Britain’s Covid-19 outbreak is shrinking by 4 per cent each day and the crucial R rate remains below the dreaded level of one, health chiefs confirmed today as 173 more deaths were confirmed in the official government toll – including a 12-year-old.
Number 10’s scientific advisory panel SAGE revealed the reproduction rate – the average number of people each Covid-19 patient infects – is still between 0.7 and 0.9, meaning the coronavirus is firmly in retreat after terrorizing Britain for months.
Separate data released for the first time today also claimed the UK’s current growth rate – how the number of new daily cases is changing day-by-day – could be as low as -4 per cent. If the rate becomes greater than zero, the disease could once again spiral out of control.
Department of Health officials say the death toll now stands at 42,461. But the tally only includes lab-confirmed patients — unlike other damning figures that take into account all suspected deaths and show the actual number of victims has already topped 50,000.
Nicola Sturgeon today claimed the coronavirus was ‘firmly in retreat’ and Boris Johnson hinted at an imminent shift on the strict two-metre social distancing rule, after the UK’s Covid-19 threat level was dramatically reduced from four to three.
In other developments to Britain’s coronavirus crisis today:
- Covid-19 is killing black men at triple the rate of white males in the UK and Muslims are twice as likely to fall victim to the disease as non-religious Britons, official data revealed;
- A third meat factory reported a coronavirus outbreak and was forced to shut down – as experts warned that chilled environments are ideal for the virus to thrive;
- Britain’s retailers are still struggling through the coronavirus pandemic despite a much-needed 12 per cent boost in sales last month, compared with the record lows in April;
- UK debt is bigger than GDP for the first time in almost 60 years as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the economy, with the government forced to borrow £55.2billion in May;
- Apple hit back at Matt Hancock over claims its tracing app can’t detect distances and said the government hasn’t asked to work together after the NHS software was humiliatingly scrapped;
- UK society has ‘regressed to a 1950s way of living’ for many women because the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened gender inequality and left women with more childcare, Sussex University experts warned.
Department of Health data released yesterday showed that 136,516 tests were carried out on Wednesday, a figure that included antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.
But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery since May 22.
Another 1,218 cases were diagnosed, taking the official size of the outbreak past 300,000 infections. But the true scale of the crisis is estimated to be in the millions.
The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours — it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.
The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. For example, the Scottish government yesterday announced two deaths – but the DH recorded nine north of the border.
The Department of Health has a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync. Wales is not thought to be affected.
NHS England today announced 46 victims in hospitals. Scotland posted six fatalities in all settings, followed by four in Wales and one in Northern Ireland, which ended its two-day spell without any deaths.
The figures come as Nicola Sturgeon said today the virus was firmly in retreat in Scotland, as the nation moved into the second phase of a four-step plan for easing restrictions.
The changes allow people who live alone or solely with under-18s to meet another household indoors without physical distancing in an ‘extended household group arrangement’.
People can also now meet in larger groups outside, and other changes allow greater freedom for those who are shielding.
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon stressed the ‘virus hasn’t gone away’ but added: ‘There is no doubt the virus in Scotland is now firmly in retreat.
‘That is why the changes to the rules and the guidance I announced yesterday, though significant, were also careful, because we know we have to keep the virus in retreat.
‘If we all keep doing the right thing, I am more optimistic than I have been in a long time that we are now firmly on the track to getting normality back into our lives.’
In other promising developments, the UK’s coronavirus threat level was today dramatically reduced from four to three – as the Prime Minister hinted at an imminent shift on the two-metre rule.
After weeks in which the alert was maintained despite Number 10 starting to ease lockdown, the Joint Biosecurity Centre concluded that transmission is no longer ‘high or rising exponentially’.
The move was approved by the chief medical officers for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and it was hailed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock as a ‘big moment’ that showed the ‘government’s plan is working’.
The reduction paves the way for relaxing draconian social distancing curbs that are strangling the economy. Tories have been demanding the two-metre rule is loosened immediately, warning that schools and the hospitality sector cannot function while it remains.
Asked on a visit to a primary in Hemel Hempstead whether the restriction will be eased, Mr Johnson said: ‘Watch this space.’ He said it was ‘absolutely’ his intention to get all pupils back full-time by September.
Mr Johnson faced a backlash at the end of last month when he announced tweaks to lockdown, before it emerged that the alert had not been changed from level four – which according to the government’s own definition requires ‘current social distancing measures and restrictions’ to stay in place.
England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, was rumoured to have stood in the way of the move, although there is also thought to have been resistance from his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.