Covid-19 infection rate appears to be slowing – ONS

Coronavirus infection rates in England and Wales appear to be slowing, new data suggests.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said an estimated 618,700 people in England – one in 90 – had Covid-19 between October 25 and October 31, up from 568,100 the week before.

While the infection rate has increased in recent weeks, “the rate of increase is less steep compared to the previous weeks,” said the ONS.

Ruth Studley, Head of Analysis of the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said: “At the national level, we are seeing infections slowing in England and Wales but they are still increasing.

“Within England, every region except the North East has an increased level of infection.

“Infection levels in young adults and older teenagers seem to have flattened out recently.

“However, despite the increase in all other age groups, they are still most likely to be infected.”

Looking at new daily infections, the ONS said the rate appears to have “stabilized” across England.

There were an average of 45,700 new cases of Covid-19 per day in private homes between October 25 and October 31, compared to an estimated 51,900 new cases per day between October 17 and 23.

This indicates that the new infection rate “seems to have stabilized in the last few weeks at around 50,000 new infections per day,” according to the ONS.

The numbers do not include people in hospitals or nursing homes and are based on more than 689,000 swab tests performed on people with and without symptoms from across the UK.

According to statistical offices, 64,170 deaths with Covid-19 have now occurred in the UK.

– The government said another 355 people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 on Friday. As of 9:00 a.m., there were an additional 23,287 laboratory-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.

– The Birmingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) said Queen Elizabeth Hospital had been forced to postpone all scheduled procedures after a surge in Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 cases. On November 3, around 359 hospital beds were occupied by confirmed Covid 19 patients.

– Denmark has been removed from the UK list of coronavirus travel corridors, which means anyone arriving in the UK on Friday will have to self-isolate for 14 days.

– The first of its kind pilot study conducted citywide mass tests in Liverpool. All people living or working in Liverpool, including children, are offered repeat tests, whether they have symptoms or not.

On Friday, the Emergency Scientific Advisory Group (Sage) advising the government said the reproductive rate – the R-value – of coronavirus transmission is between 1.1 and 1.3 for the entire UK.

It said: “Sage is confident that the epidemic in England has continued to worsen in recent weeks.

“While there is some evidence that the rate of growth is slowing in some parts of the country, disease levels are very high in these areas and significant health care demand and mortality will persist until R is lowered to 1 and well below it for a longer period. “

The Zoe Covid Symptom Study app, operated by King’s College London, states that an average of 42,049 new symptomatic cases of Covid-19 occurred in the UK in the two weeks leading up to November 1 (excluding nursing homes).

Researchers behind this study said the UK R rate is currently 1.0 and 1.0 in England.

Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s, said daily cases in the north of England and Scotland were declining and overall cases were moving in the “right direction”.

He said they were a “positive sign that we have passed the peak of this second wave,” adding, “We urge everyone to respect the restrictions and reduce the number of cases as soon as possible to cope with this Help the NHS and end the lockdown ”and get us ready for December. “

James Naismith, professor of structural biology at Oxford University, had previously told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that NHS Test and Trace had made no difference to the spread of Covid-19.

Data shows that in the week ending October 28, the system reached just 59.9% of the close contacts of people who tested positive for coronavirus.

Prof. Naismith said, “It was not effective at all. The only ways we can currently control the spread of infection are through social restrictions.

“Tracking and tracing made no real difference to the spread of the epidemic.”

Commenting on the new ONS and King’s College data, Prof. Naismith said they “provided evidence that the social restrictions before lockdown had real impact.

“Should we hit or exceed the peak of infections, I wouldn’t expect the death rate to exceed 1,000 per day for long periods of time.

“However, it is still very likely that we will suffer 500 deaths a day in November.”

He said that if next week’s data showed a similar stabilization or decrease, “then we can be sure that the second wave has stabilized for now.”

The new national lockdown should also “lead to a rapid decline in the number of new infections,” he said.

On Thursday, Boris Johnson insisted that four weeks of national lockdown should be enough to contain the spread of the coronavirus so severe restrictions can be relaxed.

When England fell into a second shutdown, the prime minister admitted that many people were “fearful, tired and full” but remained optimistic that science would find a way out of the crisis.

However, some scientists said coronavirus cases need to be reduced to 5,000 a day for NHS Test and Trace to deal with.

Independent Sage said there needs to be an exit strategy for the lockdown and called for urgent reform of Test and Trace to “avoid continuous lockdowns.”

Professor Anthony Costello of University College London said, “If the performance of the search, test, track and isolation system is not reformed and improved, it will mean earlier and more frequent breakers and locks.”