The number of Covid-19 cases in England increased by almost a quarter over Christmas, new figures show, further highlighting the impact of social mixing during the festive period.
According to the most recent data from Test and Trace, a total of 311,372 people tested positive for the virus between December 24 and 30 – an increase of 24 percent over the previous week, and the highest total since the program’s launch. in May.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the number of weekly cases in the UK has been on the rise for the past month, driven in part by the new highly contagious coronavirus variant first detected in Kent.
The most recent increase comes despite a significant reduction in the number of tests performed in the seven days until December 30. More than 1.8 million people were tested – a 29% drop from the previous week.
Although the government canceled plans to relax Covid’s rules at Christmas in London and much of southeastern England, in other parts of the country – in layers one through three – social bubbles were allowed on December 25.
Scientists have warned that the full impact of this domestic mix has not yet been fully felt, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths expected to continue to increase until the end of January.
The new Test and Tracking data also showed that of the 269,886 people transferred to the system in the week through December 30, 84.9% were contacted and asked to provide details of recent close contacts.
This figure is lower than the 86.4 percent of the previous week and is the lowest percentage since the week of 28 October.
About 13.9 percent of people transferred to Test and Trace in the week through December 30 were not reached, while another 1.3 percent did not provide any communication details.
Meanwhile, Test and Trace successfully reached 92.3 percent of the 493,573 people identified as close contacts of positive cases – a proportion similar to that of the previous week.
Only 33.0 percent of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England during the week on a regional website, local website or mobile test unit – the so-called “in-person” test – received the result within 24 hours.
That’s an increase of 16.9 percent the week before, but is below the recent peak of 64.9 percent for the week through December 2.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised that, by the end of June 2020, the results of all face-to-face tests would be back in 24 hours.
He told the House of Commons on June 3 that “all tests would be reversed in 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insurmountable problems like this”.
Separate data showed that the UK has more new cases of Covid-19 per capita than any other major country in the world.
The number of new daily coronavirus cases has exceeded 60,000 for the first time this week, the equivalent of more than 800 people in a million. This is almost double the per capita rate for Italy, Spain and France.