Coronavirus cases in England may be 'levelling off', new survey finds
The numbers of new coronavirus cases may be starting to level off, a survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has suggested.
After analysing data from nearly 120,000 swab tests, an estimated 28,300 people in England were projected to have had Covid-19 during the week from 27 July to 2 August. This equates to about one person in every 1,900.
Although this is higher than the lowest estimate at the end of June, the trend appears to be heading back down again after creeping steadily up throughout July.
In the previous week, an estimated 35,700 people had the virus, or about one person in every 1,500.
The ONS testing survey is carried out separately to the NHS Test and Trace scheme and aims to work out the true extent of how much coronavirus is circulating within the population.
The households taking part in the survey were tested for Covid-19 regardless of whether they had symptoms or not.
During the week ending on 2 August, there was about 3,700 new cases of coronavirus a day in England – like the total number of cases, this incidence rate is higher than in June but also appears to be levelling off again.
Despite the positive news, the ONS cautions against placing too much weight on their findings. Their estimates of the prevalence of the virus across the whole of England are based on just 53 positive tests in their 120,000 sample and there is a degree of uncertainty about how to extrapolate from their data to the whole population.
Local spikes of the virus in places including Leicester, Blackburn and now Greater Manchester and Aberdeen have led to more restrictive local lockdowns in recent weeks, but the ONS survey suggests there is no evidence coronavirus is more prevalent in different regions of England.
Again, this is partly due to the small sample sizes of people from each region which make it statistically difficult to estimate regional infection rates.
