Jamie Jenkins, the former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics, said England and Wales may now be ‘over the hill now when it comes to deaths’
England could be ‘over the edge’ of the third Covid wave and deaths may peak by next week, experts have claimed.
Daily coronavirus cases plunged to a five-week low yesterday, with England’s infections down to 19,175 — the fewest since June 29 (16,802).
Hospitalisations — which lag several weeks behind cases — also appear to have peaked.
And Jamie Jenkins, the former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics, said England and Wales may now be ‘over the hill now when it comes to deaths’.
Speaking on LBC this morning, Mr Jenkins said: ‘[Cases] in England and Wales have been coming down since July 19.
‘The cases have been falling for a couple of weeks there, then you get that time-lag effect when cases start coming down, around five or six days later you start seeing hospital admissions come down.
‘And then you start seeing deaths come down.
‘I think looking at the data, we normally see deaths peaking around 14 days after cases come down, I think we might start being over the hill now when it comes to deaths.’
Mr Jenkins added: ‘We probably are over the edge of the wave at the moment but let’s have a bit of caution as we go into the autumn period.’
His comments echo Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, who last night claimed it will take ‘another week or so’ for deaths across the UK to fall in line with hospitalisations and cases.
But he warned infections may now start to flatten out as people start to mix more and the effects of Freedom Day continue.
In a sign that fatalities may start to flatten out or even fall within the next week, Covid hospital admissions fell by nearly 20 per cent in England. Some 593 infected patients were admitted for medical treatment on July 31, the most recent day NHS figures are available for. For comparison, 734 patients were hospitalised the previous Saturday
Mr Jenkins said hospital admissions were around 80 per cent lower than what they would have been in the past and deaths were 90 per cent lower.
He added: ‘The vaccine effect has kicked in as well — if you look at the same number of cases to what we had in the winter, it would have been 800 deaths rather than 65-70.’
Professor Hunter said: ‘We can now see that in England new admissions to hospital have peaked.
‘It will take another week or so before we see any impact on reported deaths.
‘The fact that hospital admissions are now falling provides further evidence that the decline in cases in the last couple of weeks was real and not due to an artefact from changing testing or people deleting the NHS Covid app as some have suggested.’
Covid cases across Britain were lower yesterday than they have been since June 29, according to the official figures.
But the number of virus tests conducted also fell to their lowest levels since June 26, suggesting there are cases that have not been picked up.
Some experts think fewer people are coming forward to get swabbed for Covid to avoid having to self-isolate.
But separate analysis shows that test positivity rates have fallen across the board, suggesting the drop in cases is genuine.
Speaking on Sky News today, SAGE adviser Professor Stephen Reicher, a social psychologist at the University of St Andrews, said ONS data released last week shows ‘the public are behaving responsibly’.
He said: ‘The thing is, the public have always been behaving responsibly.
‘The remarkable thing when you look at the data is the people have always been ahead of the Government in being aware of the dangers and being cautious.
‘The problem to some extent is the Government is not matching the public with its own responsibilities.
‘So for instance, we should be using the summer to drive down infections and keep infections down through some very simple things.
‘We now know, more than before, how important ventilation is, so we should be installing ventilation in public spaces, in schools, as indeed they are doing in other countries.’
Yesterday’s daily figures also signalled a slow down in the week-on-week drop in infections, with cases plunging by 12 per cent on the figure recorded on Monday last week.
For comparison, the week-on-week drop last Monday stood at 37.5 per cent.
Meanwhile, there were just 24 deaths yesterday, down from 65 on Sunday — but an increase of 71.4 per cent compared to last Monday.
Covid death figures released on Mondays are often lower than expected because of a delay in recording deaths over the weekend.
Professor Hunter said the case figures show a ‘continuing decline’ and represent the first day that reflected the reopening on July 19.
He said: ‘As expected, we are not seeing the rapid fall in case numbers that we were seeing last Monday.
‘Whether we see a continuing decline over coming weeks or see cases plateau is not clear but I doubt we will see further rapid falls or indeed increases over the next month.’