Britain’s coronavirus outbreak may be growing as figures today revealed the average number of daily cases has risen for the fourth day in a row for the first time since April.
Department of Health bosses posted 580 more Covid-19 cases — taking the rolling seven-day mean of infections to 628 after the rate dropped to a four-month low of 546 on July 8.
Government statistics show the last time the average rose for at least four days in a row was on April 11, when the number of infections began to slow down before plummeting at the end of May and in June.
But it takes patients weeks to die from Covid-19, on average, meaning officials can’t rule out a blip in the figures or confirm the outbreak has worsened since ‘Super Saturday’ for at least another week.
And hospital admissions — another indicator tracking the crisis — have yet to spike despite fears of an inevitable surge prompted by millions of people flocking to pubs to enjoy their freedom on July 4.
Number 10’s scientific advisory panel last week admitted the outbreak is shrinking at a slightly slower speed and separate official figures suggested up to 2,000 people were still getting infected each day in England alone.
Despite the concerning data, just 11 lab-confirmed coronavirus deaths were recorded today. No new victims were recorded in several parts of England or the whole of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
For comparison, 27 deaths were recorded across the UK yesterday and just 11 were posted this time last week. But counts on Sundays and Mondays are always lower because of a recording lag at weekends.
Government figures show the rolling average of daily deaths now stands at 69, having dropped into double figures on July 4. More than 1,000 Brits were dying each day during the darkest days of the crisis in April.
The figures — under review amid claims officials are over-exaggerating the daily toll — are no longer published on the Department of Health’s daily report. Instead, they appear on the government’s dashboard.
Matt Hancock ordered an investigation after academics revealed people are counted as victims if they die of any cause any time after testing positive for Covid-19 – even if they were hit by a bus months after beating the virus.
In other coronavirus developments in Britain today:
- Hopes of ending the Covid-19 pandemic with a vaccine grew after Oxford University’s experimental jab was found to be safe and provoke an immune reaction that lasts for at least two months;
- Ministers have signed deals with two foreign pharmaceutical firms for 90million doses of different Covid-19 vaccines — on top of the 100million doses of the Oxford University jab they have already bought;
- Campaigners have warned bureaucratic backlogs caused by the lockdown are paralysing the country, with travellers waiting more than four months for passports to be processed;
- A second wave of coronavirus will cause more suffering than the first if Britons don’t stick to social distancing and wear face masks, the UK’s top doctors have cautioned;
- More than 200,000 people could die because of delays in healthcare and other economic and social effects all caused by lockdown, a government report warned;
- Boris Johnson came under increasing fire from leading scientists for appearing to rule out another nationwide coronavirus lockdown, even if there is a second peak of deaths in the winter.
A further 27 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in Britain today, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths during the pandemic to 45,300
FIRST RESULTS OF OXFORD’S COVID-19 JAB SHOW IT’S SAFE AND PROVOKES AN IMMUNE RESPONSE THAT LASTS FOR TWO MONTHS
Oxford scientists have already said they are ’80 per cent’ confident they can have their AZD1222 jab available for the autumn
Hopes of ending the Covid-19 pandemic with a vaccine grew today after promising data revealed Oxford University’s experimental jab is safe and provoke an immune reaction that lasts for at least two months.
Hugely-anticipated clinical trial results of the vaccine — one of the front-runners in the world’s race against time for a jab — revealed almost 100 per cent of volunteers injected produced an immune response against the coronavirus.
Thirty-three participants given the jab still had a ‘neutralising’ response — meaning their body may be able to prevent Covid-19 — after a month. Immune responses remained strong for at least 56 days, according to results in The Lancet.
This means that there were strong signs in their blood that they could fight off the coronavirus if they were to catch it. But it won’t be licensed for human use yet because it has not been proven to work and the results only show it has promise.
Crucially, nobody suffered any bad side effects from the vaccine and it is stimulating the immune system as scientists hoped. Some people developed headaches, tiredness and pain in their arm after they were given the jab, but scientists claimed none of the side effects were severe.
Oxford University’s vaccine — called AZD1222 — is already being manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the UK Government has ordered 100million doses ahead of time.
Researchers on the project claimed ‘the early results hold promise’ but added much more is still needed.’ Infectious disease scientists warned ‘there is still a long way to go’ before any vaccine is rolled out.
The eagerly awaited results come after Prime Minister Boris Johnson this morning tried to temper expectations when he admitted he wasn’t totally confident there would even be a vaccine by the end of next year.
Ministers did, however, today announce deals for a further 90million doses of two types of experimental jab being developed in France and Germany. Britain is shoring up stocks of vaccines in development all over the world in its spread-betting approach in the hope that at least one of them will pay off.
Department of Health figures released yesterday showed 140,000 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes 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 for a month — since May 22.
Health chiefs also reported 726 more people had tested positive for Covid-19. Government data shows the official size of the UK’s outbreak now stands at 294,792 cases.
But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.
It means the rolling average of daily cases dropped to 621 — 4 per cent higher than the mean of 598 recorded last Sunday. The average has risen for three days in a row.
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. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.
And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon — which only takes into account deaths in hospitals — does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.
For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities ‘as soon as they are available’.
Government figures show the rolling seven-day average of daily deaths now stands at 69 — an 18 per cent drop on the mean of 84 last Sunday.
NHS England today registered six deaths among patients who tested positive for the infection in hospitals across the country. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales announced no new victims.
It comes as hopes of ending the Covid-19 pandemic with a vaccine grew today after promising data revealed Oxford University’s experimental jab is safe and provoke an immune reaction that lasts for at least two months.
Hugely-anticipated clinical trial results of the vaccine — one of the front-runners in the world’s race against time for a jab — revealed almost 100 per cent of volunteers injected produced an immune response against the coronavirus.
Thirty-three participants given the jab still had a ‘neutralising’ response — meaning their body may be able to prevent Covid-19 — after a month. Immune responses remained strong for at least 56 days, according to results in The Lancet.
This means that there were strong signs in their blood that they could fight off the coronavirus if they were to catch it.
But it won’t be licensed for human use yet because it has not been proven to work and the results only show it has promise.
Crucially, nobody suffered any bad side effects from the vaccine and it is stimulating the immune system as scientists hoped.
Some people developed headaches, tiredness and pain in their arm after they were given the jab, but scientists claimed none of the side effects were severe.
Oxford University’s vaccine — called AZD1222 — is already being manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the UK Government has ordered 100million doses ahead of time.
Researchers on the project claimed ‘the early results hold promise’ but added much more is still needed.’ Infectious disease scientists warned ‘there is still a long way to go’ before any vaccine is rolled out.
Spain has seen an increase in cases in recent weeks after lifting one of the world’s strictest lockdowns. Spain said on Friday that it had identified 5,695 new cases in the previous seven days, a sharp increase from 2,944 a week earlier.
France has also seen fluctuating figures after choosing not to release figures at weekends, like Spain
The eagerly awaited results come after Prime Minister Boris Johnson this morning tried to temper expectations when he admitted he wasn’t totally confident there would even be a vaccine by the end of next year.
Ministers did, however, today announce deals for a further 90million doses of two types of experimental jab being developed in France and Germany.
Agreement has been reached for 30million doses from German firm BioNTech and the US company Pfizer, and 60million doses from France’s Valneva.
Britain is shoring up stocks of vaccines in development all over the world in its spread-betting approach in the hope that at least one of them will pay off.
But the government’s vaccine tsar today scuppered hopes of Oxford’s vaccine — one of the front-runners in the world’s race against time for a jab — being ready for September.
Oxford scientists have already said they are ’80 per cent’ confident they can have their jab available for the autumn.
Kate Bingham, chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, revealed she was still ‘hopeful’ it would be ready by the end of 2020 but admitted that academics are unlikely to get enough data to prove it works until the end of the year.
The Prime Minister came under increasing fire from leading scientists today for appearing to rule out another nationwide coronavirus lockdown, even if there is a second peak of deaths in the winter.
Mr Johnson was accused of ‘painting himself into a corner’ after he said he ‘certainly’ does not want to impose draconian restrictions again, amid warnings of a further spike in cases in coming months.
He used a newspaper interview to compare the ‘tool’ of national lockdown to the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent which he does not want to ever have to use.
Mr Johnson has already clashed with chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance over the need for a new lockdown and whether the public should be returning to work in offices and other workplaces across the country.
And today, Devi Sridhar, professor of public health at Edinburgh University and a Covid-19 adviser to the Scottish government, told The Times: ‘I fear he is painting himself into a corner.
‘Unless the virus is effectively eliminated and strict border checks are in place, there is always the possibility that the virus will increase spreading, especially in the winter months.’
The government also came under fire today over its ‘illogical’ advice on face coverings, with scientists urging ministers to make them compulsory at work as well as on public transport.
Elsewhere, Spain has suffered at least 200 coronavirus outbreaks since it lifted the lockdown while France today revealed it has up to 500 active ‘clusters’ of the disease.
Fears of a second wave are growing in Spain after it identified 5,695 new cases last week, a sharp increase from 2,944 a week earlier, while some areas have been forced to re-impose lockdown measures just as British tourists start to arrive again.
A beach in Barcelona, a wedding in Tudela and a Red Cross centre in Malaga are among the places where new clusters have been found in recent weeks, leaving health officials scrambling to carry out mass tests.
Dinner parties, sports events and a summer language school have also been affected by virus outbreaks in a setback to Spain’s efforts to resume normal life after one of the world’s strictest lockdowns.
Local authorities have been given powers to take emergency measures such as closing beaches and imposing curfews if necessary.
Meanwhile, French health minister Olivier Veran insisted today that ‘we are very far from a second wave’ despite an estimated 400 to 500 active clusters, and an R rate of 1.2 in France and 1.55 in the region including Marseille and Nice.