Covid-free Christmas on the cards as cases stall
Risk of festive restrictions fades as falling infection rates are expected to continue until new year
BRITAIN is likely to enjoy a relatively Covid-free Christmas, experts have predicted, as the recent surge in cases appears to have stalled.
Modelling by University College London (UCL) suggests infections will continue to decline until January, but may rise significantly in the new year, meaning restrictions that could scupper festive plans are unlikely to be imposed.
Prof Karl Friston, of UCL, said: “It looks as if the current peak has passed. The long-term forecast suggests a subsequent peak after Christmas.
“This appears to be largely driven by seasonal fluctuations in transmission risk and a slower underlying increase, due to the emergence of new variants.
“One should perhaps also note that virulence has declined substantially, particularly in the face of vaccination.
“This means the morbidity and mortality of a large post-Christmas wave should be substantially less than previous years.”
Latest data from the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) also show that Covid infections, hospital admissions and outbreaks have all fallen in the past week following a spike in September. The government dashboard shows a 15 per cent decrease in reported coronavirus tests in the past week, as well as a 15 per cent drop in admissions and a 10 per cent fall in deaths.
Dr Mary Ramsay, director of public health programmes at the UKHSA, said: “The ongoing drop in Covid-19 cases and hospitalisation rates is a testament to the continued success of the autumn booster programme and it is hugely encouraging that 10 million people in England have already taken up their booster.”
Latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also point to a slow down in infection rates. The number of people in households testing positive for Covid stood at 2.05 million in the week to Oct 17, broadly unchanged on 2.01 million in the previous week.
Although the ONS infection survey is the most reliable measure of the prevalence of coronavirus in the general population, as it is based on random swab testing rather than tests, its figures tend to trail the current trends because they also pick up ongoing infections as well as new cases.
Kara Steel, ONS senior statistician for the Covid-19 infection survey, said the new figures present a “mixed picture”.
She added: “It remains too early to say from the data whether we are seeing a turning point in the level of infections – which remain high across the countries,” she said.
More recent figures show the number of people in hospital in England with Covid-19 has started to fall.
A total of 9,131 patients testing positive for coronavirus were in hospital as of 8am on Oct 26, down 12 per cent from 10,387 a week earlier.
Patient numbers had been rising since mid-September, but this trend looks to have come to a halt, with the total having fallen for nine days in a row.
The current wave of the virus is being driven by a number of Covid-19 variants that have been circulating for several months, including two that have now been named: Omicron BQ.1 and XBB.
They are being monitored for their potential to spread rapidly, but have not been designated variants of concern, the UKHSA said.