Covid-19 cases in England may no longer be falling, and may even have increased at the beginning of the country’s third national blockade, concluded a long study by Imperial College London.
The researchers analyzed the smear tests of 142,000 volunteers from 6 to 15 January and found that infections increased 50% compared to early December, with 1 in 63 people infected in the country.
About 1.58% of people tested positive for the virus during the beginning of January in the study, the highest prevalence recorded since May. This represents an increase of more than 50% over the previous round, in early December 2020.
“The prevalence is very, very high compared to our last survey, where we saw this increase in December, when this new variant appeared,” Paul Elliott, director of the REACT program at Imperial College London, told the BBC’s Today program on Thursday. -market.
“But we found it to be level, the R value [or how many other people each person with coronavirus will infect] is around 1, so we are in a position where levels are high and are not falling now within the period of this current block, ”said Elliott.
The study warned that “until the prevalence in the community is reduced substantially, health services will remain under extreme pressure and the cumulative number of lives lost during this pandemic will continue to increase rapidly”.
The findings are at odds with the latest data from the UK government, which had been showing a decline in new cases reported daily earlier in the week.
Elliott said on Thursday that he believes this discrepancy may be the result of the REACT study testing people randomly, rather than those with symptoms, and government data that still does not reflect an increase in population mobility after Christmas.
Speaking on Sky News on Thursday, UK Education Minister Gavin Williamson said that “the evidence we have seen is that [the lockdown] it has had an impact in terms of easing some of that pressure on the NHS so that the NHS is able to deal with the situation, but it is clear that the government always looks for all the available evidence. “
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted on Thursday that “these findings show why we should not let our guard down in the coming weeks. Infections across England are at very high levels and it is crucial that everyone do their thing. part to bring them down “.
The UK recorded 38,905 new cases of coronavirus and 1,820 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, marking the biggest daily increase in deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Public Health England.