THE UK’s daily Covid cases have fallen slightly today to 44,740 – as one in 30 people now have the virus.
Today’s data update also comes as the crucial R rate has slightly increased this week.
Yesterday the country saw 45,656 new infections, with it dipping slightly today, with another 110 tragic deaths also reported.
The R rate in England now sits between 0.8-1, an increase from 0.7.1 last week.
An R value between 0.8 and 1.0 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 8 and 10 other people, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says.
It’s also estimated the the growth rate is currently between -4 per cent and -1 per cent, which means that the number of new infections could be shrinking by up to 4 per cent every day.
The North West, South East, South West and the East of England all have an R rate between 0.7 and 1.
London and the Midlands both have an R rate between 0.7 – 0.9.
The North East and Yorkshire currently has the lowest R rate in the country between 0.6 and 0.9.
At present in England, around one in 30 people have coronavirus, data up to the week ending February 26 states.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) states that this equates to around 1.9 million people.
This is down from one in 25 or 2.1 million in the week ending February 19.
As Brits continue to ‘learn to live’ with Covid, one expert has warned that we might actually be more infectious than we think.
Professor Tim Spector, of King’s College London and head of the ZOE Symptom Tracker app, said that on average, people are still testing positive for around eight days.
TESTING TIMES
In his latest YouTube video he said: “[It] is around eight days, which is perhaps longer than people thought.
“The vast majority of contributors tested positive on that first day of experiencing symptoms.
“That means now is the time to have lateral flow tests in the house.
“Test on the first day of symptoms, if negative, test again the next day.”
From April 1, Brits will no longer be able to access lateral flow tests for free.
At the moment you are able to order one pack every three days, each pack contains seven tests.
Brits are still encouraged to test if they feel unwell and are also urged to test before seeing more vulnerable people.
While Omicron is a milder form of illness, this isn’t the case for everyone and deaths are still occurring from the virus.
Despite free tests being scrapped from next month, Prof Spector said we still need them.
“We will be relying on LFT tests in the future because of the speed of Omicron”, he added.
