LONDON (Reuters) – England’s third national COVID-19 blockade helps reduce infections, a study found on Thursday, but the prevalence of cases remains high as Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks at a prudent path to reopening the economy.
Johnson is set to set a roadmap outside the blockade, which began Monday, Jan. 5, and said it will be a prudent and cautious approach.
The study, known as REACT-1 and conducted by researchers at Imperial College London, found that national prevalence was two-thirds lower between February 4 and 13 than in the previous survey covering January 6-22.
“It’s really encouraging news. We believe that the blockade has an effect. We’ve seen this decline pretty quickly now between January and this month, “Paul Elliott, Imperial’s program director, told reporters.
“But … the real prevalence is still very high. We only went back to where we were in September. ”
The latest figures show that 51 to 10,000 people have been infected, down from 157 to 10,000 in the January survey, and that it takes 15 days for halving infections.
The prevalence decreased in all age groups, from 0.93% to 0.30% among people over the age of 65, although the researchers said they had no evidence that this was due to the launch of the vaccine, which was aimed at older groups.
REACT-1 is one of the largest and most closely monitored prevalence surveys in England, and the researchers issued intermediate results in a pre-print that had not been evaluated by colleagues.
Health Minister Matt Hancock said the results were an encouraging sign that the blockade was working.
“Although the trends we have noticed are good news, we need to work to keep infections down while respecting the measures,” he said.
Reporting by Alistair Smout; Montage by Kirsten Donovan