While the daily statistics published on Sunday mark several consecutive days that overall case numbers have fallen, the figures are typically lower on weekends, and infection rates appear to be rising significantly in many local areas – particularly in the north of England.
The UK has reported a further 97 possible coronavirus deaths and 141,472 new infections, the latter down 5,000 from the previous day.
Even if case numbers “have stabilised over the whole country”, they will have done so at very high levels and will not “come down rapidly”, leading statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said on Sunday.
The unprecedented surge of cases driven by the new Omicron variant in London appears to be slowing, some experts have suggested – but the potential for resurgence in the capital is feared as a result of people returning to schools and the workplace after the festive break.
Meanwhile, week-on-week infection rates are more than tripling in some parts of north west and north east England, according to the most recent analysis.
Since Monday, more than 1.2 million people have tested positive for the virus, the UK Health Security Agency said on Sunday, representing a 6.6 per cent increase on the previous week.
According to the most recent figures, hospitals are also seeing an increase in need. On Thursday, there were 18,454 people in hospital with coronavirus – up from 14,126 a week before on New Year’s Eve. Just under five per cent of patients required mechanical ventilation to help them breathe.
“What we are seeing from hospital admissions is that stays in hospital do appear to be on average shorter, which is good news,” Professor Mike Tildesley, a disease modeller at the University of Warwick, said on Saturday.
1 In 19 Coloradans Are Currently Contagious With COVID, But Health Officials Expect Fewer Residents To Get Sick
Two years into the exhausting and horrible COVID pandemic, Colorado’s state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy had something positive to report.
“The news this week is more good news. It does look like we are continuing to see the downward trajectory,” she told reporters on Thursday.
The percentage of people in the state testing positive for COVID is now down to a still very high 22%, about one in in every five.
Hospitalization likewise is heading downward as are case numbers.
Scott Bookman the state COVID incident commander told reporters, “We do want to stress that there are a lot of patients in the hospitals with COVID. Our health care workforce still does remain under stress.”
But he points out that the number of available beds in hospitals is improving.
Colorado has now distributed 2.4 million medical grade masks, and this comes as Denver’s mask mandate for indoor use expires next week.
“The number of infections that are occurring are still quite high and I think it’s always important to keep in mind when we think about an epidemic curve is we go up and when we get to the peak and that means we are only halfway there.”
And eyes are on the wastewater reports. Testing shows COVID levels down, but there may be a wild card lurking. That’s a subvariant of omicron called BA.2. So far only one case has been reported in Denver.
Herlihy responded to a question CBS4 posed about whether someone can get COVID if they’ve already had it once.
“We know that probably short term there is good protection, but what we don’t understand is as you get further and further out what your level of protection might be,” she said.
