Covid Cases Fall Everywhere In England For First Time Since Christmas
Covid cases have fallen everywhere in England for the first time since Christmas.
All 149 upper-tier local authorities – that is, higher level council areas – reported a fall in rolling seven-day totals on Monday. The data covers the period from January 9 to January 15, compared with the period January 8 to January 14.
On Sunday, the most recent data showed four areas had reported increases, while last week that figure was 12.
These are the areas where cases have fallen the most:
- Bexley -48% (634.7 cases per 100,000 people)
- Redbridge -45% (762.1)
- Bromley -45% (512.7)
- Essex -44% (578.0)
- Barking and Dagenham -44% (913.1)
- Swindon -44% (312.3)
- Bracknell Forest -44% (404.7)
- Havering -43% (648.4)
- Isle of Wight -43% (669.4)
- Medway -43% (557.2)
These are the areas where cases have fallen the slowest:
- Plymouth -1% (302.2)
- North Somerset -5% (373.9)
- Bolton -5% (368.6)
- Derby -6% (638.5)
- Newcastle upon Tyne -8% (273.4)
- St Helens -8% (793.5)
- Leicestershire -9% (347.4)
- Torbay -10 (231.9)
- Solihull -10% (491.7)
- Peterborough -11% (500.8)
On Monday, Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England, said “we are beginning to see” the effects of lockdown measures.
On when the current lockdown measures would have an effect on hospital admissions, he told the PA news agency: “I think we are beginning to see an effect of lockdown measures.
“We know the lockdown measures work. We saw that in April, we saw it in November.
“And we are beginning to see it now and that’s good news because, of course, we have also had this new strain which is more transmissible.
“So although infection rates are beginning to slow, maybe here in London and a little bit less so in the rest of the country, it will be a number of weeks before we start to see that effect on the number of people in hospitals.”
He added there had been a huge demand on the NHS because of Covid infections since Christmas Eve.
Speaking on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said someone was being admitted to hospital “every 30 seconds”. While he described “promising” signs of the steadying of the infection rates, he said rates were still “far too high, and among some age groups, still rising”.
He added: “Since Christmas Day we’ve seen another 15,000 increase in the in-patients in hospitals across England. That’s the equivalent of filling 30 hospitals full of coronavirus patients.”
On Sunday the government confirmed a further 617 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, while there were a further 38,598 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.