Official data shows that Britain’s Covid crisis is continuing to shrink, with daily Covid cases falling for the seventh consecutive day today.
Department of Health bosses posted 41,278 new coronavirus infections today, down 8.2 per cent on last Saturday’s figure of 44,985.
And Covid hospitalisations also fell 3.9 per cent to 1,038 on Tuesday, the latest date data is available for. It was down from the week before when 1,080 were admitted with the virus.
But the number of people dying the virus increased by nearly a quarter, up 23 per cent from 135 last Saturday to 166 today.
Because of the time it takes for the virus and disease to develop, hospitalisations and deaths often lag behind daily infection changes.
The figures come after separate official data released yesterday showed more than a million people in England were infected with Covid on any day during the last week before half-term.
Bosses at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate around one in 50 people — the equivalent of 1,102,800 — would have tested positive on any given day during the seven-day spell ending October 22. It claims that infections have risen by almost 13% in a single week, an increase not seen since the worst days of Britain’s pandemic crisis early January.
Separate figures from the UK Health Security Agency yesterday, which took over the now-defunct PHE’s, showed that the R rate rose as well. It is now believed to be between 1.1 and 1.3, an increase of 1.0 to 1.2. It means that for every 10 people infected with the virus, between 11 to 13 others will also get it.
However, both estimates are based only on older data and newer Government statistics. These statistics show that the country has seen an outbreak of the disease shrink before children went to half-term.
Other coronavirus developments
- Today, thousands of protestors marched through London to protest the introduction of vaccine passports in the Government’s winter Covid “Plan B”;
- To combat an increasing number of hospital admissions, Wales will tighten its Covid restrictions.
- SAGE experts said that further coronavirus waves cannot yet be ruled out, and there is uncertainty about how the pandemic will play out in the first half next year.
- Official data showed England’s Covid vaccine drive for children is going even slower than thought, prompting calls for the NHS to speed up the roll out over fears it could leave No10 with no option but to resort to Plan B;
- Health chiefs yesterday claimed Covid vaccines appear to work just as well against the more transmissible Delta variant offshoot as they do on its ancestor.
No10’s advisors stated that it was likely that children would lose their cases because they had built up immunity after the back-to class wave. Half-term was also claimed to be a natural fire-breaker, preventing indoor mixing of children.
‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist who sits on SAGE, yesterday argued Plan B — which would see the return of face masks and work from home guidance if the NHS becomes overwhelmed — ‘shouldn’t be necessary’, if cases keep dropping and the booster roll-out continues at speed.
Separate data from Britain’s largest symptom tracking study on Thursday indicated that Britain is ‘worryingly near’ to recording 100,000 new Covid infection per day.
Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist, was the one who conducted the study. He suggested that the official Government daily count could vastly underestimate the extent of Covid prevalence.
This is because Health Secretary Sajid Javid today asked all secondary school students and college students to be tested regardless of symptoms before they return home next week. ONS data revealed that 9.1 percent of children in grades 7-11 had the virus at any time last week.
Mr Javid stated, “It is crucial that they are taking free and simple rapid tests that will help identify Covid infections from people who aren’t showing symptoms to keep it at bay.”