Data show there has been a “rapid increase” in coronavirus cases in England, with ministers scrambling over what to do next.
Approximately one in-130 and 24-in-240 people together on the street have the virus.
Both are current cases, and the pace at which they are growing is much higher than the national average in the north of England.
Scientific advisers have warned that the level of hospital admissions in early March is very close.
The data flow shows a clear pattern of increasing cases:
- The R number – the average number of people each infected person passes on the virus – is now estimated at between 1.2 and 1.5. Cases are increasing in any case above 1.0.
- The Covid symptom study study app – which uses data from 4 million people and 12,000 swab tests – has 21,903 people developing covid symptoms every day in the UK. That’s 1,000-a-day more than a week ago.
- The National Fish for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 224,000 people in the UK had the virus as of October 1. That’s almost double the number recorded for each of the last two weeks, indicating that hopes of “leveling off” last week were wrong. May be.
- The ONS estimates that one in 500 people in Wales and Northern Ireland has been infected.
Meanwhile, the largest study of coronaviruses by Imperial College London, along with the last samples taken on Monday, also reported their analysis of 175,000 people.
Across England, he says cases have been steadily rising, but not aggressively in early September.
But this masks a whole regional picture – almost twice as many cases have been reported in the North West, Yorkshire and West Midlands as in the whole of England.
It shows an eight-fold increase in cases among people over the age of 65 as epidemic growth begins in younger age groups and blood flows to the rest of the population.
Professor Steven Riley of Imperial said: “I think it is clear that the mass is still on the rise” and if new, tougher measures were needed in the North, England, they should come “sooner rather than later”.
There has been an increase in cases and political concerns over hospitalization. The new rules will be announced on Monday and will take effect on Wednesday.
Exact details are still under discussion, but measures including closing pubs and restaurants or banning overnight stays are on the table.
The data presented to MPs by Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, puts the hospitality sector in the firing line, leaving sections of society, such as schools and universities, exposed.
He says pubs, rest restaurants, rentals and the hospitality sector as a whole are the main areas where people testing positive for the virus are mingling.
Skills and Apprenticeship Minister Gillian Keegan said the government must take action to stop the increase in cases.
“This is serious – it’s getting out of control, and we have to do something to get it back under control,” he said.
The scientific advisory group for Emergencies (Sage) says it is “almost certain that the epidemic is growing rapidly across the country and is confident that the transition is not slowing down”.
Sage member Sir Mark Wal-Laporte told the BBC: “On 19 March, before the first set of comprehensive sanctions, hospital admissions in England were 586 and on 6 October they were 524.
“So we’re very close to the situation in early March.”
Hospital admissions are around the fifth level at Spring Tuna Peak in Spring, but are currently doubling every fortnight.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, another Sage member and director of the Welcome Trust, says: “We are back to the choices we made in early March … the longer the decisions are delayed, the more difficult and drastic the interventions are to change the course of action. [the] The epidemic. “
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