Numbers drop, but infections still widespread
THE number of people with Covid in Wales has fallen, according to latest figures.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 198,400 people in Wales had the virus in the week ending April 16, equating to 6.53% of the population, or around one in 15 people.
That’s a drop from the 231,900 people (7.63%) with the disease in Wales during the previous week, or around one in 13 people.
It was a similar picture across all UK nations, with each of them seeing a fall in their Covid levels.
In England, around one in 17 (6.53%) had Covid in the week ending April 16, it was one in 19 (5.35%) in Scotland and one in 30 (3.56%) in Northern Ireland.
It’s the first time since January 22 that infections have fallen simultaneously in all four UK nations, suggesting the recent surge driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant has peaked.
However, the virus is still circulating at high levels in much of the country.
Across the UK, 3.8 million people in private households were estimated to have had Covid-19 in the week to April 16, down from 4.4 million the previous week.
Total infections in the UK hit a weekly record of 4.9 million in late March.
Deaths involving Covid are continuing to rise slowly but remain well below the numbers seen during the first and second waves.
The ONS infection survey is now the most reliable measure of the prevalence of Covid-19 in the UK.
It uses a sample of swab tests collected regularly from tens of thousands of households, and is therefore able to estimate the percentage of people likely to test positive for coronavirus at any point in time, regardless of when they caught the virus, how many times they have had it and whether they have symptoms.
James Naismith, of the University of Oxford, said the figures showed that prevalence of the virus “peaked around the middle of March” and that “all things being equal, a fall in prevalence should feed through to reduced pressure in hospitals which are clearly under extreme stress”.
He added: “This will lead to a fall in deaths, which have continued to rob families of their loved ones.”
Meanwhile, the latest data from lateral flow tests taken in Wales shows there have been fewer positive tests in the last week, down from 22,784 in the previous week to 16,020 for the week of April 11 to 17.
However, changes to testing requirements, as tests are only available to people with symptoms, mean it is no longer a reliable guide to the pandemic.
Figures from hospitals show that the number of people in acute hospitals being treated for Covid, as opposed to being in hospital for another reason and testing positive for Covid, has fallen in the last week.
On April 22, 572 “confirmed” Covid patients were in hospital, but only 89 of them were being actively treated for the virus. A week earlier those figures were 714 and 119 respectively.