THE number of Covid patients being treated at York and Scarborough hospitals has doubled in three weeks - with more patients also having to go into intensive care.

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said yesterday that it was currently treating a total of 36 confirmed and suspected Covid patients, with three of them in the intensive care units.

That is twice the number on July 6, when there were 18 such patients across the trust,one of whom was in intensive care.

Thirty-six is the highest number of patients so far in the third wave of the coronavirus, but it is still considerably lower than the maximum of 242 Covid patients being treated at the height of the second wave on January 26.

The lower number is thanks to the vaccination campaign, which is protecting most older and more vulnerable people, not only by helping to prevent them catching the coronavirus but also by reducing the risk of needing hospitalisation if they are unfortunate enough to contract it.

The trust said yesterday that a total of 2,280 Covid patients had now been discharged from the hospitals or were no longer being treated as having Covid.

This is 79 more than on July 6, when a total of 2,201 had been discharged