Virus is back under control as NHS ‘starts to turn corner’

THE national lockdown means coronavirus is now back under control, the Health Secretary said last night.

Announcing a wider community testing programme, Matt Hancock said cases have dropped by 30 per cent in England in the past week.

The number in hospital with the virus had fallen to 15,712 yesterday, compared with 16,612 a week ago.

Researchers believe the crucial Rrate fell to 0.88 in the past month, suggesting England has firmly moved past the peak of the second wave, and may have dropped as low as 0.71 by the start of last week.

It takes case rates to fewer than one for every 100 people – the lowest since the first half of October.

Mr Hancock said it showed the strict measures were working but warned that as lockdown ends tomorrow there is little room for complacency, with Christmas beckoning and the NHS facing its usual winter pressures.

He told a Downing Street briefing: ‘Through everyone’s actions in respecting the national lockdown, and through everything that people have sacrificed, we’ve reduced pressures on the NHS, we’ve brought down the number of coronavirus cases, we’ve got this virus back under control.’

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said the health service has ‘started to turn the corner’ but it was crucial that infection rates remain low with the NHS entering its busiest period.

‘We have the evidence that infection rates are now falling and have been falling during this period of lockdown,’ he said. ‘It will be the next week or two as we see those full effects translate through.’

Mr Hancock stressed the need for a return to the tough ened-up tier system, adding that around one in three with Covid have no symptoms and pose ‘a silent danger’.

He said community testing will have a vital role in stopping asymptomatic transmission, with the promise of extra funding for local authorities.

Hailing the example of Liverpool, where more than 300,000 people have been tested in the first city- wide programme leading to rates falling by 75 per cent, Mr Hancock said he wants ‘to see this sort of success right across the board... so to everybody: if you are offered a test please take it, you might just save a life.’

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: ‘Vaccines, therapeutic drugs and mass- scale rapid turnaround testing offer a clear way out of this next spring.

‘But there is an immediate need to get through winter, avoiding a damaging third surge in infections.’

Local authorities in Tier Three can apply to take part in the new six-week community testing programme.

They can choose whether to test the whole population, target areas with the most infections or concentrate on specific locations, employment sectors or workplaces.

Funding of up to £14 per test will be based on the number of tests authorities aim to deliver over the six-week programme, officials said.

General Sir Gordon Messenger, head of operations for the community testing programme, warned that, although the Army will continue to play a substantial role, the scale of the military involvement in the Liverpool operation could not to be replicated across the country.

‘A clear way out next spring’