In early-February 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom (UK) were confirmed. As of December 2023, the South East had the highest number of confirmed first episode cases of the virus in the UK with 3,180,101 registered cases, while London had 2,947,727 confirmed first-time cases. Overall, there has been 24,243,393 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK as of January 13, 2023.

COVID deaths in the UK COVID-19 was responsible for 202,157 deaths in the UK as of January 13, 2023, and the UK had the highest death toll from coronavirus in western Europe. The incidence of deaths in the UK was 297.8 per 100,000 population as January 13, 2023.

Current infection rate in Europe The infection rate in the UK was 43.3 cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days as of March 13, 2023. Austria had the highest rate at 224 cases per 100,000 in the last week.

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

As of January 12, 2023, COVID-19 has been responsible for 202,157 deaths in the UK overall. The North West of England has been the most affected area in terms of deaths at 28,116, followed by the South East of England with 26,221 coronavirus deaths. Furthermore, there have been 22,264 mortalities in London as a result of COVID-19.

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

All data relating to Coronavirus (COVID-19) mortality and long-term outdoor air pollution in London.

As of October 3, 2023, there were 2,189,008 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland. The Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board has the highest amount of confirmed cases at 514,117, although this is also the most populated part of Scotland. The Lothian health board has 368,930 confirmed cases which contains Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland.

Situation in the rest of the UK Across the whole of the UK there have been 24,243,393 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of January 2023. Scotland currently has fewer cases than four regions in England. As of December 2023, the South East has the highest number of confirmed first-episode cases of the virus in the UK with 3,180,101 registered cases, while London and the North West have 2,947,7271 and 2,621,449 confirmed cases, respectively.

COVID deaths in the UK COVID-19 has so far been responsible for 202,157deaths in the UK as of January 13, 2023, and the UK has had the highest death toll from coronavirus in Western Europe. The incidence of deaths in the UK is 297.8 per 100,000 population.

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

Although an international chain, its base and the majority of Pret a Manger (Pret) stores are in the UK and in London in particular. The continual development and communication strategies that the company has undertaken in this market have demonstrated both the long-term strategies that foodservice operators need to build on in order to comply with consumer demands and lifestyles but also the short-term engagement opportunities that are vital in maintaining and inspiring a loyal consumer base, especially during the developing coronavirus pandemic. Read More

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having a damaging impact on the global hotel industry. Preliminary results for London hotels showed that compared to the same period in 2019, occupancy rates from March 1 to 7, 2020 fell by 21 percent, resulting in a fall in RevPar by 27.7 percent. More recent forecasts in April however showed a much bigger impact on RevPar and occupancy rates,

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

The main aim of this work is to develop a set of high level macro economic scenarios for the medium-term (to the end of 2022) and for the long-term (to 2030) in order to inform the development of recovery strategies in London, reflecting unprecedented uncertainty on the economic outlook.

The primary scenario dimensions include Effectiveness/nature of public health response and Effectiveness/impact of economic support measures. Other scenario dimensions include: Brexit and migration; International economic context; Technology and innovation; Financial climate; Political economy; Economic Geography and GHG emissions.

This is an agile project - GLA Economics will continue to track actual data in order to review the assessment of the likelihood of alternative scenario outcomes. Successive updates will be released when they become available for the benefit of external stakeholders in tackling the COVID-19 crisis.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The UCL COVID-19 Social Study at University College London (UCL) was launched on 21 March 2020. Led by Dr Daisy Fancourt and Professor Andrew Steptoe from the Department of Behavioural Science and Health, the team designed the study to track in real-time the psychological and social impact of the virus across the UK.

The study quickly became the largest in the country, growing to over 70,000 participants and providing rare and privileged insight into the effects of the pandemic on people’s daily lives. Through our participants’ remarkable two-year commitment to the study, 1.2 million surveys were collected over 105 weeks, and over 100 scientific papers and 44 public reports were published.

During COVID-19, population mental health has been affected both by the intensity of the pandemic (cases and death rates), but also by lockdowns and restrictions themselves. Worsening mental health coincided with higher rates of COVID-19, tighter restrictions, and the weeks leading up to lockdowns. Mental health then generally improved during lockdowns and most people were able to adapt and manage their well-being. However, a significant proportion of the population suffered disproportionately to the rest, and stay-at-home orders harmed those who were already financially, socially, or medically vulnerable. Socioeconomic factors, including low SEP, low income, and low educational attainment, continued to be associated with worse experiences of the pandemic. Outcomes for these groups were worse throughout many measures including mental health and wellbeing; financial struggles;self-harm and suicide risk; risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing long Covid; and vaccine resistance and hesitancy. These inequalities existed before the pandemic and were further exacerbated by COVID-19, and such groups remain particularly vulnerable to the future effects of the pandemic and other national crises.

Further information, including reports and publications, can be found on the UCL COVID-19 Social Study website.

Main Topics:

The study asked baseline questions on the following:

• Demographics, including year of birth, sex, ethnicity, relationship status, country of dwelling, urban/rural dwelling, type of accommodation, housing tenure, number of adults and children in the household, household income, education, employment status, pet ownership, and personality.
• Health and health behaviours, including pre-existing physical health conditions, diagnosed mental health conditions, pregnancy, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, caring responsibilities, usual social behaviours, and social network size.

It also asked repeated questions at every wave on the following:

• COVID-19 status, including whether the respondent had had COVID-19, whether they had come into likely contact with COVID-19, current isolation status and motivations for isolation, length of isolation, length of time not leaving the home, length of time not contacting others, trust in government, trust in the health service, adherence to health advice, and experience of adverse events due to COVID-19 (including severe illness within the family, bereavement, redundancy, or financial difficulties).
• Mental health, including wellbeing, depression, anxiety, which factors were causing stress, sleep quality, loneliness, social isolation, and changes in health behaviours such as smoking, drinking and exercise.
• How people were spending their time whilst in isolation, including questions on working, functional household activities, care, and schooling of any children in the household, hobbies, and relaxation.

Certain waves of the study also included one-off modules on topics including volunteering behaviours, locus of control, frustrations and expectations, coping styles, fear of COVID-19, resilience, arts and creative engagement, life events, weight, gambling behaviours, mental health diagnosis, use of financial support, faith and religion, relationships, neighbourhood satisfaction, healthcare usage, discrimination experiences, life changes, optimism, long COVID and COVID-19 vaccination.

The TwinsUK cohort (https://twinsuk.ac.uk/), set up in 1992, is a major volunteer-based genomic epidemiology resource with longitudinal deep genomic and phenomics data from over 15,000 adult twins (18+) from across the UK who are highly engaged and recallable. The cohort is predominantly female (80%) for historical reasons. It is one of the most deeply characterised adult twin cohort in the world, providing a rich platform for scientists to research health and ageing longitudinally. There are over 700,000 biological samples stored and data collected on twins with repeat measures at multiple timepoints. Extremely large datasets (billions of data points) have been generated for each TwinsUK participant over 30 years, including phenotypes from questionnaires, multiple clinical visits, and record linkage, and genetic and ‘omic data from biological samples. TwinsUK ensures derived datasets from raw data are returned by collaborators to enhance the resource. TwinsUK also holds a wide range of laboratory samples, including plasma, serum, DNA, faecal microbiome and tissue (skin, fat, colonic biopsies) within HTA-regulated facilities at King's College London.

More recently, postal and at-home collection strategies have allowed sample collections from frail twins, our whole cohort for COVID-19 studies, and for new twin recruits. The cohort is recallable either on a four-year longitudinal sweep visit or, based on diagnosis or genotype.

More than 1,000 data access collaborations and 250,000 samples have been shared with external researchers, resulting in over 800 publications since 2012.

TwinsUK is now working to link to twins’ official health, education and environmental records for health research purposes, which will further enhance the resource, education and environmental records for health research purposes, which will further enhance the resource.

Simple strategy for consented studies at the Nightingale hospital, London.

The coronavirus lockdown has resulted in a significant increase in residential location footfall in the United Kingdom, compared with a huge decline in workplace locations. London saw the highest increase in residential location tracking at 19 percent, as well as the largest decline in workplace activity at -62 percent. In all the major UK cities provided here, there has been a decline in workplace activity and an increase in residential activity, implying that the British public are adhering to the government's social distancing pleas.

1. In the United Kingdom, children are spending less time outdoors and are more disconnected from nature than previous generations. However, interaction with nature at a young age can benefit wellbeing and long-term support for conservation. Green space accessibility in the UK varies between rural and urban areas and is lower for children than for adults. It is possible that COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may have influenced these differences.

2. In this study, we assessed parents' attitudes towards green space, as well as whether the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions had affected their attitudes or the amount of time spent outside by their children, via an online survey for parents of primary school-aged children in Cambridgeshire and North London, UK (n = 171). We assessed whether responses were affected by local environment (rural, suburban or urban), school type (state-funded or fee-paying) or garden access (with or without private garden access).

3. Parents' attitudes towards green space were significantly different between local environments: 76.9% of rural parents reported being happy with the amount of green space to which their children had access, in contrast with only 40.5% of urban parents.

4. COVID-19 lockdown restrictions also affected parents' attitudes to the importance of green space, and this differed between local environments: 75.7% of urban parents said their views had changed during lockdown, in contrast with 35.9% of rural parents. The change in amount of time spent outside by children during lockdown was also significantly different between local environments: most urban children spent more time inside during lockdown, whilst most rural children spent more time outside.

5. Neither parents' attitudes towards green space nor the amount of time spent outside by their children varied with school type or garden access.

6. Our results suggest that lockdown restrictions exacerbated pre-existing differences in access to nature between urban and rural children in our sampled population. We suggest that the current increased public and political awareness of the value of green space should be capitalised on to increase provision and access to green space and to reduce inequalities in accessibility and awareness of nature between children from different backgrounds.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), led by the University of Manchester with the Universities of St Andrews, Sussex, Glasgow, Edinburgh, LSE, Goldsmiths, King's College London and Manchester Metropolitan University, designed and carried out the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS), with Ipsos as the survey partner. EVENS documents the lives of ethnic and religious minorities in Britain during the coronavirus pandemic and is, to date, the largest and most comprehensive survey to do so.
EVENS used online and telephone survey modes, multiple languages, and a suite of recruitment strategies to reach the target audience. Words of Colour coordinated the recruitment strategies to direct participants to the survey, and partnerships with 13 voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations[1] helped to recruit participants for the survey.
The ambition of EVENS was to better represent ethnic and religious minorities compared to existing data sources regarding the range and diversity of represented minority population groups and the topic coverage. Thus, the EVENS survey used an 'open' survey approach, which requires participants to opt-in to the survey instead of probability-based approaches that invite individuals to participate following their identification within a pre-defined sampling frame. This 'open' approach sought to overcome some of the limitations of probability-based methods in order to reach a large number and diverse mix of people from religious and ethnic minorities.
EVENS included a wide range of research and policy questions, including education, employment and economic well-being, housing, social, cultural and political participation, health, and experiences of racism and discrimination, particularly with respect to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Crucially, EVENS covered a full range of racial, ethnic and religious groups, including those often unrepresented in such work (such as Chinese, Jewish and Traveller groups), resulting in the participation of 14,215 participants, including 9,702 ethnic minority participants and a general population sample of 4,513, composed of White people who classified themselves as English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, and British. Data collection covered the period between 16 February 2021 and 14 August 2021.
Further information about the study can be found on the EVENS project website.
A teaching dataset based on the main EVENS study is available from the UKDS under SN 9249.
[1] The VCSE organisations included Business in the Community, BEMIS (Scotland), Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team (Wales), Friends, Families and Travellers, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Migrants' Rights Networks, Muslim Council Britain, NHS Race and Health Observatory, Operation Black Vote, Race Equality Foundation, Runnymede Trust, Stuart Hall Foundation, and The Ubele Initiative.
Main Topics:

Ethnic minorities, religious minorities, ethnicity, inequality, education, employment and economic well-being, housing, social participation, cultural participation, political participation, health, experiences of racism, experiences of discrimination, impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

As of February 11, 2021, London had the highest share of individuals in England testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies at 29.1 percent, followed by the North West of England where 27.8 percent of people had antibodies. In the South West, around 16 percent of people had COVID-19 antibodies. The rate of antibodies in the population should continues to increase alongside the high uptake of vaccination in the UK.

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

The inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic were clear by April 2020 when data showed that despite being just 3.5% of the population in England, Black people comprised 5.8% of those who died from the virus; whereas White people, comprising 85.3% of the population, were 73.6% of those who died. The disproportionate impact continued with, for example, over-policing: 32% of stop and search in the year ending March 2021 were of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) males aged 15-34, despite them being just 2.6% of the population.

The emergency measures introduced to govern the pandemic worked together to create a damaging cycle affecting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic families and communities of all ages. Key-workers – often stopped by police on their way to provide essential services – could not furlough or work from home to avoid infection, nor support their children in home-schooling. Children in high-occupancy homes lacked adequate space and/ or equipment to learn; such homes also lacked leisure space for key workers to restore themselves after extended hours at work. Over-policing instilled fear across the generations and deterred BAME people – including the mobile elderly - from leaving crowded homes for legitimate exercise, and those that did faced the risk of receiving a Fixed Penalty Notice and a criminal record.

These insights arose from research by Co-POWeR into the synergistic effects of emergency measures on policing, child welfare, caring, physical activity and nutrition. Using community engagement, a survey with 1000 participants and interviews, focus groups, participatory workshops and community testimony days with over 400 people in total, we explored the combined impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on wellbeing and resilience across BAME FC in the UK. This policy note crystallises our findings into a framework of recommendations relating to arts and media communications, systems and structures, community and individual well-being and resilience. We promote long term actions rather than short term reactions.

In brief, we conclude that ignoring race, gender and class when tackling a pandemic can undermine not only wellbeing across Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic families and communities (BAME FC) but also their levels of trust in government. A framework to protect wellbeing and resilience in BAME FC during public health emergencies was developed by Co-POWeR to ensure that laws and guidance adopted are culturally competent.

Two viruses - COVID-19 and discrimination - are currently killing in the UK (Solanke 2020), especially within BAMEFC who are hardest hit. Survivors face ongoing damage to wellbeing and resilience, in terms of physical and mental health as well as social, cultural and economic (non-medical) consequences. Psychosocial (ADCS 2020; The Children's Society 2020)/ physical trauma of those diseased and deceased, disproportionate job-loss (Hu 2020) multigenerational housing, disrupted care chains (Rai 2016) lack of access to culture, education and exercise, poor nutrition, 'over-policing' (BigBrotherWatch 2020) hit BAMEFC severely. Local 'lockdowns' illustrate how easily BAMEFC become subject to stigmatization and discrimination through 'mis-infodemics' (IOM 2020). The impact of these viruses cause long-term poor outcomes. While systemic deficiencies have stimulated BAMEFC agency, producing solidarity under emergency, BAMEFC vulnerability remains, requiring official support. The issues are complex thus we focus on the interlinked and 'intersectional nature of forms of exclusion and disadvantage', operationalised through the idea of a 'cycle of wellbeing and resilience' (CWAR) which recognises how COVID-19 places significant stress upon BAMEFC structures and the impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on different BAMEFC cohorts across the UK, in whose lives existing health inequalities are compounded by a myriad of structural inequalities. Given the prevalence of multi-generational households, BAMEFC are likely to experience these as a complex of jostling over-lapping stressors: over-policed unemployed young adults are more likely to live with keyworkers using public transport to attend jobs in the front line, serving elders as formal/informal carers, neglecting their health thus exacerbating co-morbidities and struggling to feed children who are unable to attend school, resulting in nutritional and digital deprivation. Historical research shows race/class dimensions to national emergencies (e.g. Hurricane Katrina) but most research focuses on the COVID-19 experience of white families/communities. Co-POWeR recommendations will emerge from culturally and racially sensitive social science research on wellbeing and resilience providing context as an essential strand for the success of biomedical and policy interventions (e.g. vaccines, mass testing). We will enhance official decision-making through strengthening cultural competence in ongoing responses to COVID-19 thereby...

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO) is a longitudinal cohort study, a collaboration between the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO), the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), and the Sutton Trust. The overarching aim of COSMO is to provide a representative data resource to support research into how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the life chances of pupils with different characteristics, in terms of short-term effects on educational attainment, and long-term educational and career outcomes.

The topics covered by COSMO include, but are not limited to, young people's education experiences during the pandemic, cancelled assessments and education and career aspirations. They have also been asked for consent for linking their survey data to their administrative data held by organisations such as the UK Department for Education (DfE). Linked data is planned to be made available to researchers through the ONS Secure Research Service.

Young people who were in Year 11 in the 2020-2021 academic year were drawn as a clustered and stratified random sample from the National Pupil Database held by the DfE, as well as from a separate sample of independent schools from DfE's Get Information about Schools database. The parents/guardians of the sampled young people were also invited to take part in COSMO. Data from parents/guardians complement the data collected from young people.

Further information about the study may be found on the COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO) webpage.

COSMO Wave 1, 2021-2022
Data collection in Wave 1 was carried out between September 2021 and April 2022. Young people and parents/guardians were first invited to a web survey. In addition to receiving online reminders, some non-respondents were followed up via face-to-face visits over the winter and throughout spring.

Latest edition information:
The fourth edition (April 2024) follows the release of Wave 2 data. For this edition, a longitudinal parents dataset has been deposited, to help data users find core background information from parents who took part in either Wave 1 or Wave 2, in one place. A new version of the young person data file (version 2.1) has also been deposited. This file now includes weight variables for researchers who wish to analyse complete households, where, in addition to a young person taking part at Wave 1, a parent had taken part at either Wave (1 or Wave 2). The COSMO Wave 1 Data User Guide Version 2.1 explains these updates in detail.

Further information about the study may be found on the COSMO website.

Main Topics:

For young people, Wave 1 covered:

• a household grid
• current status
• qualifications studied towards
• education during the pandemic (on the basis of three main time periods: Lockdown 1: from April to July 2020, and Lockdown 3: from January to March 2021, and when most schools were open, September to December 2020)
• catch-up activities
• cancelled assessments
• education and career aspirations
• extra-curricular activities pre- and post-pandemic
• attitudes to education
• health and wellbeing
• friends, peers and family support; and
• health-related behaviours.

For parents, Wave 2 covered:

• demographics
• attitudes to education
• parenting, home learning, tuition and catch-up
• working status across the pandemic
• parental tenure, HRP and occupation details
• parental education
• parental income
• COVID-19 history and vaccination
• pandemic impact on family life
• parent health and well-being; and
• disadvantage.

Raw diffraction data for mpro-x1187 / PDB ID 5RFA (see: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/entry/pdb/5RFA) - SARS-CoV-2 main protease in complex with Z2643472210 (SMILES:CN1C=CC(=N1)C(=O)NC[C@@H]2CCCO2) collected as part of an XChem crystallographic fragment screening campaign on beamline i04-1 at Diamond Light Source. The deposited structure was automatically processed with standard Diamond tools and PanDDA, however the raw data are being made available to allow reanalysis by any interested party.

For more details see: https://www.diamond.ac.uk/covid-19/for-scientists/Main-protease-structure-and-XChem.html