Britain has recorded fewer than 20,000 daily Covid cases for the second day in a row, with the latest wave still firmly in retreat.
UK Health Security Agency bosses logged another 19,795 positive tests over the last 24 hours. And another 284 Covid fatalities were registered today.
The figures cannot be compared to last week because no daily tallies were shared over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. However, the seven-day rolling average of infections has fallen by a tenth, while deaths have increased by a fifth.
Experts say the daily infection count is now ‘completely irrelevant’ because free tests have been scrapped for the vast majority of people.
It comes as separate data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests 38.5million people got infected at some point between April 27, 2020, and February 11, 2022 — around seven in 10. It is the first time an official figure has been put on the overall incidence of Covid, following fierce debate throughout the pandemic.
And other figures released by the statisticians today show 3.2million people in England were infected in the week ending April 16.
The surveillance study, which is based on swabs of 120,000 people and considered the best way of measuring the outbreak, is down roughly 15 per cent in a week, suggesting the country’s outbreak is still shrinking.
It reported that infections were falling in all age groups and across all regions of England.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that 38.5million people in England had been infected between April 2020 and February 2022, the equivalent of 70.7 per cent
