Some UK hospitals are 'like a war zone,' government's top scientific adviser says
Some hospitals in the United Kingdom look "like a war zone" as doctors and nurses workers grapple with an influx of COVID-19 patients, according to Patrick Vallance, the British government's chief scientific adviser.
"It may not look like it when you go for a walk in the park, but when you go into a hospital, this is very, very bad at the moment with enormous pressure and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with," Vallance told Sky News in an interview Wednesday.
He said there have been "huge numbers" of COVID-19 cases in recent days and that the country's health care system "is under enormous pressure at the moment." Official figures show nearly 38,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the U.K.
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Vallance's comments come after the U.K. reported a record 1,610 additional deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday, as the cumulative total approaches 100,000. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has confirmed more than 3.4 million cases of the disease, including more than 91,000 fatalities, according to the latest data published on the British government's website.
The U.K. -- -- an island nation of 66 million people made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- has the fifth-highest number of diagnosed cases worldwide and the fourth-highest death toll, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.