COVID-19 cases in England at lowest level since last August thanks to vaccine rollout, new data suggests | UK News

England’s coronavirus cases are at their lowest since last August, indicating the successful rollout of the vaccine despite the easing of the lockdown, new data suggests.

There have been marked reductions in COVID-19[female[feminine prevalence from March to April and early May across the country, according to data from the latest round of the React-1 study.

Between the last round that looked at data from March and the current round that looked at data from April through early May, swab positivity fell 50% in England, from 0.20% to 0, 10%.

Experts estimate that the corresponding R number is 0.90.

Data includes 127408 coronavirus swab tests carried out across England between April 15 and May 3.

The researchers found that there was a decline in all age groups except 25 to 34 year olds, with a “significant” decline in 55 to 64 year olds.

Professor Paul Elliott, director of the React program, said at a press briefing: “This coincides with the rollout of the vaccination program to the youngest in this age group.”

The data also suggests a higher prevalence within the Asian community.

Researchers say the discrepancy between the pattern of infections and a pattern of hospital admissions and deaths suggests that the deployment of mass vaccination is preventing serious outcomes.

Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London, said: “What you can see lately – basically since the widespread deployment of the vaccine – and we showed this last time, that you are seeing a Decoupling of the relationship between Respond to infection and delay the number of deaths.

“And this gap shows how we can have more infections in the population with a lot less deaths.

“And we’re actually seeing that this difference is actually growing well now for hospitalizations as well, so for every infection in the community, we’re producing fewer hospitalizations and a lot less deaths.”