Covid cases and hospitalisations fall sharply

Covid cases are continuing to fall sharply in England, even though the highly-contagious JN.1 variant is spreading further across the UK, the latest figures show.

Infections fell by a quarter in the week until Tuesday, 6 February among health and care workers picked up by swab tests in hospitals and laboratories, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Thursday.

This is only a rough measure of the true number of cases in the UK but it does offer an indication of broader trends, scientists say.

Over the same period, hospitalisations from Covid fell by 18 per cent to 4.1 people per 100,000 of the population.

Meanwhile, in a final indicator of trends, the proportion of people testing positive for Covid in the separate Respiratory DataMart surveillance system fell by 11 per cent in the week, figures show.

This UKHSA programme tests people with symptoms in its network of laboratories.

The continuing fall in Covid cases began at the end of last year after infections had shot up for much of December – and it comes despite the increasing dominance of JN.1, also known as Juno.

This now accounts for all, or else very nearly all, recorded Covid cases in the UK, compared to 70 per cent on 6 January and 3 per cent at the start of November, according to the latest figures.

“It’s encouraging to see signs of a decrease for Covid-19,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, director of public health programmes at UKHSA.

However, she urged people to continue being vigilant against Covid and flu.

“Allowing fresh air in when meeting others indoors, practising regular handwashing, and covering coughs and sneezes helps reduce the spread of respiratory infections,” she said.

The latest UKHSA data also indicates that flu cases and hospitalisations are levelling off after a sharp rise at the end of January.

The number of people visiting their GP with suspected flu and the number of hospitalisations for people with flu both fell by 2 per cent in the week, the figures show.

Scientists were encouraged by the latest figures although they warned against complacency.

“It’s encouraging to see both a fall in covid positivity,” Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, told i.

“However, these figures are only for those in hospital and NHS staff and in covid-related hospitalisations. We don’t know how much Covid virus there is in the general population but it’s probably a lot given all the coughs and colds that people are suffering and we need to remain alert for any new variants.

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“There is a danger that we all become too complacent about covid when it is still a very serious infection that can lead to long-term complications,” he said.

Even though the latest figures don’t tell us what is happening in the general population, the most recent data on that shows they have come down a long way in recent weeks.

A separate UKHSA report, called the infection survey, estimated last week that infections in England and Scotland fell from 2.6 million just before Christmas to 1.2 million on Wednesday 24 January.

Although Thursday’s figures don’t give a new estimate for infections they indicate that decline has continued.