Jabs cut emergency hospital cases by 75%
NHS boss Sir Simon Stevens yesterday declared victory in Britain’s war on Covid – and revealed our coveted jab programme has helped to cut emergency hospital admissions by a welcome 75 per cent.
In more good news, it was revealed case rates have dropped below 100 per 100,000 people in all areas of the UK for the first time since the summer.
And latest figures also showed that around half of Brits now have antibodies to help them fight off the deadly virus.
Sir Simon announced the new statistics showing a massive drop in hospital numbers among people who have had their jab.
And he predicted things will only get better.
He said: “Vaccines are successfully reducing hospitalisations and deaths among the cohorts that have had the vaccine.
“Data we have analysed shows a 75 per cent reduction in emergency Covid hospitalisations for the vaccination cohorts. And, as more and more people are vaccinated, that effect will widen.
“We obviously have to track very carefully what that means for infection rates.
“But in terms of the vaccination programme, that is going extremely well and it’s a huge credit to everybody involved.”
The drop in UK case rates to below 100 per 100,000 people is the best showing since the last week in August.
The highest rate is currently 98.8 cases per 100,000 of population in Mansfield, Notts. The lowest is just 1.0, in both North Devon and Rother in East Sussex.
But in the Orkney Islands and Western Isles there are currently no recorded cases at all.
It is almost a complete turnaround from how the data looked three months ago, when the second coronavirus wave was at its peak and some parts of the country saw rates rocket above 1,000.
More new figures show around half of Brits now have protective Covid antibodies, either because they have had the virus or have received a jab.
Around 54.9 per cent of people in England had antibodies in the week to March 28, according to the Office for National Statistics.
In Northern Ireland, the latest estimate is 54.5 per cent, in Wales it’s 49.1 per cent and in Scotland it is 46 per cent.
The rapid progress of the vaccine programme has seen more than 40 million people receive a jab in the UK.
The NHS was offering vaccines to those at highest risk – people aged 50 and over and the clinically extremely vulnerable.
But in a major push, the over-45s can now book their first jabs.
The Moderna vaccine has been added to Britain’s Covid medicine cabinet, along with Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The UK has bought 17 million doses of the formula – created following funding help from Dolly Parton – enough for 8.5 million people.
And a major UK trial, looking at whether different vaccines can be mixed and matched as first and second doses, is being expanded. Combining vaccines could give longer-lasting immunity against the virus and new variants.
Wild
Any adult over 50 who has had a first dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca can apply to take part in the ComCov trial.
The ONS has released more encouraging figures that suggest a quarter of people on Britain’s Covid death toll did not actually die because of coronavirus. They show 23 per cent of registered Covid deaths were for people who died “with” the virus rather than “from” the infection, so it was not the primary cause.
The data is yet more evidence that the tide is turning.
But as the UK begins to reopen, lockdown-weary Brits have been warned by experts “not to go wild” – or we could end up back at square one. Before pub gardens reopened on Monday, Boris Johnson urged “restraint” and reminded the public it was restrictions, not the vaccine rollout, that had kept Covid numbers low. Last night Professor Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, backed the Prime Minister.
He said: “I think he’s probably concerned, as I am, about the scenes in London that we saw of people enjoying the outside pubs and the crowded spaces. “Of course what that will do is push infection rates up.”