685 yesterday

That is more than 450 more than the height of the Spring surge.

Now, remember, around that peak in the first week in April we had already locked down more extensively than now for two full weeks.

Just look at London cases by swab date.

Most of the hospitalisations from this cohort are still to hit the London hospitals.

They’ve had 50k positives since Xmas in London alone from 26/12/20 to 29/12/20.

If they admitted 10% of those (as has been about the status quo) then that would be 5k new patients over just 4 days JUST in LONDON.

That will break the hospitals & the poor desperate medical staff.

I cannot see how they can do anything other than ration care.

This is an utter utter disgrace that the Government has allowed this state of affairs to occur.

And utter catastrophe.

DEATHS.

A couple of weeks ago I suggested we would likely be knocking on the door of 90k Covid deaths (NB NOT excess deaths on 1st Jan once all the backlog of cases are backfilled. (Likely to take to mid January due to reporting lag).

How close are we to that now?

If I take ONS/Stats authority COVID certified deaths up to 18/12/20 (they record by date of death).

= 82,624 deaths

Then add deaths by date of death (28 day cut off - always an undercount) to Wednesday 30th = 5365

Then add 135 deaths reported yesterday in England
= 88,125 dead

There are likely still hundreds and hundreds of death still to be notified for the current week & likely some for the week before.

Plus yesterday and today to add by date of death.

I will be surprised if, by mid January we do not discover that we really have had 90k deaths

Always, now, we should be attending closely to the number of positives and where they are burgeoning as it will be those hospitals that will be in disaster management mode.

And the deaths will follow.