The UK now has the highest COVID rates in Europe

Statistics formulated by Oxford University’s research platform Our World in Data show that Britain has now overtaken Spain for the worst COVID outbreak in Europe.

Our World in Data shows that, on average, more than 107.3 out of one million people tested positive for coronavirus in the UK over the last week. Officials also announced a further 7673 more cases today, resulting in a quarter increase of COVID cases over the week.

The UK tops the rest of Europe in COVID cases

Thanks to the UK’s vaccine rollout, the country had previously been hailed as one of the least COVID affected destinations on the continent. Now, thanks to the increasing prevalence of the Delta variant, the UK has seen a shocking rise in COVID cases.

The UK is now ahead of 43 other European countries when it comes to coronavirus infection rates. Spain has the second-highest rates, with 104.6 cases per million people. The third and fourth countries with the highest COVID infections are Latvia and Andorra, with 92.1 and 90.6 cases per million people, respectively.

Italy, which was hit hard by the coronavirus during the start of the pandemic, now has only 28.5 cases per million people. Meanwhile, Portugal, which recently moved to the UK’s amber list, has seen an increase in cases with 70.58 per million.

However, researchers suspect that the UK’s high amount of recorded COVID cases can be attributed to the country carrying out more tests per person. Over the last week, the UK conducted 13.74 COVID tests per 1000 people. The number was only surpassed by Austria and Denmark, which ran more tests per people based on their population.

The UK is the fourth-highest European country for vaccine administration

Despite the high COVID infection numbers, the UK has the fourth highest COVID vaccine administration rate in Europe, which has helped keep death rates down.

Our World in Data shows that Germany, France and Italy all came ahead of the UK regarding vaccine administration over the last week. Germany came in first with 806,001 doses given, followed by France (568,768), with Italy coming in third with 545,429 jabs administered. The Uk came in at just 470,048 doses.

Despite the strong vaccine rollout, the UK’s Delta variant outbreak has also caused a rise in COVID hospitalisations. The rate, which lags behind several weeks due to the time it takes between COVID infection and hospitalisation, has shot up by 46%.

The most recent 10-day figures lead up to June 9th and show 184 COVID hospitalisations. On June 2nd, the figure stood at just 126.

Luckily, COVID death rates remain low, with ten victims added to the death toll, compared to 13 the week prior. England and Wales have had their lowest death rates since March 2020. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed England experienced just 52 COVID related deaths between the 29th of May and the 4th of June, down from 69 the week before.

The low death rates support claims that coronavirus vaccines significantly reduce severe illness and death relating to the virus. This week the vaccine rollout will also extend to those aged 23 and over, with the invitations being sent out via text.