In early-February 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom (UK) were confirmed. The number of cases in the UK increased significantly at the end of 2021. On January 13, 2023, the number of confirmed cases in the UK amounted to 24,243,393. COVID deaths among highest in Europe There were 202,157 confirmed coronavirus deaths in the UK as of January 13, 2023. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Current infection rate in Europe The current infection rate in the UK was 50 cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days as of January 16. San Marino had the highest seven day rate of infections in Europe at 336.

In early-February, 2020, the first cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in the United Kingdom (UK). The number of cases in the UK has since risen to 24,243,393, with 1,062 new cases reported on January 13, 2023. The highest daily figure since the beginning of the pandemic was on January 6, 2022 at 275,646 cases.

COVID deaths in the UK COVID-19 has so far been responsible for 202,157 deaths in the UK as of January 13, 2023, and the UK has one of the highest death toll from COVID-19 in Europe. As of January 13, the incidence of deaths in the UK is 298 per 100,000 population.

Regional breakdown The South East has the highest amount of cases in the country with 3,123,050 confirmed cases as of January 11. London and the North West have 2,912,859 and 2,580,090 cases respectively.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of November 24, 2024 there were over 274 million confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) across the whole of Europe since the first confirmed cases in France in January 2020. France has been the worst affected country in Europe with 39,028,437 confirmed cases, followed by Germany with 38,437,756 cases. Italy and the UK have approximately 26.8 million and 25 million cases respectively. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Introduction: The first reported UK case of COVID-19 occurred on 30 January 2020. A lockdown from 24 March was partially relaxed on 10 May. One model to forecast disease spread depends on clinical parameters and transmission rates. Output includes the basic reproduction number R0 and the log growth rate r in the exponential phase.Methods: Office for National Statistics data on deaths in England and Wales is used to estimate r. A likelihood for the transmission parameters is defined from a gaussian density for r using the mean and standard error of the estimate. Parameter samples from the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm lead to an estimate and credible interval for R0 and forecasts for cases and deaths.Results: The UK initial log growth rate is r = 0.254 with s.e. 0.004. R0 = 6.94 with 95% CI (6.52, 7.39). In a 12 week lockdown from 24 March with transmission parameters reduced throughout to 5% of their previous values, peaks of around 90,000 severely and 25,000 critically ill patients, and 44,000 cumulative deaths are expected by 16 June. With transmission rising from 5% in mid-April to reach 30%, 50,000 deaths and 475,000 active cases are expected in mid-June. Had such a lockdown begun on 17 March, around 30,000 (28,000, 32,000) fewer cumulative deaths would be expected by 9 June.Discussion: The R0 estimate is compatible with some international estimates but over twice the value quoted by the UK government. An earlier lockdown could have saved many thousands of lives.

As of March 13, Austria had the highest rate of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases reported in the previous seven days in Europe at 224 cases per 100,000. Luxembourg and Slovenia have recorded 122 and 108 cases per 100,000 people respectively in the past week. Furthermore, San Marino had a rate of 97 cases in the last seven days.
Since the pandemic outbreak, France has been the worst affected country in Europe with over 38.3 million cases as of January 13. The overall incidence of cases in every European country can be found here.

For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of June 13, 2023, there have been almost 768 million cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) worldwide. The disease has impacted almost every country and territory in the world, with the United States confirming around 16 percent of all global cases.

COVID-19: An unprecedented crisis Health systems around the world were initially overwhelmed by the number of coronavirus cases, and even the richest and most prepared countries struggled. In the most vulnerable countries, millions of people lacked access to critical life-saving supplies, such as test kits, face masks, and respirators. However, several vaccines have been approved for use, and more than 13 billion vaccine doses had already been administered worldwide as of March 2023.

The coronavirus in the United Kingdom Over 202 thousand people have died from COVID-19 in the UK, which is the highest number in Europe. The tireless work of the National Health Service (NHS) has been applauded, but the country’s response to the crisis has drawn criticism. The UK was slow to start widespread testing, and the launch of a COVID-19 contact tracing app was delayed by months. However, the UK’s rapid vaccine rollout has been a success story, and around 53.7 million people had received at least one vaccine dose as of July 13, 2022.

Online platforms play a relevant role in the creation and diffusion of false or misleading news. Concerningly, the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping a communication network which reflects the emergence of collective attention towards a topic that rapidly gained universal interest. Here, we characterize the dynamics of this network on Twitter, analysing how unreliable content distributes among its users. We find that a minority of accounts is responsible for the majority of the misinformation circulating online, and identify two categories of users: a few active ones, playing the role of ‘creators’, and a majority playing the role of ‘consumers’. The relative proportion of these groups (approx. 14% creators—86% consumers) appears stable over time: consumers are mostly exposed to the opinions of a vocal minority of creators (which are the origin of 82% of fake content in our data), that could be mistakenly understood as representative of the majority of users. The corresponding pressure from a perceived majority is identified as a potential driver of the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic. Methods The datasets that we used in this work come from the COVID-19 Infodemics Observatory (https://covid19obs.fbk.eu/#/). Tweets associated with the COVID-19 pandemics (coronavirus, ncov, #Wuhan, covid19, COVID-19, SARSCoV2, COVID) have been automatically collected using the Twitter Filter API. It contains 7.7 million retweets in the case of USA, 300 thousand in the case of Italy and 900 thousand in the case of the UK. The time of the collection goes from the 22nd of January to the 22nd of May for the USA, while for Italy and the UK it goes from the 22nd of January to the 2nd of December. For each tweet we specified the ID code as well as the time at which it was created. In this dataset one can also find the tables necessary to reproduce exactly the figures in the paper.

As of May 2, 2023, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had been confirmed in almost every country in the world. The virus had infected over 687 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had reached almost 6.87 million. The most severely affected countries include the U.S., India, and Brazil.

COVID-19: background information COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that had not previously been identified in humans. The first case was detected in the Hubei province of China at the end of December 2019. The virus is highly transmissible and coughing and sneezing are the most common forms of transmission, which is similar to the outbreak of the SARS coronavirus that began in 2002 and was thought to have spread via cough and sneeze droplets expelled into the air by infected persons.

Naming the coronavirus disease Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that can be transmitted between animals and people, causing illnesses that may range from the common cold to more severe respiratory syndromes. In February 2020, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and the World Health Organization announced official names for both the virus and the disease it causes: SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, respectively. The name of the disease is derived from the words corona, virus, and disease, while the number 19 represents the year that it emerged.

As of June 28, over 26 percent of Brits were always cleaning frequently touched surfaces to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus (COVID-19), with a further 30 percent of survey respondents saying they are frequently cleaning surfaces. Across the thirteen survey waves the share of people always actively cleaning surfaces in their home due to coronavirus has net decreased by around three percent. The latest number of cases in the UK can be found here. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of June 28, 2020, in the United Kingdom, it was found that around 47 percent of survey respondents had been actively avoiding going to hospitals or other healthcare settings to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus (COVID-19), although this share is a fairly large net decrease since the first survey wave.

The latest number of cases in the UK can be found here. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

As of April 17, 2020, 72 percent of British adults had actively improved their personal hygiene as a preventive measure against contracting the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Great Britain, compared to only 35 percent who had actively improved their hygiene as of March 1. Furthermore, 75 percent of British respondents now say they are avoiding crowded public places, although this has essentially been enforced by the lockdown currently in place in the United Kingdom. In the UK, the latest number of coronavirus cases can be found here

Following a trial run and official release on the 24th of September 2020, the NHS COVID-19 app has been downloaded more than 29 million times in England and Wales, as of December 2021. Developed to complement the NHS Test & Trace in England and the Test, Trace and Protect program in Wales, the app is aimed at increasing the speed and accuracy of contact tracing, and includes features such as local area alerts and venue check-in.

NHS COVID-19 app usage Between the beginning of June 2021 and the end of July 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom started rising again, reaching the peak of 54,674 on the 21st of July. In the previous week, it was reported that more than 600 thousand users of the NHS COVID-19 app in England and Wales had received a self-isolation alert or “ping,” causing what has been since renamed by the media as a “pingdemic.” The NHS COVID-19 app, which works using Bluetooth technology, registers the devices that the users have been in proximity of, and is programmed to send alerts to all the traced contacts in case the app users test positive for coronavirus. While the app’s tracing measurements are currently being reviewed to decrease the number of alerts sent, two in 10 users have reported switching off the app’s contact tracing function. Moreover, according to a survey of online users in Great Britain, only 22 percent of the online users who have the app are using it correctly, while one in ten reported deleting the app altogether.

Travel health pass and COVID-19 apps In 2021, the rolling out of vaccination plans worldwide prompted health institutions and travel companies to start releasing new apps or updating their current ones to function as health passports. With close to 5,7 million downloads in the first half of 2021, the NHS app was the most downloaded app used to show digital certifications. The CovPass app, which is available to residents in Germany, followed with more than 5.56 million downloads as of the second quarter of 2021. According to a February survey of travelers worldwide, the main concerns over the use of digital health passports related to security risks over personal data being hacked and privacy protection.