UK doctors warn Covid-19 patients being admitted to hospital getting younger and sicker

UK doctors are warning that the number of coronavirus patients being admitted to hospitals is continuing to rise, British broadcaster Sky reported on Saturday. At a purpose-built emergency ward erected last year after the peak of the spring wave at The Royal Surrey County Hospital on Friday, Dr Carlo Arrigo, Clinical Director said the number of patients doubled during the week after Christmas and is staying there. Dr John de Vos, Lead COVID-19 consultant, said: "It's relentless really, the admissions come fast and they come all the time." England's chief medical officer Chris Witty has said the number of patients being admitted to hospital with coronavirus will peak within the next 10 days, with the peak in deaths following later. Dr De Vos also said the patients are "sicker now than they were in the first wave" as well as being younger. Some of his patients, he says, were legally at gathering over the Christmas period, causing them guilt as well as illness. David Parrott, a 19-year-old COVID-19 patient at a London hospital who had never previously had serious medical issues, said "it shows that anyone can get it." Parrott has been on oxygen for the entirety of his stay at hospital. "All of a sudden I can be like this in a bed in a hospital, stricken down, not being able to do anything because of this virus," he said. The government on Friday reported 55,761 more confirmed infections and the deaths of another 1,280 people within 28 days of testing positive for the virus. The daily update brought the U.K.'s overall death toll to 87,295, the highest in Europe and the fifth-highest in the world. Read our live blog with all the latest coronavirus news: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-travel-corridor-vaccines-new-variant-cases/ Subscribe to The Telegraph on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/3idrdLH Get the latest headlines: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.