Numbers infected with coronavirus falling sharply

At last some good news: the number of people testing positive with coronavirus in England appears to have nearly halved over the last week.

The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest that there are now just 53,000 people in England who have Covid-19, equal to about 0.1 per cent of the population.

The ONS’s estimate is a sharp drop from the 133,000 people – or 0.24 per cent- who were believed to have the disease in the same data last week. And it’s a significant fall from those being infected at the end of April which was around 0.4% of the population.

About 39,000 people per week are now thought to be catching the infection, or 5,500 per day. This is a significant levelling off after estimates of 54,000 per week between May 16 and May 23.

The ONS report said: “as the proportion of those testing positive in England is decreasing over time, it is likely that the incidence rate is also decreasing.”

“However, because of the low number of new positive cases, we cannot currently measure a reduction.”

There is no change to the ONS’s estimate of the number of people who have had the virus over the course of the pandemic which is still at around 6.8% of the population.

The latest numbers were based on swab tests of 19,000 people in 9,000 households.

In another fascinating ONS report published today, figures shows that more than a quarter of the 46,380 “excess deaths” in England and Wales that happened between 7 March and 1 May were not directly linked to Covid-19.

The excess deaths figure is the number of deaths above the average total for this period – which is normally higher than the rest of the year due to flu outbreaks – in the last five years. And most of these non-coronavirus excess deaths were among the elderly population, particularly those with underlying health conditions.

The data also show that the number of people dying in care homes – of any cause – jumped by an enormous 60 per cent in March and April and rose by 43% in private homes. By contrast, hospitals saw 21% fewer deaths than usual.

Some of the reasons for so many dying without catching the disease, the ONS said, include the fact that people were not seeking medical help because of fear of going to hospital and increased stress.

Today’s brighter figures will bolster the view that the virus is burning itself out, thus avoiding the much dreaded second peak. A number of Italian doctors prompted a storm earlier this week after claiming that the virus is losing its potency and that patients presenting with the disease were showing weaker symptoms.

However, Iran is now reporting a second wave of coronavirus infections after easing its lockdown. Earlier this week, Iran saw a record 3,574 cases of the virus on Wednesday, higher than its previous worst day of 3,186 cases logged on 30 March.

Iran, which has been particularly badly hit by the virus, began easing its lockdown restrictions  in mid-April as the rate of infections declined.