Hospitals beds in England taken up by Covid-19 patients have surged by 37 per cent, as experts warned UK has entered its fifth wave.
New NHS data showed the number of positive patients jumped to 7,822 - up by more than 2,000 in a week.
Coronavirus cases have increased sharply in recent weeks, with the latest figures showing 1.7 million people testing positive across the UK, a 23 per cent increase on the week before.
The figures followed warnings from experts that UK has hit its fifth wave and could spell trouble for the NHS as it is already facing the same level of winter levels of demand on beds. The increase is being driven by the recent BA.4 and BA.5 variants, subvariants of Omicron.
Professor Tim Spector, of the ZOE Covid symptom study app, warned that large summer events could could “potentially have a big effect” on Covid rates.
“Events like Glastonbury will drive up cases but the question is how much do they account for,” he told The Independent.
