Huge rise in Sheffield coronavirus hospital admissions as third death in a week recorded

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, which runs the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General hospitals, admitted 52 patients with Covid-19 between Friday, September 18 and Monday, September 28, bosses have revealed.

That’s up by nearly three quarters on the 30 patients who were admitted by the trust during the equivalent period of September 7-17.

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The number of patients being admitted remains well below that seen at the height of the pandemic earlier this year, when at one point it was treating more than 300 patients with the virus.

On Tuesday, September 29, the trust recorded its third coronavirus death in the space of a week, bringing the total number of Covid-19 hospital deaths in Sheffield since the pandemic began to 298.

Sheffield is on the Government’s coronavirus watchlist as an ‘area of concern’, the lowest of three categories for Covid-19 hotspots.

There were 544 confirmed cases of coronavirus recorded in Sheffield during the seven days ending on Saturday, September 26, the latest period for which reliable data is available, giving a weekly infection rate of 93 new cases per 100,000 people.

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Dr David Hughes, medical director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, earlier this month described the increase in coronavirus patients as a ‘signal that none of us should be complacent about this awful virus’.

He urged people to remember to clean their hands regularly, keep their distance from others, wear face coverings where necessary and keep to the ‘rule of six’ by not gathering in groups larger than that number.

The trust says the relatively small number of patients with coronavirus is not impacting its other services and patients should continue to attend any appointments as planned.

Covid-19 hospital admissions are continuing to rise nationally, with the latest figures showing 2,049 patients with the virus being treated at hospitals across the UK, 297 of whom were on ventilation.

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The number of coronavirus patients requiring ventilation has more than doubled from 124 on September 15.

In the North East and Yorkshire, there were 426 hospital inpatients with coronavirus as of Tuesday, September 29.