It is possible that cases of Covid-19 in England will not fall and could have even increased at the beginning of the country’s third national blockade, found a long-term study by Imperial College London.
The researchers analyzed tamponade tests from 142,000 volunteers between January 6 and 15 and found that infections increased by 50% compared to the beginning of December, with 1 in 63 people in the country being infected.
About 1.58% of people tested positive for the virus in early January of the study, the highest prevalence since May. This is an increase of more than 50% compared to the previous round at the beginning of December 2020.
“The prevalence is very, very high compared to our last survey, in which we saw this increase in December, when the new variant appeared,” Paul Elliott, director of the REACT program at Imperial College London, said on Thursday.
“But I found that it is level, the value of R [or how many other people each person with coronavirus will infect] it is around 1, so we are in a position where the levels are high and do not decrease now in the current blocking period “, said Elliott.
The study warned that “until the prevalence in the community is substantially reduced, health services will remain under extreme pressure and the cumulative number of lives lost during this pandemic will continue to grow rapidly.”
The findings are at odds with the latest figures from the British government, which showed a decrease in new cases reported daily earlier in the week.
Elliott said Thursday that he believes the discrepancy could be the result of a REACT study that tests people randomly, rather than those with symptoms, and government data that does not yet reflect an increase in population mobility after Christmas.
Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, UK Education Minister Gavin Williamson said that “the evidence I saw is that [the lockdown] has had an impact in alleviating this pressure on the NHS so that the NHS is able to cope, but of course the government always shows all the available evidence.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock wrote on Thursday that “these findings show why we should not let our guard down in the coming weeks. Infections in England are at very high levels and it is essential that everyone plays their part to bring them down. ”
The United Kingdom on Wednesday recorded 38,905 new coronavirus cases and another 1,820 coronavirus-related deaths, marking the largest daily increase in deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data published by Public Health England.