Significant falls in Covid cases across all but two of London’s 32 boroughs

CORONAVIRUS cases are falling fast across London giving hope that the harrowing strains on the capital’s hospitals might soon start to ease.

All but two of the 32 boroughs saw daily cases fall by over 20 per cent in a week — and 10 boroughs achieved falls of 30 to 40 per cent.

Big falls in east London hotspots like Havering and Barking and Dagenham mean the capital’s highest Covid-19 rates have shifted to the suburbs of west London, Hounslow and Ealing.

Daily hospital admissions have dropped by a quarter, and the total number of beds taken up by Covid-19 cases is down 11 per cent.

However, the number of critically ill patients being kept alive by mechanical ventilators has gone up even higher, which means even more stress for London’s nurses and doctors.

London’s daily death toll appears to have finally peaked — but remains at a high rate of over 170 a day on average.

Key details in the changing picture for London and its health services include: ● The number of new London cases has halved since the peak on January 1, from 14,316 to 7,141, using the “smoothed out” seven-day average. The biggest number of cases reported was 19,869, on December 29. Yesterday’s tally of 5,720 was the smallest since December 13. The rate per 100,000 population fell from 1,118 on January 4 to 593 on January 19.

● Hounslow and Ealing in west London have the highest infection rates, with rates of 832 and 802 per 100,000 population. Brent (rate of 799) Newham (777), Barking and Dagenham (772) and Croydon (665) are the next highest. Just a week ago, Barking and Dagenham, Newham and Ealing all reported rates of over 1,000.

● The number of daily admissions to London hospitals has gone down from a high of 977 on January 6 to 598 yesterday. The smoothed-out sevenday average fell from 913 to 683 by January 18.

● Beds devoted to Covid-19 patients have gone down from 7,917 on January 18 to 7,044 on January 23.

● More patients are relying on mechanical ventilators — some 1,217, up from 1,206 a week ago. This is nearly twice as many as the number on ventilators in the first wave.

● Daily deaths appear to have peaked and may be starting to come down — but the fatalities each day remain tragically high. Just 101 deaths were reported yesterday, compared with 165 the previous Sunday. Using the new average, the death toll peaked at 182 in the week of January 13 and had fallen very slightly to 171 by January

16. A total of 12,378 people have died in London within 28 days of a positive test.