UK cases of Indian Covid variant double to nearly 7,000 in one week
A total of 6,959 cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus have now been confirmed in the UK, Public Health England said. The figures are up to 26 May, and represent a rise of 3,535 on the previous week.
The Government said a further 10 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday, bringing the UK total to 127,758.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 153,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The Government also said that, as of 9am today, there had been a further 3,542 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,473,677.
In England 6,180 cases have now been confirmed, along with 702 in Scotland, 58 in Wales and 19 in Northern Ireland.
Vaccine rollout
Government data up to yesterday shows that of the 62,658,639 jabs given in the UK so far, 38,614,683 were first doses – a rise of 236,119 on the previous day. Some 24,043,956 were second doses, an increase of 427,458.
Dr Susan Hopkins, the interim chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace, said data indicated that opening up events to vaccinated people or those who could prove they had either previously contracted Covid or were negative could reduce the transmission risk by as much as half.
The Public Health England official told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee today: “The vast majority of events that people go to are smaller events, meeting indoors – that is where the vast majority of transmission occurs.”
“But clearly the risk of a large event, both travelling to the event, the socialising around the event and the event itself, can potentially be reduced by the use of testing, vaccination or alternatively knowing people’s prior infection status.
“All of those things together are likely to reduce the risk of transmission by 30%-50%.”
“Based on the B.117 (the Kent variant) – we don’t have the data for the latest (Indian) variant that’s emerging – based on that, a negative lateral flow test shortly before entering the event reduced transmission by about 30%-50%, and obviously we know if you’ve had previous infection in the past, and we’ve now set that out to 180 days, then the risk of reinfection is extremely low.
“Probably in the order of less than 20% of people get reinfected in that period of time, so all of those things mean we have an idea about the risk of infection of those individuals attending an event, and therefore the risk reduction by having all of those things in place.”