March 6, 2020

expert reaction to second death in the UK from COVID-19

The second death in the UK from COVID-19 is believed to have occurred – the patient was elderly with underlying health conditions.

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:

“Whilst it is reassuring that ‘young and healthy’ people typically have a relatively mild case of the disease, there are numerous older people in the UK, and those with co-morbidities, that make them particularly vulnerable to cases of pneumonia. It’s for reasons like this second UK death that, if an individual receives advice for them to self-isolate, they do acknowledge this guidance and thus limit their exposure to vulnerable populations.”

Prof George Lomonossoff, John Innes Centre, said:

“It’s very sad, but I think it is inevitable that we will see further deaths in the next few days and weeks. Likewise the number of cases is probably going to rise fairly quickly in that same period. We are now entering the phase where transmission between people who have not travelled to infected areas will become dominant.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/

Declared interests

None received.