Daily Covid infections in Britain have fallen for the second day in a row and deaths are also down — as scientists expect the epidemic to shrink from next month without added curbs.
The Department of Health reported 36.657 new cases within the last 24 hours. This is down 25% from the figure last week, and the second consecutive week of a decrease in cases. The number of cases rose for 18 days before Sunday.
Many experts predicted that the October half-term — which for many schools began today — would drag infection rates down and act as a miniature ‘firebreaker’.
There were also 38 coronavirus deaths registered today which was down around 16 per cent on the toll last Monday. New hospital data will not be available until later this week.
Because of technical issues, the promising statistics do NOT include data from Wales. This country is seeing an average of 3,200 daily cases and nine deaths per hour. Even with the addition of Wales’ infection numbers, the trajectory of the epidemic will likely remain unchanged.
It comes amid an escalating row about how the epidemic will unfold in the coming months and whether the winter compulsory face masks, working from home and vaccine passports are necessary.
MailOnline received information from independent scientists indicating that they expect a combination of the vaccine rollout and a rise in natural immunity in children to lead to a’substantial, rapid’ drop in hospitalisations, deaths and cases within weeks.
This topic has also divided No10’s scientific advisory panel SAGE. Several key members have publicly lobbied for more restrictions to protect the NHS from being overloaded in the coming months.
But many of the scenarios forecasted by the group’s modelling teams have daily cases plunging over the coming weeks to as low as 5,000, even if the virus is allowed to spread unchecked. Ministers have been able to ignore growing calls to revert back to Plan B because of the unusually optimistic modeling.
