A further 61,900 Covid cases were announced today – a jump of 28 per cent on last Tuesday’s 44,017.
Some 212 deaths were also reported today, taking the number of coronavirus victims to at least 162,000.
Yesterday 126,604 new cases were reported. But Monday’s figure will always be higher because it now includes infections from the weekend.
The Government stopped publishing infection and death figures over the weekend a few weeks ago as the outbreak winds down.
But the dashboard suggests a very small uptick in Covid cases since the last week of February.
For weeks, cases had been spiralling.
The daily average dropped by two-thirds, from 100,000 at the end of January to 37,000 per day now.
At the same time, however, the number of PCR Covid tests being carried out has more than halved since mid-January, from almost 400,000 to 170,000 per day.
It came as the Prime Minister ripped up the Covid rulebook and scrapped isolation laws.
Testing supplies will also be cut in less than a month – free PRC and lateral flow tests will be massively scaled back.
Boris Johnson brought the curtain down on months of curbs last month, saying it was now the responsibility of individuals to protect themselves and others.
The best way to protect yourself against the coroanvirus is still to get three doses of a vaccine.
The jabs slash the risk of serious illness and therefore, death. Experts have repeatedly said those most sick people in hospital are unvaccinated.
The Omicron BA.2 strain is now dominant in England, taking over the original BA.1 strain that caused a wave over Christmas.
The Omicron lineage is milder than previous types of Covid, especially in the vaccinated.
But it can spread faster, with BA.2 more likely to jump between household members than BA.1.
It comes as data has shown the number of deaths involving Covid in England and Wales dropped to around half the level seen at the peak of the recent Omicron outbreak.
Some 766 deaths registered in the week ending February 25 mentioned Covid, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This is down 48 per cent from the 1,484 deaths registered in the week to January 21 – the highest weekly total during the latest wave of the virus.
Deaths during the recent wave remained well below the level reached in the worst week of the second wave of Covid in January 2021 (8,433).
The number of people who died in the worst week of Omicron was the same as the number of people who died on the worst day of the first wave of the virus (1,461).
The figures reflect the success of the vaccination programme, in particular the rollout of booster doses.
Last week it was revealed the Sage group of government science advisers are standing down and will no longer meet to discuss Covid after two years.
The move marks another step back to normality.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has been headed by England’s Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty and UK Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.
