Corona pandemic: numbers in Great Britain are falling

Cautious optimism in Great Britain: The number of corona cases has been falling continuously for almost a week. Why it is – it is still a mystery.

This is the lowest value in three weeks: The state authority Public Health England last registered 24,950 new infections. And with that, the number of reported infected people has been falling for six days. Reason for cautious optimism – for example with Paul Hunter, medicine professor at the University of East Anglia and an expert in virology. “We can slowly begin to assume that this epidemic is behind us.”

But the experts are still puzzling why the numbers are falling. Several reasons are obvious: the weather is nice in the UK, people are outside where there are fewer infections. In addition, the European Football Championship was a long time ago. The infections that occurred on this occasion have long been registered.

An important reason is probably the vaccination program. 88 percent of adults in England have had a first vaccination and 70 percent a second. “The vaccination program has a lot to do with the decline. But we can also see that many people now have antibodies, that is, they have already had the infection,” says Hunter. And many young people who have not yet been vaccinated have developed antibodies, as recent studies have shown.

Hospital admissions continue to rise

Donald Richardson is less optimistic. He is the assistant medical director of York Hospital. It is good news that the number of infections may be falling. But hospital admissions were still rising exponentially, Richardson told the BBC. Most recently, 5,238 people were treated with a Covid infection in a hospital.

The impact of the easing that Prime Minister Johnson announced a week ago is still unclear. Experts say that figures will not be available until the end of the week at the earliest. Personally, he doesn’t think the numbers rose again at the end of the week, Hunter said. He is not entirely sure. But if these numbers do rise, then only temporarily.