COVID-19: UK reports lowest single day deaths since start of lockdown

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the UK recently reported that it has recorded the lowest number of coronavirus related deaths on May 18 since the lockdown commenced on March 24. According to reports, despite recording the lowest number of single-day deaths, the death toll still rose by 160 and now stands at 34,796.

As per reports, the United Kingdom also reported 2,684 new coronavirus cases on May 18 taking the total number of cases in the country to 246,406. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also reported that two more deaths in Scotland, four deaths in Wales and six deaths in Northern Ireland. According to reports, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesperson has confirmed that 5,889 care homes across England have reported a suspected coronavirus outbreak.

New Symptoms

UK government has reportedly expanded the list of symptoms related to the novel coronavirus as health officials added the loss of taste and smell to the already existing cough and fever guidelines as the criteria to test for the disease and isolate. At least 59 per cent of those who tested positive for COVID-19 experienced loss of smell and taste, based on the research samples. 

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UK’s chief medical officers said at the press conference that anosmia, the condition of loss of smell, has been included as a symptom to the official government guidance of COVID-19 tests. This comes after the government’s scientific advisory group, New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), analyzed data of those that tested positive. England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, reportedly said the data, which was collected between March 24 and 29 have been under regular review but there were questions as to how significant the symptom was.

Difficult "piece of science"

Other symptoms that the King’s College London suggested must be included as symptoms to the official list are tiredness (fatigue) and stomach pain or diarrhoea, as per media reports. "There's no point telling people to be alert if they don't know the symptoms," said Professor Tim Spector, the lead researcher on the university’s symptoms app study. The study app used samples that contained the symptom information from over 1.5 million people in the UK, which included confirmed as well as the presumptive cases of the novel coronavirus.

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Read: UK Adds Loss Of Taste And Smell To List Of Coronavirus Symptoms

Defending the time it took to include the other symptoms, Prof Van-Tam said that while there had been “a signal” about the possible importance of the symptom for some time, establishing its use in detecting more cases had been “quite a difficult piece of science”. As many as half of the COVID-19 patients could suffer a loss of sense of smell or taste.

(Image Credit AP)