Covid cases are on the rise again as school leaders issue free test warning
MORE THAN 200 IN CITY HOSPITALS AS INFECTION RATE LEAPS
MORE than 200 people are now being treated for Covid-19 in Leicester’s three hospitals as cases around the UK rise again.
There have been leaps in cases of more than 50 per cent around Leicestershire as a new UK wave begins.
The worst-hit areas of the county include Melton, where the infection rate is now nearly 670 cases per 100,000 people, compared with an England average of 617, while Oadby and Wigston saw the number of cases double in seven days.
The latest figures, from March 12, showed all parts of the county except for the city had seen cases rise by at least 50 per cent since the previous data, on March 5.
The Omicron variant’s lower potency, combined with the fact many people are fully or partially vaccinated, has meant recent spikes in cases have not translated into similar rises in deaths.
But the latest surge is already causing more people to be admitted to Leicester’s three hospitals.
The figure was at 164 patients a week ago and has now risen to 204.
At the peak of the pandemic in January last year, the highest total reached was 499.
At the beginning of this year, when the winter surge peaked, there were 272 people in the hospitals – the highest number so far in 2022.
Only one patient currently in hospital is on a ventilator.
As well as vaccinations, scientists have been inventing better ways of treating patients with Covid-19 and the number of deaths per case of coronavirus remains low.
At the same time, new variants and tending to be more transmissible but less potent, meaning they spread faster but cause less sickness.
In the UK in early January 2021, about 60,000 new cases per day were being reported, alongside 1,000 daily deaths.
A year later, the daily cases were at about 180,000 a day but there were about 250 daily deaths.
Currently about 105 deaths with Covid per day are being recorded. Here in Leicestershire there were 16 cases in the past week – just over two per day.
The latest rise comes as school leaders nationally spoke of a worrying rise in Covid cases - and fear the issue could worsen when free lateral flow testing stops at the end of the month.
Data from the FFT Education Datalab’s attendance tracker showed a rise in pupil absence in primary and secondary schools last week compared with the week before across the country.
Absence increased from 5 per cent to 6.4 per cent for primary pupils and from 7.9 per cent to 8.8 per cent in secondary.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We have been hearing worrying reports from schools and colleges over the past few days about rapidly increasing about rates of Covid-related absence among both pupils and staff.
“The government seems to have largely drawn a line under the pandemic and moved on, but the evidence coming from our schools and colleges is that business is still very far from being back to normal.
“Staff and pupils will continue to have access to Covid tests until the end of March and are therefore able to check whether any potential Covid symptoms are actually Covid, and isolate if so.
“The worry is that, once free testing stops as the government is currently planning, the number of students and staff coming into classrooms with Covid could increase even further, and lead to even more disruption to education.
“There is still a real problem with coronavirus in our schools that the government must not ignore.
“Testing is one of the few tools we still have to reduce transmission and the government must reverse its decision and continue to provide free tests to people working or studying in education beyond the end of March and for the foreseeable future.”