According to Government data, Covid cases have been on their steepest decline since May, while hospitalisations and deaths have also been steadily decreasing. The Times has more.
Yesterday a further 42,408 people tested positive for Covid across the UK, with the weekly average down 12%.
There were 195 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, and that weekly average was down 4%. And the latest figures on patients admitted to hospital with the virus show 868 admitted on November 7th, with the weekly average down 11%.
Analysis by the Times, looking at the week-on-week change in the rolling seven-day average of case numbers, has found a fall for 16 consecutive days, last seen in May this year.
Julian Hiscox, Professor of Infection and Global Health at Liverpool University, told the Financial Times the downward trend seen in cases was unique because unlike earlier falls it was brought about “almost entirely by the wall of immunity, rather than behavioural changes or restrictions”.
He added: “We could end up in a very nice window thanks to the timing of our booster programme, whereby our peak in population immunity coincides with the winter months when the health service is under most pressure.”
Other experts had cautioned that it was too soon to draw long-term conclusions from case data. Yesterday’s U.K. total was 13% higher than the same day a week earlier.
A separate surveillance report from the U.K. Health Security Agency, the successor agency to Public Health England, also found decreasing Covid activity nationally.
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