Covid-19 infections still rising in England, latest ONS data show

The percentage of people infected with coronavirus is still rising in England but trends in the other three UK nations are “uncertain”, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.

Estimates based on testing suggested 3,147,700 people in England had Covid-19 in the week to July 13. That equates to about one in 17 of the population, up from one in 19 week on week. In Wales, too, an estimated one in 17 had coronavirus, unchanged on a week earlier.

In Scotland the figure was roughly one in 15, a slight rise from the previous week’s one in 16. Meanwhile in Northern Ireland the figure was about one in 20, a reduction on last week’s one in 17.

Detailed analysis of the data for England showed a mixed picture. The statisticians said that in the week to July 13 the percentage of people with the virus increased in London and the north-west, south-east and east of England, but that the trend was less clear in all other regions.

Kara Steel, senior statistician for the survey, said infections continued overall to rise in England, reaching similar levels to those seen in April this year during the Omicron BA.2 wave, but that there were “some uncertain trends in the latest data across the other UK countries, some English regions and among some age groups”.

It was too early to say if the current wave was starting to peak, she added.

Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, stressed the ONS survey primarily published its estimates of Covid prevalence a week or more after the samples on which results were based had been taken.

Since people could remain positive for about 11 days after first contracting Covid, “the ONS data is always about 2 to 3 weeks behind the epidemic curve”, he said, adding that other sources — such as The Department of Health and Social Care’s dashboard — “have suggested that for England the number of new infections . . . are now in decline”.

Hunter said the suggestion that new infections “are indeed now falling is further supported by the fact that new hospital admissions are also now falling, though I suspect that the next couple of days’ data may be confused by increased hospitalisations because of the heatwave”.

Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the University of Leeds, called the latest results “troubling” and said they demonstrated roughly 5-6 per cent of the UK population were testing positive.

While vaccines had clearly weakened the link between infections and severe disease, “unchecked spread causes widespread disruption as well as associated illness and death”, he warned, adding that it was also responsible for the rise in long Covid cases.

In the week ending July 8, deaths increased from 393 to 506, Griffin noted, suggesting they were likely to rise further based on the BA. 1 and BA.2 waves.

Separately, the UK Health Security Agency on Friday said BA.5 was the dominant national variant, accounting for almost 80 per cent of cases as of July 18. BA. 2.75 — of which there were 24 cases by that date — has been categorised as a separate variant but not as one of concern, the agency added.