Daily US Times: In England, Coronavirus infections have fallen by about a third over lockdown, according to a major study.
Some of the worst-hit areas in the country saw the biggest improvements over lockdown – but, despite this progress, Covid cases remained high across England.
The UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the data showed the country could not “take our foot off the pedal just yet”.
The findings by Imperial College London were based on swabbing more than one hundred thousand people between 13-24 November.
The React-1 study is highly respected and gives us the most up-to-date picture of coronavirus situation in the country.
The researchers of the study estimated the virus’s reproduction (R) rate had fallen to 0.88. That means on average every infection translated to less than one other new infection, so the Covid epidemic is shrinking.
Run alongside pollster Ipsos MORI, the Imperial College study involved testing a random sample of people for Covid-19, whether or not they had symptoms.
The results of these tests suggested a 30% fall in Covid-19 infections between the last study and the period of 13-24 November.
Before that, coronavirus infections were accelerating in England – doubling every nine days when the study last reported at the end of October.
Now infections are coming down, but more slowly than they shot up – halving roughly every 37 days.
In the North East and North West, though – regions with some of the highest numbers of cases – infections fell by more than half.
The findings suggest Covid infections are now highest in the East Midlands and West Midlands.
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