Britain’s Covid crisis is continuing to shrink, according to today’s official data which showed daily cases have fallen week-on-week for the sixth day in a row, according to the daily mail.
Department of Health bosses posted 43,467 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, down 12 per cent on the 49,298 recorded last Friday.
Deaths also remained relatively flat, rising just 3.3 per cent to 186 today. Some 180 people died with the virus last Friday. And the amount of people hospitalised with Covid fell 2.5 per cent to 1,038 on Monday, the latest date data is available for.
But separate official data released today 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 infections have risen by almost 13 per cent in a week, soaring to a level not seen since the darkest days of Britain’s pandemic crisis in early January.
Meanwhile, separate data from the UK Health Security Agency, which took over from the now-defunct PHE, today showed the the R rate also rose and is now thought to be around 1.1 to 1.3, up from 1.0 to 1.2. It means for every 10 people infected, between 11 and 13 other will get the virus.
However, both estimates are based on old data and the fresher Government statistics show the country’s outbreak has already started to shrink, even before children broke up for half-term.
Further coronavirus waves cannot be ruled out and there is a lot of uncertainty about how the pandemic will pan out into the first half of next year, Government scientists have said.
Optimistic projections from Imperial College London suggest current levels of protection in the population, combined with booster vaccines, should maintain the epidemic at levels similar to, or lower than, those currently observed.
