COVID-19 infections fall for second week in a row, ONS says
Although the recent spike in cases has been less severe than those seen previously, the relentless pressure is taking its toll on emergency departments.
Friday 5 August 2022 15:59, UK
The number of people in the UK infected with COVID-19 has fallen for the second week in a row, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), although levels remain high.
The ONS estimated that a total of 2.6 million people in private households had coronavirus in the week ending 26 July, based on self-reports from a representative sample.
This was down 19% from 3.2 million in the previous week.
In general, COVID-19 infections are on a downwards trend in most parts of the United Kingdom, although the path forward in Northern Ireland is uncertain, the ONS added.
The peak of the most recent wave fell well below the UK's record high of 4.9 million reported at the end of March.
The ONS reported there were 745 deaths involving COVID in England and Wales in the week ending 22 July.
Although the recent spike in cases has been less severe than those seen previously, the relentless pressure is taking its toll on emergency departments.
Every patient in hospital with the virus means another bed is taken up, meaning longer waits for other patients.
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Dr Mohammed Munavvar told Sky News that his hospital's work to tackle NHS waiting lists had been making a dent, but now that has been disrupted.
He said: "Other patients cannot be admitted and treated, and patients have been waiting for a long time already for their procedures and their treatment is once again getting delayed.
"That is putting a lot of pressure on the system and on the restorative work, which had started very well."
Professor Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, UEA, said: "Up to about 2 weeks ago the proportion of people testing positive for covid was continuing to fall in all four nations.
"More recent data from the DHSC dashboard published on Wednesday, the ZOE app (published today) and NHS England hospital activity figures (published yesterday) show that infections and hospital admissions are continuing to fall in the time period since the most recent data included in today's ONS bulletin.
"Even deaths within 28 days of a positive test are now falling. At present there are no variants that I can see in the COG UK data that are bucking the trend. Even the BA.2.75 "Centaurus" lineage is not increasing, so hopefully this decline will be sustained for several weeks yet."