Coronavirus cases DOUBLED in a week in England to more than 17,000 a day, says ONS (and those numbers are a week out of date)
- Weekly Office for National Statistics report gives worst ever estimate of cases at 17,400 per day for October 1
- Number of people catching Covid-19 every day surged from 8,400 in a week in the report a week earlier
- Almost a quarter of a million people are thought to have had Covid on October 1 in England alone
- More than one in 100 people in Northern areas thought to have had the disease, with rates of 1% and above
- Cases are still less than 20% of the way to peak levels, when more than 100,000 people per day got sick
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The number of people catching coronavirus every day in England more than doubled in the last week of September to a staggering 17,400, according to the ONS.
Weekly data from the Office for National Statistics warns 224,400 people had the virus in the week leading up to October 1, up from 116,000 a week earlier.
It comes as one MP warned the virus is ‘out of control’ now in the UK and the Government has not made any new announcements this week on how it intends to barricade the path of Britain’s second wave.
Today’s report, made using data from the two weeks up to October 1, warns ‘the number of infections has increased rapidly in recent weeks’, and official tests show cases continued to rise in the first week of October meaning next week’s estimate will likely be higher again.
Cases remain far lower than they were in March and April, however – scientists predict that more than 100,000 people were catching Covid-19 every day at the peak of the outbreak. Today’s estimate is less than 20 per cent as high.
There is now a ‘clear variation’ across different regions of the country, the ONS said, with the highest rates of infection in the North West, North East and Yorkshire. More than one per cent of the population in those regions – one in every 100 people – were likely infected at the start of this month.
Teenagers and young adults, between the ages of 11 and 25, continue to drive up the disturbing rates of infection.
If the estimate is accurate it suggests the Department of Health’s testing programme is now picking up most of the true number of cases, with it managing to diagnose 11,000 people on October 1 – 63 per cent of the ONS’s new cases prediction.
It follows a week of increasingly worrying data showing that hospital admissions are surging in the North, where they could surpass levels seen in April by the end of the month, and daily deaths are creeping back up again.
Today’s ONS report estimates that 0.41 per cent of England’s population had coronavirus in the week ending October 1 – equal to one in every 240 people.
A week earlier the estimate was just 0.21 per cent and today’s update said: ‘There has been a marked increase in the incidence rate over the last six weeks.’
The data adds to evidence that England is in the grip of a second wave, with infections doubling in a week and R rates higher than one in every region of the country.
But the resurgence of Covid-19 is being led by only half the country, with regions in the North accounting for a majority of new infections and hospital admissions.
The ONS’s report shows that the rate of infection is highest in the North East, where it is around one per cent, and in Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West, where it is 0.9 per cent.
This means around one in 100 people are carrying the disease. In the East, South East and South West, however, fewer than 0.25 per cent of people have the illness – less than one in 400.
Because of this divide the Northern regions are expected to face tougher lockdown rules from next week, which are slated to include the closure of pubs and restaurants, or at the least see opening hours slashed.
Gillian Keegan, Conservative MP for Chichester and minister for apprenticeships and skills, told the BBC’s Question Time programme last night that two thirds of hospitalisations are happening in the North West and North East of England, as well as in Yorkshire.
She said: ‘This is serious, it is getting out of control and we have to do something to bring it back under control.’
Her stark admission came amid reports that experts on the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) fear Mr Johnson’s planned tier system does not go far enough.
According to the Guardian members of SAGE believe the planned closure of pubs and restaurants in hotspot areas will not be sufficient to get the virus under control and avoid a second wave.
Some believe ministers should have pulled the trigger on a nationwide ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown in England two or three weeks ago when it was first discussed.
