Coronavirus: Signs of UK’s Covid surge ‘levelling off’
Is Britain’s Covid surge SLOWING? Official figures show weekly rate of increase in cases has halved in a week as top scientist says outbreak is ‘levelling off’ in Indian variant hotspots – and infections will start to drop in a fortnight
- Department of Health figures suggest the rate of increase in the number of people testing positive has slowed
- Covid Symptom Study estimates symptomatic cases rose by a third last week after doubling a week earlier
- Professor Tim Spector said there were signs of outbreaks ‘levelling off’ in hotspots in North West and Scotland
There are already signs the surge in Covid cases that spooked Boris Johnson into delaying the end of lockdown is slowing down.
Official data show that the rate of increase in infections has halved in a week and the Covid Symptom Study estimated that 15,760 people are now getting sick each day, up only a third on a week earlier after it had doubled.
Professor Tim Spector, the King’s College London epidemiologist who runs the study, said: ‘The numbers this week seem to be slowing down, which is good news. Worrying areas with a high number of cases like Scotland, and the North West are starting to level off… I’m predicting based on past experience that, although we may not have reached the peak quite yet, within two weeks we will see cases beginning to drop again.’
He said the PM’s decision to put ‘Freedom Day’ on hold until mid-July was ‘probably necessary’ as his study showed that vaccines are doing a huge amount of heavy lifting and slashing case numbers.
A more detailed analysis showed that an estimated four times as many unvaccinated people are getting symptoms of the virus compared to those who have had both jabs.
Britain is scrambling to vaccinate as many people as possible in June to boost the nation’s chances of reopening on July 19, the rescheduled date. Everyone over the age of 21 is now eligible for a jab and 30.5million people are already fully vaccinated along with 42m who have had a single dose.
The average number of people testing positive each day (yellow bars) appears to have stopped accelerating as rapidly as it had in May and early June, with the rate of increase (red line) now showing that there are smaller increases each day, suggesting the outbreak is still growing but not as quickly as it was
The Covid Symptom Study estimates that 15,760 people are now getting sick each day, up only a third on a week earlier after it had doubled the week before that. The large majority of cases are among unvaccinated people, it predicts
A more detailed analysis showed that an estimated four times as many unvaccinated people are getting symptoms of the virus compared to those who have had both jabs – 12,830 per day (blue line) compared to 2,930 (orange line)
