Virus deaths fall 41% in ONE week

So can we now look forward to lockdown ending earlier?

TWO in five adults have now been vaccinated and deaths are falling ‘faster and faster’, Matt Hancock said last night.

Some 21.3million people have received their first dose, and the historic rollout means deaths have plummeted by 41 per cent in a week.

The Health Secretary said: ‘You can really see the effects of the vaccine in the number of deaths. That link from cases to hospitalisations and then deaths that had been unbreakable before the vaccine is now breaking.

‘The vaccine is protecting the NHS and saving lives, right across the country.’

The positive figures last night led to fresh speculation about the lifting of the lockdown, and whether the roadmap could be accelerated.

Ministers have repeatedly insisted that the timetable will not be sped up, but with each week of positive data the pressure is increasing for a swifter end to the restrictions.

More than one million people have now received both doses of Covid19 vaccine, meaning 2 per cent of UK adults are fully vaccinated.

Mr Hancock told a Downing Street press conference the fall in deaths was ‘accelerating’ faster than cases as the most vulnerable are immunised.

The 41 per cent drop in weekly deaths means they are at the lowest levels since October.

Fatalities are halving every 11 days, compared with every 19 days last month.

Mr Hancock said there are now fewer people dying from all causes in care homes than is normal for this time of year.

Hospital admissions also fell by 29 per cent in the past week, the steepest decline of any point in the entire pandemic.

But there are still 12,136 Covid19 patients in hospitals around the UK, which Mr Hancock said was still too high to lift lockdown.

There have been on average just 6,685 new cases a day over the past week, and the UK’s infection rate has fallen to just 84 cases per 100,000. This is down from a peak of 642 per 100,000 on January 5.

Yesterday Government scientists said the R number – the average number of people infected by someone with the virus – is between 0.6 and 0.9, the same as last week, meaning the epidemic is shrinking. It had been up to 1.4 in January.

Professor John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who is also a Government adviser, said: ‘I think the era of the R number is coming to an end.

‘At various points in the previous year Government policy has been aimed at trying to reduce R and maintain it at or below one. This is no longer the case.

‘An increase in infections may be tolerated as long as it doesn’t put undue pressure on hospital services. Even if infection rates increase, the numbers of new hospitalisations will hopefully remain low as the highest risk groups have been vaccinated.

‘The growth or decline in hospitalisations is now critical, not the overall R number.’

Elsewhere, the Office for National Statistics reported yesterday that infections were down by one third in a week.

The ONS, which swabbed around 100,000 people, said just one in 220 people in England, some 248,100 in total, had the virus last week.

The figure is down from one in 145, or 373,700 people, for the week to February 19 and is the lowest since the last week of September. Among those aged over 70 and who have received their vaccination the infection rate has fallen to one in 500.

The ONS survey is seen by the Government as the most reliable measure of the epidemic.

At the beginning of January it showed that one in 50 had the virus, with more than a million infections a week.

The ONS said cases were levelling off in all areas apart from north-east England, the East Midlands and eastern England, where it said the trend was uncertain.

All firms can now get free rapid Covid tests. Ministers say the checks, which produce a result in 30 minutes, will cut workplace outbreaks and are ‘vital’ for easing restrictions.

Businesses have until March 31 to register for the workplace testing scheme, which will be free until the end of June. The lateral flow tests were previously available only to those with over 50 employees.

‘Era of the R number coming to an end’