THE second wave of coronavirus during the winter months hit Dorset's hospitals far more severely than what was experienced in the first wave.

While positive cases numbers were far higher due to a wider testing regime, hospitalisations and deaths in January of this year significantly exceeded those reported in March and April last year.

The latest figures as of Sunday, March 21, 2021, reported that there had been 1,380 Dorset deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

Dorset's hospitals had admitted 3,839 Covid patients to date and 36,663 positive cases had been recorded.

The following is a breakdown of the available Dorset-related coronavirus data.

Across Dorset hospitals, the 20 days with the most Covid patient admissions were all in January 2021, with the high of 84 patients on January 14.

The peak admissions in a single day in the first wave was on March 29, 2020, when 31 patients were admitted to hospitals. Thirty-one days between December 30, 2020, and February 8, 2021, had more Covid admissions in Dorset than the figure from March 29, 2020.

University Hospitals Dorset, which oversees Royal Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Hospitals, had its peak day in terms of admissions with 66 on January 13, followed by 63 on January 14 and January 17, respectively.

As of March 14, UHD had admitted 2,837 Covid patients throughout the pandemic.

In terms of coronavirus patients occupying hospital beds, the peak across Dorset came on January 19 with 552 patients – 402 of these were at UHD sites.

The 53 days with the most Covid patients in Dorset’s hospital beds have all occurred since December 30, 2020.

The peak from the first wave of 130 Covid patients in hospitals across the county on April 15, 2020, was lower than 76 days between November 2020 and February 2021.

The week commencing January 15 represented the most pressure the conurbation’s hospitals have faced to date in terms of Covid patient numbers across its sites.

UHD’s Covid bed occupancy on January 19 was the only day recorded with more than 400 patients, with 398 on January 16, 397 on January 18, 389 on January 20, 387 on January 17 and 381 on January 15 completing the six days with the most Covid patients.

As of March 16, there were just 21 Covid patients in the county's hospitals, with 13 at UHD.

Figures are also available on the number of patients who required mechanical ventilation to support them.

The county-wide peak for this was on January 24 with 37 hospital patients on ventilation – the majority (30) were at UHD.

Mirroring the situation with other hospital figures, 38 of the 40 days with the highest mechanical ventilation patient numbers have been in 2021, with the first wave peak being 21 patients on April 10, 2020.

The peak in terms of Covid cases being recorded across Dorset came on January 5 when there was 851 positive tests – 624 in the BCP Council area and 227 in the Dorset Council region. The previous day recorded the second highest figure with 818 cases.

Testing peaked in early January, with around 20,800 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests carried out in a seven-day period across the conurbation, while Dorset was carrying out an additional 15,400.

Making comparisons across the pandemic in relation to testing and positive cases are largely invalid due to the changing approach to testing.

During the first wave, when testing capacity was still being ramped up, the criteria to be eligible for a test was different to what it is now.

In the early months of the pandemic, the percentage of tests completed returning positive results was much higher – peaking at 32.7 per cent for BCP and 25 per cent in Dorset in early April.

The second wave peak test positivity percentage came in the week to January 12 at 18.8 per cent for BCP. Dorset's second wave high was at 11 per cent in the week to January 5.

The most lives lost with coronavirus in Dorset on a single day was January 20, with 36 people dying within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

Four other days between January 24 and February 2 recorded 30 or more deaths.

Looking just at the first wave, three days (April 10, April 20 and April 21) had the joint most deaths in Dorset, with nine lives lost.

Thirty-eight days in 2021 saw more patients die with coronavirus than the high of the first wave.

The latest figures released by NHS England, published on March 18, showed that 370,398 vaccine doses had been administered across Dorset up to by March 14.

To date, 15,098 Dorset residents have received both doses, while 340,202 people have had just their first dose so far.

The NHS began releasing county-level vaccine statistics in January, several weeks into the rollout. Since then, the peak week in terms of jabs given in Dorset was the seven days to February 7 when 47,043 vaccine doses were given out.

The weekly total fell in the four weeks that followed before going up slightly week-on-week in the most recent figures.