Britain’s Covid outbreak shrunk on all fronts again today, as cases, hospitalisations and deaths continue to trend downwards.
Official Government data shows 46,186 positive tests were logged over the last 24 hours, a 30.2 per cent drop on last Tuesday. Cases have now been tumbling week-on-week for over a fortnight.
Meanwhile, the number of Covid-infected patients admitted to hospital fell by nearly a fifth to 1,100 — the lowest figure seen since December 19.
And Covid fatalities are down 25.5 per cent on last week. Meanwhile, separate data today showed a third of virus deaths recorded in England and Wales are among people who primarily died from another illness.
The share of fatalities mainly caused by the disease has been trending downwards for weeks after the arrival of the milder Omicron variant and the accelerated booster vaccine programme.
The lower severity of the fourth wave has given ministers the confidence that even the most fundamental Covid restrictions can be lifted in England, including compulsory self-isolation for those who test positive. Ministers are using the Parliamentary recess to draft their living with Covid strategy, which is due to be unveiled on February 21.
Data from the UK Health Security Agency shows of the new cases, 36,471 were in England, while 5,805 were in Scotland, 2,987 in Northern Ireland and 923 in Wales.
Testing across the UK has fallen a fifth in a week across all nations, contributing to the downward trend in each country.
Meanwhile, 1,100 Covid-infected people were admitted to hospitals in the UK on Friday. The figure, which is down 17.4 per cent week-on-week, is the lowest seen in two months.
And 12,304 virus patients were in hospitals yesterday, dropping 11.9 per cent on last Monday.
A further 8,107 first doses of Covid jabs were dished out yesterday, while 18,172 people received a second dose and 32,050 were boosted.
Nine in 10 over-12s across the UK have now had at least one dose, while 84.8 per cent are double-jabbed and 65.8 per cent are boosted.
Meanwhile, the number of Britons dying within 28 days of a positive test fell 25.5 per cent week-on-week.
It comes as data from the Office for National Statistics today showed a third of recently registered Covid deaths in England and Wales were people who died primarily from another illness.
A total of 1,242 people had the virus on their death certificates in the week ending February 4, according to latest ONS figures. Of them, Covid was the underlying cause of death in just 817 cases (66 per cent), although it may have been a contributing factor in more.
Covid was the primary cause of more than 80 per cent of deaths at the end of November when Delta was the dominant strain.
The same trend has also emerged in hospitals, where up to two-third of inpatients with Covid in some regions are not primary being treated for the virus.
Latest NHS England data shows there were 10,689 patients in hospital with the virus across the country at the start of February, of whom just 48 per cent were mainly ill with Covid. In London, the share was just 33 per cent, while in the East of England it was 40 per cent and 49 per cent in the Midlands.
Overall, the ONS found there were 11,862 deaths registered in England and Wales in the most recent week, which is lower than normal at this time of year.
The 1,242 deaths with Covid mentioned on the certificate accounted for just 10 per cent of deaths from all causes, while underlying Covid accounted for fewer than 7 per cent.
Fatalities involving the virus were down for the second week in a row and fell in all regions in England, except for the South West and North East. Wales also saw a small rise.
Experts have called for the daily publication of Covid deaths to be scrapped now that Omicron is skewing the true number of people ‘from’ rather than ‘with’ the disease.
Since March 2020, the Government has released a daily fatality toll based on deaths within 28 days of a positive test to track the pandemic.
Critics have long complained it is a flawed dataset because it includes everyone who died in the weeks after they caught Covid, regardless of their cause of death — meaning theoretically even car crash victims can be included.
In the same week, to February 4, the Government’s Covid dashboard reported 1,625 death across England and Wales — which is nearly double the true number of people who died primarily from Covid.
Professor Robert Dingwall, a former Government Covid adviser, has previously urged the Government to ditch the daily Covid statistics from the end of the month — when the remaining Covid laws are due to be abandoned.
Ministers are due to unveil their plan to live with Covid like flu on February 21 in the House of Commons after the recess.
Talks are ongoing between Cabinet ministers today, with the move to be put in front of Sir Chris Whitty tomorrow before being signed off.
According to reports this morning, mass testing, compulsory isolation and even routine contact tracing could all be gone by the end of March.
Commenting on the reports, a No10 spokesperson said today that a ‘final decision’ on Covid testing has not been made. They added that it will come to an end ‘at the right moment’.
Boris Johnson told Parliament last week that the Government would press ahead with plans to live with Covid so long as the data continued to trend in the right direction
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